Crayons.  The smell transports me immediately back to kindergarten. The excitement of a fresh box was enough to make me giddy. Looking back, I know that when I was in kindergarten I didn’t appreciate how much that box of crayons cost, but today, I got to see what a difference a free box of crayons and school supplies can do for a family in need.

This morning, my 11-year-old daughter, her friend and I, along with a few Envysion colleagues, volunteered for Growing Home, an organization that helps families in need. Growing Home’s web site has some alarming statistics:

Today, more and more hard working, suburban families struggle to make ends meet. A modest 2 bedroom apartment demands a market value of $832 per month in our metro area. With child care costs, health care, groceries and transportation, a family must earn at least $16.00 an hour to afford rent and care for just one preschooler. A single parent with a minimum wage job and one four year old would need to work 133 hours per week just to afford the basics. Growing Home, together with a network of community supporters and volunteers, provides crucial support services that help families get back on their feet and on the path to success.

The part we played to help today seemed small. Still, it felt like we did a little bit to help a few hundred kids get ready for school. It was a reality check for my daughter and her friend as well. When they open their new notebooks as the school year begins, they may have a deeper appreciation for the fact that they got to choose their favorite color with the coolest features, instead of getting what was available for free.

This weekend Rob Hagens and I took part in the 8th Annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival held on Sloans Lake in Denver. For those of you not familiar with the sport, let’s delve into a quick lesson on Dragon Boating 101.

There are several styles of dragon boat racing, one of which is Taiwanese dragon boating, the style we raced last weekend. A Taiwanese style dragon boat is a very long, narrow, flat bottomed, human powered boat weighting over 1,200 lbs when empty. A typical crew consists of 18 paddlers, a drummer or caller, a sternsman or coxswain, and a flag catcher. STERNSMAN READY, PADDLERS READY, SET, GO! On these commands the 18 paddlers begin paddling in sync with the drummer’s drum as the sternsman guides the boat in the direction of the finish line, where the flag catcher must hang off the dragon’s head (the front of the boat) to pull a flag, signifying the completion of the race.

As you may have guessed, the success of dragon boat racing lies solely in the paddlers’ ability to keep their strokes in perfect sync, assisted by the drummer’s beat. Failure to do so will easily result in this extremely heavy, flat bottomed dragon boat spinning off course and potentially tipping over. As such, teamwork holds the key to a successful dragon boat race.

Teamwork can simply be defined as individuals working together to accomplish the same goal or objectives. When applied to business, the concept of teamwork lies in an organization’s ability to align its employees’ goals and objectives towards a specific business purpose. In the case of dragon boating, the goal is simple: be the first to cross the finish line. A single individual does not possess the ability to win the race solely on their own as it is impossible for one person to play the part of a drummer, a paddler, a sternsman, and a flag catcher simultaneously. As such, it takes the collective effort of many individuals to not only move the boat forward but to also guide it in the correct direction in order to achieve the final goal of crossing the finish line first. Just as in dragon boating, it takes the collective effort of many individuals to move a company forward in the correct direction to achieve organizational success. To simplify, Rob put it best as he reminded the team last Sunday of the old saying, “There’s no I in teamwork!”

Matt’s analogy that video in the business video can be used just like sports performance analysis is right on.  Reviews are so much more effective when one knows what’s being measured, how it’s being measured and what the expectations are.  Afterall, it’s hard to succeed unless one knows the rules. 

One of the more important aspects of video review is watching oneself in the video.  With access to the video from any Internet connected computer, this is much easier.  Every manager in the organization can easily and securely get direct access to the video allowing them to interact with it directly and to share it with their employees.  Even employees themselves can be allowed to view the video, afterall, it’s the employees who are in the video.  The video doesn’t have to be a secret accessible to only a few.

On Friday, a friend forwarded an email to me from her fitness trainer, inviting her to join in a “boot camp” workout at Red Rocks Park on Saturday. In typical viral fashion, the email encouraged my friend to bring her like-minded (read: crazy) friends along. Being a fitness junkie, I signed up. At the time, it seemed like fun to get up at 6:00 on Saturday morning to arrive at Red Rocks for 7:30 am boot camp. The Park is located 6,400 feet above sea level, adding a dimension of oxygen deprivation that gives a boost to your workout. At the appointed time, armed with one bottle of water and one of Gatordade, I cheerfully jumped into my friend’s car with another friend, who was equally naive about what lay ahead.

Stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. And lots of really fit people with very little body fat. There were no fewer than 200 people, split among about 15 trainers who inflicted varying degrees of pain upon their willing participants. I even saw two women wearing weighted vests. I guess that was to give them a bit more of a challenge than the altitude, the heat, the screaming traininer and the stairs didn’t provide. For the next 90 minutes, we did countless sets of stairs: single step at a time, two at a time, alternating between left and right leg leading, jumping up one step at a time, and then we moved to the bleachers and did sets of push-ups, dips and crunches, alternating with climbing the bleachers. After that, we ran (to use the term loosely, in my case) all the way around Red Rocks park (1.4 miles) - twice. We ended one loop by running (actually, shuffling) backward up a ramp. A really long, steep ramp. The only thing that tempered my pain was that other trainers seemed to be much tougher than ours. On a water break, we observed one trainer who was demonstrating a drill that involved carrying a 15 pound rock up the bleachers while a partner provided resistance using an elastic resistance band. I did everything I could to distract our group’s trainer; I didn’t want her to get any bright ideas.

Today, I was tempted to use the elevator to get to the second floor where our offices are located.

Did I mention that I paid $10 to participate in this “fun and invigorating workout,” as the viral email described it? Oh, and I plan to go again next week. Let me know if you want to join.

I had every intention of penning an insightful post on shrinkage and how “acceptable” it’s become within the P&Ls of our retail and restaurant industries. Instead, I’m absolutely transfixed on TNT’s showing of The Wizard of Oz. I learned to appreciate the intelligence and beauty of this movie during my sophomore year at the University of Kansas (Go Jayhawks!!!).

I maintain a degree in English Literature and leverage it every day of my life. The powerful contrast of innocence and political revolution in The Wizard of Oz is so amazingly subtle, a child would love it (you did!). What? Politcal undertones? I’ll briefly explain:

Dorthy: Common folk

Scarecrow: Farmers

Tinman: Industrialists

Lion: Political Leaders

Tornado: Political Upheaval

Get the picture? Allegories have been used since the days of Chaucer and up through John Keats, The Beatles and beyond. We often have to tell a story to get the true message across. While this bolds well for the romanticism of literature, music and mission statements, there is no man behind the curtain in modern business. Don’t let your “culture” fool you. You simply can’t afford it.

Employ the technology, gain the insight and see the results. I’ll talk about shrinkage next time.

Occasionally I get the following question from someone thinking about deploying video in their company for the first time:  How are the employees going to react and will this create a “big brother” like atmosphere that is counter to our open and trusting culture?

I have a number of responses to this question, ranging from the cold/analytical to the more warm and fuzzy (can someone loan me some F? For those in the Myers-Briggs world, check out my ISTP profile for why the latter may be difficult for me)

Everybody’s doing it.

Okay, this is not exactly the most thoughtful response, but it is pretty accurate.  If you are in the retail, restaurant, or just about any other market, it is likely that a high percentage of players in your space have already deployed video.  If you hire employees that have experience in your industry, and given the high turnover in many of these segments it is likely you do, then it is fair to assume that they have worked in companies that use video.  Therefore your deployment of video is going to be par for the course and nothing new for a good portion of your employees.   Pretty logical argument, but not one that typically resonates as everyone believes that their company is different and culture is something to seriously protect.

Aren’t you already monitoring them?

Another stab at logic to dispel the concern.  The big brother concern is that you don’t trust your employees and that you are suddenly going to watch their every move.  If you trust your employees so much then you probably don’t audit your stores or have a loss prevention group.  Oh wait, you do audit your stores and you do have a loss prevention or risk group.  Huh.  Checking on your employees to make sure there aren’t any intentional or unintentional mistakes that might be costing the company money.  Sounds kind of big brother to me.  Only difference between using accounting and exception reports to conduct audits and using video is that you don’t have to guess what really happened when you use video.  Again, very logical but again not the most effective argument given how important companies view their culture.

Game Film

The strongest argument I have used to counter the big brother fear is to make a sports analogy.  The way I think about the value is very analogous to how sports teams use video. All football, basketball, and other team sports rely heavily on video to improve their team’s performance. Despite having set plays (standard processes), a quarterback and coaches that are involved in the action (managers and area managers), and plenty of people watching and/or impacting the performance (on-site management, rest of the employees, customers, etc.) these teams religiously use video to examine each game to understand how they performed and how they can learn from their performance to do better next time. In the heat of the moment, even the best quarterback or coach can’t know exactly what is happening in every aspect of the action. They use video to break down successful and unsuccessful plays so that they can figure out what worked and what didn’t and then review it with their players so that everyone can benefit.  This is what good companies do with video, and this can be part of a strong, trusting culture.  This is an argument that has had more impact because it offers an explanation and not an excuse for deploying video.

My final comment on the subject is usually this  - If you are concerned about your employees perceiving your video solution as Big Brother, don’t use it that way.

Image via Wikipedia

The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter used the phrase “creative destruction,” to describe a process in which the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by new ways. In his view, this was part of a cycle of economies going through growth and recession.

We’re not technically in a recession until there have been two consecutive quarters of negative growth of real GDP or economic growth. But 70% of the US economy is consumer spending and consumer spending is growing extremely slowly. Discretionary spending seems to be what’s really taking the toll right now as noted by this article in Business Week. Yet some of the less exciting staples of the economy are actually humming along such as food and fuel.

What about security? IMS reports a slowdown in growth of network video to 30% for 2008, down from 42% last year. 30% growth doesn’t sound all that bad to me. Now that’s just for network video growth, which they note is less than 20% of the overall video surveillance market. Hybrid video systems (that is, video systems that support IP network video and analog video) would seem to be positioned well either way the market moves over the next year or so.

There are a few takes on how the reduced growth in the economy will affect the broader video and security market from some video/security bloggers. John Honovich claims that there are too many IP Video Surveillance Software suppliers that are either not supplying value or are not differentiated. There sure are a lot of them and it does seem like that there will be consolidation or a reduction in the number of IP Video Software suppliers.

Steve Hunt blogged an insightful article recently on the same topic but with a different twist. His main point is that if you supply value, you’ll survive. To supply value however, you have to stay close to your customers.

I’d say the software (and service) suppliers that provide real value to their customers will survive if they can control their costs and connect with their customers. Perhaps some creative destruction will occur along the way video as innovative entrepreneurs create new ways to deliver increased value to customers. Those who aren’t producing value to the end customer however might want to read, “Change or Die”, available now at Amazon.com!