Just finished reading “Maverick: The Success Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace” (link to Amazon). Ricardo Semler inherited Semco at a young age. He immediately set about transforming it from a traditional dictatorial corporation that docks pay for being 1 minute late and requires approval for buying a office supplies to a democratically run organization where the team hires and fires the boss.

Maverick is a recommended read that challenges every modern day notion of how to run a company. Some excerpts about Semco and Ricardo Semler:

Semco’s 3,000 employees set their own work hours and pay levels. Subordinates hire and review their supervisors. Hammocks are scattered about the grounds for afternoon naps, and employees are encouraged to spend Monday morning at the beach if they spent Saturday afternoon at the office. There are no organization charts, no five-year plans, no corporate values statement, no dress code, and no written rules or policy statements beyond a brief “Survival Manual,” in comic-book form, that introduces new hires to Semco’s unusual ways. The employees elect the corporate leadership and initiate most of Semco’s moves into new businesses and out of old ones. Of the 3,000 votes at the company, Ricardo Semler has just one.

via Christian Sarkar

“30% of people’s time is spent trying to understand why people make more than they do, how come people came late, why weren’t you at the meeting, can you do this by Wed 6 o’clock….and it’s all very silly.”

“This is just too much work. What do you want me to do? I’ll just do my 9-to-5 thing…I’ll learn how to survive in this environment.”

via YouTube

Not too long ago we hired a “business development” guy (I’ll have another post on why hiring a biz dev person is a bad idea in a small company) to help grow in to channels that we had not explored before. His stated value to us was in his relationships, how he could make deals happen and had done it before with company x and y. The result was a year of being stretched thin, creating proposals, getting on conference calls, traveling with very little in return.

Why was it a disaster for us? Simple, not being focused and stretching resources thin.

We juggled over 30 prospective deals ranging from OEM bundles, retail to service related products with businesses as diverse as video game manufacturers to international publishers. Every one of these took one hundred man hours between emails, phone calls, conference calls, travel and proposals. Almost none materialized because of lack of focus. There wasn’t a strong connection to what our core value was, how our customers buy and the proposed arrangement.

There are always new possible deals that you can add or new markets that you can go in to. This can easily create diaster. It is best to be #1 in your niche. Understand the psychology of how your customers buy. After success in your niche you can then expand WITH MORE RESOURCES in to related products and services.

How to Take your Start-Up to the Next Level from Carsonified on Vimeo.

If you sell to large companies you will quickly realize how politics play a factor in the success of your sale. In our business we generally talk to PMs (product managers) and division heads. Rarely they can push you through and close a deal with their sign off only. In a smaller manufacturer this may fly…but the larger the company, the more divisions you need to please.

Marketing teams, testing, VPs and lawyers all need to sign-off. This is why creating an inside champion for your product is important

How can you help them help you?

Product managers and directors propose an add-on or addition to their products are generally met with skepticism and general grilling. “Why should we add this?” Properly training your champion on your pluses will help to deliver the sale.

First, does the product work properly? Get all of your ducks in a row for the big opportunity. A team of engineers will test for any errors. These days multi-lingual support is important. Make sure that translations have been done properly.

Second, who are you? Big companies want to trust that you will be around, that you won’t make them look bad and won’t cause any lawsuits. In the tech field Professional Liability / Errors & Omissions insurance goes a long way. A strong indemnity clause in the agreement is a given, expect this. A similar successful deal with another large OEM will offer a huge boost in the confidence of working with your company.

Third, help me sell you! Provide a pitch deck for your product or company. Provide a competitive chart, what is your place in the market? What awards have you won?

Nailing these questions will give you a leg up on the competition. Good luck, these deals can be a boon for your company!

Meeting in Person 10x > Phone 1x > IM 0.5x > Email 0.25x

Head swaps are needed for a variety of reasons. Generally this type of invasive procedure is needed when the hard drive clicks or a drive motor is stuck or burnt.

IT IS NOT EASY AND AN INEXPERIENCED TECHNICIAN CAN COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR DATA IF THEY ARE NOT VERY CAREFUL.

Head swaps are difficult for a variety of reasons:

• The work must be performed in a cleanroom environment.
• Knowing how to find a matching head is an art.
• Developing custom head removal tools.
• Some heads have amplifiers that must match the board’s electronics.
• The heads are microscopic and delicate.
• The alignment must be precise.

Head swaps are considered the hardest aspect of data recovery due to the sensitive nature and experience needed to properly perform them. Take your time in researching who does the recovery for you as experience counts in this arena!

Been working hard on our blog lately and wanted to add in some article sharing tools. We decided to use AddThis. They make it very easy to add 286 services (at current count)!

We kept it to the most common sharing services: Twitter, Facebook, Email, Print and a new one Facebook Like. It really is as simple as adding a few lines of code to your WordPress pages.

We inserted the following code in to our Single Post page:

(NOTE: replace username=xxxxx with your actual AddThis username.)

You get this:

That is it! Adding Facebook Like is dead simple using WordPress and AddThis.

Happy to announce that our secure deletion product MediaWIPE 2.0.3.0 has passed the Windows 7 Logo program. With that we can now display a fancy Win 7 logo on our boxes, website and marketing material.

What is “Compatible With Windows 7″? Simply, passing Microsoft-designed tests to make sure the product works correctly on Windows 7. It ensures compatibility and reliability when installed.

Why do it? It helps your product stand out from the crowd. A customer knows your product has gone through extra testing to ensure it works well. Many OEM customers will only bundle if you have passed the Windows 7 Logo program.

Is it hard to get? Kind of. The testing part is easy. Microsoft makes it simple with the Windows 7 Client Software Logo Toolkit. The code signing (we used a Verisign Digital Certificate) was the hardest part. Once you get that out of the way it is as simple as signing some agreements and you are approved!