Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Where Traffic Tracking is Concerned, Can We Trust Anyone But Google To Do No Evil?

After reading this recent article on TechCrunch which asks How Does Compete Get Its Web Traffic Data?, which followed Jason Calcanis’ rant on “Why We Should Boycott Comscore”, and after noticing that my Alexa, Ranking, and Traffic Estimate Rankings bounce up and down on the string of a yo-yo despite the fact that my traffic has been non-decreasing since day one (as it’s always holding steady if not steadily increasing), I’m starting to wonder. (Quantcast is still pretty good, though sometimes it seems that it’s gone from reporting over 60% to missing slightly over 60%*, but that’s about it.)

What do you think? Is there anyone we can trust anymore, or is the new model of business e-bribes? And can we even trust Google?

 

 

* This could be as much my choice of blogging platform and the fact that where I have to embed the tracking code in the page compared to where they recommend you embed the code to maximize traffic capture and minimize the chance of cashing, as caching poses a problem as well as browsers that disable or block certain types of scripts.

 

Supply Chain Social Networks: Getting Better, But Are They Compounding the Problem?

About a year ago, in Supply Chain Social Networks: Useful Resource or Productivity Killer, I reviewed the new kids on the supply chain social network block, “SCM Professionals” and iProcurement.org, in my effort to determine whether they offer supply management professionals benefits above and beyond regular social networking.

I noted that they had blog, news headline, and presentation sharing capabilities — which are useful if the blog posts, presentations, and news articles contain useful information, as well as the ability to form groups, but that they also had all of the banes of time-wasting social networking sites, such as latest activity tracker, comment walls, and photo free-for-alls.

Checking them out again, I see that iProcurement.org has added a Jobs section, improved discussion forums, created an on-line book store, developed a better events calendar, gained more members, and launched a cleaner look. SCMP has transformed their video section into the beginnings of an online training portal, also added a Jobs section, improved their event calendar, and integrated with Google Docs. Since then, Kinaxis has created the “Supply Chain Expert Community” with similar capabilities and Inovis has launched the private “Inovis Social Network” for trading partners to keep in touch. This, of course, is in addition to the communities on Linked-In, Plaxo, and Xing (with Linked-In alone having over 300 supply chain groups).

So they are getting better, and offering some value to select groups of people, but when you look at the big picture, I think they might be reducing productivity instead of increasing it. There’s so many networks with so many groups, forums, and blogs that you could literally spend all day scouring them for useful information and still not find anything. If I had to log in to 60 groups and forums across 6 social networks every day to try and keep up with what’s going on, I don’t think I’d get anything done at all! And while many of the networks allow you to create e-mail digest summaries from the groups, this just compounds the e-mail box clutter problem that we’ve been tackling for years.

Long story short, I think a well designed knowledge network can be a boon to supply chain professionals, but only if its A well designed knowledge network. One network with links to all of the groups, forums, blogs, and communities a professional needs. In other words, instead of dozens of vendors, organizations, and groups creating their own little, separate, communities, they need to adopt the predominant business social network (which right now is Linked-In) and build on it. And if the network doesn’t have everything they need, they should focus their development resources on helping the network create what they need.

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Purchasing Magazine should hire Geraint John as Editor-in-Chief

Rather than rant about yet another article from Purchasing.com that had me foaming at the mouth, I thought that, for a change, I’d offer Purchasing some constructive feedback and free advice. Hire Geraint John as Editor-in-Chief. For the past few years, I had tremendous respect for two supply management publications that consistently delivered high quality supply management content month-in and month-out. One is the Supply Chain Management Review, which has Robert Rudzki as one of its lead bloggers. The other is CPO Agenda, at which Geraint was Editor-in-Chief until May 2009.

To be honest, I used to think that Purchasing was a good magazine. But then again, 5 years ago, Doug Smock, who co-wrote the book (Straight to the Bottom Line), used to be the Editor-in-Chief. And ever since he left, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been a slow and steady decline for Purchasing Magazine. We’ve gone from creme brulee telling us “What Supply Chain Management Is” and that we need to “Think Like a CPO” to gruel that tells us that “spend analysis is good, but expensive” and that “it is good to be a tweeting Twit”. Sure you can live on gruel, but after eating creme brulee, do you really want to?

That’s why I’m recommending Geraint John for Editor in Chief. He did great work at CPO Agenda, has what it takes to return Purchasing to the glory days they experienced back when Doug Smock was in charge, and, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t attached to any publications. If Purchasing really wants to reach Purchasing 3.0, they’re going to need someone like him running the show. They might have good editors, but, as we’ve seen, good editors only make a great publication under great leadership. Time to bring some back. (Otherwise, I would bet that Purchasing can continue to kiss its web-traffic goodbye, as I predict that such traffic will continue to migrate to blogs like Metal Miner, Transformation Leadership, Supply Chain Matters, and Sourcing Innovation as long as Purchasing maintains the status quo.)

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are solely the opinions of the doctor. Furthermore, Geraint John had no prior knowledge of this post or the doctor‘s opinions.

Is it Time to Certify?

Let’s be honest. Many certifications in many professions are nothing but bunk and not worth the paper they’re printed on. They exist for the sole purpose of helping the organization or private enterprise that offers them a quick buck for little or no effort. (This is especially true in the technology profession where many of the technologies you can get certified in are bunk to begin with.)

But some of the certifications, especially those offered by reputable organizations or enterprises, are not that bad … and some of them can considerably fatten your pay check. Consider recent findings from both Next Level Purchasing (NLP) and Purchasing Magazine that found that those who possess the SPSM (from NLP) or the CPSM (from the ISM) can earn up to 14% more annually than their peers. In addition, if you’re out of work, it might even considerably shorten your job search. As noted in this recent Certification Update article on Supply & Demand Chain Executive, a recent random sampling of over 100 purchasing manager jobs posted on Monster.com revealed that 20% of those jobs listed certification as a mandatory or desirable qualification. When you consider that only about 10% of professionals in the workforce possess a certification, which also includes the expired APP, CPP, and CPM in addition to the CSCP, SCMP, PPP, SPC, and a few others, a certification does help you stand out from the crowd.

And when you consider that some certifications, like the SPSM can be obtained for as little as $1149, and, if you’re out of work, completed in a few weeks, maybe it’s time to bite the bullet. After all, if it gets you a job faster, and helps you earn as much as 12K more than you might have otherwise, you might as well bite the bullet and get it.

(To be brutally honest, if you aren’t able to earn the basic SPSM, you probably shouldn’t be in Supply Management anyway. It’s not that hard. And if you really want to excel at your job, even the SPSM2 isn’t enough. You’ll need custom courses from industry leaders like Greybeard Advisors or the MPower Group.)

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Nailing that Supply Management Interview

A recent article over on Supply Chain Brain indicated that a hiring manager should be rethinking the way she interviews a candidate for a position in supply chain management. As part of this rethinking, the article outlined eight key indicators designed to illuminate your level of management expertise and likelihood of success. The indicators are dead-on. Thus, if you can demonstrate that you satisfy the indicators, you should be more than able to nail the supply management interview. So how do you do this? Keep an ABLE MIND.

1. Accept the Unknown

You don’t know everything, and you won’t know the answer to every question a good interviewer will ask. Be prepared to admit that you “don’t know”. In addition, be sure to indicate your willingness to learn. If the interviewer asks you how you’d apply a given aspect of the PMM that you’re unfamiliar with, say “I’m not familiar with that aspect of the PMM, but I’d be glad to research the issue on my own time”. If the interviewer asks how you’d handle a dip in a supplier performance metric with an unknown supplier, and you’re unsure, feel free to say “I don’t know, but I think I’d start with asking my more experienced colleagues how they’ve handled similar situations and what they think I should do. Then I’d try to get more data to make an informed decision.”

2. Be Quantitative as well as Qualitative in Your Approach

As the article points out, Quantitative mangers are much more likely to be effective in managing complex supply chain challenges down the road. So talk about how you reduced sourcing cycle time, or increased the number of perfect orders by 5%, or reduced average inventory holding time by 7 days at your last job.

3. Listen Well

Good managers know that candidates who are keen listeners are better equipped to deal with the interpersonal challenges that might arise in an organization than those who aren’t. Be sure to listen carefully to questions and to ask your own and listen carefully to the response, asking for clarification where you’re fuzzy.

4. Exhibit Problem Solving Skills

Let’s face it, today’s complex supply chains are full of challenges, and it will be your job to solve many of them. Address specific challenges you tackled at your last job and how you solved them in a methodical manner and ask what types of challenges the organization currently faces. Then be prepared to think on the spot and indicate how you’d address them when asked.

5. Measure Up

Know your strengths and your weaknesses, be willing to admit to both, and be ready to address how you intend on addressing those weaknesses that could impact your job performance.

6. Inquire Appropriately

Don’t just ask about salary, working hours, and company perks. Ask about the relative breakdown in the different tasks you’ll be asked to do, what challenges you’ll be facing, and what the organization is looking for (so you can best demonstrate what you can bring to the table).

7. Negotiate the Interview

Not only should you go with the flow, because a good interview doesn’t follow a rigid question and answer structure, but you should be prepared to take the lead at times to ensure a good back-and-forth exchange of information, ideas, and insight. That’s the key to standing out and being remembered.

8. Deal with Criticism Well

In a large, active organization, you’re probably going to be criticized regularly by individuals with different points of view. If you can’t handle it well in an interview, the interviewer is going to take it as a sign that you could become an obstructive force in an interview. Be sure to stay calm and acknowledge each point that the interviewer makes fairly.

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