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Last chance to speak at Business of Software 2009

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As the title says. The deadline is 1st September.

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"The knowing-doing gap" - a book review

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"I know kung fu."

In the Matrix, when Neo wants to learn kung-fu all he has to do is upload a fighting module. A few seconds later and he's sparring with Morpheus in a virtual dojo. Living in a computer simulation and being bred as an energy source for a machine master-race has its disadvantages, but at least you get to learn stuff fast. Here in the real world, much knowledge is gained the hard way - by doing. You can't just upload it. Or store it, index it or e-mail it around.

This is one of the factors behind what Jeff Pfeffer and Bob Sutton call 'the knowing-doing gap'. In their book of the same name ('The Knowing-Doing Gap', available new for under $25 from Amazon), Pfeffer and Sutton examine why companies don't do what they know they should. The first problem is language. 'Knowledge' is a noun, so we treat knowledge as a concrete object we can manipulate, like steel or books. In reality, it's a process; the process of riding a bike, speaking French or running a company. Hence companies don't truly know what they claim they do. They might have their mission statements written down on small, laminated cards; and they might say - and even believe - that people are their most valuable assets, but this isn't true knowledge, and won't become so until they act.

Pfeffer and Sutton give plenty more reasons too. An emphasis on talk, rather than action, for example. It's easier to judge people on what they say than what they actually do, and that's often how we hire, reward and promote. The guy with the quick put-downs, rapid-fire banter and sarcastic comments is perceived as smarter than the quiet one in the corner who bothers nobody, knuckles down and gets stuff done.

The weight placed on talking means that planning, documenting and presenting are considered substitutes for concrete action. They're certainly easier. Action is difficult, and can go wrong. That's when another factor comes into play - fear. If people use their initiative, or challenge an assumption, then they often fear they will lose their jobs or the respect of their peers or their boss. Unfortunately, high-profile, charismatic asshole CEOs (Pfeffer and Sutton use the example of 'chainsaw Al' Dunlap, but there are plenty more) propagate the myth that fear is a great way to motivate people.

If action is harder than talking, then mindless action is harder than thoughtful action. When organisations hit a problem, rather than think it through afresh they tend to follow the path laid down before, often by people long-gone and in circumstances lost in history. Processes fossilize and are never challenged. Sacred cows get fat when they should be slaughtered, just because "that's how we do things round here".

Yet another cause for the gap is that companies send the wrong signals. They might say - and the managers might know - that they should hire great people and spend time developing and keeping them, but they measure short-term financial performance. What are managers expected to do? Free up a good sales person so she can work on a cross-divisional project that will benefit her - and the company - in the long-term, or hit the numbers? By measuring - for example - quarterly revenues, companies signal that they expect the latter, even though the former is what they really want. No wonder it doesn't get done.

Finally, internal competition, whether it's bonuses determined by forced-ranking or having an employee of the month, is often a zero sum game that benefits some individuals but that harms entire organisations. In such competitions, there are two ways to succeed. The hard way is to out-perform your coworkers. The easy way is to sabotage them, or belittle their achievements. It's no surprise that many people settle for the easy option.

This is a fantastic book. Like most of Pfeffer and Sutton's work, and as you'd expect from two Stanford professors, it's based on solid research. Case studies are used to illustrate theories and bring them to life, rather than to 'prove' them as many business books do. As well as explaining why the knowing-doing gap exists, the book gives ideas on how to fix them. Is your organisation paralysed by internal fighting? Then find an external enemy to focus on - that's what Apple did with IBM when they launched the first Macintosh in 1984. Is your company trapped by its history? Examine, make explicit and challenge the assumptions that lie behind its sclerotic procedures. Are your people afraid to make mistakes? Make it explicit - with your deeds and not just your words - that there is a soft landing available for those who try and fail.

The beauty of this book - like other works of Pfeffer and Sutton - is that much of it seems like common sense once you've read it. Pfeffer and Sutton have a knack of articulating ideas that you feel you already half know, but that are just - but only just - out of your grasp. As you read, you can sense them coming into focus, crystallizing out of the fog of your mind. Of course concentrating purely on short-term financial success can kill a company's culture. Of course you should commit to metrics that reflect, and don't contradict, your underlying philosophies. Of course pitting colleagues against each other is going to backfire, and of course the absurd idea that this could ever work is based on sloppy sporting analogies. But it's only once Pfeffer and Sutton have made these points - and many others - lucid that they become obvious.

This is an excellent book, but as Pfeffer and Sutton acknowledge explicitly throughout, it contains one flaw. A text whose thesis is that knowledge can only be earned through action, and then hopes to teach it through words, is bound to have only partial success. Read this book - and if you're running, or working in, any organisation larger than a handful of people then you should - and you will only have taken the first step to learning about the knowing-doing gap and how to fix it. The next step?

Action.

Enjoyed this post? Then follow me on Twitter (I'm @neildavidson)

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The accidental incubator

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In one corner of Red Gate, next to the giant mural of the coloured pencils and about 20 feet from where I sit, you’ll find a curious bunch of people:

Curious? Why curious?

Martin and Conrad are working on a start-up called go-test.it (Martin’s also starting his PhD in the Cambridge University computer labs in a few weeks’ time – topic of ‘analysing the social web’). Peter, Lee and Jamie are working on Broadersheet.com. They want to change the way you get your daily news. Jamie is also working on his own start-up (Binary Cake), and is running the Cambridge Geek Day later on this year. Sam, Rahul and Stew were working on mo.jo. Unfortunately that didn’t work out so now they’re figuring out what to do next. Mat and Amir are working on webticketing.net. Mat is past the start-up stage: he’s also the founder of mixcloud.com (soon to become the youtube of radio) and wakari, and his Facebook apps (including the ones for Rambo and Quantum of Solace) have been used by tens of millions of people.

Martin, Conrad, Peter, Lee, Jamie, Sam, Rahul, Stew and Mat might work at Red Gate, but they don’t work for Red Gate. We’ve accidentally built ourselves a start-up incubator, and it’s going pretty well. The Accidentals (as we're calling them) get free food (from our awesome canteen, the SQL Servery), a free desk and the chance to mix with other start-ups and people here. We get the benefit of having even more smart, energetic people we can beat at foosball. It’s a great people cocktail: take smart people from us and them, add free food, internet access, and shake.

The next step is to take what we’ve learned so far, mix in some brazenly stolen ideas, and formalise our accidental incubator into something we’re calling Springboard.

Here’s how it’s going to work. If you’re a UK or European start-up and want to spend three months in Cambridge, UK turning your idea into a product then go to http://springboard.red-gate.com. If your application is successful, we’ll provide:

• A three-month program with weekly talks over pizza and beer with the likes of Joel Spolsky, Ryan Carson and Dharmesh Shah. We’ll also hold half-day seminars with world experts on topics such as usability, software sales and product management.
• A free place to live (if you want it) as well as some cash to keep you going.
• A place to work, full of smart people, free food and fast Internet access
• Advice

In return, here’s what you have to do:

• Be good

That’s it. No strings, no legal work, no giving us stock. No seat on the board, no paperwork. None.

Here are some questions you might have:

Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?

We think that getting to know smart people doing interesting things will, in the long term, be good for Red Gate. In the future, we might end up licensing your technology, investing in your company or maybe even buying it. Or maybe we won’t. Ultimately, all deals come down to relationships. So we want to build them.

Plus, it just feels like a good thing to do. We don’t know what they’ll be, but we think interesting things will happen

Why won’t you take a stake in my start-up?

Frankly, we don’t need the hassle. Introduce lawyers and things get complicated. People get hung up on valuations, deal structures. The paperwork increases. We have to think about incorporating companies, or restructuring them. We don’t need that. If Red Gate succeeds it’s not going to be because we take 10% stakes in start-ups. It might, however, be because we manage to build long-term, meaningful relationships with people creating the products of the future.

What’s the ideal start-up profile for you?

Ideally, two or three people working on business-to-business software. We’ll give priority to start-ups working in markets adjacent to Red Gate’s since that’s where we can be the most useful Take a look at the Red Gate website if you want to find out more about what we do.

We’re looking for people who can ask us great questions and who are interested in learning. People with something to contribute.

Where can I find out more?

Visit http://springboard.red-gate.com to find out more about the program and to send in your application. The deadline for applications is 1pm on Friday 28th August so it’s not for away.

You can also stay up to date with Springboard updates by following @springboardnews on Twitter. I'll be posting updates too (I'm @neildavidson), as will @amirmc (he’s doing all the hard work – thank you Amir).

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"The Web Startup Success Guide" - a book review

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Back in 1999, after quitting a job I hated that involved working on products that sucked and with and for (with some exceptions) people I didn't respect, I found myself in the small life boat that was Red Gate, with Simon as co-navigator, a small contracting revenue as a paddle and no hat.

Bob Walsh's slightly mistitled "The Web Startup Guide" is the chart we never had. And it's a damn fine chart, with land, rocks, reefs, currents, winds and pirates clearly marked. Why mistitled? Because it’s suitable for all product-based startups, not just those on the web.

This book, wisely and following its own advice, is targeted very specifically. If you're a software developer, are thinking about setting up (or have just set up) a product-based start-up, and are prepared to work - damn hard - at something you love doing then this book is for you. Equally importantly, if you're more than a few months into your start-up, or if this is your second start-up, or if you aren't a geek, or if you want to set up a consulting business, or if you want to get rich quick, then this book isn't for you.

It is split into ten chapters. The first couple of chapters explore the different types of startups, talk about how to choose a problem to solve and provide a handy checklist for your startup idea. Too often, startups bite off too much they can chew, or not enough worth chewing. Follow the checklist and you'll avoid these, and other, errors. Equally important is the list of ten startup antipatterns ('the me-too! startup' and the 'outsourced startup' to name just two).

Chapter three discusses possible platforms and works through their pros and cons. Should you create a standalone online application, or base it on the Amazon or Google platform? Or use a higher level platform such as salesforce.com? Or maybe a Facebook app would be more suitable? This chapter will help you decide.

Chapter 4 is about the tools and groups you might find useful. As a developer, you'll know some of this already (you use source control, right?), but will learn something new too, whether it's about site analytics, user feedback sites or testing tools. Starting up a business can be lonely, and the online forums and physical meet-ups covered here will prove useful.

Chapter 5 covers main funding options - friends, angels, VCs and incubators (but ignores other options such as government grants, bank loans and joint ventures). It is agnostic about what sort of financing you should get, but, as an earlier chapter pointed out, if you are reading this book you are unlikely to seek, find, or even need VC funding. The assumption that startups must follow the Silicon Valley approach of seed, series A then series B funding is rightly challenged here. This chapter also includes a brief section on payment processing.

Chapter 6 is about social media and the tools you should be using to track what people are saying about your product online, the role of your startup's blog, Twitter, press releases and their more modern equivalents.

Chapter 7 covers the basics of creating a web site that works. Follow the guidelines here - hook people, be credible and have a clear call to action - and you can't go far wrong.

Chapter 8 takes a detour to explain David Allen's Getting Things Done program and its five core principles. If you struggle with time management then you'll benefit from this.

Chapter 9 contains interviews from 'six wise people', and chapter 10 wraps everything up with some more good advice and a final, quick tub thump.

On the whole, this book is outstanding. There is a lot of information here, but its fast-paced, colloquial writing style make it digestible. What's more, the book is well thought-out, balanced, well structured and accurate. It's an excellent combination of fact, anecdote, theory, analysis and practical advice. The interviews alone (Joel Spolsky, Dharmesh Shah, Eric Sink, David Allen and Guy Kawasaki are among the fifty in-depth, thought-provoking interviews in the book) make it worth reading.

There are, however, a handful of cavills.

Firstly, the interviews are included verbatim. It would have been better to edit them - clarity is more important than word-for-word accuracy.

Secondly, the book gets a bit starry eyed about social media. Although traditional print, TV and radio-based advertising might be dying, social media is just one - not the only - tool left in the modern marketer's toolbelt. Furthermore, it's not true that every company must build a community around its product to succeed. Logistically, it's not possible. I happily use hundreds, if not thousands, of products, yet can only - almost by definition - belong to a handful of true communities. When I fly with my favourite airline, or surf with my favourite browser or buy my favourite sausages I do so because of the awesomeness of the product and the marketing, not because I feel a deep need to engage with the Virgin / Firefox / Musks Sausages community.

Thirdly, it's clearly impossible to include absolutely everything relevant to a start-up in a single book, but it's a shame that Bob chose not to talk about sales and talks only minimally about marketing. Finding people who like your product and persuading them to actually buy it is the single biggest issue that your startup, bogged down in the technology, will forget about. On the other hand, there are plenty of other resources that cover that (Jay Conrad Levinson's Guerilla Marketing, Seth Godin's Permission Marketing, Joe Sugarman's Adweek Copywriting Handbook and Jeff Cox's Selling the Wheel are readable starting points).

But these are minor niggles. Overall, this is an excellent, must-have primer for any geek wanting to set up a product-based business. Buy it.

Bob Walsh's "The Web Startup Success Guide" is available on Amazon for a bit under $20.

Enjoyed this post? Follow me on Twitter (I'm @neildavidson)

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