Articles for category: Initiative

The Complaint Department

All complaints are in, and wow, there are a lot. The complaints are easy; anyone can write a complaint about anything. I don’t like the grip on my chainsaw (I know nothing about grips). I wish my car’s cupholders were 3 inches back and could hold 3 drinks instead of 2 (when ordering for the family). Many cool products and inventions come from complaints – watching what people are building with 3d printers to solve the above problems and many more is incredible to watch. You can keep chirping at the Complaint Department, or pick one up and make it

Various Ideas

Take all your ideas. Write them down. Order them. Prioritize what matters to you. Put them front and center in your face. Pick one. And ship. (Don’t stop at putting them in your face, this is the last step before it becomes real, where many stop, pick and go).

Too Much To Do

Overload today? Not a bad problem; tomorrow you might not be. What is your “too much,” and someone else’s “too much” might be completely different, and as a result, we have different levels of what being overloaded is. It’s not good to have “Too Much To Do” all the time; that’s a sign you need help, and the team needs to grow. But in the short term, it’s a sign people trust your opinion and thoughts and want to see more from you. Don’t let that opportunity slip away.

Filling in Gaps

There are some days when my role is to fill in gaps. We don’t have “X,” and no one knows “X”? Looks like I’m spending some time learning “X” today. I have zero complaints about filling gaps, because I think it’s where you can get the best opportunity to learn a new thing and figure out how it connects to everything else you do. It can seem stressful; it’s akin to someone dropping a stack of files on your desk – “Here, figure it out”. That’s okay, we need more of “Here, figure it out”.

The Never Shipped

Don’t let your Never Shipped get too big; it will swallow you whole. It doesn’t matter who uses it or who gets it, just that you shipped. I once built a product, put it out there, and for months no one wanted it. On the day I shut it down, a university called asking for a demo to use it. You never know until you ship. This is more than dipping your toe in the water; this is putting your whole foot in, this is wading into your waist. And the water’s cold. So most leave it to their toe.