Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Why You Should Listen to the Great Wil Wheaton

Simply put, Evil Wil Wheaton is the best villain ever.

Now, while I’m not an English Literature major, I am a great researcher and after doing my research on what makes a great villain, and using the web to harness the wisdom of crowds (via the mighty Google), I believe I have a reasonably good understanding of what makes a great villain and why Evil Wil Wheaton, who shows up regularly on Big Bang Theory is the best villain ever.

Simply put, a good villain should be:

  • real
    Evil Wil Wheaton is a regular guy like you and me. He’s not a fictional superhero or a larger than life immortal that we know to be fictional deep down.
  • confident
    Evil Wil Wheaton know’s he’s the man.
  • unyielding
    He never lets up. Year after year he maintains his superiority over Sheldon Lee Cooper, our protagonist on the Big Bang Theory.
  • charismatic and manipulative
    Never has there been a villain more charming. With the exception of our protagonist, every one loves him.
  • self-serving
    He makes up a story about his grandmother to beat the protagonist in a card game in his first appearance.
  • enigmatic and fascinating
    You can see Evil Wil Wheaton shining through in Fawkes, the antagonist to the heroine Codex in The Guild.
  • a hero in his/her own right
    When the protagonist steals the new release of Raiders of the Lost Ark with 21 additional seconds in his third encounter, Evil Wil Wheaton organizes the lynch mob.
  • complex and deep
    You know there’s more to Evil Wil Wheaton than meets the eye.
  • attractive and seductive
    If Evil Wil Wheaton qualified for People’s sexiest man alive list, even though I have no idea what makes a man sexy, I have a suspicion he’d be there.

and, most importantly, he or she should:

  • own the hero’s backside
    When he goes head to head with the protagonist in his second appearance, it’s obvious that he just own’s the hero’s backside.

So what’s the point of all this?

Simply put, you should listen to the words of the one and only Wil Wheaton when he speaks. When he says you should spend more time back in the analog world, even if only for a few hours a day, he couldn’t be closer to the truth. Take Wil’s Word. You’ll be happier for it.

Share This on Linked In

The Three Secrets of Successful Salespeople

A recent post over on the HBR blogs on the “persuasion tactics of effective salespeople” did us all a favour by highlight the three fundamental principles, drawn from socio-, psycho-, and neuro-linguistics, that persuasive salespeople use to break down our procurement barriers. By understanding these “heavy hitters”, we can keep our guard up and be more objective in our procurement processes.

  1. They speak in our language.
    Successful salespeople understand that each customer (organization) has a unique language and they take the time to learn that language. This helps them “fit in” and leads us to believe that they must have a better solution, even if all they have is a better means to communicate with us.
  2. They talk about our problems, goals, objectives, and values.
    Whereas most salespeople will spend as much time as you will allow them talking about how great their company is, how great their product is, and how great their service is, successful salespeople talk about how important your problem is, what the best way to solve it is, and the value you will get from the right solution (which, by the way, just happens to be theirs).
  3. They converse with you as if you are a friend
    and not a sucker they are going to take for as much as they can get (even if that is their ultimate goal). They spend time forging a personal connection with you so that you will want to do business with them, regardless of how good their product or service is (which you will already believe in after all of the talk about your problems, goals, objective, and values).

So next time you start feeling too comfortable with a salesperson, step back and objectively judge the situation. What hard data did the salesperson give you? How does it compare with the competition? What level of service will you really get? And should you maybe be conducting (part of) this event through an e-Sourcing platform so you can focus on the relative value of the offerings to insure that you are only spending time in negotiations with providers who can truly solve your problem at a reasonable price point. And while a good relationship with the supplier will often be important to your success, a good relationship alone is not enough if the supplier doesn’t have the products or services you need.

It’s Not Time to Celebrate Yet — We’re Only Recognized Half the Time

A recent article in Industry Week stated that “supply chain earns a seat at the table”, but I fail to see how it’s time to celebrate when only 51% of manufacturing companies surveyed have a supply chain leader at or above the executive vice president level.

Until 9 of 10 companies have a supply chain leader at or above the executive vice president level, the celebrations need to be put on hold. Supply chain leadership is much too important to be satisfied with leadership at only half of the companies out there — and anyone who thinks that 51% is cause for celebration is missing the big picture.

Share This on Linked In

Are You Compliant with the Bribery Act?

Are you sure? If you were operating in the UK, up until April of this year, all you had to worry about was the Prevention of Corruption Acts, which haven’t changed much since 1916. And keeping compliant with those acts was pretty easy as long as your employees in the UK didn’t bribe or accept bribes, as it wasn’t until the introduction of the Anti-terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001 that extended it to cases where neither the agent’s nor the principal’s affairs had connection with the UK.

But now, with the new Bribery Act, you have to worry about all types of bribery at home or abroad. It may have taken some time, but the UK has finally caught up with the other members of the OECD and adopted many of the recommendations of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. As per the Ministry of Justice, the new act, among other things:

  • provides a more effective legal framework to combat bribery in the public or private sectors,
  • creates two general offences covering the offering, promising or giving of an advantage, and requesting, agreeing to receive or accepting of an advantage
  • creates a discrete offence of bribery of a foreign public official

and

  • creates a new offence of failure by a commercial organization to prevent a bribe being paid for or on its behalf.

That’s right, unless you have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery, if a bribe is paid for or on your behalf, you are in violation of the act and can be charged. Thus, as per this article in CPO Agenda that asks [if] your procurement policies stand up to the demands of the new Bribery Act, burying your head in the sand is not an option since a failure to prevent a bribe could be a fine that runs into millions of pounds as well as a custodial sentence. Plus, even if you are a US subsidiary, or have a US subsidiary, and are completely in compliance with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it may not be enough. For example, while both the FCPA and the UK Bribery Act prohibit the bribery of foreign public officials, the UK act also prohibits commercial bribery.

So where do you start?

The CPO Agenda article recommends starting with the internal control framework established by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, or COSO, that was set up in the 90s to provide guidance on governance, business ethics, internal control, enterprise risk management, fraud, and financial reporting. It’s a good start, but I’d also recommend bringing in an expert consultant.

Share This on Linked In

When It Comes to Global Trade …

… Singapore has it down pat! As in a recent article over on BBC Business News, not only is Singapore [the] ‘best country in which to run a business’, but you only need four documents to export and import. Compare this to the US where you need at least half a dozen forms just to start the process (Entry Summary, Customs Declaration, Customs Bond, Certificate of Origin, Bill of Lading, and Invoice.) In fact, as noted by many of the companies that specialize in automating the production and submission of global trade documents, it’s not uncommon to require twenty (20) or more documents for import and/or export!

You would think that in the modern age, where information can easily be shared between government departments over secure computer networks, we could get it down to one primary import/export form and then one supplementary form based on the product and/or HTS classification, and possibly an optional form if you are part of an optional security program (like C-TPAT), but apparently we can’t. And it’s sad. There’s no good reason for Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the UK to be better countries in which to run a business. But until we smarten up and make things simple, that’s not going to change — and that’s a bad thing in a global age where global investors can take their money to countries of minimal burden.

Share This on Linked In