La moderna start-up no necesita organigrama

Why Your Startup Org Chart Is Pointless 

By Marc Barros

The minute you start drawing lines and boxes, you're instituting an "us versus them" mentality. And that's the last thing you want at a start-up.


Organizational charts are pointless.

First, they cause you to waste too much time in Excel aligning boxes and trying to make sure you don't misspell somebody's name. And second, they divide your company's culture.

The minute you start drawing lines and boxes, you tell people how to align and communicate, which results in an "us versus them" mentality. And that's the last thing you want at a start-up.

It's true employees are trained to ask for an org chart, though that's not what they're looking for. What they really want to know is how to make an impact at your company.

Traditionally, org charts were used to explain who works with whom on a regular basis. Here are some thoughts on how to get a small group of people to execute without one.

Organize Around Goals

If you have more than three company-wide goals, you have too many. At a start-up, you should only focus on a few important things every 12 months.

Most companies are organized by function with teams for sales, marketing, engineering, and so on. Each department has their own set of goals, which sounds great on paper but can lead to disfunction.

For example, if only the marketing department is responsible for growing your customer base, only a small group will consider the problem. Even if you highlight "customer growth" at every company meeting, it won't matter. The people who impact this metric will pay attention, while everyone else will tune it out.

In contrast, putting together a cohesive team with diverse abilities--say engineering, design, and business--will give you ideas for every part of your business, and they'll get accomplished. When everyone shares the same goals, they won't need to convince other departments their goals are more important.

Rotate Leaders

Once you've organized your teams, you'll need to appoint leaders to each of them. Keep in mind these people aren't responsible for managing or reviewing team members; their goal is to empower the team to turn out great work.

This fluid structure will allow you to foster new leaders and let those who don't want to lead step down. Not everyone should lead, but in a traditional structure you have no way of finding leaders without changing their rank. And changing boxes is hard on everyone.

Have 360 Peer Reviews

After every project, give your teams an opportunity to review themselves. Whether it's anonymous or not doesn't matter; what matters is that people get used to giving (and receiving) feedback.

At Contour, I did a terrible job of this. We tried annual reviews, but they were so foreign to the culture that they were hardly valuable. So make sure to do your peer reviews constantly, as waiting a year is too long for a fast-growing start-up.

Create 'Roving' Work Stations

If your office isn't on wheels, people are going to feel tethered to their desks. And when someone is asked to move, they'll resist. Make "re-arranging" part of your culture from the beginning. Roving work stations create a culture that allows your business to stay flexible.

Find Mentors

A lot of managers mentor their team, but if you don't have a rigid reporting structure, you'll need to find mentors inside and outside the company. Picking your own mentor can be much more impactful than having a person pre-assigned to you, just because they are your manager.

360 degree peer reviews provide instant feedback about how people communicate, while a mentor will help them improve at their craft.

Conclusion

Once there's an org chart, it's hard to remove it. After all, it represents your company's structure. So if you want to work towards a no org chart culture, be sure to talk openly with your team about why you want to change and how everyone should operate going forward.

Keep in mind this type of culture isn't for everyone. But if you are looking for inspiration, both GitHub and Valve Software have successfully ditched their charts.

Inc.com

Read more »

7 características de las personas altamente creativas (solo 7)

7 Characteristics of Highly Creative People 

BY JESSICA STILLMAN

Looking to hire for creativity? Research says you should look for these traits (but, be warned, not all of them make someone easy to work with).


Sure, it's possible for everyone to nurture his or her creative side, but honest observation shows that fresh ideas come more easily to some people than to others. If you're in the market for individuals to drive innovation at your business, how can you hire these naturally creative folks?

A new Norwegian study has some suggestions. Forget the Myers Briggs, says the research from Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen of BI Norwegian Business School. What you really need to look for is a handful of traits that tend to be associated with highly creative individuals.

To identify these characteristics, Martinsen gathered a group of artists, musicians, and marketing creatives and compared them with a control group of managers and others in professions less associated with creativity. Which personality traits stood out among the artistically inclined? Martinsen found seven:

• Associative orientation: Imaginative, playful, have a wealth of ideas, ability to be committed, sliding transitions between fact and fiction.
• Need for originality: Resists rules and conventions. Have a rebellious attitude because of a need to do things no one else does.
• Motivation: Have a need to perform, goal oriented, innovative attitude, stamina to tackle difficult issues.
• Ambition: Have a need to be influential, attract attention and recognition.
• Flexibility: Have the ability to see different aspects of issues and come up with optimal solutions.
• Low emotional stability: Have a tendency to experience negative emotions, greater fluctuations in moods and emotional state, failing self-confidence.
• Low sociability: Have a tendency not to be very considerate, are obstinate and find faults and flaws in ideas and people.

Although some of these traits sound positive (motivation) or neutral (associative orientation), others, you may notice, sound less appealing. Would you want the desk next to yours to be occupied by someone with low emotional stability and sociability? Probably not.

Martinsen acknowledges these tradeoffs, noting that "creative people are not always equally practical and performance oriented" and advising that an employer looking to bring creativity into her organization "would be wise to conduct a position analysis to weigh the requirements for the ability to cooperate against the need for creativity." Or, in other words, think carefully about whether being a bit of a jerk is an acceptable tradeoff for being a fount of ideas. Many experts warn it's often not (here are three just on Inc.com alone), suggesting that your best bet may be to walk a middle way, accepting slightly less creativity in exchange for being more of a team player.

Inc.com

Read more »

Gratis o por USD 1.99 un puede hacer su Ipad giratorio

We Tried This App In The Office And Everyone Stopped Working To Watch It

JILLIAN D'ONFRO

Every so often we come across an app that really surprises or amuses us. Cycloramic straight-up blew our minds. 

This app from Egos Ventures lets you take 360-degree panoramic photos or videos using your iPhone 5 or 5S—without having to rotate the phone yourself.

All you need is a flat surface. Open the app, press the record button, and try not to gasp in amazement.

Check it out:

Cycloramic accesses the little motors that make your phone vibrate, and uses them to physically rotate the device. Because the iPhone has flat edges and an even weight distribution, it can spin around without taking a spill.

The best part? This $1.99 app is currently available in the App Store for free. Go crazy. 

Here's how our video turned out:

(Hat-tip to BGR, where we first learned about the app.)

Business Insider

Read more »

Falla épica en una Chromebook

I Gave Up My Mac For A Google Chromebook Pixel And Loved It ... Until It Became A Brick At Starbucks

JULIE BORT - Business Insider

For the past two weeks, I've been working 100% in the cloud, giving up my MacBook Pro to use a Google Pixel Chromebook.

I loved it. Until it had an epic fail.

For the first 13 days, I was so happy that I was ready to recommend it instead of a Mac (with some caveats). But last weekend, I took it Starbucks and experienced such a disaster that I changed my mind.

Before I get into the Starbucks fail, I want to talk about the 13 days where things went well. With the Chromebook operating system, all work is done via cloud apps over the Web. Instead of using applications installed on your PC, you open cloud apps in Chrome tabs or new Chrome windows. 

You can save some files to your PC, too, though that's not the default. Mostly your files will be automatically saved in your Google Drive.

That was fine for my job because at Business Insider, we rely almost entirely on cloud apps. We use Gmail and Google Apps. Our main application, the "content management system" where we write stories, is accessed through a browser. Editors chat to each other through an online chat program called Campfire, or through Google Chat. I use Hootsuite for Twitter, etc. 

I opened the ChromeBook, signed into my Business Insider account and all my bookmarks to cloud apps and saved passwords were there. No downloading. No installing anything. It was great!

I had one problem: I also use my personal Gmail account for work. For instance, I use RSS reader Feedly and the only way to access it is to be signed in with my personal Gmail account. But I found a way to rig ChromeBook to sign into multiple Google accounts at the same time. (From Gmail, click on the user account icon and then "add account"). It wasn't hard, but it wasn't intuitive. That "add account" is a little hard to find.

Pixel and Chrome OS are fast and responsive, even when I have a lot of tabs open. No beach balls. No fan coming on, mysteriously heating up the device for hours at a time like my Mac loves to do. No bugging me to update my software.  

I was a happy camper.

One bad thing: Many Chrome add-on apps are still immature. For instance, the calculator doesn't support copy/paste. I had to manually type in numbers.

Also, the Mac blows the Pixel out of the water when it comes to image editing.

ChromeBook's default Photo viewing app is really weak. It won't even resize a photo (except to crop). I found a Chrome OS app called Pixr, which worked OK. But the Mac's apps, iPhoto and Preview, are far better.

The Pixel Chromebook does have a beautiful touchscreen, which worked great. I didn't need an external mouse.

For non-work things, like watching movies, it's also great, like the Mac. And because the screen has such high resolution, it took great screen shots, even when cropping and resizing photos to be bigger. 

For instance, here's a screenshot from the Pixel screen:

Google Pixel Screenshot

So, for 13 days, I was delighted. I even wanted to buy a new HP Chromebook for my daughter, who is in college. 

Then I took the Pixel to Starbucks. And the Pixel wouldn't let me log on to the Internet.

This particular Pixel has 3G, but it told me that the 3G network wasn't available. That was crazy. I was right in the middle of town, across the street from the college and 3G worked on my phone.

At Starbucks, AT&T requires you to sign an agreement before accessing the network. The AT&T sign-up page wouldn't load, no matter what (logging in and out, rebooting, going straight to the Starbucks AT&T page ...). Since that didn't happen, I got an error message that told me I couldn't use the network:

Business Insider/Julie Bort

Without being able to use the Internet, I couldn't access ANY apps. The file I needed was actually stored on the Pixel's hard drive, not in the cloud. But because I couldn't get to the cloud app Google docs, the file wouldn't open.

Business Insider/Julie Bort

The Pixel was a brick. I couldn't even take screen shots. (I took these fail pictures with my phone.)

This would never have happened with a Mac or a PC. Even if I couldn't access WiFi, I could open a file and work offline.

The upshot is, at under $300, like for an HP ChromeBook ($279, no touchscreen) a ChromeBook is fine for home, or school, where WiFi is reliable. 

But the Pixel costs $1,300 and for $1,100 you can get a new 13-inch MacBook Air. For $1,200, a new MacBook Pro. (Not to mention a countless variety of Windows 8 machines.)

So I don't recommend the expensive Pixel instead of a Mac. 

That said, I'm going to miss this Pixel after I send it back. For working at home on stable WiFi, I've learned to prefer it.

Read more »

Lean startup for hypergrowing firms

Video streaming by Ustream

Read more »

Facebook va a vigilar que hacés con tu cursor

Facebook Tests Software to Track Your Cursor on Screen

By Steve Rosenbush - WJS


Facebook Inc. is testing technology that would greatly expand the scope of data that it collects about its users, the head of the company’s analytics group said Tuesday.

The social network may start collecting data on minute user interactions with its content, such as how long a user’s cursor hovers over a certain part of its website, or whether a user’s newsfeed is visible at a given moment on the screen of his or her mobile phone, Facebook analytics chief Ken Rudin said Tuesday during an interview.

Facebook’s Ken Rudin

Mr. Rudin said the captured information could be added to a data analytics warehouse that is available for use throughout the company for an endless range of purposes–from product development to more precise targeting of advertising.

Facebook collects two kinds of data, demographic and behavioral. The demographic data—such as where a user lives or went to school—documents a user’s life beyond the network. The behavioral data—such as one’s circle of Facebook friends, or “likes”—is captured in real time on the network itself. The ongoing tests would greatly expand the behavioral data that is collected, according to Mr. Rudin. The tests are ongoing and part of a broader technology testing program, but Facebook should know within months whether it makes sense to incorporate the new data collection into the business, he said

New types of data Facebook may collect include “did your cursor hover over that ad … and was the newsfeed in a viewable area,” Mr. Rudin said. “It is a never-ending phase. I can’t promise that it will roll out. We probably will know in a couple of months,” said Mr. Rudin, a Silicon Valley veteran who arrived at Facebook in April 2012 from ZyngaInc., where he was vice president of analytics and platform technologies.

As the head of analytics, Mr. Rudin is preparing the company’s infrastructure for a massive increase in the volume of its data.

Facebook isn’t the first company to contemplate recording such activity. ShutterstockInc., a marketplace for digital images, records literally everything that its users do on the site. Shutterstock uses the open-source Hadoop distributed file system to analyze data such as where visitors to the site place their cursors and how long they hover over an image before they make a purchase. “Today, we are looking at every move a user makes, in order to optimize the Shutterstock experience….All these new technologies can process that,” Shutterstock founder and CEO Jon Oringer told the Wall Street Journal in March.

Facebook also is a major user of Hadoop, an open-source framework that is used to store large amounts of data on clusters of inexpensive machines. Facebook designs its own hardware to store its massive data analytics warehouse, which has grown 4,000 times during the last four years to a current level of 300 petabytes. The company uses a modified version of Hadoop to manage its data, according to Mr. Rudin. There are additional software layers on top of Hadoop, which rank the value of data and make sure it is accessible.

The data in the analytics warehouse—which is separate from the company’s user data, the volume of which has not been disclosed—is used in the targeting of advertising. As the company captures more data, it can help marketers target their advertising more effectively—assuming, of course, that the data is accessible.

“Instead of a warehouse of data, you can end up with a junkyard of data,” said Mr. Rudin, who spoke to CIO Journal during a break at the Strata and Hadoop World Conference in New York. He said that he has led a project to index that data, essentially creating an internal search engine for the analytics warehouse.

Read more »

Matriz FODA (parte 2)

¿Qué es la Matriz FODA?

La sigla FODA, es un acróstico de Fortalezas (factores críticos positivos con los que se cuenta), Oportunidades, (aspectos positivos que podemos aprovechar utilizando nuestras fortalezas), Debilidades, (factores críticos negativos que se deben eliminar o reducir) y Amenazas, (aspectos negativos externos que podrían obstaculizar el logro de nuestros objetivos).

También se puede encontrar en diferentes bibliografías en castellano como “Matriz de Análisis DAFO”, o bien “SWOT Matrix” en inglés.

DAFO: Debilidades, Amenazas, Fortalezas y Oportunidades

SWOT Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

La matriz FODA es una herramienta de análisis que puede ser aplicada a cualquier situación, individuo, producto, empresa, etc, que esté actuando como objeto de estudio en un momento determinado del tiempo.

Es como si se tomara una “radiografía” de una situación puntual de lo particular que se este estudiando. Las variables analizadas y lo que ellas representan en la matriz son particulares de ese momento. Luego de analizarlas, se deberán tomar decisiones estratégicas para mejorar la situación actual en el futuro.

El análisis FODA es una herramienta que permite conformar un cuadro de la situación actual del objeto de estudio (persona, empresa u organización, etc) permitiendo de esta manera obtener un diagnóstico preciso que permite, en función de ello, tomar decisiones acordes con los objetivos y políticas formulados.

Luego de haber realizado el primer análisis FODA, se aconseja realizar sucesivos análisis de forma periódica teniendo como referencia el primero, con el propósito de conocer si estamos cumpliendo con los objetivos planteados en nuestra formulación estratégica. Esto es aconsejable dado que las condiciones externas e internas son dinámicas y algunos factores cambian con el paso del tiempo, mientras que otros sufren modificaciones mínimas.

La frecuencia de estos análisis de actualización dependerá del tipo de objeto de estudio del cual se trate y en que contexto lo estamos analizando.

En términos del proceso de Marketing en particular, y de la administración de empresas en general, diremos que la matriz FODA es el nexo que nos permite pasar del análisis de los ambientes interno y externo de la empresa hacia la formulación y selección de estrategias a seguir en el mercado.

El objetivo primario del análisis FODA consiste en obtener conclusiones sobre la forma en que el objeto estudiado será capaz de afrontar los cambios y las turbulencias en el contexto, (oportunidades y amenazas) a partir de sus fortalezas y debilidades internas.

Ese constituye el primer paso esencial para realizar un correcto análisis FODA. Cumplido el mismo, el siguiente consiste en determinar las estrategias a seguir.

Para comenzar un análisis FODA se debe hacer una distinción crucial entre las cuatro variables por separado y determinar que elementos corresponden a cada una.

A su vez, en cada punto del tiempo en que se realice dicho análisis, resultaría aconsejable no sólo construir la matriz FODA correspondiente al presente, sino también proyectar distintos escenarios de futuro con sus consiguientes matrices FODA y plantear estrategias alternativas.

Tanto las fortalezas como las debilidades son internas de la organización, por lo que es posible actuar directamente sobre ellas. En cambio las oportunidades y las amenazas son externas, y solo se puede tener ingerencia sobre las ellas modificando los aspectos internos.

Fortalezas: son las capacidades especiales con que cuenta la empresa, y que le permite tener una posición privilegiada frente a la competencia. Recursos que se controlan, capacidades y habilidades que se poseen, actividades que se desarrollan positivamente, etc.

Oportunidades: son aquellos factores que resultan positivos, favorables, explotables, que se deben descubrir en el entorno en el que actúa la empresa, y que permiten obtener ventajas competitivas.

Debilidades: son aquellos factores que provocan una posición desfavorable frente a la competencia, recursos de los que se carece, habilidades que no se poseen, actividades que no se desarrollan positivamente, etc.

Amenazas: son aquellas situaciones que provienen del entorno y que pueden llegar a atentar incluso contra la permanencia de la organización.

A continuación se enumeran diferentes ejemplos de las variables que debemos tener en cuenta al momento de analizar las fortalezas, las debilidades, las oportunidades y las amenazas.

Ejemplos de Fortalezas

• Buen ambiente laboral
• Proactividad en la gestión
• Conocimiento del mercado
• Grandes recursos financieros
• Buena calidad del producto final
• Posibilidades de acceder a créditos
• Equipamiento de última generación
• Experiencia de los recursos humanos
• Recursos humanos motivados y contentos
• Procesos técnicos y administrativos de calidad
• Características especiales del producto que se oferta
• Cualidades del servicio que se considera de alto nivel

Ejemplos de Debilidades

• Salarios bajos
• Equipamiento viejo
• Falta de capacitación
• Problemas con la calidad
• Reactividad en la gestión
• Mala situación financiera
• Incapacidad para ver errores
• Capital de trabajo mal utilizado
• Deficientes habilidades gerenciales
• Poca capacidad de acceso a créditos
• Falta de motivación de los recursos humanos
• Producto o servicio sin características diferenciadoras

Ejemplos de Oportunidades

• Regulación a favor
• Competencia débil
• Mercado mal atendido
• Necesidad del producto
• Inexistencia de competencia
• Tendencias favorables en el mercado
• Fuerte poder adquisitivo del segmento meta

Ejemplos de Amenazas

• Conflictos gremiales
• Regulación desfavorable
• Cambios en la legislación
• Competencia muy agresiva
• Aumento de precio de insumos
• Segmento del mercado contraído
• Tendencias desfavorables en el mercado
• Competencia consolidada en el mercado
• Inexistencia de competencia (no se sabe como reaccionará el mercado)

El análisis FODA no se limita solamente a elaborar cuatro listas. La parte más importante de este análisis es la evaluación de los puntos fuertes y débiles, las oportunidades y las amenazas, así como la obtención de conclusiones acerca del atractivo de la situación del objeto de estudio y la necesidad de emprender una acción en particular. Sólo con este tipo de análisis y evaluación integral del FODA, estaremos en condiciones de responder interrogantes tales como:

• Tiene la compañía puntos fuertes internos o capacidades fundamentales sobre las cuales se pueda crear una estrategia atractiva?
• Los puntos débiles de la compañía la hacen competitivamente vulnerable y la descalifican para buscar ciertas oportunidades? Qué puntos débiles necesita corregir la estrategia?
• Qué oportunidades podrá buscar con éxito la compañía mediante las habilidades, capacidades y recursos con los que cuenta?
• Qué amenazas deben preocupar más a los directivos y qué movimientos estratégicos deben considerar para crear una buena defensa?
• Está funcionando bien la estrategia actual?
• Qué estrategias debemos adoptar?
• Cuán sólida es la posición competitiva de la empresa?
• Cuáles son los problemas estratégicos que enfrenta la compañía?

Importancia del análisis FODA para la toma de decisiones en las empresas.

La toma de decisiones es un proceso cotidiano mediante el cual se realiza una elección entre diferentes alternativas a los efectos de resolver las más variadas situaciones a nivel laboral, familiar, sentimental, empresarial, etc., es decir, en todo momento se deben toman decisiones.

Para realizar una acertada toma de decisión sobre un tema en particular, es necesario conocerlo, comprenderlo y analizarlo, para así poder darle solución. Es importante recordar que “sin problema no puede existir una solución”.

Por lo anterior, y antes de tomar cualquier decisión, las empresas deberían analizar la situación teniendo en cuenta la realidad particular de lo que se está analizando, las posibles alternativas a elegir, el costo de oportunidad de elegir cada una de las alternativas posibles, y las consecuencias futuras de cada elección.

Lo significativo y preocupante, es que existe una gran cantidad de empresas que enfrentan sus problemas tomando decisiones de forma automática e irracional (no estratégica), y no tienen en cuenta que el resultado de una mala o buena elección puede tener consecuencias en el éxito o fracaso de la empresa.

Las organizaciones deberían realizar un proceso más estructurado que les pueda dar más información y seguridad para la toma de decisiones y así reducir el riesgo de cometer errores. El proceso que deberían utilizar las empresas para conocer su situación real es la Matriz de análisis FODA.

La importancia de confeccionar y trabajar con una matriz de análisis FODA reside en que este proceso nos permite buscar y analizar, de forma proactiva y sistemática, todas las variables que intervienen en el negocio con el fin de tener más y mejor información al momento de tomar decisiones.

Si bien la herramienta estratégica ideal para plasmar la misión, la visión, las metas, los objetivos y las estrategias de una empresa es el Plan de Negocios, realizando correctamente el análisis FODA se pueden establecer las estrategias Ofensivas, Defensivas, de Supervivencia y de Reordenamiento necesarias para cumplir con los objetivos empresariales planteados.

Aquí se ofrece una práctica planilla para realizar de forma correcta y ordenada el análisis FODA.

Fortalezas	Debilidades
F1- F2 - F3 -	Variables estructurales internas de difícil eliminación o reducción (estrategias a largo plazo) D- D-
Oportunidades	Amenazas
O1- O2- O3-	Permanentes (no asociadas a nuestras debilidades) A- A-
	Circunstanciales (asociadas a nuestras debilidades) A1- A2-

Una vez completada la planilla con las variables correspondientes a cada factor, el paso siguiente es el análisis de las mismas y la preparación de las estrategias de acción correspondiente a la realidad evidenciada.

La forma de presentación más acertada de la formulación de estrategias es la siguiente:

Estrategias (E):

• E1.-
• E2.-
• E3.-
• E4.-
• E5.-

Al momento de escribir las diferentes estrategias se deben colocar las referencias de las variables analizadas en la planilla FODA correspondientes a los factores (fortalezas, debilidades, oportunidades y amenazas)

Ej:
En la planilla de análisis en Debilidades encontramos:
D1.- personal apático, poco comprometido con los resultados de la empresa

Estrategias:
E1.- (para D1) preparar programas de capacitación y motivación de personal

---

Esperamos que este material haya servido para atender sus inquietudes y satisfacer sus necesidades de información y conocimiento sobre el tema.

En caso de necesitar ayuda para la confección de un análisis FODA profesional, visite nuestro apartado servicios.

Si tiene sugerencias que puedan ser útiles y constructivas para mejorar esta información, no dude en enviarnos sus aportes.

matriz foda

Read more »

El mercadeo por localización cambia la venta minorista

How Location Targeting Is Transforming Retail

MAX NISEN

Placed Placed CEO David Shim

One of the biggest marketing puzzles for owners of brick-and-mortar businesses is mobile advertising, figuring out how to benefit from the constant parade of people wandering around staring at their smartphones and looking things up on them.

How can you tell if those tiny ads actually work? And how do you connect them with what people do in real life? Most importantly, how do you make things easier for the customer? Seattle-based Placed is trying to solve all of those problems by collecting billions of data points from people's mobile phones about their locations when they use certain apps and, potentially, see mobile ads.

Vague location isn't all that helpful. Businesses need precise information to take real action and target the customer based on where they check their phones. A new restaurant in an area with heavy commuter traffic, for example, might target ads for people on their way home from the office or run a promotion designed to attract them based on the places they currently visit.

"Actionability in location is directly tied to accuracy, and proximity is only part of the solution," Placed CEO David Shim says. "Ninety percent or more of the time the closest business to a person’s latitude/longitude point wasn't the place they were visiting."

It's easy to know generally where someone is — the street or neighborhood they're in — but very hard to know which stores they visit. Placed has managed to get past that with models and algorithms to get beyond just "close." Five million visits to businesses have been confirmed by the people who have opted to share their location data, helping refine and validate their approach.

The potential is huge. Location targeting can help businesses figure out when people stop going to a particular store and start going somewhere else, as well as give them a sense of why. What's more, businesses can also target people not only when they're walking by a store, likely on their way somewhere else, but at the places they tend to make decisions about where to shop, such as when they're leaving work or during their lunch breaks.

In an age when privacy is a top concern, Placed gets its data entirely from people who opt in and elect to share it. Partners, usually apps, are very clear about how the data will be used and where it's going. Placed has the world's largest opt-in panel of smartphone location data, and the company processes over 100 million location measurements a day.

Placed, which launched in early 2011, is one of the leaders — if not the leader — in the location space and the effort to connect the physical and online worlds. Their growth has shot up recently from partnering with other apps. Since the spring, the size of the company's community and the amount of data it collects tripled, according to TechCrunch.

When business customers asked for the ability to measure the impact of ads on driving in-store visitors, it created Placed Attribution, a service that helps link ad exposure to in-store visits and measures the impact of targeting particular audiences. This new service launched in August, and the response has been "overwhelmingly positive," Shim says. Massive ad networks like Millennial Media, Verve, and xAd quickly signed on.

The physical businesses of the future aren't going to be able to ignore this kind of data, or they'll be beat by competitors who use it. The key is creating a better experience for customers.

For instance, one retail client was testing a new store format and used Placed to understand how shopper behavior changed outside their store. The data they got back helped them change the product mix and in-store messaging based on where shoppers went after visiting the store.

"The more you understand who your customers are and what they do in the physical world, the better you can serve them," Shim says. "Placed provides a lens to view consumers’ offline behaviors."

Location targeting through mobile apps is still new but is already influencing what stores offer and how they market themselves, based on learning about their customers' lives and habits.

Tools like Placed facilitate this process faster and on a larger scale. It's going to be exciting to see how businesses use it.
Business Insider

Read more »

Mom Corps, una empresa de 16M operada desde el living de la casa

How I Run a $16 Million Company Out of My Living Room 

By DARREN DAHL

Allison O'Kelly created Mom Corps to spend more time with her kids--and help other working moms do the same.

COMPANY PROFILE

COMPANY: Mom Corps

2013 INC. 5000 RANK: 470

HEADQUARTERS: Marietta, GA

YEAR FOUNDED: 2005

2012 REVENUE: $16.2 million

3-YEAR GROWTH: 984%

Allison O'Kelly was on the corporate fast track: She had an M.B.A. from Harvard, had worked as a CPA at KPMG, and was climbing the executive ladder at Toys "R" Us. But everything changed when she had kids. Now, O'Kelly's Atlanta-based staffing company, Mom Corps, is helping her--and other working moms--spend more time at home. Entrepreneur Allison O'Kelly  told her story to Inc. contributing editor Darren Dahl.

I was always passionate about retail, which is why I pursued a job at Toys "R" Us. After several years, I was up for a big promotion to become the only female district manager in the Southeast. Then I had my first child.

My boss was amazing. He told me I could work three days a week until I was ready to get back on track. But I found I needed more flexibility. The idea that I had to be anywhere at a specific time was challenging for me.

When I resigned, my boss was like, "I don't get it. What more could we have done?" I felt bad because there was nothing.

Eventually, I realized that there were many talented people like me who wanted to work but on their terms. At the same time, I saw that companies were short on top talent. I figured there was a market if you could match those two things up. That's how Mom Corps was born.

Now, I have three boys, ages 2, 8, and 10. When I tell my story about how hard it is to be a working mom, everyone nods her head. We have all been there. It's a huge struggle to have both a career and a family. Our candidates trust that we will listen and place them according to their needs. Whatever their limitations are, we won't look at them like they're crazy.

Stay-at-Home CEO

Running her staffing company from her home in Pennsylvania affords Allison O'Kelly more time with Ethan (right) and her other two sons. Most of her employees have similar arrangements.

People often think that flexible work means part time. That's only part of it. We talk about flexibility in terms of time, duration, or place. Time could be part time or flexible hours. Duration could be a fixed-month contract or seasonal work. And place could be closer to home or telecommuting.

We get told by employers that the moms we place are very productive. They say, "Gosh, your people get more done than some of my full-time people." That's because moms have other priorities and they are focused on what they need to get done.

Not all of my employees are moms, but most are. We all work from home and rely on conference calls, instant messaging, and email.

I work full time on a 24-hour clock. I might do something with the kids during the day, but I'll make it up at 5 a.m. or after they go to bed. I have complete flexibility. I can see my kids when they get home from school, I can run downstairs to steal a kiss from the baby during my lunch break, I can go to parties at school. It's a constant juggling act, but I feel I have the best of both worlds.

Inc. Magazine

Read more »

6 preguntas para saber si usted planificando bien

6 Simple Questions for Building a Solid Strategy 

By Lee Colan

Don't fall for overly-complicated planning processes. All you need to do is answer these 6 questions.


Most entrepreneurs agree that the ability to consistently execute is a key factor in surviving the start-up phase and ultimately winning. That said, you cannot make a pig fly, no matter how much you stick with it. In other words, a crummy plan executed well still gets you crummy results. So start with a solid strategy.

A theme I hear over and over again from clients is, "Give us three steps, and we will knock 'em out. Give us a three-ring binder, and it will sit on the shelf." There is a direct correlation between the simplicity of a plan and the chances of executing it consistently. Given that, why stack the odds against yourself with a complex plan?

A sound plan and a simple plan are not mutually exclusive. If you are going to work on a plan, your plan should work for you.

Management journals, books, blogs and articles are filled with countless approaches to strategic planning. The definitions for the various components of a strategic plan can be debated endlessly: a vision versus a mission, initiatives versus tactics, goals versus objectives.

Whatever the terms you prefer, cut through the clutter by answering six simple questions about your business:

• Why do we exist?
• Where are we going?
• How will we conduct ourselves?
• What will we do?
• How will we measure our success?
• What improvements or changes must we make?

Answering these questions will get you started with a solid plan you can execute. If you're struggling, see how one company answered the 6 simple questions here.

And a final note of caution: don't be deceived by the simplicity of the questions. In order to articulate concise answers, you'll need to give them deep thought, good supporting data and honest discussion.

Inc.com

Read more »