It’s always nice to deliver a positive, well-deserved employee review or announce the completion of a really challenging strategic project. To truly validate a technology manager’s role with a great organization, though, nothing beats a daily deluge of vendor spam.
I’m sure I’m not the only BI or IT manager who’s seen a sharp increase in pings from salespeople and consulting firms during the COVID era. Between February and August my cold call spam emails have increased from a few per week to a somewhere around maxint* daily.
Most are attempts to sell me and my company various services designed to help us convert our office team to a virtual workforce. Not a bad idea — just five months too late.
Nobody’s thinking right now of “trying out” virtual work arrangements. Organizations that could conceivably work remotely either started down that path months ago, or they’ve remained unconcerned and don’t plan on switching gears now.** I doubt there’s an IT manager in the country hopefully waiting for that random offer to introduce teleconferencing to his or her company.
If you want a response to your “Hey, I just noticed your title on LinkedIn” email, start solving tomorrow’s problems.
Many previously on-prem companies are buckled in for an extended remote workforce situation, and some (like Nationwide) say they’re making the arrangement permanent. If they’re that committed, they probably don’t need help initiating a work-from-home capability. On the other hand, re-thinking how we work form home has a lot of merit, and could potentially be quite lucrative.
Case in point: meeting rhythm. People are already talking about Zoom/Skype/GoToMeeting fatigue. They ask how to keep people engaged for four and five hours of teleconferences every day, but they don’t seem to ask whether they truly need four or five hours of daily meetings. Don’t try to sell bigger and better teleconferencing to them — sell analysis of meeting effectiveness.***
By now everyone in corporate America has heard of or experienced the virtual water cooler. It’s been a great implementation at Vetoquinol, in my opinion, but after a few months, we’re certainly seeing participation wane. Again, solve my tomorrow problem: how can you help me drive a social connection among a large, remote workforce?
That’s today’s advice for tech sector consultants who’ve taken to LinkedIn for their COVID cold calling. Be sure to tune in to my next blog in this category, when I share with you the sure-fire way to get put on my blocked contact through just a single message.
* Geek terms. Maxint means a lot. A whole lot.
** Who knows, maybe they’ve added hydroxychloroquine samples and injectable bleach to their benefits packages.
*** I’ll share one strategy for this for free. At Microsoft, my team adopted a habit of having 20 minute meetings and 45 minute meetings instead of 30 and 60. You’re welcome.