Sorry, Chris - normally I agree with what you write, but on one of these, I have to take issue!
> Structure Work To Pay You for WORK
No. Don't.
Structure Work to Pay You for RESULTS.
As a "serial entrepreneur", I see so many people obsessed with inputs, rather than focussing on outputs. Provided they're "working" they must be creating value, right?
Because of this, one of the biggest problems I see is that people tinker, because they think that "they ought to be working."
Would you want your IT support staff to constantly tinker with the servers, adding new applications, because they needed to be seen to do WORK?
Would you want your CFO constantly getting into esoteric financial instruments, because actually keeping control of the business only required a couple of days a week, but she needed to constantly be doing WORK?
When I employ people, either as staff or (increasingly often these days) "joint venture partners", I always try to come up with a formula that means they make a shedload of cash if, and only if, I do.
I'm really not fussed whether they spend 10 hours a day promoting my business, or whether they are going to spend all day on the beach, and add a couple of articles to a website at weekends - what I track is what that delivers in terms of sales, cost-saving, cashflow, or whatever else I'm focussing on.
But paying people for WORK?
Nope, don't like that at all.
Mark
PS - Other than that, great article - and thanks for the link to box.net, of which I wasn't aware, but looks to be a spot-on answer to a problem I currently have.
Sorry about the slightly ranty tone of the post as well - I guess I'm so shocked at getting a post I don't consider a mix of "agree with that" and "learnt from that" :-)
Shawn Day
· 2 years ago
Thanks for this and your consistently thought provoking posts. This one is definitely thinking outside the box of conventionality. Great provocation.
I wonder though whether the digital nomad can be tethered by the centralized/decentralization your refer to. I rely on GDocs for a number of tasks and rely on my own apps via my own server, but also find it necessary to mirror data to local tools so that I can access info when I can't access a wireless signal. This has resulted in redundant storage of information, but synced so that it basically is seamless depending on connectivity. I can still write and post to my local blog which is synced when there is a signal. I can still refer to past postings on any of my blogs when there is no connectivity.
Do you think we can make this break with data redundancy yet?
Thanks for your posts,
Shawn
Eric Rice
· 2 years ago
I think you're referring to the UMPC I showed you back in March. I hate it, I never use it. Wanna buy it?
I have an ultralight laptop (lucky that it has built in EVDO) and an iPhone. Even though I'll be ditching my iPhone for a Nokia, devices like these are more prone to be useful and cut down on my laptop time. Heck, my laptop spends more time charging everything else than use (ok not true totally but, heh). I spend more time looking for sexy bags.
And I simply ADORE Zoho (and my Logitech notebook Revolution mouse).
Mark Harrison
· 2 years ago
Chris,
OK - looks like we do agree after all :-)
Thanks for the linkback!
Mark
EddieZ
· 2 years ago
Chris,
Lots of good information. I am a big fan of the offsite storage in the clouds, but I have found that my backups tend to be days if not weeks old. I had about 4 or 5 external hard drives, and I think part of my problem was juggling data around and not having anything centralized on my main system. I decided to invest in a Drobo, from a group called Data Robotics. HUGE difference, I was able to consolidate all of my external drives and Drobo is protecting me from a drive failure, so that if my backup is 2 weeks old, I won't loose any data.
Give it a look - cheers!
digitalnomad
· 2 years ago
Chris-
I like your post and will recap it in a shoutout on my blog(s) (with some links of course).
All Comments
> Structure Work To Pay You for WORK
No. Don't.
Structure Work to Pay You for RESULTS.
As a "serial entrepreneur", I see so many people obsessed with inputs, rather than focussing on outputs. Provided they're "working" they must be creating value, right?
Because of this, one of the biggest problems I see is that people tinker, because they think that "they ought to be working."
Would you want your IT support staff to constantly tinker with the servers, adding new applications, because they needed to be seen to do WORK?
Would you want your CFO constantly getting into esoteric financial instruments, because actually keeping control of the business only required a couple of days a week, but she needed to constantly be doing WORK?
When I employ people, either as staff or (increasingly often these days) "joint venture partners", I always try to come up with a formula that means they make a shedload of cash if, and only if, I do.
I'm really not fussed whether they spend 10 hours a day promoting my business, or whether they are going to spend all day on the beach, and add a couple of articles to a website at weekends - what I track is what that delivers in terms of sales, cost-saving, cashflow, or whatever else I'm focussing on.
But paying people for WORK?
Nope, don't like that at all.
Mark
PS - Other than that, great article - and thanks for the link to box.net, of which I wasn't aware, but looks to be a spot-on answer to a problem I currently have.
Sorry about the slightly ranty tone of the post as well - I guess I'm so shocked at getting a post I don't consider a mix of "agree with that" and "learnt from that" :-)
I wonder though whether the digital nomad can be tethered by the centralized/decentralization your refer to. I rely on GDocs for a number of tasks and rely on my own apps via my own server, but also find it necessary to mirror data to local tools so that I can access info when I can't access a wireless signal. This has resulted in redundant storage of information, but synced so that it basically is seamless depending on connectivity. I can still write and post to my local blog which is synced when there is a signal. I can still refer to past postings on any of my blogs when there is no connectivity.
Do you think we can make this break with data redundancy yet?
Thanks for your posts,
Shawn
I have an ultralight laptop (lucky that it has built in EVDO) and an iPhone. Even though I'll be ditching my iPhone for a Nokia, devices like these are more prone to be useful and cut down on my laptop time. Heck, my laptop spends more time charging everything else than use (ok not true totally but, heh). I spend more time looking for sexy bags.
And I simply ADORE Zoho (and my Logitech notebook Revolution mouse).
OK - looks like we do agree after all :-)
Thanks for the linkback!
Mark
Lots of good information. I am a big fan of the offsite storage in the clouds, but I have found that my backups tend to be days if not weeks old. I had about 4 or 5 external hard drives, and I think part of my problem was juggling data around and not having anything centralized on my main system. I decided to invest in a Drobo, from a group called Data Robotics. HUGE difference, I was able to consolidate all of my external drives and Drobo is protecting me from a drive failure, so that if my backup is 2 weeks old, I won't loose any data.
Give it a look - cheers!
I like your post and will recap it in a shoutout on my blog(s) (with some links of course).
http://digital-nomads.blogspot.com/2007/11/quic...
I'm launching a new site at http://www.technomads.org on Feb 1st, and wanted to invite you early. There's also a blog at technomads.info.
Anyway hope you'll check it out and would love to get a guest article or something from you!
J