Ben Neumann: Views From The Trenches

I have always marveled at entrepreneurs, CEOs, and hiring managers who seemingly breeze through the hiring process like they’re channel-surfing; ultimately landing on something they like. Many of the hiring execs I know (including myself sometimes) suffer from “temporary autism” when it comes to hiring for higher level positions.

The Sad Story of Amadou Diallo
Malcolm Gladwell brought the term "temporary autism" closer to business-use in his bestselling book "Blink - The Power of Thinking without Thinking”. In his work he describes situations where people override their usually decent and mainstream common sense by temporarily reacting to a situation that is happening differently in their minds than in reality. In one of the most intriguing speculations in the book, Gladwell proposes that all of us can be guilty of "temporary autism," incidents when we completely misread the situation and react incorrectly. His examples are a bit extreme. In one case he describes the reactions of police officers under stress, most notably the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo in a hail of bullets fired by undercover New York cops. The four white officers became "temporarily autistic" when facing a black man acting suspiciously in a high-crime neighborhood. They were "blind," Gladwell says, and mistook the wallet in Diallo's hand for a gun. As a result of this Diallo died in a hail of over 40 bullets fired directly at him. Extreme? Absolutely! Rare exception? Definitely not!

In a Medical Sense
Let’s take a quick step back. Clinical autism, by definition, is a form of pervasive developmental disorder with an unknown origin. Symptoms are a marked lack of awareness of the feelings of others and little or no social interaction or communications with others. Children with autism are often described as "within themselves" and may seem to avoid affection and love. They can be taught self-care, social skills and language skills, but many times the disorder may result in learning difficulties, speech problems and difficulty relating to people.

Do I have a Point?
Now what does all of this have to do with hiring, you might wonder? Good question! To some people it won’t have anything to do with hiring. Others will have already recognized the connection. The answer will most notably affect and interest entrepreneurs and hiring managers who have not only hired a bunch of people, but more importantly MIS-hired for some of their open positions. To those of you who still wonder, it should become clearer in a minute.

The Power of Natural Desire
If you are hiring you are naturally having the desire to find the perfect candidate. At Globat we usually get a small flood of resumes from more-or-less qualified candidates with every job opening we post. Take it from me; variety doesn’t make it any easier! To make it even more difficult, Globat’s located in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, and you can probably imagine what that means. If not, let me try to paraphrase what I mean by that. See, I like Bill Maher and his “New Rules" skit. Inspired by that I created my own “New Rule” for the dilemma we, and many entrepreneurs and hiring managers alike (not just in L.A.) find ourselves in at times:

“New Rule: No more resumes from people who think that they are replying to a casting call instead of a job opening! At age 24 these folks list so many accomplishments and executive job experiences in their six page resumes that simply time-wise they had to start managing people when they were still sperm”! ;-)

What's the Big Deal?
Especially lately I have spent a lot of thought on what the underlying reasons are for people to trigger these mis-hires. After all, you are gung-ho, an expert of your company’s products/services, and know exactly what your perfect candidate needs to know and do. What kind of experience he/she needs to have; and the type of personality that will match with the rest of your staff. You will spend hours weeding through resumes and interviewing these folks to check them in and out. How difficult can it be?! Well, virtually everyone who has done this a few times knows that it is extremely difficult!

The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions
Have you ever been in a situation where you absolutely needed to fill a position? Did you also feel like you just didn’t get enough qualified responses from your job postings and that the general level of candidates that apply seem to hope for a long-shot rather than being a fit – even on paper? Did you then go ahead and select the best people out of the small pool of resumes you did collect and invited them for interviews (hey, the show must go on, right)? If so, you have taken your very first steps towards a temporary autism outage. You are going down a path that will more often than not end in your logical mind overwriting what you in your gut know is right. The reason for that is men’s instinctual need for progress. We want to move forward not backwards! You will end up hiring one of these candidates because you already went so far and now you are at a point where your mind talks you into it. If someone else would walk into the situation at that very moment they would be able to say “no, don’t hire this person”, but you’re too far into it to realize where things are going. The classic example of the frog who’s thrown into hot water and jumps out right away, while the poor frog, when put into cold water which is than slowly heated up, will boil to death. Welcome to temporary autism!

Don't Go There!
Hiring is more of an art than a science; you are dealing with people’s personalities after all. Are some positions harder to fill than others? You bet they are. In my experience some of the toughest jobs to fill are marketing positions. These folks sell for a living and many of them are pretty good in selling themselves. Marketing people can easily create an interview environment that makes a fertile breading ground for the temporary autism “bug”. They want to you to see them as a perfect fit and know how to say the right things at the right time; talk about manipulation. Don’t go there! Smell the coffee! Make sure you stick to your notepad and the questions you wrote down beforehand or use your interview form sheet you brought with you (you need something that keeps you on track) to keep you focused and go down your list of questions before you get excited at all. If you have to fight the overwhelming feeling that “this is our gal/guy”, do fight it; otherwise you are walking down a slippery slope and need to remind yourself that there is a whole lot of selling going on and you need to look past that to find your true fit.

The Cardinal Rule
At Globat, we created a cardinal rule for situations like this: We do not offer the job to anyone until we have at least two more-or-less equally qualified candidates for the position from which we have to choose. If we don’t have two we keep interviewing despite the chance of “loosing” that one seemingly perfect candidate we might already have. This forces us to keep our focus on the position instead of on a single person. We’re keepin’ it real!

In regards to techniques I have a final book recommendation, for the voracious readers amongst you, which I thought was a very helpful tool in formulating a solid interviewing strategy: The Boss’s Survival Guide. It’s a bit of an encyclopedia, but it will come handy whenever you are faced with some hiring and interviewing questions that would normally go unanswered or require calls to outside consultants.

Listen to Your Gut!
The environment we are sliding into during interviews, combined with the desire to find the perfect candidate, and the instinctual need for progress is the main reason that causes the decision to hire someone who is not really a “fit”. Recognizing this is a huge step toward preventing it. Awareness leads to focus, which is a pretty solid reality check for most people. Don’t put yourself into a position where you say in hindsight (after the “perfect fit” quit or was fired) that you knew it, and you should have listened to your gut. If that is the case, you truly should have listened to your gut instead of letting temporary autism override it! According to Ex-GE CEO Jack Welsh, “gut feeling is simply strong pattern recognition”, and you knew it all along.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

... and we are doing it by selling advertising space for $1 per pixel at MillionDollarHelpPage.com. Crazy? Not quite! 21 year old English student/entrepreneur Alex Tew started the concept in early September of 2005 with his MillionDollarHomePage.com idea and to date sold $155,000 worth of pixels already. Alex is doing it for his own benefit (and rightly so, as he created this idea). Personally I thought that it was an awesome idea and besides sponsoring him Chris and I decided it was time to step up to the plate and use the current momentum to raise money for our fellow men and women out there in Louisiana who are still struggling to make it another day. So, we launched

We started this project because, despite our financial support to the Red Cross, we felt that we still wanted to do more. In light of that, we have been looking for effective ways to rally the Internet community and we strongly believe that with the MillionDollarHelpPage.com we have found our vehicle.

For the ones of you who are not familiar with the general concept, we are trying to raise up to $1,000,000 for the victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster that struck Louisiana in late August of 2005, and we are planning to do this by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each at MillionDollarHelpPage.com. The idea is to provide value for the advertisers and help for our people who are very much in need right now. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to buy some pixels. The pixels will be displayed on the MillionDollarHelpPage.com for a period of at least 2 years.

This is the very first time that funds for a charitable purpose are raised on the Internet this way. We plan on having this page up for much longer than the guaranteed 2 years and are hoping that it will ultimately become a piece of Internet history; which many people, regardless of race, religion, nationality, or background will have a part of, if they decide to get some pixels!

So, please spread the word or even better get a piece of Internet history yourself and help some folks in need.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Chris and I discussed comments on blogs today, and while BenNeumann.com (it also goes under CapitalistBlog.com) gets a fairly decent amount of traffic we noticed that there are hardly any commenters around. So, to prove that the comment functionallity of this website is actually working and if you feel encouraged, please comment away. ;-)

Posted by Ben Neumann at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Spring and Fall are the seasons when my Tivo is working overtime. Aside from my favorite shows 24, Monk and Real Time (a little Bill Maher never hurts), I also very much enjoy Reality TV. Not all of it, of course, but you'll find me setting up season passes for shows such as

I've always been a strong proponent of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing or what is commonly known as starting a “Buzz”. It is certainly one of the most effective ways to market your business, brand, product or service and we have employed WOM techniques at Globat for years. It is also one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing as it does not require many tools or expensive services. The power of word-of-mouth marketing, however, is truly immense. One of the keys to WOM success is to have unique ideas that are trend-setting to promote your brand or business.

Let me give you an example to make the unique-idea-part of what I’m trying to say a bit clearer. Assume one of your friends wants to go to college, but has concerns about the financial hole he is digging himself into. Now your buddy decides to sit down and think about a way on how he could make a nice chunk of change, let’s say a million bucks - quickly and legally. Next your friend, who is somewhat internet-savvy, decides to create a home page on which he wants to sell advertising space; one pixel at a time for $1 per pixel. Well, since that seems to be a bit cumbersome he settles on selling advertising space on his, yet to he created, new home page, in 10x10 pixel blocks (100 pixels = 1 block = $100). Excited about his idea your friend registers a domain name that describes the concept and creates a home page with 100 x 100 of these empty $100 pixel blocks (a total of 10,000 blocks, all on one page). If your friend sells them all; he will earn a total of $1,000,000 (10,000 blocks x $100). It’s ambitious, but hey, what the heck, start-up cost for the whole venture were less than $100 ($10 for the domain, $90 hosting for the first year). Than your buddy starts to tell all his and your friends about his new site and idea, emails it to everyone he knows, calls the press, issues a press release, and spreads the words throughout the newsgroups and blogging communities. Next thing you know, and only 2 or 3 weeks into it, your buddy already sold 640 of his 10,000 pixel blocks, netting him $64,000!!!

Bullsh**? Sounds crazy? Will never work? Well, check out the true story of Alex Tew, who created TheMillionDollarHomePage.com on Aug 26, 2005. Alex is a 21-year-old student/entrepreneur from Wiltshire, England, who hopes to pay his way through college and university (and buy some new socks) by selling 1 million pixels of internet ad space for $1 each. He has sold at least 65,000-$70,000 of ad space over the past three weeks alone (Globat purchased a 39 blocks spot from Alex to support his efforts). My buddy Peter Cooper, who knows how I think about these type of ideas, was kind enough to forward Alex’s link to me (thanks Coop). Alex and his venture prove my point that properly executed ingenuity and innovation combined with WOM work almost every time!

For the WOM-interested minds I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s “"The Tipping Point"! This books is one of the best ever written about why some ideas "tip" and others do not. It explains in simple to understand terms what connectors are and how mavens can have an immense impact on your business. The Tipping Point will show people how to start "positive" epidemics of their own. The bottom-line virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly (think flu viruses). This point of view alone makes it something of obvious and enormous interest to everyone from educators trying to reach students, to businesses trying to spread the word about their brand, products, or services, or for that matter to anyone who's trying to create a change with somewhat limited resources. The book has a number of clarifying case studies of people who have successfully started epidemics - an advertising agency, for example, and a breast cancer activist. Gladwell's examples as well as his style of telling a scientific adventure story are really fascinating. He also takes a pressing social issue, teenage smoking, breaks it down and analyzes what an epidemic approach to solving that problem would look like. The point is that by the end of the book the reader should have a clear idea of what starting an epidemic actually takes. The Tipping Point is not an abstract, academic book. It's very practical, and it's very hopeful. It truly is brain software!

Earlier this year Chris and I joined WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) to get a chance to mingle more with some like-minded people. Communication-wise it’s been a bit slow form the WOMMA front for my taste, but their website is full of interesting information and definitely worth a visit.

I'm currently putting together some examples and more in-depth explanations on how Buzz/WOM marketing may impact your business or brand and will post these as soon as they are ready to go.

To be continued…

Posted by Ben Neumann at 02:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For those who are interested, here are the pictures from our Alaska trip. All were uploaded using Globat's very own GlobatGallery. ;-)

For the complete album (with comments) click here

or as a slideshow (without comments) click here.

Enjoy!

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have a mentioned that I'm a foodie? ;-) Tonight Chris, Andrea, Peter, and I will be celebrating off some gift certificates I still had for Roy's. The original Roy's founded by master chef Roy Yamaguchi is located by the beach right outside of Waikiki; gorgeous location! We've been there many times and since I love Hawaii, visiting "our" Roy's in Woodland Hills always brings back fun memories. Definitely a place, though, where you need to make reservations as early as possible to get in (or know Jason, the manager). Did I mention that the food is outstanding, too?!

Interesting on the business end (since I previously invested into some restaurants) is that Roy's restaurants are actually owned by Outback (remember the steakhouses?) through a joint venture deal that Outback has with Roy.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here’s the second part of yesterday’s posting on how to find the best web host out there. For obvious reasons I will continue to use Globat.com as my example hosting company of choice. ;-)

Important factors to consider when selecting a web hosting provider are:

Storage
Depending on the type of site you are running the average web page is conventionally less than 50 KB in size. Use this number to calculate the actual space required to host your entire website. Add to it the collective size of the images used in your site and also the associated mailboxes as email stored in your mailboxes usually counts against your storage quota. Your space requirement grows further, if your site uses one or several MySQL databases to store customer information and/or process online transactions. Opt for a web host that provides ample server space to hold your site and support its growth. Moving your entire site from one host to another could be a bit of a hassle (although Chris and I have developed a patent-pending process to completely automate this, which we will release to the public shortly). At the same time, do not fall for companies offering unlimited disk space. Nothing is truly unlimited and you will run the danger of being “kicked out”, if you start using huge amounts of resources. Globat’s smallest hosting account (TeraByte Package™) starts with a whooping 10,000 MB of storage, which is actually a huge amount of space and most likely more than you will ever need.

Bandwidth
Calculate the required bandwidth by multiplying the number of pages and images used in the site with the number of visitors coming to your site every month. Bandwidth usage increases whenever a user goes through your site. Due to the highly competitive web hosting market web hosting services regularly offering 50, 75 or even 100 Gigabyte of bandwidth per month and more. Globat goes up to 4.5 Terabyte/year (~400 Gigabyte/month), which, at the time of me writing this, is the largest bandwidth offer available for shared hosting on the net (at least for what we charge) . The bandwidth needed for your website should be calculated generously to avoid potential overage charges. Once again, be cautious of services that promise "unlimited bandwidth". Take it from me, there is no such thing as unlimited or un-metered bandwidth. Bandwidth is one of every hosting company’s largest monthly expense items and as such closely monitored and policed against “abusers”. Hosting companies that promote this feature might allow a substantial amount of traffic to your website, but it will definitely not be "unlimited". It is usually better to know the maximum amount of bandwidth allowed beforehand.

Security Measures
Pretty much all leading web hosting companies offer some form of network security measures, which are required to keep their servers safe from viruses and hackers. Beyond that individual website security is pretty much up to the website owner. Make sure you use hard to guess passwords and change them regularly. If you operate an online store supporting online transactions and collection of credit cards along with shoppers' other personal data, increased security is imperative for your website and even required under U.S. laws. You must then invest in a web hosting plan that comes with Secured Socked Layer (SSL) data-encryption and more advanced tools and technology to keep your site secure (check out our TeraByte T02 Package™). In addition to the key factors discussed above, other issues that can help you in selecting a suitable web hosting provider are:

Reputation
Do your research! Ask for references and look at some websites that the company already hosts on its servers. If possible, find the number and type of clients they serve and talk to some of these clients to know their opinion about the hosting company. Ensure the hosting service you decide on is reliable, supportive and does what it says. You might also want to check on a particular web host’s standing with the Better Business Bureau.

Customer Service
My favorite topic and generally the area in the web hosting industry that separates the men from the boys! At Globat we pride ourselves for setting very high standards for customer care. Lou Rio, our Director of customer service, has done this as one of the customer service executives at Xerox for the past 25 years and continues his quest for excellence by enhancing and supporting our international 24/7 customer service team. A hosting company offering ‘round the clock customer support by any means possible will be significantly more useful than a provider promising support only during the regular working hours or no support at all. Go through their website and the accompanying help pages to check if they are detailed enough for you. See if they provide a toll-free telephone number to save you the additional cost of making a long distance phone call. Are there other ways to get help, if you need to (i.e. online ticket system, live chat, etc.)? Sometimes, web hosts advertise 24/7 support but fail to live up to their promise. Check if somebody is actually available by contacting them at odd hours and on off days. Email them some queries to judge their responsiveness. Call their phone support number a few times and post at least 1-2 support tickets to test their response times and quality.

Uptime, Servers and Network Infrastructure (the “tech stuff”)
A website is only as good as the company it is hosted with! The number one most important requirement for a website is that it needs to be “up”. Uptime is critical to the success of your site, your reputation, and potentially even your business. Now, trust me when I say that every web host goes down once in a while. Keep in mind that you are dealing with computers and those guys “act up” once in a while. I have yet to find a 100% uptime web hosts and you should reasonably expect uptime to be around 99.8%+ for the more reputable hosting companies. 99.8% uptime basically means that out of 720 possible uptime hours in a calendar month you should expect 2 hours of downtime (not necessarily in one block). This does not include scheduled maintenance; which should always be announced well in advance and performed during off-peak hours at night. Usually, the type of server the web host uses is presumed to be not that important, but it can greatly affect the cost of your hosting plan. Web hosts that use unix/linux-based Apache servers (95% of all hosts out there do use some form of unix/linux) generally offer more options at a much more economical rate. With these type of servers, you will be able to exercise an increased control over your site by being able to things such as blocking irrelevant IP addresses, customizing error messages, and protecting graphics and images used in your web pages. However, if you use ASP in your website there is no other option but to use a windows-based server (Globat does not support ASP), which are usually costlier and less flexible. Contrary to common beliefs you do not have to use a windows-based server just because you are using MS Frontpage®. Most leading web hosting companies fully support FrontPage and its extensions on unix and linux platforms.

Access to FTP
Select a web host that allows you constant FTP service so you can upload your web files whenever you want to. Do not fall for cheaper or free plans with FTP usage restrictions.

Statistics and Log Files
Once your site is on the Internet, you most likely would also want to track its performance for which you require appropriate software that captures and analyses all the necessary data. Good web hosting companies usually offer programs to help you measure the success of your website using a familiar statistics package. Using your web host's build-in stats will also save you the trouble of dealing with several third-parties in case you need troubleshooting assistance.

Duration of Service Plan
Most commonly web hosting providers offer quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly plans. Typically, they offer attractive discounts or additional services on buying a longer term plan. See if the additional services offered by the web host of your choice will be useful and purchase a plan only after assessing your requirement.

Email Management
Opt for a web hosting plan that offers several email addresses, which you control and assign, so you can generate email addresses of your choice such as info@yourwebsite.com or sales@yourwebsite.com adding to the professional image of a website. Globat hosting accounts (as much as many other leading hosts) come with as man email addresses as you like as well as aliases and forwarders, which you maintain from within your control panel.

Buying from Resellers
Several smaller web hosting companies are actually resellers of another, larger parent company. The downside of working with resellers is that quite often they are unaware of business details and internal issues. Consequently, people using the services suffer. However, not all resellers are ignorant to these facts. When opting for a reseller web hosting service explore both the reselling agent as well as the parent company.

In summary, you should understand that most likely no company can offer everything you will ever need, even if there are no financial constraints. The web hosting market is very competitive and offers out there are aggressive. Marketing is a necessity for today’s web hosts as is the use of affiliates to refer new customers. Don’t overpay as in a commodity market you will not always get what you pay for! Expensive web hosting plans do not necessarily equate to excellent services or better features. Reputation and length of time in business are better factors to judge a possible fit. Study the market with respect to your needs and see which companies offer the best deals suitable to your website requirement. Overall, be critical when search for the hosting company of your choice; you might have to “live” with your decision for quite a while.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, as the Chief Exec of leading web hosting firm Globat.com one of the questions I'm being asked often is "how can I find a good web host for my website, blog, business, etc.?" So, here's the low down and dirty directly from the horse's mouth (and, a bit of a gentle pitch for Globat, of course). ;-)

Companies and individuals can by themselves create impressive websites (I have seen truly amazing websites over the 12 years I've been in the hosting business), but ultimately everybody needs a web hosting service to launch their site on the Internet and "make it live". Most major web hosting providers offer adequate space, speed, and security measures required to keep your site running smoothly. Some web hosts can accommodate websites of nearly any size so business owners never run out of space or bandwidth as might happen when your site becomes more polular and grows, in need for more substantial space requirements. Webmasters and designers should select a web host carefully and only after familiarizing themselves with each company's plans and options as they might sound alike but usually vary greatly. Web hosting offers and service levels range from being completely free of charge, over inexpensive shared hosting, to more pricey solutions such as dedicated servers or even managed hosting:

Free Web Hosting
As the name suggests, free hosting does not cost a dime, but it usually also doesn’t offer much, providing limited space, software, bandwidth, and no or very limited customer service and support. Quite often, free hosting accounts do not ensure database usage, uptime guarantee or any form of tech support. Generally, free servers do not allow you to use custom domain names thereby making your site somewhat sub-standard, considering that domain names are basically a must-have in today’s competitive online landscape. Some free services impose a very strict size limitation on the files you upload forcing you to create smaller sized web pages and restricting you from uploading heavier web elements. Others might restrict you from uploading files other than those saved as HTML, JPG, or GIF. Free hosting services normally generate their revenue (nothing is really free as these services need money to stay in business like any other hosting firm) by asking you to display their banners, some form of third-party advertising, or a pop-up window along with your website. Depending on the purpose of your website, banners of another company on your site may project a bit of an unprofessional look and a growing number of people find pop-ups extremely annoying. Free hosting services are therefore not a good option, if you are looking to sell goods or services through your website. One of the biggest disadvantages with using free servers is that some search engines do not index sites that lack proper custom domain names (i.e. they only let you use yourchoice.theirdomain.com instead of your-name.com). Free hosting accounts are mostly suited for basic personal homepages, very low-level charity organizations, or online business that are really in their infancy though eventually it would be advisable to move to a paid service that at least allows the usage of custom domain names. A good example of a free hosting service is (http://geocities.yahoo.com/) Geocities.

Shared Web Hosting
By far the most commonly offered solution and the most competitive market, which results in extremely attractive offers for individuals and businesses alike. It’s called shared hosting as most commonly you are sharing the resources of a web server with a bunch of other folks. There are quite a variety of shared hosting providers out there, so lets use a larger hosting company, shall we say Globat.com (told ya) as an example to make clear what shared hosting really is all about. For a relatively small amount (~$95/yr), a web hosting provider such as Globat (but also many others) offers incredible hosting deals (such as our TeraByte T01 Package™) on a shared server environment. Shared hosting firms usually provide better services than free ones (they’re actually making money and can reinvest some of it into their services). Globat offers more software, 24/7 technical support via email, phone and chat, up to 99.9% uptime, 10,000+ MB of storage space, and up to 4.7 Terabyte(!) of data transfer/year. Shared hosting providers are a much better suited option for businesses as well as for more serious individuals, who might be faced with a limited budget, but have at least a small amount of money left for a professional web hosting account. Site owners enjoy more credibility and usually also get better search engine rankings because shared hosting companies allow and actually encourage their customers to use custom domain names (i.e. your-name.com). An easy-to-use control panel (the tool that enables you to easily maintain the entire backend, email, and preferences of your hosting account) is a must and will make your online life much easier. Access to statistics and log files are necessary, if you are interested in find out who is coming to your site and where they are coming from. Go for more features, even if you don’t have an immediate need for them, than less. People are often concerned about limited resources on shared hosting platforms. The number of other websites you are sharing a web server with heavily depends on the type/quality of server the hosting company is operating, but the range is usually between 600 and 1,500 sites per server. Given a proper network infrastructure powerful enough servers have no problem serving up that many different sites as long as resource-intensive applications and services such as mail and databases are broken out.

Dedicated Servers
Any potential disadvantages of free and shared hosting services are taken care of by using dedicated servers, which make this option also the most expensive one. Dedicated servers are ideal for established businesses with high-traffic websites, financially sound individuals, or organizations with tight security requirements who wish to have root access to their servers. Aside from the financial background, dedicated server choice also depends on the objectives that one wants to achieve. Dedicated servers are basically the same type of machines used for shared hosting except you won’t share that server with anyone and all its resources are there just for you and your websites(s). My personal rule-of-thumb for when you might be ready to upgrade from shared hosting and get your own dedicated server (you usually need to have more technical knowledge to operate your own server or hire someone to do it for you) is when your website is ranked in the top 50,000 sites on the Internet. To find out your website's ranking simply check out Alexa.com.

To be continued…

I’m still working on the second part of this posting and should have it up by tomorrow.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, our Alaska trip was absolutely awesome and I will post some pics in the next few days. I have to admit, though, that I'm also happy to be back home and in the game. There's only so much beauty I can take and Alaska has tons of it. I'll most certainly spend more time up there in the future (still need to go bear watching).

The actual trip to Seward, where we met our ship, was a bit of a hassle. Picture traveling by plane, bus, train, and car from L.A. to Seattle, than to Anchorage, and finally to Seward with three adults and a 3 and an almost 5 year old, all within less than 24 hrs, and you know what I'm talking about. It was a bit like one of my favorite movies "Traines, Planes, and Automobiles". ;-)

I know I keep repeating it, but the images and scenery we experienced in Alaska made us feel like we were part of a documentary movie or it seemed as if someone was lining up postcard-type images in an nearly never-ending array of one-more beautiful-than-the-other pictures - truly breathtaking!

Posted by Ben Neumann at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't been able to post over the last few days as my Internet connectivity in Alaska has been very sporadic. On Saturday we went to view the majestic Hubbard Glacier and I witnessed several bus-size pieces break off and slam into the ocean. What an amazing and majestic part of nature! Today we chartered a helicopter and actually landed and walked around on the Taku Glacier right outside of Juneau. We saw bald eagles, whales, and more beauty than I personally could take in. This has easily been one of the most amazing days I've had. I'm in love with Alaska already!

Posted by Ben Neumann at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sounds a bit like a Harry Potter title, doesn't it. Well, many people who are close to me are well aware how much I hate the common "may I be frank" phrase. Sure, you may be frank; does that mean you did bullsh** me the entire time before? Of course, we all know that this phrase usually introduces something unpleasant, but why not deliver the "bad" news as part of daily communication? It might soften the blow and, who knows, maybe the situation would have resolved itself without any significant confrontation; just because we were “frank” to each other all the time.

Well, the “why not deliver the bad news” part is pretty easy. It’s definitely your Mom's fault! Your Dad and your Grandparents had something to do with it, too. Fact is, we are brought up to be "social”. It's pretty much everybody's standard "programming" to “be nice”. You just don’t tell your Grandma that the VCR she got for your birthday actually sucks, because it’s a BETA and VHS is in fact the new industry standard. You also won’t tell your partner that the jacked he/she is wearing is dreadful, or that the racial joke your friend is cracking is offensive to you. This is not to say that you should blurt out the brutal truth at anytime to anyone and whenever you feel like it. Candor doesn’t mean that you need to be insensitive and it also doesn't make you invincible. It does, however, show that you care.

In my position, usually as founder, chairman, CEO or other high-level exec I know that, most of the time, my position does get in the way of people speaking candidly with me. I know this as I have seen and experienced what effect titles have on folks in organizations of any size. No matter how secure or empowered a co-worker may feel, more often than not I have to “drag” the candor out of him. Even then, I get only some, if any, of what I really need. People keep trying to "impress" me by throwing things at me they believe I would like to hear. What I am looking for, however, are people who don't constantly pad their own shoulder, fish for compliments, are worried about job security, but have the guts to challenge a process and strive for creating something that lasts.

Ah, I hear the doubters: “Wait a minute, who is he kidding? My life is going to be much simpler, if I just avoid candor altogether! Does he really want to be told when he has taken a mistaken course of action? If I would tell him that he'd been insensitive, inept, or cruel, he’s just going to stonewall or be dismissive! Does he really want candor?

The answer is an encouraging ”YES”! Substantiated candor is one of the greatest intellectual gifts you can give someone. It shows itself in forthright counsel and well-informed criticism and I understand perfectly well that it is not an easy gift to neither give nor receive. This is what makes it special.

I am a strong believer in “treat others like you want to be treated. That is why I personally am very candid with the people I work with, live with, and surround myself with. I hope for the same in return. Speak up, if you can’t do or don’t know something. Don’t wait until it is too late before you point out a mistake that was made (on either end). Don't do or say something just to impress everyone, but focus on quality, which, if done right, is impressive in itself. Stand up for your mistakes! Life will go on even if you make the wrong decision every once in a while. Personally I try to be very forthright, whenever I mess something up (which happens quite a bit when you ask my wife, btw). Be candid with yourself and be aware that whenever you point your finger at someone to assign blame, there are at least three other fingers still pointing back at you!

Absence of candor is one of the major obstacles a company needs to overcome to succeed. Overly large bureaucracy and heavy infrastructure causes people to “not speak up”. It is an atmosphere such as this that makes you sluggish and downgrades the effectiveness of your organization. We need to build a business culture that promotes and incentivizes honest feedback. Candor needs to be rewarded as rewards and incentives will reinforce that particularly desired behavior.

In his 2005 book “Winning” GE Mammoth CEO Jack Welch reinforced the “candor in business” strategy by comparing candid performance appraisals to the time we all were in school: "Why are grades OK from the time that you're in fourth grade to the time you're getting your MBA, but not OK once you're an adult? You need to use the same rigor to evaluate your people that you use to evaluate your financial statements." Using a forced ranking system requires this type of discipline.

Jack hits it head on. An effective company needs a powerful and motivated workforce, which drives it forward in a competitive market space. This requires an equally effective performance appraisal system, which relies not only on candid feedback, but also on meaningful segregation among employees. In my companies, even before I knew much of anything about Jack Welch, I was naturally determined to reward the top performers, train and manage up medium and good performance, and phase out the sub-standards and non-performers. Now, I have always taken my share of criticism for this rather hard-line approach, but I found this an extremely effective method of shaping the quality of any workforce. Candid performance measures avoid surprises. People need to know where they stand. I do not want to see a suprised face when someone is being told that are not doing enough to stay with the company. Failing to be candid and differentiate among your employees, and not rewarding your stars while fading out your bottom-tier performers, is actually one of the most vindictive forms of management there is.

A highly effective performance management structure is one of the most powerful human resources mechanism out there and can be responsible for an organization's ultimate success. Think about it. Most critical to any company's performance are its people. The way you select, reward, and develop your team so that highly capable worders, leaders and managers are in the right positions at the proper times.

Except under certain circumstances I do not at all see it as the company's primary responsibility to ensure that its employees attain an appropriate balance between their personal and professional lives. A company should strive to provide great opportunities and, whenever possible, job security for their employees, but it should not be the company's job to figure out one's work-life balance. Employees aren't guaranteed an entitlement to the form of flexibility needed to balance professional and personal demands. Flexibility is a privilege that needs to be earned, not something that is simply handed to you. As in many other aspects of live, if you deliver, you will earn the flexibility to manage competing priorities. The right combination of rewards and recognition, for a company's top performers, fosters a high-performance work environment. Good managers know exactly how and when to motivate each of their employees.

Finding the "right person" might be major challenge, but considering the enormously positive effects the "right person" may have on your organizational performance it’s worth the struggle. If you have the wrong person in the right position you are in deeper trouble than if you would put the right person in the wrong position. Given the opportunity performers will always perform; old habits die hard!

Using some of the examples above I hope to have made a strong case for candidness in virtually any business situation (as always, your "candid" feedback is very welcome). Candor will save you many empty miles, lots of disappointments, even more money and could, last but certainly not least, make the difference between an endless cycle of struggle and failure and a very successful and striving company.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity." - Napoleon Bonaparte

One of the root causes of many problems I, as much as many other entrepreneurs, face throughout the life of a company is mediocrity. Over the years I have developed an insatiable desire for perfection and excellence in the products and/or services I want put my name behind. To be honest, it isn't particularly hard to set these types of high standards. Making your organization live by them, however, is a different story; it’s extremely difficult! I still struggle with the execution of some of these standards at times as it is a constant uphill battle.

If you truly start to enforce your high quality standards you will most likely loose some people along the way, which is why you should always start by getting "buy in" from everybody. You will experience that the "buy in" part is actually pretty easy most of the time, because in theory people usually have no problem agreeing on high quality standards and bettering a product or service. Now, as you might have guessed, it’s an entirely different picture following through with that in today's day-to-day operations.

Most companies I have founded or co-founded in the U.S. were based on software development one way or another. Well, in the world of software development the desire of releasing product oftentimes overrides some quality standards. This is not to say that you need to treat every release like you are Microsoft® releasing a new Windows® OS, but you should follow a development process that allows ample opportunity to plan the product and the effects it will have on your customers, including all times lines, milestones, release dates, execution of the development, and a sufficient testing plan to ensure your quality standards will be met. A good example for a testing architecture is here. Then execute your plan, and adjust timelines to reflect the most realistic release date possible. Keep your customers informed about your progress and reassure them, your team, and yourself that you are releasing nothing less than a high quality product.

However, quality is obviously a very subjective term. It will depend on who the 'customer' is and their overall influence in the scheme of things. A wide-angle view of the customers of a software development project might include end-users, customer acceptance testers, customer contract officers, customer management, the development organization's management, accountants, testers, salespeople, future software maintenance engineers, stockholders, magazine columnists, etc. Each type of customer will have their own slant on quality - the accounting department might define quality in terms of profits while an end-user might define quality as user-friendly and bug-free. This is why product and service quality assurance is so important. The purpose of software quality assurance is to define the techniques, procedures, and methodologies that will be used at your company to assure timely delivery of the software that meets specified requirements within project resources.

I define quality (non-mediocre) services and products as reasonably bug-free, professionally and friendly, delivered on time, and within budget. It meets (not exceeds) organizational and customer requirements and/or expectations, and is properly maintainable.

So, how do you know if you're organization is (or is perceived as) mediocre or not? Well, if you are asking this question you need to put your ear to the ground and listen to what others say about you and/or your products/services. The following is a list of adjectives you want to avoid when you or others talk about your products, services, or organization as they are a clear sign of mediocrity or worse: insignificant, mainstream, mean, evil, bad, middling, sucking, ordinary, passable, run-of-the-mill, second-rate, so-so, tolerable, undistinguished, unexceptional, uninspired, inadequate, insufficient, lacking, unacceptable, and unsatisfactory.

Contrary to the list above here is a list of adjectives you do want to hear when you or others talk about your products, services, or organization: distinguished, excellent, exceptional, exquisite, rocking, first-class, first-rate, matchless, optimal, optimum, outstanding, peerless, preeminent, special, superior, supreme, top-notch; unmatched, unparalleled, and unsurpassed.

At times I have used online services to monitor Internet postings about my companies and to feel the public's "pulse" about companies and projects I'm involved in. Listen to customer feedback (especially the ones you hate to get). It pays off to do whatever you can to avoid being stamped a mediocre company. Strive for excellence and don’t compromise too much. Apple fellow and “almost” Yahoo CEO Guy Kawasaki once said “Great companies start because the founders want to change the world ...” So, if you are thinking about it, stop reading now, set yourself some high goals, and go out there and do it!

Posted by Ben Neumann at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last week FEMA announced that 90,000 square miles were affected by Katrina, an area greater than the size of the United Kingdom! This message certainly puts the effects of this devastating storm into perspective.

In one of the early news releases after Katrina hit Louisiana last week one survivor said "This is our tsunami". My initial reaction was "Oh, come on, you can't even compare these two". By now my opinion has changed, however, as I submerged myself more and more in what really happened there. This was our tsunami, we have just had a warning and therefore were better prepared. Another chilling similarity, both the tsunami and Katrina sought out the most vulnerable - old, young, poor, isolated - to kill them in greater numbers, destroy more of their resources and make their recovery tougher than that of the better situated people.

I consider myself very lucky, as I'm sure many do, to only have been effected by this indirectly. Pete and I were invited to a friend's wedding at the beginning of October at the Loews Hotel in New Orleans. The hotel has been hit hard by the storm and floods and had to close down. They have also started a great program to ensure the safety of the hotel's employees. We are all very lucky and I'm sending happy thoughts and as much help as I can to all the folks down there that weren't that lucky.

In any event, the countless victims of Hurricane Katrina are attempting to recover from this massive storm. American Red Cross volunteers have been deployed to the hardest hit areas of Katrina’s destruction, supplying hundreds of thousands victims left homeless with critical necessities. By making a financial gift to support Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts, the Red Cross can provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Chris and I have made private donations as well as provided financial assistance through Globat's recently founded Globat Foundation. I encourage you to please donate to the Hurricane relief fund of the Red Cross today!

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A well equipped spa is one of the perfect places for me to relax, be by myself (although Pete and Chris join me sometimes) and think without being disturbed by anything or anyone. I spent a good 4 hours doing just that earlier this morning at Burke Williams in Hollywood. Great location and, against all odds, not that crowded on a Saturday morning. I find it extremely helpful for collecting thoughts and I try to do this at least once every few weeks.

Given that Globat has now over 3 years of high-growth and profitable operating history we are more or less frequently being approached by companies that are interested in acquiring the business and/or venture capital firms that are looking for funding opportunities. We're not really interested in selling the company, but have started to roll with the idea of taking on some outside funding to take Globat to the next level. There's a natural hesitation with this as I've been around the funding and VC block a couple of times. I raised a few rounds for different companies I founded and/or co-founded and I was part of taking a company public in the beginning of market turmoil of 1999. So, I'll post more about my general take on funding and what this truly means to an entrepreneur in the next few days.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I saw 40-Year-Old Virgin at The Grove. The movie and especially Steve Carell cracked me up. I highly recommend it for 2 hours of light-hearted entertainment.

When I saw the movie I almost couldn't believe my eyes. Steve, a good friend of mine, and his wife are in the touring production of the smash hit show The Producers (can you tell I live in L.A.) and the two just recently moved to New Jersey. Turns out that they actually shot 40-Year-Old Virgin (at least the part where the virgin's love interest lives) in Steve's house. It was kind of an embarrassing moment during the show when I realized that and yelled "Sh**, I've been in that bedroom". I guess I need to frequent a differnt theater for a few weeks. Go and see it anyway.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used to love to hate Wanda Sykes until Pete took me to a live show of hers. She got her claim to fame by pissing off Bill Cosby at the Oscars a few years back. She also had a TV show (Wanda At Large) that didn't do so well. She's much better doing stand-up. Most people will probably remember her, however, for her part as Jane Fonda's sarcastic assistant Ruby in the movie Monster in Law.

As I'm a big believer in tolerant customer service I'm playing the following phone call to our service people as an example of what type of people they sometimes might have to deal with professionally. So, here's a good example of a tough serivce call.

Here's another great one (be warned; content definitely not suitable for minors). Now picture your wife or girlfriend getting a call like this one.

Enjoy! ;-)

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm taking Pete and the family on our first official Alaska cruise next Thursday. It's amazing how much positive feedback we got from people since I booked the cruise. Brad has always been the biggest Alaska fan; he spends almost all of his summer there, but virtually everybody we met who visited Alaska and/or did the cruise raved about it. So, I'm now starting to get really excited.

We're going to Seward, Ketchikan, Skagway, and Icy Strait Point on Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas. We'll be doing some helicopter hopping, salmon fishing, whale watching, off-road jeep riding, and we'll also enjoy plenty of "downtime". My kids love cruises and so does "my better half" Andrea. She's really happy that they have some form of kid entertainment on board for a few hours/day (hey, if Mama ain't happy, nobody ain't happy). ;-)

This will be my second trip within a relatively short period of time, which is usually not my thing. I alwasy try to space trips out, if possible. I'm having a trip to Germany coming up in October, which I'm not really looking forward to that much (except the 4 day quick stop we're planning in Paris). Than Chris and I are going to China (Shanghai) in November to discuss some business opportunities with some Chinese companies. Busy second half of 2005. I'm curious to see how it'll all go.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 02:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)