Workplace Engineering

Delivered this to the Chicago Corenet Chapter, March 2009. Still needs a lot of work, but the audience was very kind.

THE DOLLARS AND SENSE OF CHANGE. from Burnett Communications on Vimeo.

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I bought the audio book and think I need to by it in print too. The whole idea of turning your business/organization/industry into a platform is incredibly compelling. Kind of wish I’d read it before starting my business.


View all my reviews.

Need somewhere new to work in North Plano? You might like to try the largest independent book store to open in Texas in a long time.

We have another local independent bookstore that we stopped going to because it ultimately wasn’t a place we liked to shop, so we were really intrigued to see whether another independent book store could deliver. Legacy Books opened yesterday and I found a place that I really want to hang out in.

They have Peets coffee for the caffeine addicts, wine and beer for the Euro web-worker (me), some great places to go read and work including a six big bench tables all in a three storey store that has a vague “Crate & Barrel for books” aesthetic. Wifi isn’t working yet, but Lorna, the manager, assured me that it will be operating in the next few days.

My favorite part though is the island cooking demonstration counter near the cafe. We packed the kids off to play with Junie B Jones in the kids section while AM and I watched a British author give a demonstration of Mexican cookery (how bizarre is that?). Best of all she sounded exactly like AM’s aunty Doris and told people off in her best English headmistress accent for talking. I nearly wet myself I was giggling so much. I half expected to be told to stand in the corner.

Best of all, the whole place is am incredible example of a great concept, thoughtfully put together with real attention to detail and executed exceedingly well. The parenting books are actually IN the children’s section, there are sculptures in the art and travel sections, you can watch and listen to the cooking demonstrations on a big screen TV among the cookery books upstairs and the web bar is next to the business books. They cap this off with friendly, attentive and surprisingly knowledgeable staff and wrap it up in a light and airy space.

I’ve not checked to see if their website is as well executed, but you can see it at www.legacybooksonline.com.

Perceived poor cost performance can be the result of a lack of understanding of the true costs with providing a service or operation, additional costs that occur as a result of managing a partnership, a genuine difference in costs or increased awareness and visibility being mistaken for an actual increase.

Very often and organization has not taken the time to fully evaluate and apportion the true costs associated with providing a service internally until the time comes to have that service or operation provided by someone else. As a result, there may be limited insight into the overhead and administrative costs associated with the service and for some organizations, internal pricing may obscure the true cost of the service itself.

Understanding the fully loaded costs of a service or operation gives real insight into the true cost structure, what savings can and cannot be expected and then provides a suitable benchmark for measuring success over time. It will also help identify where the true costs are and allow the partners to develop an effective plan to improve performance in the right places.

Remember that fully loaded costs include administrative and overhead costs in addition to the costs of providing the service itself.

I’ve been sitting in a number of educational sessions at the IFMA conference. A number of the lecturers have been talking about the coming crisis as the industry ages. I’ve just looked around the room in the one im at now and it looks like only a handful of us are under 40 and not that many more are under 50.

The main International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) conference is in Dallas for the next three days. I’m helping out by moderating a few sessions on information and communication and hosting a university tour of Capital One’s campus in Plano, TX.

If you’re in downtown Richmond, Virginia and are looking for great coffee and a place to work or hang out, Shockoe Espresso should be high on your list. I’m sat here drinking a nice strong latte, eating a bran muffin that tastes like it may actually be home-made and happily catching up before going to meet our software developers.

It’s just around the corner from the Martin Agency on Cary Street. They’ve done a great job creating multiple settings with an old tobacco warehouse vibe. There are a couple of couches in the back corners, some tables between for hanging out, a bar area wide enough to read the paper and a line of cafe tables with conveniently placed power outlets for the local web-worker.

My business partner, John, and I are in Richmond, Virginia this week with our software developers getting our new business performance management tool finished off and ready for beta. While we are using an Agile approach we all realize that we need a bit of space at times and Shockoe Espresso fits the bill nicely.