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|In: Strategy and Tactics|Last Updated:

Dear Dad,

Thanks for the e-mail. I enjoyed the joke, although I don’t really get the part about the nun and the rabbi. What you described them doing seemed out of character somehow.

Glad to hear your European trip was such a success. A German version of our new book, Selling on the ‘Net would be great, but since neither of us speaks German I’m not sure how we’d collect and analyze a bunch of German Web pages. Any ideas?

Speaking of the book, I know I promised to shamelessly promote it in my column. It just seems so crass, weaving in the title and publisher and pretending my readers really need to know it’s called Selling on the ‘Net by Herschell Gordon Lewis and Robert D. Lewis, published by National Textbook Company, for $39.95.

It would be one thing if there was any possibility of subtlety. Anyway, I’ll try.

You asked about my description of information theory a few weeks ago. I know it was a long shot. To answer your question, though … I may be, but since that’s hereditary you may not want to push the subject too far.

And besides, if it hadn’t been for the typesetting problem it would have been far clearer. Information entropy really is a great measure of complexity. Let me show you how you’d use it. You use four programs for most of your work: WordPerfect, AOL, the American Heritage Dictionary, and that CD-ROM with the world’s famous literature. WordPerfect is critical – give it a 5. AOL is important, so it gets a 3. You use the other two, but you could easily do without them, so they get 1 each. Add ’em together and you get a total of 10 points.

The formula should have been printed as:

-SUM[p(i)log(p(i))]

(You need the base 2 logarithm, so divide the regular, base 10 log by log(2) to convert it. Last time I used algebraic notation, but typesetters have a hard time with that.)

To get p(WordPerfect), divide WordPerfect’s score of 5 by the score total of 10 to get .5. Plugging all of your scores in:

-[.5*log(.5)+.3*log(.3)+.1*log(.1)+.1*log(.1)]/log(2)

which comes out to around 1.7. That’s a pretty low score – a pretty reasonable work situation. When it gets much over 2 things are getting complicated.

I know most business people avoid any statistic more complicated than a percentage, Dad, but that doesn’t have to be an absolute rule. If the best measure takes a bit more algebra, that shouldn’t be a hard barrier, should it?

Look at the formula for Return On Investment (ROI). That’s a polynomial series. A lot of people don’t understand why you put all of your costs into an artificial “Year 0” (you pretend all of your costs happen up front before you start figuring annual cash flows) but if you don’t, the polynomial could have more than one right answer. That gets hard to explain (“Well, boss, the return on investment is either 15.3% or -5.8% and we have no way to choose which one is more valid.”)

Or compound interest. You take the interest rate (plus 1) and raise it to an exponent equal to the number of years you’re compounding. People who don’t understand compound interest don’t even know if they’re losing ground to inflation, so it’s pretty important.

I know Americans take pride in being mathematically challenged, Dad. That doesn’t mean I should encourage the “Gumping of America” (GoA, to use the technical term) in my column. Ignorance may make good box office in Hollywood, but it’s a bad way to manage a business.

Okay, I’ll stop. Talk to you soon.

Love, Bob

P.S. I promise, I’ll find some way to flog Selling on the ‘Net in my column. Sigh.

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|In: Office Politics|Last Updated:

“We ought to start a mentor program,” said one of the four Jim’s reporting to me several years ago.

“Great idea,” I replied. “One question: what’s a mentor program?”

A mentor program, Jim explained, recognizes the expert-in-the-next-cubicle, providing support, prestige (or at least respect), and a role in influencing how IS deals with LAN and desktop technology and support.

“I like it,” I told him. “You’re in charge.”

At this juncture all four Jim’s (and the rest of the room too, except for the other Bob who sat sketching the meeting notes) explained that this would prevent the proposal of any more good ideas. Suggesting doesn’t automatically mean volunteering.

Eventually we found two volunteers and started the program. We won a national award for it, too. And here’s the greatest part: I got some of the credit, when all I did was pop for lunch, books, and a few trinkets. Total budget variance: 0.0113%. Non-money.

Last week’s column started a series on the interaction between IS and the end-user community. As you may remember, the column discussed three insights that form the backdrop for these interactions: (1) Visibility = Dissatisfaction; (2) You need to provide stealth end-user support; and (3) IS isn’t the expert when it comes to personal computers.

Mentor programs build on all three of these insights at the operational level. By improving “next-cube” support, fewer problems reach any manager’s radar screen. If you’re really persuasive, get your mentors to buddy-up with new users, so neophytes have someone to say, “I don’t remember what they said about this,” to without feeling embarrassed.

Mentors require a small but real support effort on the part of IS, but reduce the total time expended by IS analysts supporting end-users greatly. Let’s look at how to organize a program like this.

1. Find a compatible and enthusiastic pair of individuals to head this up. Two is a great number of people for a program like this. Two people bounce ideas off each other where one just mutters. Two load-balance where one burns out or lets the program slide. Two keep each other’s enthusiasm going.

2. Qualifications: you need party planners and social directors, not techies. Business happens over lunch and participation is voluntary. Your mentors gotta wanna. That means planning lunches that are entertaining as well as useful. (Yeah I know: making work fun isn’t in fashion this year, but I’ve never had much fashion sense.)

3. Monthly Lunch Programs: have contests with prizes, (give the group a list of obscure features and see which one knows the most) drawings for door prizes, and guest speakers (every vendor in town will drool over the chance to talk to a group like this). Ask mentors to submit “Tip ‘o the Month” ideas for your company to include in its employee newsletter, and give a special prize each month to the mentor supplying the tip.

4. Giveaways: give every mentor aftermarket books on your applications – the ones for sophisticated users, not beginners. Also give them a plaque, clock, t-shirt, sweatshirt … something that both identifies them as a mentor and that they’ll like.

5. Influence: involve mentors in product decisions, configuration defaults, training-course content … everything that directly affects the end-user community. Give them access to a test server housing new software releases as soon as each new release appears on the market. Invite them to stress-test the new releases and give them prizes for major bugs.

This isn’t a strategic program – heck, it isn’t even tactical. It just helps everyone out with their day-to-day grind, at very low cost. You may not be a hero for putting together a mentor program. The mentors will be the heroes if anyone is, and that’s as it should be.

But you’ll have done your good deed for the day.

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