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Social Media Hiring

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Growing and hiring is a great teacher. We love to share what we learn along the way  and sharing openly is in our culture. Here are some quick observations we have from our short time in actively pursuing our team development. Honestly, this list could go on for quite a while. Its not easy deciding what is maybe most helpful to share but we hope this helps out. You are always welcome to share and encouraged to comment–we would love to hear your thoughts.

1. Be You.

Get a nice avatar (real pic please!), put time into a real bio and keep current contact information. If you use multiple social networks, organize them and keep them relevant, updated, and fresh. After all, its about “us people connecting with we”–terrible syntax but the point is to keep what is human, human. In other words, we want to know you, not a brand image of you.

2. Do the Time.

A large part of any success with social media is involvement and investment of time. This is especially true if you want to use social media for recruiting or connecting. You gotta do the time and make the investment to add value to people you want to connect with.

3. Think~~>Act.

At some point, you have to connect with people you don’t know and become a part of their conversations. Think before you jump. It may be social media but ..no, wait, it is really public.

4. Get Real.

Always show the real you. This is especially true in social media today. Why would you not want people to know the real you? Don’t be afraid to be yourself–to show your real passions, emotions, and that whole range of ‘touchy-feely’ stuff. Being the authentic, unapologetic you is totally the trend and there has not been a better time to simply share. When you fully embrace your authenticity and stay true to being you no matter what, its healthier to you.

5. Small talk is not.

Social media small talk is a part of being real and being you. Share news, volunteer opportunities, your involvement in the real world. Maybe you’re not scheduled to be on “Good Morning America” but what you are doing matters–share that.

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Happy Birthday Ben!

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

A special shout-out and birthday wishes for our friend and co-founder, Ben. Happy Birthday Ben!

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The Five Practices of Leadership Growth

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Inside the places of BBC we think and talk a lot about the stuff that affects our clients and our business. Sure, we focus on our business, processes, and so forth but we get passionate in our dialogues around the stuff that matters–culture, leadership, character. Things like these matter and universally impact everything else for better or worse.

One of those topics we dialogue briskly about is leadership. In a gathering of people it seems leadership has as many definitions as there are opinions. Its one of those topics that is difficult to pin down–leadership is nebulous that way. Whenever we embark on a discussion like this, one of us always grabs the dry erase and heads to the whiteboard immediately. Definitions seems to be the natural place everyone goes. Saying what leadership is not…quick, easy, overnight, title, office, position, management, awarded, appointed, assigned, delegated, chosen, genetic, purchased, first place…the list of ‘not’s’ could seemingly go on for quite a while. Looking at what leadership is not helps us to understand better what it is.

Defining leadership is not easy–and sometimes–its just easier to observe it than define it. As we sat back and talked about how leadership actually happens in BBC culture and beyond our walls, frank and honest talk helped us to see some consistent truths emerge. Honestly, we wanted something much more actionable than carrying around a definition in our iPhone notes. These are our observations.

The Five Practices of Leadership Growth

1. Learn the value of leadership.

Leadership brings an immutable value that cannot be supplanted or surpassed by easier or less risky ways. Books can teach, field work brings the experience. The inherent value in leadership cannot be measured fully and its effect on all of us and one of the greatest ways to learn that value is in the process of ‘doing’.

2. Learn how to lead, not just learn.

Learning how to lead is as important as learning about leading. Effective leadership seemingly contains an infection and influence.

  • Infectious leadership sets a vision towards the future-state, bringing energy, focus, and motivation towards common goals. The leader infects those surrounding, taking special note to encourage peers and followership alike.
  • Influential leadership knows that influence is more effective than enforcement. Policies, procedures, and the like, has never created a sustainable movement that left a mark upon the world (perhaps government policies aside!). Influential leadership knows the art of leadership includes an appeal to emotions, the intellectual mindshare, and the focus of non-formal dialogue.

3. Have a plan for personal growth.

Leaders are learners. Effective leaders never stop learning, never stop seeking a personal growth plan to improve leadership skills. This can include many things. A few might be mentoring, conferences, books and service-oriented volunteerism.

4. Practice leadership.

Leaders are practitioners. An effective leader seeks opportunities to lead, and, to share the leading. If leading can be observed (it can) then cultivating is an important act of leadership. Encouraging leadership in those surrounding the leader improves the leadership ability of everyone.

5. Develop the Leadership Instinct.

A seasoned leader learns how to identify and act upon leadership opportunities. Instinct is not something taught but with enough experience, you don’t have to. Instinct emerges.

  • Instinctual leadership knows when the season has changed–even if only within minutes. Knowing how to plan and when to act is a part of an instinctual leader and this comes by season and experience. An instinctive leader is a great listener and trusts the inner circle of supporters that ensure the leader is leading.

We never pretend to have this stuff all figured out. We have the privilege of working with and for some of the greatest leaders we know. This is in part what we have learned. We would love to hear your comments and sharing with all of us.

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BBC is Hiring!

Monday, August 9th, 2010

With growth comes the need for great people. We are looking to grow our team and add some key positions to our growing success. If you read the last post, you kinda see some of what we look for in people (“Hiring People”). The post was to help point people at the wiring inside that drives along great results.

We are hiring immediately for a project manager with key account management skills. We are also looking for awesome developers and designers. We have details on both of these.

In the coming days we will post more details here and elsewhere. In the meantime, if you know someone or want to talk with us about this opportunity, drop us a note at info (at) bigbadcollab (dot) com.

Thanks!

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Hiring People

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Business is relationship. We truly seek relationship and rarely, “market for the business”. We get asked, “What kind of people do you look to hire?” The short answer is, “We don’t”. At first glance this might seem arrogant or overly passive. The truth is, we believe great culture attracts great talent…and great talent attracts great talent.

So, for the short list of traits we look for in relationships, please consider the following list. As always, we are as much students as we are teachers. We have not somehow mastered this but we are trying to focus on the right things consistently enough to make our journey together rewarding. We would love to hear from you and comments are always welcomed.

So here’s a short list of important qualities we admire and seek in people. Some of these we ask about directly, others we just try to distinguish from our conversation.

  • Social Media doer. Everyone says social media is important, but does the person actually consistently lead out and do it? Does she have a valuable Twitter following? Does he have experience getting tribal fans for a Facebook page? Does she have a quality blog about marketing? Did he create and execute a blog outreach campaign that actually worked? Has she ever failed miserably and demonstrated a solid learning from the experience?
  • Frugality. “You have to spend money to make money.” Hogwash–no longer true. Perhaps, “You can spend money and you might make money.”
  • Client-crazy. We love our clients. We don’t really care for the concept of who the customer should be and what the customer should want, or even the developer’s conception of which features should be useful, but what actually works in practice. To us, this means marketing is not something that is done but rather, relationships that are cultivated. We love seeing this in people.
  • Humility. Humility demonstrates restraint and character. We admire the ability to succeed, or fail, and still remain humble.
  • Domain Knowledge/Experience. This isn’t a requirement, but it sure helps. This goes pretty hand-in-hand with a willingness to learn.
  • Willingness to learn. An eagerness to learn, a willingness to quietly listen and wisely question are highly esteemed. These are characteristics that demonstrate the right mind and heart to grow.
  • Thinker. Thinking seems to be a lost art. Its rare to run into someone these days who truly thinks things through and invest time in the process of thinking. A thinker processes and truly has the gift of listening at twice the rate of speaking. A thinker demonstrates insight, cognizance, and reflection.
  • Culture cultivator. A culture cultivator seeks to contribute and not just take away. A culture cultivator seeks to understand, embrace, encourage, and support. A culture cultivator can show by their historical input the difference that their character and contribution have had upon their environment over time.

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Managing Growth in Three Easy Steps

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Growing Pains. More than a popular TV sitcom of the ’80s, its been a reality of BigBadCollab. Growing is a great thing and done right, can be an experience that pulls a company together rather than just stretching it to its seams. That said, nothing complex is possible in “three easy steps” but we are more than glad to share what we have learned. Please note I did not say mastery. We are learning just like everyone else and humble pie is a part of a balanced growth diet.

We are growing. Growth is never easy nor is it comfortable. We have always been a little baffled by companies or corporate mantra that promotes “Growth!”. Its almost like growth is the goal and everything around it is a by-product. If you have spent anytime around us, got to know our hearts and what motivates us, you would know that we are all about relationship, then business. Relationship then business. Growth in our company is not our goal, its a by-product of our growing tribe and those that have continue to trust us with their vision. So, if you are with me so far, lets run these out and see how they resonate with you. We would love to hear your thoughts or comments.

1. Communicate (communicate, communicate). This cannot be over-emphasized. Communicate within leadership, communicate within staff, communicate within clients. Communicate, not chatter. Effective communication states succinctly and builds expectations that should be understood, not implied. Its not just emails, not just voice mails. Its connecting in a meaningful way that builds bridges, dispels assumptions, and plants a path forward.

2. Don’t plan. Those smart guys over @37signals have it right. Like they taught all of us in Rework, we are not fortune-tellers. Plans truly are “guesses” (the harder one for me is ‘strategic guesses’–brilliant!). Planning removes the organic and the creative genius that is formed at the cusp of leading. Improvisation is opportunity for trust, development, and *real growth. How do you plan improvisation? In other words, grow leadership. Don’t plan on it. Do it, don’t plan it.

3. Celebrate. Create, foster, and cultivate a culture that celebrates. Celebrate the wins, celebrate the great jobs, celebrate the birthdays, celebrate plans done well. Celebrate individuals. Celebrate teams. Try to maintain a “celebrate to correct ratio of at least 4:1″. There are lots of opportunities to improve, encourage, and coach someone into being more of who they were created to be. Growing pains present these opportunities in ways that creatively give leadership those important moments of fostering vision and ownership to that vision.

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*Real growth is not head counts. Real growth is growing people, not companies. Growing people is learning to communicate, walking organically together, celebrating each other along the way…at least, that’s our definition.

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Why we built this website

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Well, we finally launched our new website. We are super excited about it and wanted to share some of the thinking behind the decisions we made around the content here. We will be adding a ton of fun features in the upcoming weeks from all our social media spaces, so watch out.

Telling your own story is a really hard one to do at times. There are so many things that we think are important about  what we do, but the goal is to share what we hope you guys think is important. As we hammered on the dry erase board for ideas, we came to a pretty solid conclusion, and one that we hope you like. We decided to share who we are. All the things that make up our culture and how we do what we do.

We have shifted our focus from things like our services and work to our blogs, opinions, favorite music and office playlist. We treat our client engagements as partnerships, explaining the “Collab” in BigBadCollab. One of the phrases we continually use to describe our role is as “Stewards of Vision”. We figure if we are asking to join in on your journey, you should get to know us a little more than just what you would read on our resumes or whatever. Who we are as a company comes from who we are priviledged to work with, the topics we study and research and the elements of our daily grind.

If we’re way off and you want us to show you all the cool stuff we’ve done, and talk awesomely about ourselves, and big league you on things that you’re lame if you don’t do, then you might not want to hang here. Otherwise, be looking for additions to this site in the future as we continue to try and expose more of who we are and what we are up to.

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Happy Birthday Mark!

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

A special shout-out to our friend and co-founder here at BBC…Happy Birthday Mark!

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Results: Open Source and The Church

Friday, March 12th, 2010

“Insight trumps ignorance.”

First off, a special thanks to all who participated in this survey. The sincerity of those that serve Him with their technological talents never ceases to leave us amazed and thankful. We sincerely appreciate all of you.

We are summarizing the results as of 9am CST. Assuming a few things, 21 of you (about 25% in attendance to Church IT Roundtable) took the survey. We will continue to leave it open for another week or so, just in case things get more insightful. Now, to the results…

How much does open source play overall in the role of your church technology?

43% of the respondents have about 50% of their deployed technology within an open source technology! That’s pretty cool…On the flip side, about 25% said they have no open source in their church.

When we asked what you typically think (as a first response or so) around open source:

About 25% of you are excited with another 25% putting customization at the top of your thoughts! About 20% of you were thinking about integration with another 20% of glad to see licensure go away…(us too!)

How important are each of these items in your decision to use open source software?

- Cost was a factor for over 75% you as “yep” or “abso-freakin-lutely hombre”. Not overly surprising there…

- Stability is important to about 60% of you. Seems  to point towards expectations around open source and some of the ‘traditional’ trade-offs.

- Support is pretty much middle of the road for almost 70%. More interesting, 25% said, “nope”. We think that is kinda insightful to the understanding of community around the use of open source. Support, like CITRT, is who you know, not what you know!

- Community: So, true to form for support, the follow-on question for community had over 90% of you saying it was at the top of the list. When BBC thinks community around #GetShadetree, we are thinking a central location for documentation, discussion, sharing/collaborating, and finding the latest patches/updates. Would you agree?

- Scalability is about middle of the road. Interestingly, about 30% said “yep”. You are concerned with growth and accomodating that growth.

- Integration baby! Yeah, over 70% ranked this at or near the top. When BBC thinks integration, we are thinking for you: church management system, websites, and financial. Integration is important. We hate silos too.

- Documentation was pretty evenly distributed across the board. This is probably a speak to community and support. Documentation is important, but more important is knowing that you can get the answers you need when you need them…

- Requirements was a funny one. Or, at least the results were straddled around “yep”(40%). 20% said “abso..” while 20% said “meh”. This is probably an understanding to a good deployment. We think if integration is sound, requirements are probably less of a focus for you. Is this correct?

- Expandability, apparently, is pretty danged important. Near 80% said it is tops. This is, in our interpretation, a need for an organic and growing road map of development around the open source solution you are using. It is the ability to not only choose *how you build off the platform, but *what you build off the platform. We could not agree more.

- Maturity is pretty much average for most of you. Again, this is probably part of the trade-off that is ‘traditional’ with open source answers. We give up some maturity in the application in exchange for other things.

- And seriously. About 45% ranked ‘free stuff’ as pretty important from open source! Ok…we will get the t-shirt press ready. We heard you. What other free stuff do you want besides the application?! =)

What aspect(s) of open source do you most/least appreciate and why?

This was interesting. Some focused on the ‘most appreciate’. Some focused on the ‘least appreciate’. Here are a response from each:

“the reason we usually avoid open source for most projects there’s little to no person at the other side of an 800 number that we can go to for immediate assistance. I’m a single IT guy supporting over 50 users, 100 machines across 4 buildings. I simply don’t have time to go hunting through support docs for solutions.”

“We are not held captive by vendors with different priorities than ours. If we need something fixed or changed, we can roll up our sleeves and get it done. It is not tied to Microsoft…”

Do you perceive potential roadblocks in your church that would keep you from using open source? If so, what are they?

This was also interesting. Check out a couple:

“Zero road blocks for using open source. Plenty of road blocks with proprietary systems/ applications.”

“We are using it extensively, so no.”

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Why Shadetree?

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

We have a pretty bold mission.  We want to be transformational and catalytic.  We want to be a part of leading change in the world. We are solving a problem and meeting a need that we care about deeply.  Wait, let us refine that a bit.  We care in the sense that if we don’t solve it daily, we go home restless.  We couldn’t let it go–we couldn’t trust it to someone else.  We weren’t satisfied with the way the problem was being solved and the solutions that other companies were offering, or intended to offer.  That’s what has driven us for going on two years with this effort.

How do you know whether or not you care about the problem you’re working on?  Here’s our litmus test in part:

1.  First, define the problem you’re solving in reasonably broad terms.
2.  Then, answer yes or no to this:  If the problem was somehow magically “solved” (to your satisfaction), but you weren’t the one that solved it, would you be fine with it?

We have always said, “If one day we wake up and learn that somehow the problem has been magically solved — even if it was by a competitor, we are fine with that.”  Honestly, we would probably be a little miffed that they had beaten us, but still OK.  As long as they really solved it.  We could have stopped toiling away the sleepless nights working on that particular problem and we would have found other problems to work on.

The concept here is:  You care enough about a problem that you don’t necessarily mind if someone else solves it.  What really frustrates us entrepreneurs is when competitors win, but they don’t actually solve the problem.

One way to explain this concept better is to look at an extreme example.  Lets say the problem you were working on was curing cancer.  Of course, you’d be passionate about finding a cure.  You’d be working hard.  It’s an important problem, and it’s not surprising that you care.  Now, imagine if you woke up one day to learn that someone else had created a cure.  You’d be glad that the problem was solved — even though it wasn’t you that solved it.  Sure, it would have been great to get the fame and glory, but that surely wouldn’t cause you to wish the other scientists/researchers/doctors ill.  Nope.  You’d wish them well.  Why?  Because fundamentally, you care about having the problem solved.

Now, if someone else ends up doing it, and winds up delivering on our mission, well, then, more power to them. We care enough about the problem that we don’t mind if someone else solves it.  That’s why we truly wish our “competitors” well.  But know, just because we wish them well doesn’t mean we’re going to make it easy for them.  After all, like you, we are entrepreneurs and as such, fair but fiercely competitive.

Summary:  When possible, work on really big problems.  They’re more fun, and it’s easier to get excited.  But, even if you’re not working on a really big problem, it’s OK, as long as you at least care enough about the problem you are solving that you don’t care who solves it.  You just want it solved.

If this appeals to where you are…please join us. We are live in April and there is plenty of problem for all of us to work on together here.

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