TOPIC - COMMUNICATE BETTER WITH EMPLOYEES

This month we'll be interviewing Dani Werner, Director of Organizational Development for Accord Management Systems.

Join us for our On The Lake podcast, where we talk about the importance of employee (and boss!) assessment in the workforce, to harness our natural talents as communicators, as well as controlling our own behaviors when resolving conflicts.

WHY WE INTERVIEWED DANI.

As our team grows, my goal as leader of Think Around Corners is to establish great leadership - and that means great communication on overall goals as a company, as well as ensuring that all my employees have an open channel of communication to me - to voice concerns, and to establish repoor.

So, in hiring Dani Werner, I discovered that although I have great leadership qualities, I need to voice my needs in different ways, and Dani helped me do that. Mark and I are communicating better than ever, and it shows in the quality and quantity of work we have been able to accomplish over the past 6 months.

ABOUT DANI.

Dani Werner has been leading creative teams in organizational and leadership  development for over a decade. With a diverse background in learning, technology  and  marketing, she has a deep understanding of the issues leaders face,  particularly in  times of transition. 

As Director of Organizational Development for Accord Management Systems,  Werner  provides objective feedback to executives seeking to grow their  businesses in a  challenging economy.  

She is a member of Women in Technology International (WITI), the American  Society of  Training and Development (ASTD), the International Society for Performance  Improvement (ISPI), and the Society for Human Resources  Management (SHRM).

In this podcast, we discuss annual goal setting, and how it can be fun and rewarding! Set up some goals (but not too many) to achieve more goals throughout the year. We also include an action plan that we use to make your goals real and followable.

SHOW NOTES

• All Think Around Corners Podcasts >

An Interview with Gary Angel, Founder of Website Functionalism

The Podcast.

In our On The Lake podcast interview, Gary and Gregory discuss not only the creation of Functionalism as a website development tool, but also how Functionalism...

• Applies to Google Analytics to improve many types of analytics KPIs,
• Changes those KPI's based on Functionalism page type, 
• Can create a common language between web consultants, employees & clients, thereby making website development accessible to everyone in the business. (the whole team can get involved!)

Functionalism is so simple to learn, that anyone can do it.

We also talk candidly with Mr. Angel about his favorite Functionalism page type, his Philosophy background (and if Functionalism was a philosophy, which one it would be!), and his favorite current book.

About Gary Angel.

Bringing over twenty years of experience in decision support, CRM, and software development, Gary co-founded Semphonic and is president and chief technology officer. He's responsible for leading Semphonic's development of Web analytics and SEM decision making tools for web marketing professionals. In addition, he helps companies like WebMD, Intuit, American Express and Charles Schwab maximize their web channel marketing through intelligent use of Enterprise Web Analytics.

Further Reading:

• Gary Angel's Company, Semphonic.
• Our articles on Functionalism (a series).
• See how we're applying functionalism to our new website revamp!

And please read this article by Ian Lurie!

10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media 'Expert'

And please read this article that Ian Lurie wrote, called 

10 questions to evaluate an SEO

1. Surprisingly easy (and cheap) tools for online usability testing

How complete strangers can make you thousands of dollars in under an hour.

What if there was a way to get complete strangers to help you with developing a more functional, higher conversion (money-making) website? There is! It’s called usability testing (UT).

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/15/surprisingly-easy-and-cheap-tools-for-online-usability-testing/

2. The 7 Strategies… Strategy 7: Create Referrals

Congratulations!

If you’ve been reading The 7 Strategies to Internet Marketing Success, you’re at the last article! And you know what? You deserve a break! What kind of break? Well, this article is about referral marketing. And referral marketing is less about a particular tactic or strategy, and more about doing everything else right. The 7 Strategies that we outlined give you a platform on how to think of your business. And good business creates referrals.

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/19/the-7-strategies-strategy-7-create-referrals/

3. This is a big fat image, and other lessons learned from blogging like a madman.

Psst… want to know how I screwed up?

It’s time for self-reflection! Why don’t you come along and find out the greatest lessons learned about blogging (and how I screwed up along the way?) 30 articles, 90 days. Yep, we’re on track. We’ve done 30 articles in the past 3 months, and we’ve learned a long since Jan. 1. Are we satisfied yet with our progress? No! But we DO want to share with you what we’ve learned since then. Now, I’m not saying I’m the greatest writer, yet. Far from it. But I am a better writer, hands down.

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/20/this-is-a-big-fat-image/

1. Make Your Website User-Centered: A tactical quick test.

Who are you building your website for? 

Can you tell what percentage of each type of customer visits your website? 

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/09/user-centered-design-tactical-quick-test/

2. The 7 Strategies… Strategy 6: Generate Sales & Leads

How do you make sales online? It’s not what you think.

Of course, the goal of any business website is to generates sales, or generate calls that lead to sales. But the fact is that a very small percentage of websites actually generate sales that pay for themselves, much less generate profits.

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/12/the-7-strategies-strategy-6-generate-sales-leads/

3. Creating a Culture of Testing, Part 3 of 3: Tests in action

The tyranny of best practices doesn’t work.

Two weeks ago, we talked about the benefits of a testing culture – the whole company ask questions of customers. Last week, we did a simple, single test – easy to implement, easy to gather data. You test every week, you get results.

http://www.thinkaroundcorners.biz/2010/03/14/creating-a-culture-of-testing-part-3-multiple-tests/

Tactical Mondays: Speed up social media marketing with Pingfm, with channel-specific messages and broadcast power.

Strategic Wednesdays: Strategy 5 - Building Trust - The 7 Strategies of Internet Marketing Success continues with building trust with your customer. Customers that trust you buy more often and tell others of products and services.

Vision Fridays: The Culture of Testing continues with Part 2: how to do a simple, single, company-wide test.

Tactical Mondays: Want to be able to track telephone calls from your website?

Strategic Wednesdays: How to build trust with your website, through simple means like testimonials and usability testing.

Vision Fridays: The Culture of Testing; using you employees to spot trends, and you benefit.

Tactical Mondays: Stay Ahead of Your Market: Simple 5-Minute Trend Searching

5 minutes - two keyphrases - one powerful tool - and you have a recipe for FUN!

OK, it's fun to us. We're not going to hold it against you if you just consider it merely useful or amazingly insightful.

Strategic Wednesdays: The 7 Strategies… Strategy 3: Be Sticky

Being sticky is kind of a mindset. You have to think creatively, but understand the deep-rooted principles of web design. 

You have to understand your customer intimately, and what drives them to buy, to read, to be enticed.

The enemy of Internet marketers everywhere is bounce rate, and we'll examine that factor from many angles, how to spot it, and what you can do about it.

Vision Fridays: Hiring an Internet Marketing Consultant: When it’s time to call in the cavalry.

Probably the most article that I have wrote, personally, to date, this article is about hiring the likes of ME.

Every big thinker has 4 elements in common: knowledge, wisdom, desire, and trust. Small thinkers have elements in common too.

Small thinkers think in terms of money or cost. Big thinkers think in terms of value. Which one are you? 

OTL 05 - Not So Simple Link Building, Strategy 3 of Internet Marketing Success, and The Grateful Dead.

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On The Lake: Musing of an Internet Marking Export

Podcast 04 - Google Cheat Sheet, Strategy 1 - Get Noticed, 7 Books for Business

1. The Pyramid Principle, by Barbara Minto

2. A Whole New Mind, by Daniel H. Pink

3. Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath

4. e-Riches 2.0, by Scott Fox

5. Love is the Killer App, by Tim Sanders

6. Getting Things Done, by David Allen

7. Tribes, by Seth Godin.

On The Lake: Musings of an Internet Marking Export

Podcast 03 - Google Alerts, The 7 Strategies of Internet Marketing, and Greg 2.0 

On The Lake: Musings of an Internet Marking Export

Podcast 02 - Lets Catchup a Bit, Shall We

On The Lake: Musing of an Internet Marking Expert Podcast 01 - "What are we doing here?" In our first podcast ever, we will be discussing future podcast topics along with giving a little background about our company.