Knowing something is half the battle. Communicating that something is the other half, but that is the subject of another post. Knowing how your customers use your product and how they want to interact with you is a great thing. Two major steps toward becoming customer oriented. But then you realize that what you know, might not be what you know. You see signs that your data may be incomplete or inaccurately measured. What do you know now? 1) You need to stop and reevaluate what you know. 2) Depending on the issue, you might be realizing that what you... Continue reading

Wins only come every so often. If they come too frequently, they lose their value. If they are too sparse, our willingness to achieve them dissipates. When a win occurs, we often find ourselves on cloud nine. All of the sudden, your world is the happiest place on earth; you want to share the good fortunes. All of the hard work put forth payed off; the stress, the pain, the lack of sleep, the lows and the highs. Wins become the ultimate motivational tool toward bigger and better wins. They almost become addicting. For every winner, there is a loser.... Continue reading

Over at my triathlon training blog, AricInTraining, I have been talking about buying a pair of Vibram FiveFingers for a while now. The whole concept of primal barefoot running just fascinates me. As an outlier already, I don't mind stepping away from the norm to try something new. The something new became a reality today with the purchase of a pair of KSO Fivefingers, size 41, black. While getting the left finger on the left foot took about ten minutes (left foot is a little deformed), it was definitely worth it. My left foot feels free! The right foot only... Continue reading

Those Long Days seem to last forever. The task list never seems to get smaller. The email piles up. Three crisis happen at the same time. Your voicemail is full. The database is still refreshing. Lunch just didn't seem filling. There are no Chips Ahoy in the break room. The coffee tastes like it has been there for years. The air conditioning vent targets you and you only. Yet, you perservere and come back the next day. Yep, those long days are just part of the fun! Continue reading

Metrics are the individual numbers that relate to other numbers that tell a story. Often, these are the numbers that people of all levels of the company use to make decisions. If a company has a firm grasp of their metrics, fully understand their engine, and have reporting in the right places, there can be some pretty impressive looking dashboards available that tell the health of business at a glance. However, those fabulous looking metrics and dashboards might be completely meaningless if there is a broken link between the customer touch point and the data server. As companies grow, data... Continue reading

As an Analyst, I like to track trivial things, such as how much toilet paper I use and how much gas my car consumes. One of the less personal and perhaps more company oriented metrics is the size of my Outlook inbox at work. In fact, you can see in early December when the IT department made me aware of the consequences of keeping a lot of mail in the inbox. You can see that it continued to grow over the summer until I realized that the auto-archive process on the new computer was not running from April to August.... Continue reading

Being genuis is not hard. Being genius takes patience. Being genius does not make you better than anyone. Being genius requires you to listen, and listen well. Being genius needs great communication. Being genius is not what you are, but what you do. Being genius means you do it just a little bit differently. Being genius can be you! Continue reading

I am continually amazed at how the human brain works. Take an incident that happened during my commute to work. Last week, the weather had been warm, so I had the air conditioning on in the car, but at mid-temp. Over the past two days, the weather cooled down significantly, so I turned off the air conditioning. This morning, I kept feeling hot while driving to work on the freeway. This isn't abnormal because the car's interior is black and can start feeling warm in sunlight. I kept looking at the thermometer on the center console and noting that it... Continue reading

The environment in which we work plays a dramatic role in our level of productivity. Whether we are in an office or a cubicle, the things that we surround ourselves with can either be a distraction or objects of inspiration and creativity. This pattern has been proven time and time again. Here are a few tips to creating comfortable productivity in your work space: 1. Clear the clutter - Get rid of those extra receipts, hide the stapler that you use once in a blue moon, and make sure everything has a home. At the end of the day, clear... Continue reading

As I embarked upon on my journey from office potato to triathlete almost two years ago, I never dreamed of how awesome the journey was going to be. Looking back, I wonder why I waited so long to do it. I thought I would take a moment to share a few things I learned along the way. These items apply to everyone, whether you are a triathlete, a customer service agent, or a stay-at-home mom. Here is what I learned: 1) Baby Steps Lead to Big Goals Nothing happens overnight. Set a goal and begin working toward that goal, doing... Continue reading