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My friends at Center for Great Management are putting together a virtual seminar by Dan Heath (co-author of “Made to Stick”) on August 28, 2008

The book was a fascinating read and I am sure the seminar will be equally exciting. Here is the link to more information about the seminar:

Dan Heath Seminar: Creating High-Impact Ideas That Work

Have a great week ahead!

Sheila Marcelo is the Founder and CEO of Care.com, an online service for families to find trustworthy options for child care, senior care, pet care, tutoring and housekeeping. Prior to this, as an entrepreneur, Sheila has worked as an executive at several successful for-profit start-ups with a social mission: Upromise.com, an online service helping families save money for college, and TheLadders.com, an online job search website for executives.

Care.com aims to provide families with a trustworthy resource to address their care needs. Evolving past the traditional concept of a service directory, Sheila started Care.com to provide families with a more efficient way to find local care providers. In this discussion, we talk about entrepreneurship and addressing the needs of families.

RS: Sheila, this is your third startup. What lessons from your previous startups are you bringing to this startup?

SM: Having worked in a start-up environment for several years prior to launching Care.com, I was aware of the deep personal investment that comes with starting your own company.  It’s like raising a child in its own way.

From my past experiences, I know how important it is for a company in our position to stay focused on what our goal is.  For Care.com, and many companies out there, it’s easy to get sidetracked by any number of great opportunities that come along.  I would much rather us be a leader in the areas that we focus on by providing the highest-quality service, rather than spread ourselves thin by pursuing every opportunity or partnership that comes our way.

Another key lesson that I have carried with me from my past experiences is the need to hire and work with a very talented team.  We have a great group at Care.com, and I’m thrilled to have a team so committed to pursuing the company’s mission of helping families.  The important thing to remember is that with a start-up, strategies can change at a moment’s notice.  It is important to have a team that can adapt and switch gears when needed, but maintain the passion and enthusiasm for what the company is building.

RS: What motivated you to start Care.com?

SM: I was motivated to start Care.com based on the challenges I faced in my own life in trying to find quality care providers.  With my husband and I both working, it’s always a juggling act raising our two sons and caring for our two dogs.  Several years ago, in the midst of managing a career and raising my children, my father needed quadruple bypass surgery.  Living in another state, it was a struggle to find adequate care for him – and the experience made me more aware that many families out there are without options for finding adequate care.  You may have a trusted nanny or a regular pet sitter, but if their personal circumstances change or if they suddenly fall ill, it can be a struggle to find help in a moment’s notice.

RS: When you decided to launch Care.com, there were already a number of service directories. What was your game plan to play in the crowded space?

SM: Actually, I think there were certainly a lot of niche players when we entered the family services space, but Care.com is unique in that we are addressing the lifecycle of care needs under one umbrella.  Many services like senior care can be very localized – so it’s often times difficult for an out-of-state family member to know who the trusted resources are in another area.

I think we also differentiate ourselves from a typical service directory by creating a greater degree of efficiency and safety to the process of finding a caregiver. A typical online classified may do a great job of providing a place to find local babysitters, but you still need to click through individual profiles to find the right fit.  If you are a mom looking for a babysitter with infant experience who is available on select afternoons – it can be challenging to find someone who fits the bill.  We tailored our search metrics to be very specific, allowing families to find providers in their area who fit the criteria that they designate.

Additionally, Care.com offers safety features like free background checks and recorded reference interviews to provide families with a greater degree of confidence when hiring a caregiver.  It is still important to interview candidates and make sure that someone is the right fit for your needs, but by having Care.com address items like background checks and references, it ensures that important steps are not overlooked.

RS: What is the “litmus test” if any to see if the idea is worth executing on?

SM: First and foremost, I think it’s important to be invested in the idea that you are trying to get off the ground.  With Care.com, I had a very personal connection to the services based on some of my own experiences trying to find caregivers for my sons, our family’s dogs and my father. Beyond that, it was fulfilling for me to create a company that addressed a social mission.

It is really important to solicit as much feedback in the early stages – whether that’s talking to friends and family or tapping your intended consumers for input.  It is important to get a thorough read on how viable your idea is, and then beyond that it becomes important to evaluate the scope and scalability of a concept.

RS: What is your advice for “would be” entrepreneurs?

SM: There are definitely a lot of great aspects to being an entrepreneur.  For me, the realization that we are creating from the ground up at Care.com is really exciting.  It always amazes me to look out and see how much we have grown this company even in a short period of time.

At the same time, it requires a lot of work and personal investment to succeed at being an entrepreneur.  Probably the single best piece of advice I can give is to develop a network of professional mentors and former colleagues that you can rely on for advice and guidance throughout the process.  I have a number of people in my life who have provided me with a great deal of advice, guidance and support along the way.  Beyond that, drink a lot of coffee!

RS: Lastly, what can you share about your future plans for Care.com?

SM: We just recently celebrated our one-year anniversary since the site’s nationwide launch – and it has been exciting to see how much Care.com has evolved in that time.  We are continuing to expand our reach nationwide, especially in our services outside of child care.  In addition, we are continuing to actively listen to feedback from our customers to figure out areas of improvement as well as opportunity.

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one.This one is from AnnaMaria Turano

AnnaMaria Turano is co-author of the book STOPWATCH MARKETING: Take Charge of the Time When Your Customer Decides to Buy (forthcoming from Portfolio in January 2008) and an Executive Director at Marketing Consulting Associates (www.mcaworks.com), a strategic marketing consulting firm based in Westport, Connecticut. Their clients have included MasterCard, Verizon, Gillette, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Goodyear, Payless ShoeSource, and many other major companies.

AnnaMaria’s Quought:

“Who (not just what) do you want to be when you grow up?”

AnnaMaria’s reason for her choice of that Quought

This question addresses what a child wants to be thought of as an adult - including the unique personality traits and types of relationships/friendships.  This question asks a child to describe their desired emotional success which should build on the typical “what do you want to be when you grow up” question which parents/teachers/friends ask a child to help them define their desired career/financial success.

More about AnnaMaria

1. Blog: http://www.stopwatchmarketing.com/blog/

2. Book: http://stopwatchmarketing.com/

3. Consultancy: http://mcaworks.com/

Michael Kanazawa and I met almost a year ago at the 800-CEO-Read Pow Wow event in Chicago, a gathering of authors and thought leaders in business and leadership. I joined Mike for his launch party of his new book BIG Ideas to BIG Results in April of this year and more recently had a chance to catch up and talk about his work.

Michael is a leading authority on the topics of corporate transformation and strategy execution. He serves as chief executive of Dissero Partners, a consulting firm focused on helping companies more quickly and predictably turn their BIG Ideas into BIG Results. He has worked with numerous high growth companies and global corporations including AT&T, Anadigics, Intel, PG&E, Schlumberger and Symantec. He has been quoted and featured in major media, including Fox Business News, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He also blogs at www.bigideastobigresults.com.

ChangeThis.com recently published his manifesto titled, “People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them.” It has created a good buzz and I wanted to ask him a few more questions about it.

Here is our discussion…

RS: Why do so many leaders find it difficult to lead change and transformations in their organizations?

MK: First, many of us are promoted into management and leadership jobs with no experience or knowledge of how to effectively lead major change efforts. We don’t learn these skills through school or in most leadership development programs at corporations. And with an overall success rate of change programs at 33%, based on over 40 studies on effectiveness, chances are we’ve all lived through a lot more botched efforts than successful ones in our careers. Many people go into these efforts underestimating the time and care required to get it right.

RS: I’ve heard you talk about doing “more on less.” Can you explain more about that and how it relates to driving change and success?

MK: In many organizations there is little time for strategic thinking, prioritization of work or thinking through effective resource allocation. Every group is running fast against their own goals and often out of alignment with other divisions. Organizations end up in tactical overload. As resources get spread thin or cost cutting is done, leaders fall back on the old rallying cry, “we just need to do more with less!” In the end, these organizations get stuck in gridlock and progress comes to a grinding halt.

One of the big impediments to change is that people are so overloaded with firefighting on a daily basis that they can’t get out in front of things to do fire prevention work or to create strategic change. Shifting your mindset to doing “more on less” can help you and your team to get your work under control and deliver results more quickly on the few initiatives with the greatest business impact.

RS: For an IT leader, what is the best way to help the company change to adopt a new technology solution?

MK: First, if the IT department is implementing technology projects that are not clearly focused on delivering on the top strategic goals of the business, this is tough. Often IT and other departments are working to implement against their own priorities. In companies with weak strategic alignment, departments end up working at odds with each other. In this case, IT leaders need to work with the senior executive team to generate proper alignment between operations and technology goals.

Now, assuming that the company is aligned to a single focus, then the challenge is in engaging end-users to build their ownership and accountability from the beginning. Generating a high-engagement approach to needs assessments, user requirements documents and prototype testing can be a key to success up front.

RS: I know you have said that people should eliminate “buy-in” as a step in change management processes. Can you explain that further?

MK: Many companies put a “buy-in” step between a planning and execution phase. It is viewed as the trigger to get the troops involved in the effort. The problem with this approach is that it is typically too little, too late, to have a real impact on ownership and accountability. People do not like to have change inflicted on them and have no input to things that will impact their daily lives.

As I explain in the eBook, “People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying To Change Them,” we need to eliminate the concept of “buy-in” as a late step in a change effort. The best way to ensure that people will be ready to implement a change is to engage them in the process of planning the things that will impact them. Clearly there are times when this can’t happen, like when acquisitions of public companies are happening, but those are exceptions to the rule.

RS: Is there one manager you remember working for who left a lasting impression on how you do things today?

MK: Michael Jimenez was my first boss as I left college and went to work for a financial services company as a credit manager (trainee). I went to him with my first loan package and was waiting to fill out the “Approved or Not-Approved” field on the form. He looked at it and said, “fill in your answer first and then we’ll talk about your decision.” I had questions and wanted to get his input to help make the decision, but he sent me back to make my own decision. I filled in “Approved” and he started asking me questions about why that was my decision and did I look at various analyses in making the decision. I had missed a couple and went back to do those. I came back and stood by my decision with him. He said, “Yeah, that looks right. Good decision.” That made my day. My confidence went way up and I was learning how to exercise judgment and having to live by my decisions.

There were other loans where I didn’t make the right call, but he never told me to change my answer. He would simply ask questions until I stumbled upon the same data or perspective that he was looking at and could true up my decision. He had me engaged and taking ownership of the decisions from day one. I was engaged and accountable. If he just had me filling out forms and stacking paperwork for him to make decisions on, the way other branch managers treated trainees, my experience would have been totally different. That was a great lesson.

Again, you can find out more about Michael at:

1. Company: www.disseropartners.com

2. Book: www.bigideastobigresults.com

3. Manifesto: People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one.This one is from David Meerman Scott

David Meerman Scott (born March 25, 1961) is an online thought leadership and viral marketing strategist and the author of three books on marketing. Based in Boston, he is a speaker at conferences and corporate events and runs seminars about marketing around the world.

Scott’s ideology “the new rules of marketing & PR” is that marketing and public relations is vastly different on the Web than in mainstream media. He says that the “old rules” of mainstream media (which he asserts do not work on the Web) are about “controlling a message” and the only ways to get the message into the public domain using mainstream media is to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write about you. He says that the rules of marketing and PR on the Web are completely different. Instead of buying or begging your way in, Scott says anybody can “publish their way in” using the tools of social media such as, blogs, podcasts, online news releases, online video, viral marketing, and online media

“How will you create a career that will make you happy?”

When I was young, people talked about work and happiness as two separate things. You worked and that brought in money which you could then use for happiness. But then when I got into the work world I noticed a few people who were very happy AT WORK. How could that be? As I probed, I found out they made a career that made them happy. I’m fortunate that my work now provides happiness for me. I’m glad I found it and I wish someone had asked me about it much earlier. (I have already asked this question of my 14 year old daughter… several times!)

1. Website: www.davidmeermanscott.com

2. Blog - www.webinknow.com

Companies say this in many different ways. One simple way is to state the accomplishments of the company as a whole and make it look like you were (or are) a major part of the past (or future) accomplishments.

A quick example. Take a look at a career advertisement on a bill board for Yahoo!. The bill board says

1 out of every 2 people online
WILL LIVE YOUR CODE

One can take this literally and be in the fantasy world that 1 out of 2 people online are REALLY living their code. I hope nobody does that. Probably Yahoo! knows that too.

My point:

I think it is a given that you should be proud of working for the company you are working for. Otherwise, why work there?

What really matters is - “Is the company you are working for proud that you are working for them?”

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one.This one is from Dr. Delaney Kirk

Delaney J. Kirk, Ph.D., SPHR is currently a Visiting Professor of Management at the University of South Florida-Sarasota.  Previously she taught for 18 years at Drake University.  She has conducted teaching workshops at Columbia University, Duke University, University of Washington, Graceland University, University of Nebraska, and the University of Akron, in addition to numerous academic conferences.  She was the featured expert for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s online chat on classroom management, and has earned the prestigious Drake University Board of Governor’s “Excellence in Teaching” Award.  Her book, Taking Back the Classroom:  Tips for the College Professor on Becoming a More Effective Teacher (Tiberius Publications, 2005) is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.  She answers questions on teaching and classroom management at www.delaneykirk.com

Delaney’s Quought

“What are you doing to enjoy this day?”

The reason for Delaney’s choice of that Quought

In the book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert gives examples of how we spend our lives doing things we think will make us happy in the future instead of living in the present.  I find myself obsessed with my “to do” lists with little time to go for a walk in the sunshine or spend time with friends.  So my question to my younger self would be, “What are you doing to enjoy this day?”

Delaney’s Recommended Links:

1. Patti Digh who vows that, ” In 2008, let’s show up like magic for someone every day. That could mean showing up in a funny hat, a phone call, a small gift, a handmade card, playing Candyland with children instead of checking email, the lighting of a candle in someone’s name and holding them in your thoughts, a sweet letter, a thoughtful note, a reaching out…Show up like magic in your own life. What would that look like for you?

2. Donna B. Miller who developed this artwork to share with others: “Every day is Day 1.  Every single, stinkin’ day.  Each one.  Today. Tomorrow. The next day.  Not as punishment or failure, but as gift.”

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one.This one is from Stephen Hopson

Stephen is a former award-winning Wall Street stockbroker turned motivational speaker, popular blogger, author and the first deaf pilot in the history of aviation to earn an instrument rating.   His speciality as a speaker is teaching people how to turn adversity into success and achieve the impossible.

Stephen’s Quought

“Why do you think you were born deaf?”

The reason for Stephen’s choice of that Quought

The reason why I wish I was asked this question is because it would have helped me understand at a very early age that we are all born the way we are for a spiritual and divine reason.  Being asked that question would have led me to realize what my purpose was at an early age. It might have led me to accept my hearing disability at a much earlier age.

More about Stephen:

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one.This one is from Dr. Nick Morgan

Dr. Nick Morgan is one of America’s top communication and speech coaches. A passionate teacher, he is committed to helping people find clarity in their thinking and ideas – and then delivering them with panache.  He has been commissioned by Fortune 50 companies to write for many CEOs and presidents.  He has coached people to give Congressional testimony, to appear on the Today Show, and to take on the investment community.  He has worked widely with political and educational leaders.  And he has helped design conferences and prepare keynote speeches around the world.

Nick’s Quought

What are the 3 gifts your parents have given you that will be most useful to you in your life?

More about Nick:

1. Book: Give your speech, change the world

2. Website: Public Words

Background:

This is part of the Quought for the Day - 2008 Series.

Quought = Question that provokes thought!

The question I asked thought leaders and my very smart friends is:

What is ONE question that you wish someone had asked you when you were young? And, Why?

I will be posting answers (which will be Quoughts) one by one. This one is from Sally Pera

Sally Pera is the founder and CEO of PeraConnect. PeraConnect focuses exclusively on personal career building, offering a suite of services for high-level executives and professionals. These include Personal Career Building Services and Career Building Skills Seminars, incorporating ongoing consulting, introductions and business development outreach.

Disclaimer: I am fortunate to have Sally to be a fellow Board Member in one of my portfolio companies Jiffle.

Sally’s Quought

I wish passionately that someone had asked me early on how I intended to raise my children and had required from me answers in detail.

Sally’s reason for choosing that Quought

I have no real regrets about how I managed this, and the world easily sees that my children  are pretty amazing, still I think had my levels or awareness been deeper, I might have done things a bit differently and even better !!!!

More information about Sally

Sally Pera: Pera Connect