Small Business – Pleasure and Pain

Chris and I recently attended the first annual Small Business Summit (sponsored by The Globe and Mail).   There were a variety of topics ranging from financing your business to challenges of rapid growth to use of social media as well as panels on successes and mistakes that people have made along the way to building their businesses.  Going to one of these events always helps you realize that you are not alone in your pleasure (or your pain) of being part of  growing a business and the natural constraints (or exciting possibilities) that go with that.  Getting to talk to others about their business model gives you valuable insight and broadens your network as you plan for the future.  

Some of my favorite highlights were:

• The Honorable Maxime Bernier saying:  Entrepreneurship is an outlook on life that there is always something to improve.
• Christina Jennings  discussing how she decided that in order to control her life, she needed to control her job and that failure is one of the most important things that can happen to you.
• Tara Hunt’s 5 core traits of success:  being completely delusional so you can find the gaps in the world, fearlessness, audacity, adaptability, and tenacity.
• Several comments about the importance of having good people to work with and trusted advisors you rely on – what LOGiQ3 is all about
• How to tell your story…. Everyone responds to passion;  use your influencers; anecdotes rule.

Being able to attend this summit was especially meaningful to me as a recent “comer” to the Small Business world.    You do not fully appreciate or realize what being in small business means until you actually live and breathe it.    You need a certain mindset to survive and accept the highs and lows.   And, it definitely stretches your creativity and talent to the max.    If you had told me 5 years ago that I would be not only living in Canada but also working at a company of less than 20 people after 25+ years of employment with large employers, I would have laughed.   But, the rewards and personal satisfaction far outnumber the worry and the pains.   So, if you are at one of those large employers and ever have the opportunity to make a leap and join a small but growing entrepreneurial business, you’ll be welcomed by millions of us that are already in that boat.     After all, how many people do you know that leave small business to join a big company?    There must be a reason that the tide goes the other way.    For those of you that are already along for the ride, take a minute to pause and appreciate what joy you’ve received from being in a company  that is growing and where you are helping shape its future.   I’m sure it will outweigh any pain.

– Laura

Lest We Forget 11.11.11

As I sit here today I worry that we’re losing our connection to Remembrance Day.  I hate to do the “when I was a kid” thing, but I’m going to… When I was a kid it was a significant event at school and we really talked about what Remembrance Day was.  Granted it was easier as we were only a generation removed from the last great war.  However, why does being lucky enough to have the passage of time since the last world war increasing, does it mean we remember less. Shouldn’t we remember more?  The smaller the world gets, the more connected, shouldn’t we be even more grateful? 

We should, but we’re not.

I am eternally grateful for what my mother’s father, and hundreds of thousands like him did in the great wars.  My grandfather, Robert Macjanet died alone in Belgium, thousands of miles from his family and young children, whom he never had the luxury to get to know.

When we talk today about work/life balance, not enough time, too busy and generally being stressed with it all, I wonder if we have all lost a little perspective.  Are things that tough, really?  My mother never knew her father, that’s tough. I’m sure there are thousands like her, that’s sad.   

Today, when we all take that moment to pause, please really think about how lucky you are.  Life needs perspective, otherwise it’s just hard work. 

-Chris

Cheering in New York City

I just returned from New York City where my wife and two of her friends ran the New York marathon.  As I watched the event, the athletes and the city I couldn’t help but be impressed. 

First, the athletes.  It is incredible to see the diversity in people running in this marathon.  People of all shapes and sizes from all around the world sharing one goal, to run 26.2 miles that day.  It’s an incredible reminder of the strength and conviction of the human spirit.  Yes, there are some remarkable Kenyans that run the course (a time of 2:05 winning it) and seem to do so effortlessly.  However of the approximate 47,000 runners the majority is finishing in 4+ hours and this was a “life changing event” for them.  It’s a pleasant reminder of what people are capable of doing once they put their mind to something.  47,000 individual stories of why they were doing what they were doing, each deeply meaningful to them. Congratulations to all of them!

Second, the city.  It is an incredible sight to see an entire city rally behind one event and get into the celebration.  On every one of the 26 miles there are crowds of people cheering on friends, family and runners in general.  I spoke to other onlookers who were cheering and supporting just for the sake of cheering and supporting.  They didn’t know anyone running but just wanted to be involved and support those that were out. 

It was inspiring to see how a city can create an environment which allows people from around the world to change their lives.  I only wish my home town of Toronto could be as supportive of similar events.

– Chris

LOGiQ3 Partners with the ‘Original’ MIB… (not those alien hunting government agents)

So far we have kept the blog away from specific client news or announcements, the simple reason that many of our clients are ‘shy’ and prefer to use our services anonymously.  We completely understand the rationale behind that, often driven by the layers of red-tape to get approval.  This means it’s nice when, like today, we’re able to make an exception and tell the world about an exciting new client and project that we’re involved in.

As of October 1^st we’re working with MIB, the North American underwriting information and analysis provider.  We will be performing all the MIB underwriting reviews for MIB’s Canadian clients, which accounts for around 80 different entities in Canada.  This is a great example of a respected organization, like MIB, taking advantage of our expertise in a long-term, outsourced contract.  We will be looking to ensure that all Canadian users of the MIB service are getting the most from the service and are using it correctly.

So if you’re in a Canadian organization in world of underwriting you may well hear from Carmela Tedesco or one of her team over the coming months to arrange a review for you.

We’re really excited about this project as we think it further enhances our risk management credentials and will deliver real value to MIB and its clients.

In 2012 we are going to be updating our website, a task which is long overdue. 

As part of the revamp we’re going to be asking all our recent clients to allow us to have just their logo on our website, no other details about what we’ve done or when. 

The main driver for having this on the website is that potential new clients always ask who we’ve done work for in the past.  Few people want to be the ‘guinea pig’ who we try out something new on! Fortunately we’ve found some guinea pigs over the years and we’re extremely grateful to them for taking leaps of faith in years gone by.  Thankfully we’re beyond the need for guinea pigs these days.

So there you are, we’ve a new client, MIB, and we’re going to have a new website in 2012. 

If you do have any suggestions for what you’d like us to include on the website please do get in touch through info@logiq3.com. We know that you’ll likely have better ideas than we have!!

Cheers

Simon

 

The Failure of Success

As we’re a learning organization, we all like to attend presentations, seminars both in the real world and online. I was recently fortunate enough to attend a presentation given by Professor Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School on ‘Strategic and Management Innovation’(http://faculty.london.edu/JBirkinshaw/) .  One of which the themes was what he termed the ‘failure of success’  where former giants of industries failed to see the writing on the wall about their demise. The end result being that either their dominance in an industry was greatly reduced or they completely disappeared as a business, often swallowed up by a growing competitor. 

Several common factors emerged from organizations which suffered the failure of success. Firstly a ‘blinkered’ view on the fundamental metrics of an organizations, the example of the electronics giant Phillips was used, where despite multiple comparative measures between themselves and the competition showing that they were losing ground they managed to justify that these weren’t really competing with them and so could ignore the data. As a result Phillips ran close to bankruptcy.

A second theme was that of arrogance toward a new entrant, using Harley Davidson’s response to Honda in the 1960s, when they perceived them as an inferior product but when they started to gain momentum they were then ‘lucky’ when their Honda 50cc sales took off. A final theme was complacency which leads an organization to believe that due to their successful history, and potentially deep pockets as a result of the past successes,  there is no need to change what they’re doing, a recent example being Blockbuster being blindsided by start-ups such as Netflix who reinvented the movie rental business using DVD’s through the mail, right under the noses of the mighty Blockbuster, who is now desperately trying to catch-up and compete in the emerging digital streaming market.

So what does this mean to our, or your, business? Professor Birkinshaw had a few suggestions for ‘red flags’ which indicate that trouble could be coming. These covered a range of areas including: sales, customers, staff, products, financial and leadership. We’ll look briefly at each of them.  The concerns in sales could be that your volumes are dropping or that your product ‘mix’ is changing and you could find yourself being dependent upon just a couple of key products.

With customers, you can look at your ratio of new to existing customers. Are you winning new customers or just relying on existing ones, in  which case are you losing out to a competitor? Every organization will have a core of loyal customers which drive much of the revenue but the ability to attract new customers is a clear sign that what you’re offering is still relevant to the market.

On the employees side, how is your staff turnover? Are you seeing key people leaving the organization? If so why are they leaving and where are they going? If key people are leaving but your annual staff survey keeps coming back that everything is fine, are there hidden issues which are not being captured by existing measures?

For products, what is your proportion of new products? Do you even have any new products? If not then what is happening within the business to innovate and create new products? 

As many consumers and technologists alike mourn the sad passing of Steve Jobs, it will be interesting to see if Apple can continue to rapidly innovate and create the new hit products which their founder made them famous for.

The financial red flags are the usual measures of cash-flow and working capital, is the business generating cash or having to survive on former glory.

Finally we come to leadership for which Professor Birkinshaw had two indicators, the first being the ‘shiny’ new office which tells the world ‘we’ve made it!’ but could in reality be the sign that the peak has been reached.

The other test is the having the CEO on the cover of every business magazine telling anyone who cares to listen about the secret to the company’s (read his or her)success. There have been several examples of this being the beginning of the end, with the worst cases being the companies hitting hard times while the magazines are still on the shelves!

Anyway, just thought I’d share with you the highlights of an interesting lecture.  I hope that you found this interesting or useful or both. If not, please accept my apologies and I hope that you’ll find the next blog entry to be more enlightening. 

We would be interested if you’ve any thoughts on, or examples of , organizations in the insurance industry which you think are doing well to avoid the ‘failure of success’ or manage to see the red flags and make changes before it is too late.

Cheers

Simon

Long Versus Short Term – Important Versus Urgent

So we have gone and exposed ourselves this week.  Check out  http://bit.ly/nU2ugH.

 When we were approached to do the article we thought long and hard about the best topic to cover, lord knows that we always have plenty of ‘wicked problems’ to deal with; wicked problem being a term used by Roger Martin in Design Thinking  [http://rogerlmartin.com/devotions/design-thinking].  He has written a great book “The Design of Business”  on the subject which we use internally as a framework for how we operate as an organization. 

We decided to go with the ‘long term versus short term planning’ as this is one that we’ve been discussing internally a lot recently and we thought would be interesting to get feedback on from experts in the outside world.

The balance between long term and short term, the separation of the important from the urgent, is an extremely difficult balance to strike. You can spend an infinite amount of time pondering the ifs, buts and maybes of where you need to be three years down then suddenly that can seem like wasted effort when the world changes, as happened with the financial crisis, and you have to start again with the new world as your context. 

Over the years we’ve tended to see a pendulum effect where we go from being long term focused to being short term focused, we’re trying to keep the swings shorter but they still happen.

The advice we received was all good advice, some of which we already have in place, the experts suggested an advisory board  We’ve had an advisory board from the beginning and this was essential to us in the early days, although we don’t leverage it enough these days (too busy? but still not good).

We have annual offsite meetings, usually around October, and have external facilitation and trusted business advisors involved, although ironically the last one focused on short term issues. 

We have successfully outsourced a range of functions, although HR outsourcing is one that we’ve never got to grips with (not enough time?).

So I guess that we’re on the right track overall, there’s always more we can do but we seen to have many of the fundamentals in place.

Just want to thank the folks at the Globe and Mail for asking us to be involved, the experts who gave their opinions and the ‘friends of LOGiQ³’ who have been very supportive and sent some nice emails to us since they saw the article.

Last thing we do want to put straight from the article is the line ‘…But they’re doing most of the consulting work themselves’….this is not strictly true, and we’ve taken some abuse for this one :-).  

We do rely very heavily on the team around us and it would be completely impossible to do the work on our own. 

Enjoy the long weekend, and hope that Summer 2011 was good for you.

 Cheers,

Simon

What Kind of Social Organization Are You?

I recently read the “Social Commerce Trends Report 2011” by Bazaarvoice. The report summarizes the presentations by thought leaders of social media at the Social Commerce Summit hosted by Bazaarvoice. I found Jeremiah Owyang’s comments (read his blog at web-strategiest.com) particularly interesting. He notes, “new social media requires new types of organizations – typically those that span across an entire organization and crosses departmental borders.”

Typically, when companies start to delve into the scary world of social media, there is one champion spearheading the initiative, centralized within one department. However, Owyang suggests that, to see the successes of social media, organizations should move into a “hub and spoke” model. Hub and spoke?! What is that?

As companies get more experienced with social media efforts, social organizations evolve. Owyang lists the different types of social organizational types:

1. Decentralized. Anyone can do anything in the company in social, with no organization.

2. Centralized. Typically run by corporate communications; most companies start here.

3. Hub and spoke. Majority of companies using social media tend to fall within this category. There is a hub in the organization that sets guidelines and gives direction, but actual participation takes place across the organization. This is the most common type of successful social organization today.

4. Multiple hub and spoke or dandelion. Large, usually tech, socially-advanced brands reach this organization level. Owyang recommends this model for most brands.

5. Holistic or honeycomb. Only 1.5% of companies are here, where the entire organization uses social media in an organized way. This is the model with the highest level of maturity, and it’s difficult to achieve. A few brands that exemplify this include Best Buy, Dell and Zappos.

What type of social organization category does your company fall into? At LOGiQ3 we are actively striving to implement the hub and spoke model. If you’re interested in sharing your thoughts with me (I’d love to hear from you), feel free to comment or send me an email at natalie.ho@logiq3.com.

Thanks for stopping in!

~Natalie

 

Places of Possibility

I encourage everyone to take a few moments and read a fantastic article by Alexander Manu, an adjunct professor at the Rotman School of Management titled Creating ‘Places of Possibility’.  See  http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/possibility/.

 In it he discusses how you can create growth and innovate as an organization by embracing the generational differences across your workforce.  He writes “Unleashing this innovative mindset is about creating a culture that empowers inquisitive minds to imagine the future, and to think beyond the legacy of the past.”  By creating these places of possibility you are creating quite a different looking organization.  “Both lean and nimble, they embrace risks, partner with spectacularly different competencies than the obvious, and prototype fast, fail fast and fail cheap.  These are places where everyone feels empowered to explore and share ideas, with no fear of consequences.”

Until I read this piece I used to believe all the conversation around how you had to engage Millennials (generation born after 1980) differently to keep them focused and interested gave that group too much power and masked a bigger entitlement-issue with them.  However, I believe Manu spells out how that cohort truly is different and some of the things that happened in their life and growing up that made them what they are.   

 Success is how you pair that cohort up with the Baby Boomers and create a ‘Futures Group’ to make sure you get the best from both.  “On one hand you have the wisdom, knowledge and life experience of the Boomer, and on the other you have the urgency, the imagination and the free spirit of the Millennial.” 

 Read the entire piece.  It allowed me to think differently about how you can build organizations going forward and the things you can do to spur innovation and create a ‘Place of Possibility’.  Like it or not, the workforce is different and new employees coming into all our organizations are going to challenge how we have functioned traditionally – which is a good thing.

 Thanks for your time – Chris

Who is your ‘Inside-Outside’ Double Act?

At the recent PROFIT 200 event, David G Thomson, author of Blueprint to a Billion, discussed the concept of an ‘Inside-Outside’ leadership partnerships, citing several examples of companies such as Microsoft and BlackBerry as exhibiting this leadership concept.  This concept is simply that in any dynamic duo, such as the one guiding LOGiQ³ (there have been other words beside ‘dynamic’ used) one half is internally focused, guiding operations and resolving internal issues, and one half is externally focused, working closely with clients and the market.  This led to Chris and me discussing which of us plays which role. We decided that it depends on the specific project but that we do tend to pick a role and stick to it. An interesting insight and one we were not aware of before the presentation.

David then went to show marketing pictures of leadership pairs which always showed the ‘insider’ on the left and the ‘outsider’ on the right (I think it was that way around) but the point is that this photographic approach is not being done by accident.

Furthermore, David suggested you should look internally within your organizations and look to build your succession plan using inside-outside partnerships, which again had us thinking about LOGiQ³ and how this might apply.

So there you have it, the ‘Inside-Outside’ leadership approach.  Now all this may mean nothing if you’re leading an organization/department/team on your own but when we discussed it we thought that even when the org chart points to an individual, often there is a right-hand man (or woman) who that leader uses in a similar way.

I know that we always ask for feedback but we would be interested in your ‘Inside-Outside’ examples, either well known companies or your own company (which may also be well known).

Cheers

Simon

How to Make $3Bn a Month Using Insurance…

So now that I have your attention, as making $3Bn a month should grab most people’s eye, I’m not going to tell you that this is a simple home-based business that you can do in your spare time, sorry! I’m referring to…..  Google.

There are many well known and mind blowing statistics about this Internet giant and pretty much every adjective has been used to describe it but I came across this statistic I was quite impressed; $3Bn per month in revenue is incredible and this article http://tinyurl.com/4xlnr3b  published in Wired Magazine provides an attempt to breakdown what makes up this revenue and I was surprised to see that the keyword ‘Insurance’ as the most valuable with calculations showing that it costs $54 per click through.

For those unfamiliar with how Google works, the main revenue generator is Adwords (for more background click here http://tinyurl.com/p2xs8p) where potential advertisers effectively bid for the keywords that they want to ‘own’ when someone does a search. A very simple concept with some hugely complex implementation. I particularly liked the comment made by Larry Page and Sergey Brin – didn’t really see advertising at the main revenue driver, they thought it would be selling search technology… good to see that every leader can miss a trick.

Now… “Reinsurance Outsourcing”… is that the next big word? What do you think? 😉

– Simon

A Matter of Perspective…

Thinking is a common theme in these blogs in many different ways – recently with Chris talking about finding your garden.   Building a bit on his comments about balance meaning different things to different people, not only would I agree but I would further add it all goes to perspective. 

When you have the opportunity as I recently did to view some of the ancient wonders of Spain, this is reinforced in spades.  Whether looking at cathedrals  — built before North America was colonized  — with their soaring arches and inspiring frescoes which are still used for religious services or a Roman aqueduct (picture below) erected in 1 AD that still can carry water today and stands 300 meters high, it forces you to take pause.  What type of creative thought process led to the construction of these?   And what genius of engineering existed well before computers and our reliance on modern technology? What motivated workers to spend hours and years to see the task of building a church  or the aqueduct through to completion?     The artisans of the day were faced with wicked problems of a different type than what we have today but through dedicated work created lasting things of functionality and beauty.   

Makes you pause and to think about so many things……what value and work product do we generate today that people years (or even months) from now will appreciate?   Are some of the challenges that arise in our work lives as difficult to solve as we may first think?   What are we missing out on with the hectic pace enabled (and almost required) by technology and today’s world?     Is our perspective of events – and their importance —  influenced unduly by the constant barrage of information?   Are our decisions made based on facts or based on less than reliable information that may be broadcast on the internet?   

Taking time to stop and THINK is almost a luxury  some days.  But, it is one that we can ill afford not to do if we want to achieve great results and built a legacy that lasts.  Be willing to be deliberate in your actions to achieve desired results.    “Think… slow down… think” (our maxim 4).     You may be surprised at the outcomes.

Thanks for reading – Laura

IT’S NOT BALANCE….. IT’S THINKING!

I have been struggling for over a month now trying to figure out how to properly write on the work/life balance subject.  As I mentioned in my May 30 blog it’s an enormous subject, with no shortage of material out there (Google “work-life balance” – about 32.3 million hits) so what could I write on the subject that would be different? Then, I was reminded this is a blog and not a thesis I need to defend so stop delaying and write what’s on your mind.   Here we go…

To start by stating the obvious, the answer is relative, and we all have a different balance.   Could be working 12 hours a day for somebody or as Timothy Ferriss writes in his book, a four hour work week for him.  We all have a different goal.

As I try to get to root cause, it seems to me finding that balance is all about finding time to think.  To really think about; work, family, life, etc.  I would love to work a four hour work week, and may some day, but the bigger point Ferriss makes is we don’t have to keep running around like maniacs and hoping that some great thing will happen years from now (the definition of insanity is in there somewhere).  Maybe, just maybe, the current work model is flawed.  Maybe the next generation work force, enabled with communications technology we couldn’t even imagine just five years ago, have the right idea – work has to support life.  Roger Martin writes in the Opposable Mind that new and better models are always out there, we just need to think about them.

Peter Bregman characterizes it as “taking a walk in the garden” in his June 8, 2011 post on HBR Blog Network.  People HAVE to find time to slow down, reflect on what’s going on in their life/day and take the time to connect-the-dots.   Bregman writes “Eventually, that garden walk became a transformative experience. As I meandered along the winding paths, my mind began to wander too, making connections, drawing insights, and developing ideas.”

Matthew May, in his book “In Pursuit of Elegance”, says  “While no one yet knows exactly what the process is, what is important to know is that putting pressure on ourselves to speed up or artificially influence our brain to work harder, or more intensely, or more quickly, only slows down our ability to arrive at new insights.  Ironically, when we let go, when we escape, either physically or mentally, we actually speed up the transformation processes”.

To me, chasing balance cannot be the goal.  It feels too far off almost and something we don’t deserve in today’s fast paced environment.  So, a small bite size chunk goal is to find 15 minutes a day to really think.  If a quiet mind can get you to new places, I think it can get you to balance.  To each person’s version of balance. 

The status quo, just doing and not thinking, seems way too scary to me. 

So, I challenge everyone to take 15 minutes a day to “find your garden”.  Try it for two weeks and see where it takes you – I will.     –  Chris M

More Maxims – Introducing 6 and 7

Simon has introduced maxims one through five in earlier posts.  As a reminder, we consider our Maxims our Quirky Guiding Principles.  Not at all unique, we first “borrowed” the phrase from a Fast Company article profiling Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike (in fact,  #5 may be directly from his Grandmother but we loved it, so borrowed it as well).

The point; our Maxims are part of our belief system and quickly becoming embedded in our culture.  It’s a framework we can look too, throw questions at, and typically the right answer comes to us quickly.

Numbers 6 and 7 go to our belief that we are a knowledge based outsourcing company, and expertise in our space will separate us from our competition.  We have 11 in total (having 10 didn’t seem quirky enough) so hang in there, only four left.

Six tells us we need to continuously evolve and can only do that by continuously challenging ourselves and our assumptions.  Nothing is sacred, nor should it be.  Seven reminds us LOGiQ3 is a collection of people, who have the knowledge, who make the company special and create that differentiator.

 6. Continuous improvement.  Continuous learning.

We will never stop evolving what we do; we owe that to our clients and ourselves.  There is no place for complacency in our business or in our behaviours.  By constantly challenging ourselves with what we do, our base assumptions we will continue to grow and innovate. 

Part of “challenging ourselves” both personally and professionally goes to a continuous learning mindset.  Nothing is static, and we will never know it all so approach everything as a learning experience; it really is. 

    7.     Knowledge is people.

LOGiQ³ is a knowledge based company.  We provide knowledge to our clients across a variety of products and services.  That knowledge differentiates us from similar organizations and is at the core of LOGiQ³; it is part of our brand and is our reputation.

People drive culture, culture drives an organization.  Knowledge directs it all.

Stay tuned, numbers eight through eleven will come. 

Thank you for your time, Chris.

Social CRM… Say What?

Its been a few years since I left University, I was thrilled (and a little nervous) when LOGiQ³ gave me the opportunity to complete a continuing education course at the University of Toronto back in January. It was definitely interesting being back on campus again, it brought back some great memories, and some, not so much (mainly those sleepless nights studying for actuarial exams).

I enrolled and successfully completed in May, a very intriguing course – Social CRM, From Marketing and Business Intelligence to Social Media (Dan Mariani, a great instructor). For those of you interested in Marketing, Customer Relations, or Social Media for Business, I highly recommend this course. It provided me with a good overview of current Marketing trends,a view into how customers have changed over time, how businesses are using Social Media to add value to their organizations and this new concept of Social CRM.

So Social CRM… what exactly is it? Social CRM is a concept and business strategy aimed at building relationships with customers through engagement rather than internal management of a customer and using the most suitable technologies available to assist in achieving those goals. My interpretation of successful “customer engagement” is where a customer is actively participating in conversations, interacting with a brand, and seeking for mutual benefits i.e. customer providing feedback to the brand, and the brand responding and improving their products and services to suit the needs of a customer. The brand is creating value for the customer, and the customer is also providing value to the brand – creating a constant feedback loop.

An important component of Social CRM is listening to the customer, allowing the customer to have a voice. It is important for a company to understand the wants and needs of a customer, and not promoting something that is not relevant to the customer. Customers are now capable to make their own decisions and have the control of the relationships with the brands they choose to interact with. The types of technologies available now also allow customers to pick and choose what information they choose to receive. Listening is not only key in understanding customers’ needs, but also crucial in identifying who they key influencers are in your industry. Influencers are those who promote a brand, with or without direct interaction with a brand. Influencers may choose to endorse a brand and that can have a huge impact on the success of a brand.

The “social” customer is someone who controls the relationship and their buying power. They are also looking to ‘work’ with a company that is authentic – a company that is willing to build trust and be transparent. The social customer is willing to promote a company through this authenticity – which leads to the concept of advocacy. Companies recognize that a lot of customers make buying decisions through other customers’ reviews or recommendations. Therefore, companies are focusing on building relationships with their customers in hopes that a customer will generate positive conversations around their brand, leading to increased awareness by others. The transaction becomes secondary, once rich and trusting relationships are built.  Customers are also looking for a personalized experience. Therefore, customization plays a vital role in creating that favourable customer experience. Giving customers the ability to customize their product and what they need generates satisfaction. This positive experience will likely generate loyalty and advocacy.

Technology tools have emerged to support Social CRM, both from a customer’s perspective and a business’ perspective. Customers are able to have peer-to-peer (with other customers, or with companies) collaboration and easy access to real-time communication. They are able to use online tools such as social networking sites and review sites (tripadvisor, yelp, etc.) to make buying decisions. They are able to communicate with companies, ask for help, through the use of online tools. There is no longer the need to walk into a store to get information. Instantaneous, real-time, online communication is now available at their fingertips.

I feel that the application of social media for business purposes seem to be endless, companies need to be creative in how they can leverage publicly available content to the best of their abilities. This movement to “new” marketing and “social” CRM is probably here to stay. Companies can’t afford to ignore this shift, and need to embrace the new breakthrough concepts and tools that are readily available to help drive their business to the next level. Even traditional industries, like our own – insurance, is looking for new ways to improve their business models and tap into a group of potential customers that are now only willing to work with companies that are authentic, connected, transparent, and engaged.

At LOGiQ³, we strive to build meaningful relationships with our community – whether it be our employees, partners, clients, vendors, or other organizations that share the same umph as us.

Phewww! That was a wordy one. If you are interested in tossing some thoughts around, feel free to contact me natalie.ho@logiq3.com

Thanks for reading! – Natalie

Profit 200 CEO Summit

Last week Simon and I were fortunate to be able to attend the PROFIT 200 CEO Summit, as a consequence of being ranked 25^th in the 23rd annual PROFIT 200 ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies by PROFIT Magazine.  It was a great experience.

It opened with Michael Lee Chin providing his view to the world and business success.   Michael’s business model was very different to other mutual funds, based on picking less companies and holding them for longer. His approach was to REALLY THINK about what CUSTOMERS WANT from a money manager, and not just what the money manager wants.  The different model led to some interesting challenges along the way but his fundamental belief in an ‘intellectual framework’ for decision making ensure the right decision will be taken. We have been working on our own decision process so it was good to hear that this hard work is not in vain! We both loved his message of the three most important things in life and business; Do Well, Do Good and Have Fun!  He also makes you really think about how you grow a business when he suggests you always consider legacy and asks “What will your legacy be?”.

David Thomson then spoke to the group about growth strategies.  It was a very cool message on how companies that reach $50M in sales, can get to $1B.  Not a guaranty but his research pointed to an eighty percent chance, which is pretty high.

The key factor he identified was the revenue growth trajectory as you cross the $50M marker that defines your curve to $1B.  All fact and numbers based and not speculation or opinion.  Looking forward to reading his book  “Blueprint to a Billion”.

Later in the day Robert Herjavec gave a very funny talk on how his career has evolved and what drove him to the success that he has enjoyed. The key messages in his speech were; don’t be afraid to put yourself out there (being shy, timid and unknown isn’t going to help you or your business) and dream big!

The final keynote speaker was Bruce Poon Tip, the founder and CEO of Gap Adventures.  Could have been a tough spot, with game seven of the Stanley Cup being played, but it was still a full house, which has to be the highest compliment from a Canadian audience (could change if the Leafs were in game seven, but no immediate concerns sadly).  Another fantastic speaker and message! One of the funniest slides was a picture of a cassette (an actual cassette tape that played music – remember those) with the caption “iPod….. I am your father!” It’s amazing how Gap Adventures has concentrated not only on growing a business, but making the planet a better place – and succeeded at both.  Their 5 core values are very similar to some of the maxims we have at LOGiQ³.  In fact we share one; Do the Right Thing.

Although all speakers were quite different, came from different backgrounds and have different businesses, there did feel like a common thread running through all of them:

1. Be proud of what you have accomplished
2. Never lose sight that business building isn’t just about making money it’s about building value for people and for our communities
3. Have fun along the way.  Its hard work, it always will be, so enjoy it.

Finally, we would like to thank PROFIT magazine.  Ian Portsmouth and the rest of the team do a fantastic job for Canadian Entrepreneurs.  The annual PROFIT 200 list gives us something to strive for and the CEO Summit reminds us how lucky we are to be on the list.

Looking forward to the 2012 Summit…hopefully!

Chris & Simon

LOGiQ3 Maxims, next up – 3, 4, and 5

“As a devout follower of the LOGiQ³ blog, ok we can hope, you will remember that back in April (April 6th to be exact) I wrote a small article on the LOGiQ³ Maxims, our version of corporate values letting everyone know what to expect from LOGiQ³.

We covered why we need them, highlighted the first two; ‘Do the right thing’ and ‘Quality work the first time’.  Now we’ll carry on where we left off and introduce maxims three, four and five:-

3     Client driven.

We want our clients to love working with LOGiQ³.  We want them to know we do what we do better than any other organization and we have their best interests at heart; A trusted partnership.

We can support this through the “right” amount of communication.  Right will vary by client, but we will make sure they define those terms and we will consistently adhere to them.

4     Think.  Slow down.  Think.

It is too easy to fall into the trap of just getting things done.  We cannot live up to Maxims two and three if we don’t take our time to really think about what we are doing. 

Is this right?  Have I considered the ripple effect? Most important, am I proud of this work product?

We will do this better than others, by taking our time and getting it right.

5     Be a sponge.  Curiosity is life.  Assumption is death.  Look around.

This one is ‘borrowed’ directly from a well known sportswear manufacturer and critical to any business or person.  Inspiration comes from the strangest of places and we should never stop looking at the world around us for that inspiration. 

Be curious, do stuff you don’t usually do, watch the world go by and see how it makes you think. When you are most “unplugged” it can be when you are the most creative in coming up with elegant solutions.

So that is it for the Maxims for now.

You could argue that many companies talk about being client driven, client focused or client led but from everyday experience very few truly achieve it. That is what we’re aiming for, actually achieving it.

With Maxim four, telling people to ‘think’ may sound odd but we can all easily fall into the trap of just doing rather than thinking and often in this ‘doing’ mode is when mistakes are made and opportunities missed.

As for being a sponge, well that’s something everyone expects from a child growing up but is there a reason to stop when you’re an adult? You never know where it can lead.

As ever, if you’d like to share any of your ‘maxims’ that you or your company live by we’d be interested to hear about them and why you like them.

Until the next time…. Simon

Freedom to Think… about Beer!

Back in early April, I wrote about some of the culture activities underway at LOGiQ³. If you remember, I introduced our Inspirational wall in that blog post. The Inspirational wall features a collection of photos/images/words provided by each one of our employees that defines what inspires them when they think of “Freedom to Think”? or what do the words “Freedom to Think” mean? The wall looks fantastic and it was very interesting to see the different interpretations across the organization and what our tag line meant to each member of the LOGiQ³ family.

However, we went one step further to incorporate our external community into our internal culture. At our annual Freedom to Think Reception this year, we raffled off a digital camera – with the promise that, the winner would also supply us with a photo for our Inspirational wall. I’m pleased to introduce, Bob Diefenbacher, the winner of our draw.

Bob not only submitted a wonderful photo, but he also wrote a fantastic explanation of why he chose such a photo for our wall. I thought I’d take the liberty to share with all of you, Bob’s interpretation of “Freedom to Think”, more specifically, Freedom to Think About Beer.  Enjoy:

“This is a picture of my beer refrigerator.  As anyone who knows me knows, I enjoy good beer.  And like any self-respecting beer geek, I have a refrigerator in my basement that I use to store my current selections.  You can see a few Belgians, and several big bottles use to store my current selections.  You can see a few Belgians, and several big bottles of American craft beer, and right in the center a couple of six-packs of cans.

Wait.  Cans?  Yes, cans.

In college we drank vile beer that whose only redeeming quality was that the price of a case was comfortably under 10 bucks.  And I think that pretty much sums up everyone’s image of the beer can.  Beer cans are for bland, cheap, yellowy liquids brewed by gigantic macro-breweries that seemingly spend more money on their marketing budgets than selecting good hops.  The beer can symbolizes everything the craft brewing industry rose up against.

And for a long time, that’s exactly what everyone who produced, or more importantly, consumed, micro-beers thought.  Micro-beer came in bottles, not cans, and people associate bottles with good beer, cans with swill.

But while canned beer may have garnered a well-deserved reputation as tasting more or less like alcohol-infused stale corn juice, no one seemed to think about what attributes a beer container should have. 

It turns out that shielding the beer from light is a big one.  You see, light is the enemy of beer; it destroys the taste.  And all bottles expose the beer to light.  This is why popular imported beers sold in green bottles, tastes like liquified skunk.  Brown bottles are better, but they still let in some light, and that can create off-flavors.  Cans, of course, don’t let in any light, and the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods inside retains its intended flavor.

Cans are lighter, too, and have a smaller carbon footprint when created.  Cans are also much more likely to be recycled.  Cans are manufactured in such a way that no flavors from the metal seep into the liquid within. 

Cans are easier to store.  Look at my refrigerator, I have twelve beers stacked in the area normally reserved for 6 bottles.

So, when it comes to beer containers, cans are just better than bottles.  But, the old prejudice persisted until a very small brewery named Oskar Blues decided to package Dale’s Pale Ale in cans.  At first, people treated it as a joke.  Then, they drank the beer, and it was quite excellent.  People who like good beer began to understand that the can was actually a good idea.  Oskar Blues started canning other beers, and started distributing them beyond their original home in Colorado.  (I first saw and tasted a Dale’s Pale Ale in 2006.)

Still, it took time for more people to understand that good, micro-brewed canned beer wasn’t just a novelty, but that it actually was a superior way to store beer.  Nowadays, more and more craft beers are coming in cans.  That Avery IPA in the picture is an extremely hoppy beer, exactly the type of beer most susceptible to light-induced skunking.   When buying hoppy beers at the store, I worry that if I get an older beer, it may have been ruined by the fluorescent lights in the store – I’ve had this happen to me multiple times.  The canned Avery IPA has retained its flavor, and is excellent.

It seems like every week now a new craft beer is coming into the store in cans, and I predict in 10 years most American craft beer, at least from the established microbreweries, will come in cans.  Quite a change from the situation 5-10 years ago.

Here’s the point.  “Freedom to Think” doesn’t just mean the freedom to think outside of the box and come up with new ideas or creative solutions.  Sometimes “Freedom to Think” can mean being open-minded enough to reexamine old beliefs and prejudices. 

“Beer in a Can” was synonymous with “Beer that Tastes Terrible, If It Has Any Taste.”  It turns out there was no inherent reason why this was so, but everyone came to believe since better beer came in bottles, good beer couldn’t and shouldn’t come in a can.  It took a relatively new (at the time) microbrewery in Colorado that was willing to ignore conventional wisdom and actually think about what was really the best way to store and deliver their beer.

It took a bit of time to catch on, but judging by the new releases, canned micro beer has reached a tipping point, all because of Oskar Blues’ willingness to exhibit a Freedom to (Re)Think the way things have always been done. 

I enjoy writing about beer, but actually I enjoy drinking it a lot more!  So, enough of  writing, I am going to enjoy a still-fresh tasting Dale’s Pale Ale.  That’s tasty!!!”

I want to take this time to thank Bob, for being the first non-LOGiQ³ employee to contribute to our Inspirational wall.

Until next time – Natalie

What is Balance? (Or that’s what I started to write…..)

When I first set out to write this post I wanted to opine on the much overused term, work-life balance.  What is it?  Is it realistic?  Is it possible?  Do people want it?  Who cares? etc.

For context, I just returned from a three week vacation where I pretty much completely shut-down, in the professional sense.  Yes, no blackberry.  I’ve been back for less than a week and don’t feel I can yet do the topic justice.  However, I will next month when I get more “work” time to be able to debate what work-life balance should be.

To give a glimpse into the direction I think I’m going, I want to include two short quotes from Matthew E. May’s book, “In Pursuit of Elegance – Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing” (a great read): 

1. “A change of scene and time away seemed to play a part in achieving breakthroughs.”
2. “The common element in all of these eureka moments is a quiet mind, severed for a time from the problem at hand.”

So what do I write about instead?  Obviously, vacation. 

I was fortunate to be able to spend two and a half weeks in the Umbrian countryside with my wife, kids and good friends & their children.  Six adults and eight kids (aged 2-9) may not seem like a vacation, but it was.  Like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location.  The picture below, from the front entrance pretty much sums it up, but will need more than a thousand words.

 

I respect every country has its own beauty which resonates with each of us in different ways.  For me the; people, beauty, history, culture, food, and wine, of the Italian countryside has always been a special place.  A good espresso for less than one Euro and very good bottle of wine for less than 10 is part of the appeal, but that isn’t it. 

When you get off the beaten path, and realize you can’t shop between 1 and 4pm or on Sunday’s, and can’t go out for dinner with kids before 7pm, you start to really appreciate the local ways, unwind and forget about how you do things “at home”.  Add to that some truly remarkable cities (Rome, Florence), hilltop towns (Montalcino, Montelpuciano, Spoleto) and museums and art… it’s not long before you too will fall in love with this very special place in the world.

It’s hard not to think about work-life balance and the meaning of life when staring across the valley as in the picture above.  How that moment and feeling relates to work and how it makes you think about what’s important in your life will take some time to fully articulate.

If you have any specific thoughts or observations on work life balance, please shoot me an email in the next two weeks and I will be sure to include.

Thanks for your time, Chris.

Resources – Using Design Thinking

As a small organization with several clients, existing or potential, with different needs, we often find ourselves in the position of answering two key questions:

 “How will you resource this initiative?  And, meet the target date with the level of quality we expect?”

 This goes directly to our maxim of being    “Client driven” and to address these two questions, we have chosen to  “Build a framework, not a process” and “flow to the work” (two of our other maxims).     So, what does this mean?

 We reached the decision in 2010 to try a concept called “Design Thinking” as a way of managing work in the organization.   Roger Martin, the dean of the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management, is the author of “The Design of Business” (easy read – check it out) where he explains how Design Thinking works.

 Fundamentally, Design Thinking is the process of using your sensibility to match needs (of a client, a project, etc) with what is feasible to create value.    To do this, we have to solve the wicked – messy, aggressive, ill-defined — problems that clients present to us – including unplanned for resource commitments – as well as ensure that  day-to-day operations are not adversely impacted.    The key to success in a Design Thinking model is having a project-oriented structure.   

 In this type structure, you create ad hoc teams of people with a variety of skillsets that can solve the wicked problems – a true collaborative effort where you balance innovation with operational discipline.    These people may never have worked together on a team before but there is a common goal and shared responsibility and accountability.    Underlying the process is originality – willingness to experiment, spontaneity, flexibility – with the ultimate success and power of this model arising from the combination of experience (mastery) in conjunction with the emphasis on originality.

 We tried this model recently for integration of a new client and found it quite successful in most ways – and learned a lot from the process.    The biggest challenge is properly identifying your wicked problems and focusing on them.   If you do this, then the rest falls into place (albeit with a few hiccups along the way).

 Can this type of structure succeed every time?   Can it work in organizations regardless of size?   Only time will tell….

 – Laura    

 *special thanks to our guest blogger – Laura Prewitt*

Conference Season in Full Effect – AHOU

So conference season is in full swing. Another trip to Vegas, the convention capital for 2011 it seems. This time for the 10^th annual AHOU (Association of Home Office Underwriters) conference.

 This was my first Underwriting specific conference and initial impressions were that it was well organized, although the singing Elvis first thing on a Monday morning was a surprise, even more so when I discovered that this was a professional Underwriter and not one of the many local Elvis impersonators!

The meeting was well attended with over 800 Underwriters mainly from US and Canada but with some International attendees also. The International attendees included John O’Leary a representative of the Australian Life Underwriting and Claims Association (ALUCA) who’d travelled from ‘down under’ to invite attendees to join their bi-annual conference in 2012 and John Turner from the recently created European Life and Health Underwriters Association (ELHUA) who are hosting their second conference in April 2012 in Vienna.  The overall impression is that the knowledge sharing within the Underwriting community is on the rise which can only be a good thing.

 The first main speaker was C, Robert Henrikson, Chairman of MetLife who made some passionate remarks around the future regulation of the industry, such as Dodd-Frank, and the lack of Insurance knowledge and experience which seems to be involved in the process of building out future regulation in Washington.  Seems that you would want to have as much expertise around the table as possible but that may not be the case.

One other comment that struck a chord with Carmela and I was that when asked about his greatest fear and what kept him up at night his response was ‘ the fear of lost opportunity’…something we share at LOGiQ³!

 Another main stage speaker was Mark Sanborn, a leadership expert who had some interesting insights into what he thought made great leadership. One topic which jumped out was on the ability to ‘Focus’, something which we know that everyone struggles with as we’re bombarded with information.  The research quoted found that the we have a disruption (call, email etc.) every 11 minutes during our work day and that it takes 25 minutes to refocus on the task in hand. 

The benefits of multi-tasking are in fact, in Mark’s opinion, a myth when really all we’re doing is ‘task switching’…..I’m proud to say that we at LOGiQ³ are pushing the concept ‘uni-tasking’, do one thing at a time and do it well.

 From a selfish, LOGiQ³ perspective we came away with a strong impression that demand for Outsourced Production Underwriting and Outsource Training was on the rise in 2011 and beyond, which we’re very pleased about given that’s what we do.

 We look forward to attending the AHOU next year in Orlando where we’re likely going to look to have a marketing suite, not a booth,  so we can let people see the web-based Underwriting Training we’re developing in 2011 and for which several modules will be available by April 2012.

Cheers

Simon

What is Important about Outsourcing in Insurance and Reinsurance?

Yes, this can come across as self-serving.   I lead an outsourcing company, writing an article about why outsourcing is a good thing.  Shock!

However, I still want to provide a few thoughts on what I believe is “the right” way to do it or, at a minimum, what I believe the key attributes are in an outsourcing relationship.  There is no doubt outsourcing is an important part of our business otherwise there wouldn’t be billions of dollars being transacted in these services.  It obviously works, so what is the right way?

Like everything else; it depends. 

However there are key conditions you have to have in place, and key capabilities necessary from a business partner.   In the vein of total transparency, these are not just my ideas.  Read the February 2011 Se2 Newsletter at www.se2.com and look for their CEO, Dave Keith’s comments on business transformation.  Or, go to www.insurancenetworking.com and look for Bill Kenealy’s article called “BPO: Now it’s Personal”.  Finally, in 2007 PwC did a fantastic paper called “Outsourcing Comes of Age: The Rise of Collaborative Partnering”, have a look to see where they forecast the world to go.

The gist of all these documents are a few key messages:

• Outsourcing is about a true collaborative partnership.  Expect nothing less.
• Communication across business partners is critical to ultimate success.
• Agreed upon expectations between business partners is critical.
• It’s personal.  We live in a frenetic world and that is not going to change (a great quote I heard at a TAI conference years ago was “No matter when today is, work will never get easier than it is today”) and personal relationships and “trust’s”  will be the “X factor” going forward.

A lot of smart people agree the world is changing and outsourcing is a part of it.  I agree.

Thanks for the time.  Chris

How do you Communicate? Insurers jumping on Social Media

During our annual Freedom to Think reception this year, we had the opportunity to poll our community of clients, partners, and staff on “How do you Communicate?” We asked each of our attendees to select a name tag with a pre-printed icon that represented their preferred form of communication.

As a business, we want to ensure we are using the right form of communication channel to reach out to our community. With the rise of several social communication channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, we wanted to see what the current preferred communication tool is. 

I am sure many businesses share the same challenge as LOGiQ³ – operating in the Web 2.0 world but servicing a traditional industry, such as ours – Life Insurance.  However, to our surprise, the LOGiQ³ community is more progressive then we had thought! Here are the results to our poll, expressed as a percentage: 

26% of our attendees preferred to use email communication (not a surprise), but followed tightly by LinkedIn at 22%, Facebook and Phone calls, both at 18%, Twitter at 13% and lastly, traditional postage at 3%.  This is certainly insightful information for us as a business, as it allows us to focus our communication to these preferred channels. It also allows us to connect with our network on a real time basis, providing relevant content, and listen to what is being said on their preferred channel.

LOGiQ³ has presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and most recently launched our THiNK Blog (thanks for reading by the way!), but how do we compare to the rest of the industry?

I did a quick search on LinkedIn inputting the key words Life Insurance and Life Reinsurance under the company search option, and it returned 125 results. Of these 125, it included companies such as ACE (4,954 followers), Sun Life Financial (7,280 followers), Swiss Re (5,924 followers), AEGON (5,226 followers), RBC Insurance (1,302 followers), and Partner Re (677 followers).  I performed the same exercise on Facebook and Twitter, results were definitely not as compelling as LinkedIn, only a handful of companies have presence on Facebook and Twitter. However, there were a lot of mentions by consumers on these two sites, meaning that people are talking about life insurance and life reinsurance. Companies should be proactive in leveraging on these tools to listen to consumers’ feedback.

Though our industry is not yet as progressive as others, those companies who are innovative are leveraging on social media to make their businesses better.

The Insurance Networking News webpage published a blog in February, 2011 by Craig Beattie. It speaks on an event hosted by Celent in London, “How Digital & Social Innovation Challenge the Insurer Business Model”, with the first presentation given by Chris Denison, managing partner at AXA Innovation Hub, and Manjit Rana, partner in Innovation Hub. The presentation explained how AXA UK plans on utilizing social media and other technologies to determine individual digital profiles, define target challenges and identify solution generators.  

Life insurers are also using social media networks to detect fraud in submitted claims. Investigators are now using sites such as Facebook to investigate suspicious claims. They’re looking for clues that don’t add up to the claim submitted, such as someone bragging about running a marathon while submitted a claim for an injured back, etc. Though data gathered on these sites are useful, they can only be used as insight and never as final proof of fraud.

There have also been talks that social-networking data could be used to help price policies. Insurers could use information posted on social networks posted by an applicant and compare with lifestyle choices and medical histories actually filled out on their application.

Quick closing remark, it is difficult to measure the success of social media. I don’t believe social media is a “must”, more so it is another communication channel (talking and, more importantly, listening) to reach our community of clients, partners, and staff.

Until next time! – Natalie

LOMA

We attended the LOMA Life Insurance conference in Las Vegas last week. This was a new conference for us and is part of our plan to identify potential partners in the market who have complimentary offerings.

The content of the conference was fairly  broad and the sessions we attended were well put together.

 Highlights were the presentation on the potential for Predictive Modelling to support (replace) current Underwriting practices. The thousands of ‘data points’ which are for sale can enable a very accurate picture of a persons lifestyle to be captured. For instance, if you subscribe to Runners World and buy four pairs of running shoes a year you’re likely a lower risk than someone who has bought four TVs and signed up to every cable channel under the sun…intuitive yes, scary yes.

We’ll be following the developments in this field closely.

Also the fact that Social Media was a general session and breakout session shows that interest in these tools is high. Insurance, like many industries, is still trying to figure out what to do with these tools.

Do people really want to ‘friend’ their insurance broker or insurance company? Probably not, but the potential benefits in the areas of customer support, branding, marketing combined with naked reputation risk, means that the insurance industry can’t ignore what is going on in Social Media.’ 

Did you know on average one message sent via social media has the potential of reaching 16,000 people?

Thanks!

Simon

The Value of a Conference?

Having just wrapped up a very busy CRC week at LOGiQ³, it’s hard not to step back for a moment and reflect on last week and think about the real value conference activity brings to an organization.  We sent many people to the actual conference, hosted our own event at Origin Restaurant the night before plus entertained many clients over the week.  Is it worth it?

Many organizations track the real value of that spend; measure opportunities, try to calculate a return on that investment and then decide on success or failure.  If you Google “how do I measure the value of attending conferences” you come back with about 13,800,000 hits, so there is a little material out there on the subject.

However, in this “reflection” place I don’t think the value should be measured by number of meetings had, number of opportunities generated etc (I do appreciate that may change if you’re spending a pile of money on an event – but let’s assume less than a pile for now).  Success should be discussed based on the quality and depth of conversations you have.

Personally I was able to connect with friends and colleagues from every part of my career.  I was able to catch up with ex-bosses from my Sun Life Retro days as well as from my time with Crown Life in Regina.  The older you get the faster time does race by, so being able to connect with people from different generations of your career is a great way to remember all the fun you have had.  Yes, we all know reinsurance is fun!

I had a great time last week during the CRC activities and strongly believe the conference and all the events around it were very much “worth it”.  I’m not going to visit the 13.8 million websites to tell me how to measure that, but will chalk it up to “gut instinct”.  Ultimately, it goes back to the point I made in my first entry to this blog…. it’s about the connection.  The connection we have to our industry, other people and the sincerity of both. 

Many thanks.  Chris

LOGiQ3 Maxims – live it, breathe it

OK so here it is, my first blog entry, I feel a little exposed here but as we’re embracing this world of social media, and blogging is part of that world, I’m just going to give it a spin and see what happens……

The topic for this blog entry is the recently defined ‘LOGiQ³ Maxims’.

What are these Maxims I hear you ask (hoping that ‘you’ is not just my colleagues and my family when I tell them I’m a ‘blogger’ now)?

 Well, they’re our version of corporate values, a set of guiding principles for how we at LOGiQ³ behave and what people can expect from us.

Are you going to see huge changes from us as a result of these maxims?

To be honest with you, probably not, as we’ve been living by them for the past few years but we’ve just never talked about them or written them down!

Why do we need them?

Well, you can read far more eloquent and knowledgeable experts on the usefulness of defining a set of corporate values and culture (here’s one we liked http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values,  ) but we thought that as we grow we need to have a core set of principles which helps define us especially for new members of the team looking for some direction. 

Also, from a practical point of view, when we’re asked about our principles by a new client, new business partner or new recruit looking to join the team we can refer to these maxims and its clear what we’re all about.

Now, rather than throw them all out there at once, that would just be too much too soon.

I thought I’d keep this short and introduce just two of them for now and it seems logical to start with maxim number one and two:-

1.     Do the right thing.

There is always a right, and a wrong.  The reality of working in today’s environment is that we need to function in shades of grey, but that does not apply to the fundamental question of “is what I’m doing the right thing to do?” We are principled people building a principled organization and we will never lose sight of that.

2.     Quality work the first time.

We cannot afford re-work.  It’s costly (both in terms of time and money) and can put LOGiQ³ in a negative light to our clients, coworkers and business partners.  We are a quality driven shop and we will show that repeatedly.

So there you have it. The first couple of our maxims are ‘out there’ in what I believe is known as the ‘Blogosphere’, so much to learn!

We’ll get the other Maxims on the blog over the coming weeks but for now we’d be keen on knowing what you think about these two.

Maybe you could send us some that you, or your organization live by, which you like.  You never know, if we like them we may just add it to our own, we’re not above borrowing a great idea!

If you’re the gambling type, you may also want to take a guess at how many we came up with.

That’s it, my first blog entry, how was it for you? I’m exhausted and going for a lie down.

Cheers

Simon

Growing Culture – March Madness at LOGiQ3

It’s official! I’m officially blogging for LOGiQ3! I’ve always been an advocate of social media, so I can’t tell you how excited I am that we, as an organization are dabbling into this space.

Today, I want to share with you our version of March Madness at LOGiQ3. During the month of March, we introduced “March Madness”, a month where we dedicate our time (this will continue annually) on embracing our culture and encouraging employee engagment.

First, I’d like to share with you our brand new Inspirational Photo Wall. We asked all our staff to provide a photo, picture, or quote that inspires them when thinking of our tag line “Freedom to Think”. It was definitely interesting to see the variety of submitted photos/pictures/quotes. Take a look and let me know what you think? Better yet, stop on by!

Second, I’d like to introduce the very first edition of the LOGiQ3 Book! The LOGiQ3 Book is meant to resonate internally and externally, who we are, and what we’re all about, culturally and professionally. I want to thank all the staff at LOGiQ3 for participating in this exercise, as I couldn’t have pulled it off without their input.

A few tidbits of what’s included in our book : – our 11 Maxims expanded (our guideing principles, what we live and breathe by), our core values and purpose, the birth of our name and logo, photos from various events and office space, quirky biographies of our staff, “getting to know us” questions answered, and my favourite – the Personification of LOGiQ3. The personification exercise was an eye opener for me. Being able to relate the LOGiQ3 brand to a personality humanizes the brand, creating a sense of personal touch.

Please feel free to flip through our book the next time you visit, there is a copy on display in our reception area. For now, here are some photos to share:

According to Chris, Captain Jack + Arnold + MC Hammer = Quirky like LOGiQ3!

Our 11 Maxims, expanded

  

We asked our staff - what is the LOGiQ3 Culture? "Let you be you"

How do you describe your company’s culture?

Thanks for stopping by!

– Natalie

Zappos and the LOGiQ3 Culture

Thanks for stopping by. This post, we want to share with you, what we’re passionate about at LOGiQ3, what we truly live and breath by – our Culture.

A couple of us recently visited Zappos in Las Vegas while at the SOA Refocus conference – below is what we shared with our staff on the learnings from our visit; and now, we want to share with you.

Zappos started as an online shoe marketplace and now sells shoes and many other products; over a billion dollars a year in fact.

The Zappos story is extremely interesting and documented in a recent book. Written by its current CEO and one of the founders, Tony Hsieh, the book is called Delivering Happiness; a Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. It chronicles the life of Tony, but then provides a lot of detail and insight into how they built Zappos from zero to an ultimate sale to Amazon.com in Oct 2009 for $1.2 billion; in less than 10 years.

The core message is simple; focus on the people & the culture and the rest will follow.

This is where the Zappos story and philosophies intersect with LOGiQ3. Prior to reading this book we had already developed our Maxims. Oddly enough, these maxims are not too dissimilar from the Zappos core values. At a philosophical level, both are meant to be a series of guiding principles that we all hold ourselves accountable to. As LOGiQ3 evolves we are also becoming much more aware of how culture, all of us, will drive the organization forward and the focus it requires. Feedback February is the start of this, but rest assured it is just the start. Having read the book, appreciating how we can learn from their experiences, we decided to take the free Zappos tour while in Las Vegas (where Zappos is headquartered) to get a real sense of their culture. It was something to see, and difficult to describe.

1. Culture can create exceptional businesses. It’s not one thing that makes it “special” but the consistent living up to their principles, hundreds of times a day.
2. This place is quirky to the extreme.
3. During our tour they were just wheeling out the “wine and cheese cart” for the days tasting.
4. The cafeteria is at no cost to employees. Some of the vending machines
   require a small donation ($0.25) which goes to charity.
5. Everyone we met appeared to genuinely enjoy being there and part of the
   organization.
6. The benefits they offer (see pictures below) are unbelievable.

A few interesting quotes from the book:

1. “We believe that inside every employee is more potential than even the employee himself/herself realizes. Our goal is to help employees unlock that potential. But it has to be a joint effort: You have to want to challenge and stretch yourself in order for it to happen.”
2. “The best team members have a positive influence on another and everyone they encounter. They strive to eliminate any kind of cynicism and negative interactions. Instead, the best team members are those that strive to create harmony with each other and whoever else they interact with.”
3. ..“no matter how much better we get, we’ll always have hard work to do, we’ll never be done, and we’ll never “get it right”. That may seem negative, but it’s not: we’ll do our best to “get it right” then we’ll do it again when we find out that things have changed. That is the cycle of growth, and like it or not, that cycle won’t stop.”
4. “Tweets to live by:

• Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself – George Bernard Shaw
• It is amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit – H. S. Truman
• We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same – Carlos Castenada
• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny. – Bertice Berry”

Really, this does relate back to LOGiQ3. The Management team is all reading Delivering Happiness now. In April we will be meeting to discuss what we all thought of it and what we can incorporate into our LOGiQ3 lives. We’ve now decided to create the LOGiQ3 Book Club. This first discussion will be the Management team but we have also asked others to join the discussion – the more thoughts and opinions the better. Subsequent meetings will be opened to other interested parties. A culture focused company is not a “thought of the day” for us at LOGiQ3. It’s becoming a daily conversation around the organization, which it should. Stay tuned, more to come, get excited…

– Chris