Ideas by their very nature are living organisms — many times growing and changing into something altogether different than planned. Most great ones mature on the backs of other ideas and don’t end up where they started.

For example, I can look down our street in Provo, Utah, and see three billion-dollar companies within 1,000 yards of each other. And I’ve been fortunate to watch these companies evolve. Interestingly, where they started isn’t where they’ve ended up at all.

Qualtrics began as online survey software tool developed strictly for academics for research purposes. Today, we’ve transitioned to a platform company with multiple products serving over 5,000 enterprise customers. Vivint, next door, started as a pest-control company and has ultimately developed into a home-security and automation and solar business. Ancestry.com was originally a publisher of genealogical books and magazines. Today, it is the world’s largest online resource for genealogy.

So, it can be hard to distinguish a good idea from a great idea in the beginning. The key is in giving it a chance to grow into its full potential and hatch.  But no idea is valuable if it’s parked in the idea phase.

Quit polishing your boat and get it into the water: I believe that too many people have good ideas that just sit on the dock. Honestly, nothing exciting happens there; the amazing stuff happens out on the open waters.

Still, it’s not very likely that you’re going to come up with an idea that’s the next Facebook. When you look at the technology industry, there are only going  to be one or two Facebook-like companies per decade. So the question is, how do you best position yourself for the next great idea?

To do this, some of the key questions entrepreneurs often ask themselves are “What am I passionate about?” or “What am I experienced in?” or “What is the largest addressable market problem that I can solve?”  For me, it was mostly about jumping on an opportunity and being passionate about the possibilities at hand. I believe that entrepreneurial skills can be learned, but recognizing a great opportunity is more about instinct, and that can’t be taught.

How often do you hear people say, “I thought of that idea before they did” or “I came up with that first”? I hate to point out the obvious, but you didn’t think about that idea enough to develop it and actually do something about it. What really matters is that you get moving on your ideas and see what sticks.

I wasn’t the one who originally came up with the concept for Qualtrics, but I saw the potential and was willing to jump on the opportunity. There were others along the way that saw the potential but weren’t willing to move.

Interestingly enough, both my parents were PhDs in academia for years. In their late 40s, they moved entrepreneurial ventures where they each has been wildly successful. I’m sure they had plenty of ideas along the way, but it wasn’t until they put their boats into the open water that their ideas could reach full potential. So, while I wasn’t running around branding myself as an entrepreneur, and neither were they, we all had something in common in that we recognized a good opportunity and ran with it.

So ask yourself this: what if the next Facebook was being started next door, and you had the chance to be a founding member? Would you recognize the potential? But a better question is, would you do something about it?

There is no right or wrong way. At Qualtrics, we bootstrapped for 10 years, and brought on almost 5,000 enterprise customers without a marketing team. So, you don’t have to run somebody else’s playbook as you create your business. One of the benefits of coming up with an idea is to be able to develop something the way that you’ve always wanted. The purpose is to do it your way or to create something that you’ve always wanted. Don’t forget that. If you’re always following someone else’s playbook, it’ll be difficult to think of something original.

You don’t know what you don’t know — be open. Beyond wanting to be a pro athlete, I was never hell-bent on what I was going to be or do when I grew up. This turned out to be a huge advantage. See, people often get locked into a mental career path, such as accounting or investment banking, and have a hard time changing directions. But what if there’s another plan, or an unforeseen opportunity or idea, that comes your way? You might miss it because your head is programmed to believe that you’re going to be an investment banker.

I asked myself a series of questions to identify what was most important in terms of career direction. For me, the most important attributes were a job where I could set my own goals, something that would give me a rush to go into the office, where I could be a change agent and transform ideas into the vision I had.

I believe that it is key to evaluate every opportunity through the lens of what matters most to you. This will give you a clear understanding if an idea is worth pursuing or if it’s best crushed in order to make room for the next one.

Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2000 as a junior in college. Qualtrics is one of the fastest-growing technology companies, experiencing triple-digit growth in the past four years. The company has more than 5,000 customers including 500 universities, BusinessWeek’s top 30 business schools and almost all of the Fortune 500.  Smith is a frequent lecturer at business schools and a member of the advisory board for the Masters in Market Research Program at the University of Texas at Arlington. He also serves on the executive advisory board of the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Before Qualtrics, he worked at HP and Ford Motor Co. and studied at the Marriott School of Management.

Related Posts:

• The secret to entrepreneurial leadership — even if you’re not an entrepreneur
• Live from #WBFNY: Barbara Corcoran’s 7 lessons to live by
• Somebody, help, I’m stuck: Why you’re not advancing
• Tips from Mentor Scout’s mentors of the year
• The etiquette of career development

How do the most successful entrepreneurs come up with their ideas? originally published by SmartBlogs

Attribution: Map by Hal Jespersen, http://www.posix.com/CW (via Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license)

One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, the Battle of Gettysburg turned from a potential Confederate victory to stunning defeat due to Gen. James Longstreet’s poor negotiating skills.

At the beginning of their classic, “Getting to Yes,” authors Roger Fisher and William Ury note that we are all negotiators, every single day. But most of us lack an actual method for negotiations.

In our daily work lives, we deal with colleagues more than folks on the outside, and it seems downright mercenary to approach our interactions with them as a negotiation. But what happens when we become convinced that a colleague or boss is taking the organization down the wrong path? How do we convince them to change their plan?

To bring this question alive, how might our world today be a different place had Longstreet been able to persuade his boss, Gen. Robert E. Lee, to rethink the attack we call Pickett’s Charge?

On July 3, 1863, Lee faced a pivotal decision. After two days of fighting at Gettysburg, Lee had decided to order 15,000 of his men to make a frontal assault on the Union lines in a gambit to win the war in one fell swoop.

Longstreet was incredulous, noting later, “I said, ‘General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men every arranged for battle can take that position.”

To Longstreet’s chagrin, Lee replied, “The enemy is there, and I am going to strike him.” In his memoirs, Longstreet noted, “Nothing was left but to proceed.” Of the 15,000 men who began that charge, half ended up killed, wounded, or captured in what has to be described as one of the worst decisions of the war.

What Longstreet needed was a way to negotiate with and persuade his boss that there were better alternatives. What would it look like if Longstreet had been followed this plan?

• Figure out your target outcome ahead of time.
• Ask for more than your target outcome, but not outrageously so.
• Make several small concessions.
• Determine your bottom line ahead of time.
• Say “Yes, if” rather than just “yes” or just “no.”
• Be aware of your ego.

Now put yourself in Longstreet’s shoes. Did Longstreet identify a targeted outcome ahead of time? Yes and no. He encouraged Lee to move around to the right of the Union Army and take up a position nearer Washington, D.C., forcing the enemy to attack. But Longstreet had been making that argument for three days to no avail. It was stale at this point, and thus an ineffective target.

Did Longstreet ask for a bit more than his targeted outcome so he had room to make small concessions? No, he did not. He failed in two ways here. First, Longstreet asked for exactly what he wanted, and consequently had no room to maneuver when Lee said no. Second, he knew from the past three days that what he was asking for was, in Lee’s mind, outrageous. It was outside the limits of Lee’s reality.

Longstreet also failed to establish his bottom line ahead of time. When Lee put his foot down, Longstreet gave in. Some argue that in a military hierarchy Longstreet would have been insubordinate to continue resisting Lee’s plan. But remember that the result of this decision was 7,500 casualties, and ask whether Longstreet had a duty to continue trying to change Lee’s mind.

Our central piece of advice is to respond, “Yes, if…” whenever possible. Longstreet commented to others that he thought an assault force of 30,000 would succeed. Why did he not say: “Yes, General Lee, I feel confident we can make that assault, break the Union line, win the battle, and possibly force the enemy to sue for peace, if you give me just two more divisions.” Lee had repeatedly shown he was all in for this battle, and it seems likely he would have seriously thought about his normally cautious general asking him to be even bolder.

Finally, Longstreet does not appear to have controlled his ego. When Lee rejected his advice, Longstreet withdrew from the conversation. That Longstreet did not ask any of his colleagues to speak with Lee suggests he felt that, if he could not convince Lee, then no one could. Either way you read the situation, Longstreet’s ego got in the way.

In his magnificent “The Courageous Follower,” author Ira Chaleff contends that the most powerful tool a follower has is the ability to persuade. Our world might be a very different place had James Longstreet possessed that ability on July 3, 1863.

Steven B. Wiley is president and Jared Peatman director of curriculum for the Lincoln Leadership Institute at Gettysburg, a human capital development company that has worked with the majority of the Fortune 100 companies and scores of federal agencies. This article is based on their book, “A Transformational Journey: Leadership Lessons from Gettysburg,” which is in turn based on the leadership seminars they offer.

Related Posts:

• How you can sabotage your own innovation efforts
• Increase revenue through smart research
• Startups: Critical factors in developing a sales plan
• 2 questions to guide your strategy
• Global behavioral management: The toolbox of a global leader

Pickett’s Charge: A broken negotiation originally published by SmartBlogs

At an education session at the 2013 National Restaurant Association Show titled “How to Make Concessions Part of the Guest Experience, Not Just a Transaction,” Steve DiPrima, president of leisure services at Sodexo, moderated a panel discussion with three executives who manage guest experience at venues.

DiPrima opened the session by talking about the importance of venues in consumers’ live. “Think about your life experiences. I would think that many of them involve things that include venues, maybe your first ballgame, going to a concert, an exhibit at a museum, going to the zoo,” he said.

Then he asked the audience to recall food eaten at these events, saying, “It really is something that should contribute to and even enhance what your visit is like.”

Andy Zakrajsek, vice president of operations and experiences at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio, recalled a time when concessions were considered a “necessary evil,” and concessions were mainly quick, cheap food that didn’t add much to the guest experience. Today, top-notch foodservice is something consumers expect. “People are looking for healthy alternatives,” he said. “People are looking for a comfortable place to sit and recharge.”

Zakrajsek returned to the topic of healthy options later in the discussion, emphasizing the importance of offering nutritious food and beverages to meet rising consumer demand. “Those of us who have been in the business for a while remember the days when you would put something healthy on the menu and no one would buy it,” he said. “Now, if you don’t put it on the menu, they won’t come in.”

All of the panelists agreed that consumers are more discerning about food and have greater expectations than before, and vendors must adapt to keep up with increasingly sophisticated tastes. Most foodservice operations are more than a team of line cooks, with many headed by executive chefs.

Although venues might hire foodservice employees with only concessions in mind, it’s important to make sure foodservice workers are integrated into the operation, said Amy Ritter-Cowen, executive vice president of marketing, guest experience and sales at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. Harriet Resnick, vice president of visitor programs and operations at the Chicago Botanic Garden, agreed, saying that all Sodexo employees at the garden “wear Chicago Botanic Garden T-shirts; they wear name tags. We make sure they know what programs are going on. The customer does not care who the paycheck of the person they are talking to is from. It all needs to be seamless for that visitor.”

Resnick said it’s important to make sure foodservice employees know and espouse the company’s values, further giving the impression of one cohesive staff. Initiating foodservice employees into the company culture is vital because food is an essential part of the guest experience. As DiPrima said, “We’ve gone from a time that you were hoping the foodservice experience didn’t mess up your visit to expecting the foodservice to make the visit better.”

Related Posts:

• Starbucks CEO talks about the importance of customers, social responsibility
• How the customer experience sets you apart in the age of social business: Part 2 — The value of community
• Andy’s Answers: How Outback Steakhouse makes superfans superadvocates
• Q-and-A: What can chefs expect in the new year?
• Q-and-A: Jersey Mike’s Subs President Hoyt Jones on how restaurants can prep for 2013

Concessions are an integral part of the guest experience originally published by SmartBlogs

Why? Because more of your customers are using social media to stay informed, stay connected and stay up-to-date on brands, offers, sales and more. We’re using our mobile phones for shopping, making flight reservations and interacting with our favorite brands. And when we’re on our favorite social networks, we’re in contact with brands throughout our day. As the use of social media sites continues to grow, so does the importance of a social media strategy for retailers.

Customers are accessing their social networks via smartphones, making the presence of retail brands on these social outlets even more important. Approximately 80% of smartphone users access social networks on their devices, and 55% of those users visit social networks on their devices once per day, according to Monetate.com.

Shoppers are using their mobile phones to shop, as well. According to Digby.com, 40% of shoppers in 2012 checked three or more channels before a purchase, compared to just 10% a decade earlier. And Monetate reports that 96% of smart phone users have researched a product or service on their phone.

This very real combination of social interaction and product research is a one-two punch that retailers need to stay alert to. It is increasingly imperative to make sure brands fully optimize their customer retail mobile and social experience.

How retailers can use social media

Social media strategies can be used to promote your products, showcase your company talents, highlight your CEO’s pursuits and humanize your company. Interacting with customers in the hope of increasing sales can also play a part.

Share new products: Just got a new shipment of hot products? Let customers know! Social media is a great outlet to instantly share this news with your customers. Post photos of the new products, describe something engaging and post it on social media outlets. Customers may be moved instantly to make a quick online detour to Macy’s that they weren’t planning to make.

Photos also make great shareable content. If you are a clothing retailer and post a photo of new dress for sale in the store, a user may re-post that photo, telling their friends “I love this dress!” — giving you even further reach outside your existing fan base and followers.

Promote exclusive deals and offers: Use social media to offer special promotions and deals to loyal fans and followers. Posting a discount code on Twitter or Facebook can result in an immediate sales impact and also make for excellent shareable content. Sharing good deals with friends; that’s what people do! Posting a special offer can result in reposts on Facebook and retweets on Twitter. If a brand backs that up with some searchable terms (hashtags on Twitter, for example), that will make it easier for for users can find the retailer’s offering.

Share employee recommendations: Sharing “employee picks” with your customers via social media has multiple benefits for retailers. First, it makes an employee feel that their opinion is valued. As any business owner or manager knows, employee morale is always good for business. Secondly, this puts different products in front of your customer that they may have not otherwise known about. Finally, customers love recommendations, which could result in a purchase.

How to measure your social media success

Knowing how to write for, share with and connect to customers on your social media accounts is crucial. A recent Facebook meltdown by an Arizona restaurant got national attention, but mostly of the unwanted kind. So how do you know if what your retail business is sharing is working? This is where measuring your efforts comes into play. By measuring your social media metrics, you start to get a feel for what’s working and how your customers are responding, so you can get the most out of your social media efforts.

SocialBakers.com recommends tracking these performance indicators to access the performance of your social media strategy.

Suggested social media metrics for retailers

• Fan/follower growth: How many new fans are you gaining during a select time frame?
• Engagement rate: The number of user interactions (likes, comments, retweets, replies and shares).
• Response rate: The percentage of user posts or questions that the administrator responded to.
• Response time: The average amount of time it takes for the administrator to respond to user posts or questions.
• User activity: Identifying the hours and days of the week your users are engaging most frequently.
• Shareability: The number of shares and retweets a post gets.
• Interactions: The number of interactions that a page or post receives and the types of interactions (likes, comments, retweets, replies and shares).

How is your retail business using social media to attract customers?

Cynthia Sassi lives, works and plays in Scottsdale, Ariz. She is passionate about running, her three pups and work.

Related Posts:

• How local businesses can do research and gain an edge with Pinterest
• 4 traits business-to-business social media success stories have in common
• Do you really need a social-media strategy?
• How are you diversifying your social presence?
• The is week's most clicked

How retailers can use social media to attract more customers originally published by SmartBlogs

The idea of an educator’s digital footprint is far more than just a reaching reputation. If one is to have any involvement online, that involvement better be positive and constructive, for it is there for eternity and for all to see. If one has amassed a number of good positives in one’s digital impression, it is not usually offset by the occasional misstep that we are all prone to have from time to time.

In regard to the recent “Jeff Bliss” viral video, I felt bad at first for the teacher in the class at Duncanville High School in Texas. Too many people were out to demonize her without knowing who she was, or if this packet curriculum she handed out was her personal style, or a mandated, packaged, paid-for curriculum of the school district. She had no digital footprint to go to. I looked, and I could not find one.

I am fortunate to work for SmartBrief as a contributing editor. I am sent to many education conferences in order to promote my connections with educators. Even before this however, I found the digital connections made through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook were, for those people I wanted to get to know, more than introductions to people. They were the beginnings of relationships. Most of the people in education that I call on as friends today began as digital connections. Technology has helped me expand and deepen professional relationships to a degree never before possible. As a regular teacher, I was able now to connect and interact with authors and experts as an equal in discussions on education. These digital relationships were further expanded with face-to-face contacts at education conferences.

As the interactions were digital, my footprint grew. As I ventured out on my blog, my educational philosophy took on a life of its own. People could now read my educational philosophy, as well as my personal beliefs, likes and dislikes. All of this has fit into my lifestyle. I love the connectedness, I thrive on the interaction, and I live for talking about where we are going, as well as, where we should be in education. All of this, and age, has morphed me from an educator of kids to a wiser educator of educators. It has always been about the connectedness.

Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) is an adjunct professor of education at St. Joseph’s College in New York. He previously spent 34 years as a secondary English teacher in the public school system. He was recognized with an Edublog Award for the Most Influential Educational Twitter Series, #Edchat, which he co-founded. Whitby also created The Educator’s PLN and two LinkedIn groups, Technology-Using Professors and Twitter-Using Educators.

Related Posts:

• Are Twitter and educational standards divorced?
• The imperative for a communications audit and plan
• 6 positive effects of blogging in kindergarten
• Utilizing Twitter chats for professional development
• 5 best practices to consider when using Facebook with students

A reflection on connectedness originally published by SmartBlogs

People around us seem to slide into success. It looks so easy for them.

But what do you do when you find yourself treading water? What is the mud sucking at your feet and keeping you mired in one place?

Check these four reasons and find solutions.

1. You’ve lost your passion. We need to know where our passions and strengths lie and then work to advance them. When we blindly follow the upward path because everyone is doing it, we fizzle.

When trying to identify your passion, the easiest place to begin is to ask yourself: “What interests me and what are interests? Interests are those things that grab your attention ever so gently without you even noticing. Think about those occasions when you find yourself speaking to friends for hours on end about subjects you find fascinating or times when performing a specific task was so enjoyable that it became effortless.

You have interests that if properly channeled can be the spark to ignite your inner passion to light the way to your dream career. In other words, what you find the most interesting can lead to personal enrichment and self-fulfillment in your life.

While not everyone can love everything about their job — moving up and away from what you enjoy will bring dissatisfaction and loss of motivation.

2. You’ve gotten comfortable and quit trying. Admit it. Sometimes we get to a very comfortable place. We know the job. We have a pattern to life. And moving forward feels risky. Overcome that fear with simple mini-steps. First decide to create a goal to move forward. Envision it. Take other steps. Seek a mentor. Step up your team player skills. Enlarge your network. Ask for feedback.

Then communicate your goal to progress with your manager and ask for help and guidance. “Share your aspirations with your manager or superiors in the company, so that management can help establish goals and benchmark for determining when is the right time to promote you,” says Lisa Kojis, managing partner for staffing firm Princeton One.

3. It isn’t where you want to go. You may look at what your boss is doing and think, I don’t want to do that! Recognize moving into that spot is not the only career direction available. There may be other careers paths available in the company. If not, look to choices in other companies or even other fields.

Also understand that while your boss might handle that job by working 70 hours a week or by running the team in a draconian manner– that doesn’t mean you would need to lead that way.

Explore choices and find the options that ignite your drive to advance.

4. You think the price is too high. Sometimes it seems that high success costs marriages, health, time and the things you hold valuable in life. It’s true that more workers feel overstressed and unable to unplug. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A mentor or coach can offer strategies and life-balance changes that allow you to succeed while keeping that which is most important to you.

Joel Garfinkle is an executive coach and author of “Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level.” More than 10,000 people subscribe to his Fulfillment@Work newsletter. If you sign up, you’ll receive the free e-book “41 Proven Strategies to Get Promoted Now!”

Related Posts:

• The etiquette of career development
• Finding productivity in daydreams
• Do I dare say something? How to be assertive at work
• When a leadership opportunity knocks, are you ready?
• How do I lead former peers now that I’m the boss?

Somebody, help, I’m stuck: Why you’re not advancing originally published by SmartBlogs

Big Business for UEFA

These championships are big business in Europe. The annual estimated gross commercial revenue expected from the 2012/2013 UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup is €1.34 billion or about $1.73 billion, according to UEFA. This compares to annual revenues of $9.5 billion for the NFL, $7.5 billion for Major League Baseball, $4 billion for the NBA, $3.4 billion for the NHL, and $300 million for Major League Soccer. UEFA isn’t the world’s biggest sports entity in terms of revenue, but it makes significant revenue and has fans worldwide.

In 2011, 178.7 million television viewers tuned in to watch Barcelona beat Manchester United in the final. It was the most-watched UEFA Champions League game ever and the most-watched worldwide annual sporting event that year. In the U.S., 2.6 million viewers tuned in, while the 2012 final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich drew a U.S. audience of 2 million. Both matches were shown live in the U.S. on FOX Sports.

The road to the 2013 UEFA championships started in July 2012. Teams compete in a qualifying round, play-offs, Group Stage, Knockout Phase, and the Final. Teams from Eastern and Western Europe, Israel, Russia, the Ukraine, and some Asian countries compete in the UEFA championships. Holding nine titles, Real Madrid C.F. is the most successful UEFA team. The current champion is Chelsea F.C. from London, though they were defeated in the Group Stage in this year’s competition.

The UEFA league is made up of 53 football member associations throughout Europe and one provisional team. Each UEFA member has its own league system.

Explore the map below to learn more about the top 16 teams in this year’s Champions League.

Click on image to enlarge map.

Watch Soccer on TV

Even though soccer is not the most popular sport in the U.S., it is gaining fans due to participation in amateur youth and adult leagues and the influx of immigrants over the past decade. Some Americans love the sport and are most likely to watch the UEFA championships on television. Where are the Americans who will cheer on their favorites?

People in the U.S. who watch soccer on TV most frequently live along the Eastern seaboard, near Chicago and Minneapolis, and areas in the West, including California. ZIP codes with residents most likely to watch soccer on TV include: 21402 (Annapolis, Maryland), 65473 (Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri), 92145 (Fort Irwin, California), and 98433 (Tacoma, Washington). Residents in these ZIP codes are at least twice as likely as the average American to watch soccer on TV.

Click on image to enlarge map.

What type of American most likely watches soccer on television? Esri, a geographic information systems company, developed a Tapestry Segmentation system that classifies U.S. residential neighborhoods into 65 unique market segments based on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Residents of Dorms to Diplomas, Las Casas, and Military Proximity neighborhoods are the most likely to watch soccer on television. Dorms to Diplomas residents are focused on their education. They have a median age of 21.9 years and most live in dorms. Las Casas residents are primarily young, Hispanic families with a household size of 4.14 people. Approximately half were born outside the United States. Residents of Military Proximity neighborhoods depend upon the military for their livelihood. Most are in the Armed Forces; others work in civilian jobs on base. Two-thirds of the households are married-couple families with children.

Residents of Prairie Living, Rural Bypasses, and Southern Satellites neighborhoods are the least likely to watch soccer on television. Prairie Living residents live on family-owned farms in the Midwest. Two-thirds of the households are married couple families; the median age is 43.3 years. Rural Bypasses neighborhoods are found in small Southern towns along back country roads near open space, undeveloped land, and farms. Unemployment is high in these neighborhoods; however, those who work have jobs in the agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and construction industries at a higher-than-average rate. Households in Southern Satellites neighborhoods are located in the rural South. Residents are primarily married-couple families who work in the manufacturing and service industries.

Why This Matters

Soccer has always been big business in Europe and Latin America. It has not been nearly as popular in the U.S. as other sports; however, some Americans love the sport. Soccer leagues – both domestic and international – can target U.S. soccer fans by understanding who they are and where they live in the U.S.

Many Americans who emigrated from Latin American and European countries or are first generation Americans from those areas are very connected to the game and want to watch it. They are often super fans who will do anything to view critical games played by their favorite teams as well as the league championships. Many fans are Hispanic, which are an increasing percentage of the total U.S. population. With the right marketing, messaging, and promotions, UEFA soccer leagues can increase their presence in the U.S.

More information about Esri’s data can be found at www.esri.com/data or to learn more about Esri in general, go to www.esri.com.

Pam Allison is a digital media, marketing strategist, and location intelligence consultant. You can visit her blog at www.pamallison.com.

Related Posts:

• New TIME feature tracks Earth’s changing landscape
• Disability insurance and the U.S. economy
• Los Angeles mayoral race — who are the candidates’ supporters?
• Esri’s Amber Case talks talent acquisition and management
• Where should students go to study STEM subjects?

The big business of Champions League soccer originally published by SmartBlogs

Schultz first joined Starbucks in 1982, when the chain had only four stores. His dream was to create “the kind of company that our parents never got to work for,” he said. When the company went public in 1992 with 125 stores, it was the beginning of a long period of success for the coffee chain, during which “everything we touched turned to gold.” But speedy growth coupled with the nation’s unstable economy eventually led the company to put most of its efforts into growing same-store sales and stock prices. “The company began to measure and reward the wrong things,” Schultz said.

In 2008, Schultz gathered all of Starbucks’ store managers for a meeting in New Orleans, during which he laid out his plan to bring back the focus on strong customer service and community engagement on which the company had been founded. In 2009, all stores were closed briefly for retraining in an effort to make sure all employees were properly trained and that product quality was consistent across all locations.

“Great brands, great companies, great store experiences are very resilient, because the customer can remember what it was like. And they’re longing for it to come back,” Schultz said.

After renewing its commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, the company’s sales began to rebound and 2011 brought “record revenue, record profit, record stock price — the same in fiscal ’12.”

Here are three key lessons from Starbucks’ overhaul:

Connect with customers.

“We want to create a connection with our customers that’s not based only on trying to ring the register but demonstrating a heartfelt commitment to communities we serve and where our customers live,” Schultz said. Social responsibility efforts, such as the company’s Create Jobs for USA campaign, are a cornerstone of Starbucks’ culture because they make the company’s values apparent to the customer. “The customer wants to support those companies whose values are compatible with their own.”

Store managers are essential to the company’s success.

“The store manager sets the tonality of his or her store. And I think that starts with the people that he or she hires. … We have to be sure that we’re hiring the kind of people that is consistent with the brand of Starbucks,” Schultz said.

“We want happy people, we want people who like people, we want people who drink coffee.”

The importance of staying relevant.

Schultz said we are experiencing a “seismic change in consumer behavior, primarily because of technology. Every company represented in this room and every company in the world, no matter what industry, must make a significant investment in the capability and relevance in their own business in social and digital media and in mobile platform.”

Related Posts:

• Concessions are an integral part of the guest experience
• NYC soda ban is set to take effect but is far from settled
• Buffalo Wild Wings soars and Starbucks takes a tumble in RSMI top 10 brand rankings
• How the customer experience sets you apart in the age of social business: Part 2 — The value of community
• Should great leaders communicate their vision or listen effectively?

Starbucks CEO talks about the importance of customers, social responsibility originally published by SmartBlogs

Turning the mirror back on the United States, we’d like to believe that Americans could gather around this same call of equity. In reality though, Americans prefer a narrative of meritocracy. We tell rags-to-rich stories of folks, such as Bill Gates, for example. This so-called poor man who came from nothing and built an empire attended one of the most privileged boarding schools in the nation; the college he dropped out of was a small university — Harvard. Gates had access to a computer when few people even really knew what computers were. The reality of his narrative is really one of privilege, connections, and access.

So, what might be a narrative Americans could rally around? I’ve come to believe that perhaps personalization is the answer. Somewhat tied to the American focus on meritocracy is our country’s rich history of “rugged individualism,” which includes a sense that we’re all unique. Current parents certainly want to see each of their children as “special,” so parents often support efforts to a tailored approach to education. In stark contrast to Finland’s largely homogenous society, America must educate a wide range of students, making it even more important to find ways to personalize learning pathways.

As teachers and administrators, we seem to be moving on a trajectory toward personalization: differentiation, Universal Design for Learning, emerging technologies, competency-based education, and advances in education technology make personalization of learning more possible.

• Differentiation: In many ways, the shift toward differentiation was a first step towards personalized learning. Though differentiation clearly doesn’t always happen in every classroom, at least there’s more consensus that this is how we should be teaching, if we’re to reach students who have a wide range of readiness, backgrounds, interests and skills.

• Universal Design for Learning: UDL takes differentiation even further and is becoming increasingly more recognized as the ideal approach. In Maryland, for example, all curriculum and implementation must follow UDL principles, as mandated by recently passed state law. When we design and implement curriculum that meets the needs of students who have historically been on the margins, we’re also better meeting needs of those students who fall in the center.  Adding features such as larger print, audio, embedded vocabulary, etc. allows teachers and students to personalize the learning experience further to meet individual needs.

• Cultural Responsiveness: As our curriculum and instructional practices become more culturally responsive, we’re adding another layer of personalization. Students connect to material when it feels relevant to them and is presented in formats that are engaging and reflect their own realities. It feels more personal.

• Competency-Based or Standards-Based Education: The shift from seat time to competency-based education allows us to embrace personalization more deeply. With mastery as the goal, we can personalize student pathways, recognizing that some students need more time to master material and that some students need gaps filled or are able to accelerate through material.

• Emerging Technologies: Advances in educational technology are making personalization more possible on a larger scale. For example, formative assessment engines are getting better at identifying student gaps and strengths, including attitudinal information. Teachers and students can learn more about the students as learners and what works best for them.

More publishers are also developing digital curricular resources that have different reading levels, including resources for ELL. When Amplify launched its new product at SXSW EDU, everyone was excited about the platform’s capabilities of allowing teachers to identify student needs quickly through digital formative assessments that recommended personalized assignments for different groups of students. Other competing products will continue to enter the market.

• Blending Learning: With more blended learning options available, we’re able to offer students additional course options, allowing us to personalize student courses of study. Each student can pursue an individual personalized set of courses, despite the capacity of teachers in a building. World languages, AP courses and other electives are excellent examples: students can pursue Chinese, for example, even if there is no Chinese language teacher at a building. Schools can offer upper-level courses, even if there are only a handful of students who need those courses. If a student is passionate about a subject not offered, schools can arrange to find a course that meets that student’s needs.

In the end, it’s most often the relationship between a teacher and student that impacts student achievement. One of the most powerful elements of a move towards personalization is that students will feel increasingly more that their teachers really understand and are meeting their needs. When students feel that someone cares about them, they begin to care more about what they’re learning. All of these approaches and tools support teachers in personalizing learning experiences for their students.

Katrina Stevens (@KatrinaStevens1)  has over 20 years experience as a district leader, professional developer, principal, adjunct professor, consultant, academic dean, department chair — and throughout all of these roles — a teacher. She has worked in public and independent schools, from elementary through higher education. Stevens publishes via her blog where she writes extensively about professional learning, educational technology and lean thinking.

Related Posts:

• 6 entrepreneurial skills that can make us better educators
• One-size-fits-all doesn’t work for students — or teachers
• Modern curation: How does it change teaching?
• What is an ed-tech leader?
• The problem with 21st-century education

The personalization of education originally published by SmartBlogs

Management today is really about enabling people to succeed and that means providing them with the guidance, resources, feedback and support they need to do their jobs.

Coupling feedback with expectations is the foundation of manager-to-employee coaching. It’s also the method by which managers can help employees and teams get the work done and promote higher levels of engagement and productivity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts:

• Look on the bright side of your people
• Building trust in your managers
• Reputation without character is worthless
• Patience is a virtue
• Individuality and teamwork

A 4-step guide to coaching your employees originally published by SmartBlogs