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Education Step #7

The Wall Street Journal of May 31st, 2012 had an editorial from John E Chubb and Terry M Moe which discussed internet based University education. It is well worth reading and puts forward one of the directions that education will be following in its pursuit of developing a new model for the students of the world.

We are at the beginning of a radical transformation which will allow many more people on the planet to obtain education from the best teachers that any specific subject matter has in the world. The time is now.

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Thought for the day

In preparing my column for the Construction Equipment Digest I was struck with a question. Do you deserve the loyalty of your customers? Think about it please. What do you do to earn and retain the loyalty of your customers. It is an important point. The time is now.

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Education Step #6

Internet Learning and You.

The last time we talked about education we discussed the evolving nature of learning; first classrooms, then webinars, then audio video webinars with a difference. Now I want to explore the internet learning options.

The first step is to take the slide shows of a webinar and add voice to it. This allows the student to order a product, a learning session, download it and watch it at their convenience. The order will expire within a time limit – days or the number of uses. This is some cases is supplemented with an exam that is taken and the results emailed by to the participant. Not a bad approach. Quick and inexpensive and there is a skills testing exam.

The next step is the internet classroom. It is a virtual course with audio and video, sometimes streaming video, with exams interspersed that must have a specific level of accomplishment before you can move on to the next chapter or section. This is the approach we are taking. We will have a series of self-study programs each of which will have four chapters and within each chapter will be four sections. At the end of each section will be a short test with a more complete test at the end of each chapter. I have high hopes for this new approach. We will be bringing out our prototypes of this training approach later this year.

When we have finalized the approach we will offer four self-study programs for Parts Managers and four for Service Managers. This will be in conjunction with the three classroom sessions for each of parts and service, the eight webinars for each of parts and service. The time is now.

 

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Education Step #4

Have you noticed the accelerated interest in online education at the University level? It seems that the world of teachers is starting to get the message that the cost of school at the University level has gotten out of hand ever since the federal government started to offer lower interest loans than the banks. The schools took advantage of this and raised the cost of tuition and everything else. Not a very enlightened response from supposedly caring people. They look exceptionally greedy to many of us.

Well MIT and Harvard and a few others are offering joint classes on the internet. A group out of Stanford has joined to fray. An individual professor from Stanford is breaking new ground with on line classes that count toward credits at many institutions. It is about time. Perhaps now we will see some of the ego stroking construction programs and professor seat stipends come back to earth. It is ridiculous to see some of the pay packages in place.

Teaching is an avocation not just a profession. I don’t think we need many million dollar professors in this world. Do you? Perhaps we have all gone overboard with pay packages. It is long since time for pushback in schools not just at the CEO level in Companies. Read Gary Hamel and see what you think. The time is now.

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Technicians – how can we thrive without them?

Some of you will know I have been in Hawaii the past few weeks and Marlene and I are having a terrific time. Although we are three hours earlier than at home I am still getting up reasonable early and have had some time for reflection on the business and the Industry.

I have not been in a cocoon here I have been in contact with several people so I have not lost my complete sanity when I wrote the headline for this blog. I truly don’t believe that any dealer any where at any time will thrive without an ambitious and intelligent grooup of talented technicians. I know that I have felt this way for a long time and many of you have heard me make this point before. But it bears repeating now for a few fresh critical reasons.

The new fossil fuel interest. The shale oil developments, fracing techniques, deep well recoveries, natural gas abundance and other exciting things are happening in the oil and gas world. You might wonder what that is going to do to the technicians in our Industry. Well all you have to do is look to our Northern Neighbour, Canada, and you might get an idea. Ft McMurray in Alberta has been a boom town since the 1960’s as a result of the “OilSands” resource. They have wages in that area that will take your breath away. We are seeing similar results in North Dakota. Now the area from San Antonio to Corpus Christi is gaining serious interest. Check out Oklahoma for action. It is starting to be everywhere. Even the EPA can’t seem to stop this strong drive. Between Canada, the US and Mexico the US could satisfy All their oil and natural gas needs for well more than the next hundred years. Of course that is not politically correct these days. Our federal government wants wind and sun power and no more fossil fuels. It appears they are so serious they will kill job opportunities in the process. (Keystone – where for those of you not paying attention that additional oil from Canada is now being shipped by rail and truck which is much more risky than a pipeline) One other comment. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was caused due to us having to ship the Alaskan oil via tankers instead of the pipeline that the envirnmentalists killed at the time.

My point in all of this is that technicians are going to be in shorter supply than they are today in the very near future. The oil and gas industries will take a large number of these talented people and they will do it with higher wages. So I think the message is pretty clear.

Develop your own technicians with good training programs, apprenticeship programs and mentoring programs. Provide a career path that is meaningful and followed for each individual technician. Pay higher wages either with a straight wage or with a strong meaningful incentive program. Manage and supervise the techncians with adequate supervisory density and “good” direct supervision. Operate a “best practices” business unit in service with current and workable tooling and good technological support with tablets and PDA’s and laptops. You have to attract and retain these talented people or you will continue to struggle.

The headline is clear. You need technicians, you need very good technicians if you are going to thrive. The time is now.

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A Farmer’s Creed

I have mentionned the latest book from Gary Hamel – What Matters Now before here and I would like to quote something he wrote about his in-laws. Mr Hamel’s wifes parents bought the Hamels a starter house and it was a great lesson for the newly married couple. The ability to help their daughter came from a life of good old fashioned hard work and strong character traits learned by them in their home, their church and their schools.

The Farmers Creed.

“I believe a man’s greatest possession is his dignity and that no calling bestows this more abundantly than farming. I believe hard work and honest sweat are the building blocks of a person’s character. I believe that farming, despite its hardships and disappointments, is the most honest and honorable way a man can spend his days on earth.”

That makes perfect sense to me but I also believe that is not a commonly held belief. The interesting fact is that the average age of an american farmer is in the high fifties with no clear prospect for that the go lower. It appears that the family farm has long since gone to the corporate farm and that these virtues of farming are going the way of the dodo bird. The time is now..

 

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Do No Harm

In operating your business the goals are always to provide a product or service that your customer can trust and rely on. That your offerings are supported by qualified talented trained employees who care about your customers. So in this difficult business climate do your best, do what is right but make sure you know what you are doing. Do no harm. The time is now.

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Data Mining – the last time we spoke

One of the advantages you have is your data and your information. It is a shame not to use it. With a good VoIP  and good data one of the first things I would show on the screen, as the phone rings, is the purchase history of the customer. What is the business volume this year, this year to date, last year, last year to date, transaction size this year, transaction size last year, number of contacts by you to the customer, number of contacts from the customer to you. Date of last sales transaction by category and date of last contact with you. Do you think you could do something if you had that type of information each and every time that either the customer called you or you called the customer? The time is now…

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Data Mining – Statistics Revisited

One of the useful attributes of a VoIP system is the ability to choose the important elements of information about a client that you want to appear on the screen as the phone is ringing. Of significance might be the date of last contact, date of sale, type of sale, and value of sale. From the probability discussion yesterday this will help you determine when the next sales transaction should take place. It might help how you approach the discussion. The time is now..

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Data Mining – Statistics

With all the data available to us and the lack for many of us of acquiring information, we should look at the branch of Mathematics called Statistics. With statistics you are able, amongst other things, to predict events or activities. It is all based on probability theory. I won’t bore you with the details of probability theory other than to say that the closer together the last two similar transaction or similar activities are the higher the probability that there will be a repeat transaction or activity in the future. And also the further apart the last two similar transactions or similar activities are the lower the probability that there will be a repeat transaction or activity in the future. This is the foundation of most inventory management system theory.

What I look forward to is the ability to do probabilistic planning for sales transactions. For instance, it is a truth that the larger the dollar value of the last transaction the higher the probability for a future sale and the lower the dollar value the lower the probability. This should help us in any number of ways. Sales call management and scheduling for instance. There are starting to be tools available to us that allows this type of data mining to determine the probabilities and start us on the path of “planning” activities in the business. This is very exciting to me as it opens a series of doors that will allow us to control our businesses better. In the end that means better customer service which means higher sales and profits. The time is now…