I think just about everybody dreads performance evaluations. Managers hate doing them and employees hate having their work “evaluated.”
All managers know this is something that should be happening on an on-going basis. But it’s so uncomfortable (remember that scene in Office Space with the “Bobs”) it usually happens only once a year, usually at budget/raise time.
Employees don’t hear a single word of the evaluation (assuming there’s a face-to-face with the boss) because they’re just waiting to hear how much of a raise they got. They also question whether the boss has any idea of how they are really “performing.”
At least that’s how I remember it, before I parachuted out of management, landing safely in Learfield’s Internal Services Group (accounting, engineering, IT).
A couple of of years ago the head of ISG asked for my ideas on how to evaluate what I do. (Huh. Why didn’t I think of that?) I suggested he ask the people I worked with (and for) what they thought, keeping their responses anonymous, of course. He liked the idea and we’ve done it that way (for me) for the last two years.
Most of this year’s feedback was positive (modesty prevents me from sharing) but I do have some areas that still need improvement:
“…can be sarcastic but almost always in fun. Steve lives and breathes the web both at work and in his off time. The downside is whatever he is working with or reading at the time, you are going to hear about it at least as much as you want if not more.”
“Steve Has a tendency to be flippant and arrogant if you don’t agree with this assessment that the world revolves around the Web (and Apple). Sometimes we have clients that need something simple or have a need that he doesn’t agree with. Patience, and understanding that other points of view may be valid, would be appreciated in those instances.”
“Steve is very creative and talented. With that skill set comes a certain degree of “attitude” that isn’t always well-accepted/understood by others.”
Guilty as charged. I’m something of a smart-ass but I’m working on changing that. (Sharing this here is a small part of that effort).
But I like this kind of performance review. The anonymity makes it easy to get the cold hard truth. Every encounter with a co-worker or client is an opportunity to get right … or get it wrong. Keeps a boy on his toes.
“Through a deal with the N.C.A.A., Thought Equity Motion has digitally diced every tournament game this decade from the Round of 16 forward into all of its notable plays, and assigned a Web address to each of them. It lets fans watch any of the games, or thin slices of them, and link to social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter or to their blogs. They call it the Vault.
“The old idea in the industry was to protect the archive and drive fans to the broadcasts,” he said. “Now, people are saying, ‘Internet video is a real business.’ ”
“Out of 116 radio executives, running the fifty largest USA radio companies, 14 of them had Facebook accounts and 19 of them had LinkedIn accounts. The most common member of the executive team to have a presence on either website was the Chief Operating Officer.”
While less than scientific –some executives are online under different names– the results raise the question:
“How can we embrace the digital direction of the industry if our leaders are not even participants themselves? Think of it this way. If it were exposed that less than one in five of radio’s C-level executives owned radios, we would significantly doubt their confidence and personal investment in the radio industry.”
“If today’s radio companies are to evolve into the digital media world, wouldn’t it first make sense for radio’s leaders to evolve into the digital media world? Clearly, many leaders in the media industry are still learning the language of digital. Yet, the fastest way to learn a new language is immersion.”
“Tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can offer any C-level executive a simple and efficient direct forum with employees, shareholders, and customers. In fact, a strong executive could use social networking to improve their company’s image, foster positive communication, and directly confront market feedback.”
Is our (Learfield) industry “headed in a digital direction?” I believe it is. Are our leaders participating themselves? Only a few and in very limited ways. I might rephrase the question:
If only 1-in-5 of our senior managers regularly attended college sporting events, would we “doubt their confidence and personal investment” in collegiate sports marketing?
I started noodling around with Twitter in March, 2007 (I had to go back and look). I’ll be the first to confess that Twitter is/was damned hard to explain. So I could hardly be surprised when some most all of the Learfield Grown-ups pooh-poohed the idea when I told them about it.
With the able assistance of JJ the Amazing Intern, I compiled a Twitter list of our university partners. And as far as we can determine, they ALL have a Twitter page and most feature a prominent link on their home page. Ahem.
For some reason I can’t find an “official” Twitter page for Indiana University but assume they have one. Hit the comment link if you find it.
Given the large and enthusiastic fan base, Twitter is a near-perfect tool for touching that community.
I’ve sort of rediscovered the “blog this photo” feature on flickr and looked around for an image to use. Zena is the traveling companion of Mike Mah, a pain management specialist who “practices healing techniques through martial arts.”
They visited Learfield in 2006. Mike insists Zena rides on the motorcycle with him, hence the goggles.
Iowa State and University of Iowa football fans can now text university staff to alert them to problems. Like some drunk ass clown sitting behind you screaming obscenities. Or a lost child or something.
They just punch in 97178, then type the word ALERT, before sending a text message (including your seat location).
Hawkeye officials implemented a new text messaging system before the season, in order to give fans quick and discrete access to ushers as well as security and medical personnel.
The texting program is part of a larger communications agreement with Learfield Sports (company I work for) and FanDriveMedia. Full story here.
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from one of the guys in our Minnesota office. He wanted a website to serve the advertisers of one of our networks. Said he didn’t really have a budget and he’d like to have it by the first home game, to be played in a brand new stadium (just over a week away). They were going to have lots of photos and didn’t have a good way to share them with fans and sponsors.
I purchased a WordPress theme (from Studio Press) for $65 and paid another hundred or so to have it customized (thank you, Rebecca). Ten days later the site was up and running (still adding content, obviously).
I’ve been at this long enough to be amazed that I could give the guy a credible website for $200 in a week-and-a-half. AND because it’s WordPress, he –or one of his interns– can update this site thorughout the season. I remember when this would have taken months and cost thousands of dollars.
Learfield Videographer (and part-time chief operating officer) Roger Gardner took his little Flip video camera to Saturday’s football game between Mizzou and Bowling Green and brought back some nice clips, including this one of the big new scoreboard.
We live in a YouTube world. Well, a video world. On our desk tops, on our phones… and we sure as heck want it during our football games. Even with the flip video, you get a sense of how good the new scoreboard video is. And that black area above the video panels, with the Tiger logo? Speakers. Big…ass…speakers.
And I did enjoy the stylin’ and attitude of the players during the video introductions. Sheeeeiiit.
I think just about everybody dreads performance evaluations. Managers hate doing them and employees hate having their work “evaluated.”
