Balihoo Culture

Dogs in the Balihoo office? You bet!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 by Kallen Hayes

The Balihoo office is a pretty productive place. Our employees are hard-working, enthusiastic, energetic, and extremely passionate about revolutionizing local store marketing. We work really well together and collaborate with a level of team spirit and cohesion rivaled by (maybe) only a few other groups.

AND... our mascot, 'Scout', is a dog.

Is this some crazy coincidence? I don't think so. And neither does the author of Manager's Best Friend, an article that appeared in The Economist last month. The article suggests, based on research done by Central Michigan University, that the presence of canine friends in the office space can improve teamwork and encourage team allegiance. Participants in the study who had a dog to "slobber and pounce on them" gave better feedback about their group members in the studied areas of trust, team cohesion and intimacy.

I'm glad Balihoo culture encourages canine companionship. We have a dog photo cork board, our meeting rooms are named after employee's dogs, Scout paraphernalia is all over the place, and we're always quick to hand-out one of our beloved Scout stuffed toys.

Just recently, our VP of Marketing, Shane Vaughan, got a new yellow lab puppy named Dexter. Much to everyone's excitement, he's been paying weekly visits to our office. Other notable past canine visitors include Wrigley, Max and Bronco.

It doesn't take scientific evidence to convince me that a canine companion can lift anyone's mood and therefore, at the least, create a more enjoyable work environment (although I might argue that bringing a puppy into an area occupied by females will most likely temporarily decrease productivity). But, productivity aside, we can all agree that enjoyable environments make for happier people, and I'm confident that happy Balihoo employees make for happy local marketing software customers!

The "Why" to Building an Inc 500 Company

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 by Pete Gombert

I am proud to announce that today, Balihoo was named to the Inc. 500 list and recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. While the recognition is personally gratifying and causes me to spontaneously grin every once in a while, credit goes to the long list of Balihooers who are just as committed as I am to "revolutionize local marketing."

Now, to those who may say that is an esoteric or intangible goal, I respond that it has become a very substantial idea that has fundamentally driven our culture, our hiring, our product road map, and our sales/marketing efforts.

At Balihoo, on a quarterly basis, I provide a "State of the Pound" update to all employees. It is an important opportunity to highlight individual/group successes and business challenges. It is also an opportunity for me to be reflective and remind Balihooers about the big picture shared vision. In this last "State of the Pound," I shared with Balihooers a TED talk given by Simon Sinek.

In an eloquent way, Simon's Golden Circle model codifies the approach that separates successful companies and individuals from the mediocre. Simon's 20-minute presentation gives reason to the directional "gut" feelings I have had about the Balihoo opportunity since opening its doors. Succinctly stated, Balihoo exists to make local marketers successful.

Give the video a watch. Consider the "why" that drives your behavior, and if you believe as we do that there is a better way to market your business locally, let's talk about how our Balihoo marketing platform can help you communicate your "why" through valuable local marketing.

Arrested Development Alumni Go Viral

Monday, July 12, 2010 by Phil Bear

I'm a big fan of the too-soon-canceled Arrested Development. Not the music group either. It is funny. It references pop culture. It is post modern. It is a family show that brought together families, and helps remind people what life is about. Sound familiar?

Thanks for checking out my secret text, by hovering your mouse over this picture.

It's basically like Little House on the Prairie, is what I'm getting at.

So when I heard through the grapevine (old fashioned term for reading something on the internet) that a couple of the besties from Arrested Development were creating their very own viral marketing company, I was pretty excited.

I've probably watched this video like 100 times. But the question that the fellas from DumbDumb (and ulitmately Orbit in this case) have to ask themselves, is it effective in terms of marketing.

It seems that in order for a brand to market themselves effectively in modern times, they have to pull out all the stops. Gone are the days of relying on print and radio alone. In the above example, Orbit has gone way past standard marketing strategies of "the olden days" to reach their audience.

Balihoo has created local marketing automation tool for this exact reason. We know that in order to reach the largest audience, brands and franchisees need a local marketing strategy that encompasses media of all types. Our platform currently encompasses over 12 mediums, where local dealers and franchisees can access, customize, and execute local media planning from one easy to use place.

I'm curious, of the viral marketing that our readers have seen, can you recall the product they were promoting?

Come on!

The Frenchman: Word of Mouth Advertising

Thursday, July 1, 2010 by Betsie Richardson

Working for Balihoo, a company that focuses on local advertising, we look for signs of success all around us in our little town of Boise, Idaho. Let me tell a short story about word of mouth advertising performed by a certain Frenchman.

On a lovely blue sky evening in this fine downtown, after consuming some locally brewed fair at The Falcon, I happened upon a middle-aged man sitting at a table with mouth-wateringly delicious baked something-er-others displayed in front of him. I then noticed the cash box and realized these brilliant edible charmers were for sale. And then he spoke.

The eloquence that left that man's tongue still rings in my ear. "Mademoiselle, would you care for a sweet baked roll? I would love for you to enjoy this. Two dollars if you please." The man has hair to his waist, a neatly trimmed beard and donned a chef's jacket and hat. Was he pulling my leg? An Idaho-born actor with a knack for European accents? Questions aside, I had emotionally committed to the sweet roll before realizing I had only 20 cents on me. That Frenchman offered it up anyway with a huge smile on his face, asking only that I let others know of his product.

As it goes with Balihoo culture, we enjoy sharing such stories. Nico, one of our internet advertising designers, is hosting an art show at a coffee shop downtown tonight. I emailed the company asking that everyone not only attend her show, but visit my long-haired, French-accent bearing pastry chef. This sponned an email chain between people across the company - some admitting sitings of the Frenchman, others claiming he bakes in a top Italian kitchen after hours, others simply wanting his location and hours of operation.

Looking for more local marketing ideas to help your franchise or franchisees? Download Balihoo's white paper on Local Marketing Automation.

Real Men Clip Coupons? How about the Wealthy and Affluent?

Monday, June 28, 2010 by Marcie Blagden-Ellison

According to Harris Interactive, coupon-clipping has become increasingly popular among men. Typically tailored to the female consumer; coupons are increasingly being used by males (with 51% of men reportedly having used a coupon in the past six months)! So, if you market to men, it may be time to get into the coupon game.

Also of interest, increasingly affluent, highly educated and metropolitan-located Americans are hopping on the coupon-bandwagon. “The advent of digital savings tools coupled with a challenging economy has taken couponing mainstream. All sorts of people – including what we call the ‘sophisticated couponer’ – are proudly aboard the couponing bandwagon.” said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com. ”We all want

the biggest bang for our buck, so the fact that well-heeled, educated and urban shoppers are taking advantage of coupons and searching for them online further illustrates the proliferation of the culture of couponing.”

The same study reports that 8 of 10 U.S. adults believe that they will continue to use coupons even after the economy improves - which supports the belief that the adult American's shopping habits and/or criteria have permanently changed as a result of the past 18-months. While the economically troubled climate has undeniably altered the way we shop and budget - whether or not the changes will prove to be long-lasting waits to be seen....

What is certain: your local customers, at this moment, are different than they were 2, 3 or 4 years ago - their priorities have shifted - and if you haven't reviewed and altered your local advertising and media planning strategy to meet their needs and appeal to their new ideals and interests, you're missing a huge opportunity.

Working across all media forms, helping local affiliates and distributors across numerous industries, the average Balihoo employee has developed a deep understanding of the components that go into a tailored, quality integrated marketing plan. Curious about how to enable your local affiliates, distributors or franchisees to revamp their marketing efforts to appeal to their local customer's new ideals - CONTACT US!

Frameworks to Enhance Customer Empathy

Friday, June 18, 2010 by Kevin Donaldson

Creating great software products is hard. At Balihoo, we have by no means got it nailed, which is part of the fun/frustration (these words are interchangeable) of startups and new product development. How can you improve your ability to build great products?

One way is to create a culture of customer empathy, which have talked about here. The next logical question is then: HOW you do this? Not everyone can, and will interact with customers, but its important to provide channels and incentives for all team members to walk in their shoes. Here are some options:

distribute summarized results of usability/user experience studies. (I say 'summarized' because the detail can be overwhelming and will not be read)
build customer persona's can be useful in making customers more real.
record live usability tests using screen capture tools
record actual support calls and make them available
have people other than the support team actually take support calls or listen in live
go on customer site visits - live or even video taped and edited to give people a feel for 'customers in the real world'

When setting up options to help your organization be empathetic - you need to also consider balancing depth with breadth. Depth being how close the team member gets to the actual experience of the customer and breadth being the level of understanding across all customers. For instance. the closer the experience is to a live customer interaction, the more impactful and memorable it can be. The downside is that it may not be representative of your broader customer base.

The opposite is also true. Disseminating summarized learning's can be great to communicate broad learning's about customers, but it has already went through an internal filter, and is therefor a lower fidelity connection to the end customer. There is no right answer other than finding a balance between depth and breadth that works for your organization.

A second aspect to consider is that your people are busy, so even if you provide options for them to self education on your customers they may not do it. You may need to create a framework to drive internal engagement. For instance at one company I worked at there was a formal program called KIT (Keeping in touch). Every person in the organization had to participate in one KIT event each month. For example you could participate in a lunch session where some typical customer calls were recorded, played and the team discussed the customer experience and what opportunities were available to make it better. These could be snippets from sales calls, support calls, user experience tests, with the primary intent to helping team members not only hear but engage in thinking as if they were in the customer's shoes.

What options have you tried. What has worked and what has not worked?

A Marketing Plan is like a Bagel Sandwich

Monday, May 31, 2010 by Caroline Moore

Working for a company like Balihoo, which offers local marketing software, really has its perks. One of those perks is the Friday coffee and bagel run which is part of the unique Balihoo culture. I was on today's trip that I realized the similarities between my amazing bagel sandwich and the marketing plans we often help build and execute as part of our integrated marketing strategy for clients.

You can have this amazing vehicle, in this case a sesame bagel, that then encompasses all these interesting and interchangeable pieces that make up the whole. Those ingredients, or media types, can be selected and combined to make the perfect sandwich that appeals to the consumer/customer. Maybe you have a combination of cream cheese, egg and tomato, but you find the tomato just isn't working. No problem, you can switch it out for sun dried tomatoes and olives. It is much the same with a marketing plan. The right combination of ingredients, or media types, combine to most effectively drive business in a given market. If email, combined with radio and cable isn't working, you can switch out the cable with direct mail and come up with a more effective or winning combination.

It's every planners dream....the perfect marketing bagel sandwich!

Trend Alert: Marketers Using "Bolder" Words - But Should You?

Thursday, May 27, 2010 by Marcie Blagden-Ellison

According to The New York Times , marketers' interest in reaching niche demographics, especially younger audiences, seems to be driving the use of words that were once

considered taboo in ads and product names. Brands noted include: Ford, Keystone, Frank's Hot Sauce, Summer's Eve, Oxygen Media, etc.

One reason language in ads is becoming more frank - or coarser and more vulgar, according to those who denounce the trend - is due to our highly niche-marketed culture. For example, Oxygen aims its programming at younger women who, presumably, aren't as likely to be offended by the show's title as older viewers.

For business owners with local store marketing needs, using questionable language is a decision that shouldn't be made lightly. Depending on your location, target demographic, community atmosphere and brand guidelines, going bolder with your use of language could be a brilliant move....but it could also potentially offend and turn off would-be customers...

At Balihoo, we work with a wide variety of business owners with local store marketing

needs. In general, incorporating questionable language wouldn't fit with their brands' local marketing efforts (or be approved by corporate). Thankfully, our local marketing automation solution provides security to both corporate and local affiliates by ensuring that brand guidelines are maintained and brand consistency is preserved. So while, for some brands, using bolder language is proving to be profitable, the brand's Powers-that-Be should carefully weigh and measure the impact.

In the days of Miley Cyrus "self-discovery" in a bird cage, an increasingly lenient rating system, jelly "sex" bracelets, etc. it is easy to sometimes assume that this day and age "anything goes". Not so when you are representing a national brand... unless (or until) that decision is made at the corporate level, play it safe. A local marketing software solution could help to ensure that brand standards and guidelines are maintained.

In the meantime, enjoy the brands that are testing the trend out... unless they offend you?

What's with New Jersey?

Friday, May 21, 2010 by Tiffany Schrenk

As a media planner here at Balihoo I am constantly researching local marketing and media around the country. More often than not I end up speaking to local cable television representatives about the networks and programming they see indexing well for my target audience. (As of recently that target has been females of a certain age and income). Recently, a new trend has been brought to my

attention.... the New Jersey Pop Culture Phenomenon.

At first I thought, "well maybe it's just an East Coast "thing" as each of my advertising media plans fell within New York and New Jersey. But, then the New Jersey reach began to stretch much further... as far as Sioux Falls and Silicon Valley. New Jersey based programming is all cable representatives all over this country can talk about and not to mention that over a half dozen networks have their own version of all things Jersey. The "Cake Boss" on TLC, "Jersey Couture" on Oxygen, "Jerseylicious" on the Style Network, "Jersey Shore" on MTV, and "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" on Bravo are dominating programming and ratings.

Initially, advertisers viewed this type of programming as nothing short of appalling (case in point- advertisers such as Dominos and American Family Insurance pulling spots out of the first week of "Jersey Shore"). However, now... they can't get enough. Many of the major advertising categories like automobiles, fast food, hair care, movies, packaged food and soft drinks are clamoring for a spot during these shows. And truly, who can blame them? Maybe it's the bigger than life personalities, spray tans, internal drama or the undeniably fabulous accents... whatever it may be, people are watching... and watching a lot!

The New Jersey Phenomenon is an interesting trend to watch. As with all pop culture fads and trends it will eventually fizzle and we'll all be on to something else. Wonder what will be next...??? Hey, how about: "The Real Media Team of Balihoo".... Eh Fugetaboutit!

Local Advertising through Interviewing?

Friday, May 14, 2010 by Brian King

With any growing business comes the need to add additional people. Finding people that are the right fit for not only the job posting, but a company's culture, can be a daunting task. As Balihoo continues to grow, I see a lot of unfamiliar faces in the office from time to time, likely in the midst of the interview process. One of the most important things with interviewing from a Balihoo culture standpoint, regardless of whether that individual is hired or not, is that they leave the interview thinking positively of the Balihoo brand, and organization as a whole.

What I always find interesting when I speak with people on the job-hunt is how often they walk away from an interview with a bitter taste in their mouth about the organization. I've got a simple theory on this:

Interviewing, in a sense, is a form of local advertising. In many cases you are interviewing a current customer, and if they aren't a current customer, any member of your company's sales team would say, "they should be." More often than not, people apply for jobs within a particular company because they are passionate about the culture or because they believe in the product or service and wish to be part of the company as they continue to grow. The last thing the marketing department wants is a lost customer because a recruiter or someone within the HR department left the interviewee with a bad impression of the company.

Now don't take this as me saying that interviews should be easy. In fact, I believe interviews should be very challenging. But regardless of the potential of the candidate once they are in your office, they should be treated with the same level of respect you would show your customers because at the end of the day, you never know when that person is going to come back into the picture.

Think of it this way: Interviewee leaves thinking positively of the brand and people but doesn't receive the job offer. However, they go on to obtain another role at an organization that you have been prospecting for months. Think of the advantage you will have over the competition when the interviewee, who still thinks highly of your brand, just happens to be on the decision making panel at the prospective company. The advantage is huge. Trust me, this happens more often than most would think.

Bottom line, make sure that everyone you interview for a role leaves thinking, "Now that is a great company filled with even better people!" Never burn the bridge because you never know when you might need to cross it in the future.

Mustache May 2010

Friday, April 30, 2010 by Alex Fascilla

That's correct, another May brings yet another Month of the Mustache here at the Balihoo offices. POW! Now, some might argue for a name change like "Must Ache May"* (as in, "dude, your wife must be aching for you to shave that thing off.") or even "Mustake May" (as in, "growing this mustache was a huge mustake."), but those silly naysayers just don't understand how important it is for a man (or woman) to prove their follicle density annually via some upper lip cultivation.

May becomes for us a month of soul-searching and self-reflection, culminating after a period of 2-3 weeks into a query that resembles: "is it possible this mustache I wear is a measure of my worth?" KABLOOM! That's some heavy stuff, man. Let's keep things topical and not think about mustaches and how they have the potential to become yardsticks for existential musings and instead focus on their power to transform the look, attitude, and general well-being of all that adorn them. I mean, look at this guy!:

Recall for a second great men from history that have worn their hearts on their sleeves by way of hair on their lips: Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, George Washington Carver, Freddie Mercury, Ambrose Everett Burnside, Tom Sellick, Janet Reno, Mario, Rollie Fingers, William Howard Taft, Luigi, Ron Burgundy and the Channel 6 news team, Burton Leon Reynolds... you get the idea. The unifying theme here? They all derived their collective power from their perfectly manicured cookie dusters.

To harness such power, very clear and specific rules must be followed. Balihoo Culture has dictated the following:

1.    You’re allowed a three-day run at the month as far as growth is concerned. This means shaving of the upper lip must occur on/by 12 midnight April 28th, Mountain Standard Time. Each year, some poor sap is granted a growth-challenged exemption from this rule.

2.    If the ‘stache becomes unmanageable or begins to affect your marriage (our own Steve Nett fell victim to the latter even though he was crowned '09's winner... sorry buddy, your fame overwhelmed), you’re allowed to shave it after a picture of your ‘stache has been taken. You WILL be ridiculed for early withdrawal/non-participation.

3.    Once you’ve decided on your desired shape and size, the mustache must be obvious. No goatees, beards, Charles Darwins, etc. allowed.

4.    You must comment frequently/loudly on other ‘staches you encounter. It’s good to encourage your fellow ‘stachemates to keep morale up. You never know how bad things are back home. ‘Staches have been known to ruin even the strongest bonds of love. Also, mildly disparaging comments are not encouraged but should be expected so if you’re sensitive, this may not be the event for you.

5.    Arguments over whether it is spelled ‘moustache’ or ‘mustache’ are tired, and quite frankly, I think either are accepted by Webster. Also, this is not a rule but really more of a comment.

Good luck and godspeed, folks. May 31st comes much quicker than you'd think when you've got a mustache riding on it.

Ready, break!

*must+ache = mustache... cool!

Earth Day the Balihoo way

Thursday, April 22, 2010 by Megan Heath

In addition to ad builder software, local advertising, and co-op marketing, Balihoo folks share a passion for the great outdoors. Likewise, a commitment to the environment is core to Balihoo culture.

Here are a few of our Earth-friendly practices:

Reduce: No employee is without a glass, metal, or recyclable plastic water bottle, and a fully-stocked kitchen ensures that disposable utensils are a rarity.
Reuse: Following the remodel of our current office space in 2009, Balihoo received a Building Excellence Award for our "Green Upgrade." Original wood paneling, electric wiring, 2" x 4"s, doors, and more were re-purposed throughout the office to limit waste.
Recycle: Several months of insistence finally prompted our building to implement a recycling program, to which we are the largest contributor.
Walk and ride: A central downtown location affords Balihoo folk the luxury of walking most everywhere: to lunch, to run errands, to meet clients, to grab supplies, and to stake out a happy hour table. Those who live nearby are rewarded for exchanging their parking passes for a spot on the bike racks.
Eat local: No drive-thru bags here. Balihoo employees are loyal patrons of restaurants, grocers, and farmers markets that offer locally grown products.
Take the bus: Don't let two dozen of your closest friends drive 175 miles to the nearest casino; charter a bus and ride together. Alex and Brian can elaborate.

*Please consider the environment before you print this awesome blog post.

Starting a New Job

Friday, April 9, 2010 by Leah Laskarris

Starting a new job is rated one of the top most stressful life changing events in a person's life. It's rated in the top 5 along with getting divorced, married and having a kid! I will admit when making the change I was very scared of the unknown and leaving my safety net. Walking into this strange office with a deer in headlights look wondering what will my first day be like - Will I love the work? Who do I sit with at the lunch table? And who's the weird girl always singing??

Of course with every new job there's a change in terminology and coming out of the food broker industry, I couldn't understand but a few words in the daily conversations around the office. Everybody's been there before - just give the head nod and say "hhhmm interesting." There's no way I could have told you what CRM Marketing Automation, product launch marketing, or channel marketing software meant! On top of learning a new world of advertising, all of my accounts are doctors! Double whammy! I have learned more in the past few months about dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, prosthodontist versus periodontist than I ever could have imagined.

Luckily Balihoo is an amazing place to work! Most people in the world don't get to say that they really enjoy work; more often than not you hear how much they dread waking up every morning and driving to their dull, unfulfilling, unappreciated, suck-the-life-out-of-you cube jobs. The people and culture set Balihoo apart from those jobs. Fortunately my program manager is amazing and a very patient teacher! I'm very thankful for this new opportunity and for the people who welcomed me with open arms!

Opening your Practice...A New Frontier!

Friday, April 9, 2010 by Matt Borud

One of the best parts about my role at Balihoo are the conversations I have with dentists who are in the process of opening a new practice. Whether they're a fresh faced recent grad or grizzled dental veteran, nothing compares to the excitement, optimism and sheer terror of venturing out on your own and living your entrepreneurial dream. Oftentimes it's that sheer terror that fuels their interest in our local advertising, media buying and launch marketing solutions.

Unfortunately most dental schools don't offer a business minor and many well-meaning docs venture out with nothing more than a dream in their heart and South Park business plan in their steady hand. The reality is this isn't Field of Dreams and just building an office filled with the most advanced equipment, caring staff, and the finest degrees in town won't be enough to get your practice off the ground. Unfortunately amid startling costs for staff, infrastructure, tools and supplies, a strong consumer-driven local advertising effort is left out of the launch plan.

Well, Balihoo just will not let this stand! We're here to provide you with the finest dental marketing tools available and, short of that, the best organic (read: free and well-meaning) quick tips to get you started.

BEGIN YOUR BRAND. Invest in a well-thought name, logo, website for your practice but remember this is just the start. Your brand is your entire business experience so consider from day 1 how you want to shape your practice culture and ultimately be represented in the marketplace. Think long term and develop brand material that can easily integrate with a variety of marketing channels and remain a recognizable beacon of consistency for years to come. It could ultimately be worth a lot more than you think.
TARGET YOUR MARKET. Do you know who your ideal patient is? Do you know where they live and the best ways to reach them? As simple as "know your patients" may sound, in practice it can be a major stumbling block. Once you have your sights on your target, make building trusting relationships your practice's #1 priority. Your patients want you to know them and their care, provide them with your expertise so referring their friends and family is as easy as possible.
NEW PATIENTS! NEW PATIENTS! NEW PATIENTS! Unless blessed with an unflappable trust fund or the world's greatest financial advisor, most practices open with a limited budget for consumer advertising and local marketing. While an integrated campaign filled with grand opening TV and radio spots, direct mailers, billboards and newspaper ads is a best case scenario, there are plenty of cost effective (i.e. free) methods for reaching local consumers that can get you started. Social media has exploded in the last 18 months and is a great first step to build a groundswell of local support. Start a Facebook business page where local consumers can connect with you. Try opening up a Twitter account and generate relevant content like pictures of your office or interesting dental articles. Take your home video camera and give a tour of your office for YouTube. It's all free, it's all relevant, and it connects you to your patients and prospects in ways traditional media can't.

As time-consuming and overwhelming as the internal workings of opening a practice can be, don't neglect those areas that reflect on you externally. By working from the start to advertise your practice locally and consistently integrating new marketing ideas, you'll find yourself building your patient base much more quickly than you would have otherwise.

Are you running your business like an SUV or Ninja Style?

Thursday, March 25, 2010 by Kevin Donaldson

Recently I was reading an article in Inc Magazine (Saul's House of Cool Ideas - Feb 2010) and came across an interesting quote in a discussion about the state of their workspace:

"There are two theories on safety - there is the SUV model: You wear steel toed boots and helmets and just survive the injury. Or you go naked, and your hyper-aware of your surroundings. That's Ninja style."

Now I tend to agree with Jason Fried (37 Signals) in his recent book REWORK where he talks about the overuse of the term 'Rock-stars and Ninjas' when referring to the types of employees a company looks for, however I felt that the above quote is different. It wasn't used in reference to ones super-human ability to kick ass on the job, but about a much more subtle but important trait: hyper-awareness of ones surroundings. To me this is important on many levels in a start-up like Balihoo or any business for that matter. Are you running your business like an SUV or ninja style?

What types of things limit your hyper-awareness (ie - the SUV business operating model)?

Too much/many available resources and the need to continually 'fill the tank'
Size/feeling of invincibility
Too much 'soundproofing' between you and the outside world
Too much internal distraction
Sense of superiority over other 'drivers' (competitors) on the road

On the other hand figuring out how to 'go naked' helps a business be hyper-aware of:

The subtle changes in your market
The subtle changes in the types of buyers you are attracting
The subtle changes in your customers feedback and opinions
The subtle changes in your teams energy levels
The subtle changes in company culture and work dynamics
The subtle changes in revenue/cash-flows and finances in general

Having a heighten sense of your surroundings will make you much more able to react quickly and purposeful. Get naked - go ninja style!

Update: Executing Agile Across the Organization

Friday, January 29, 2010 by Kevin Donaldson

For 3 years now at Balihoo we have been using Agile software development techniques and more specifically the Scrum development framework to support the advancement of our local marketing software in an ever changing market.

One reason for this is that Agile effectiveness in an organization is directly proportional to the amount of flux or instability in your product marketplace. That is why it fits perfectly for any start-up, however marketplace instability is everywhere now so it can apply almost anywhere.

As a product team practicing perfecting Agile with Scrum we became both highly productive and highly predictable. Due to this success, in mid 2009 we decided that it might be possible to start applying Agile techniques and the Scrum framework across the organization outside of product development groups for a number of reasons:

all functions in the business were experiencing the same market flux so why not use the same techniques to manage this
Scrum is probably the only framework under the Agile development umbrella that is can be applied outside of a software development context
Scrum is an excellent execution model to apply Lean techniques popularized by Toyota. (In fact Agile and the various frameworks derive much of their techniques from lean thinking)

We began the cross functional deployment of Agile with Scrum using a few simple tools from the Scrum framework such as time-boxed work sprints as well as morning stand-ups. The focus of this initial test was mostly oriented towards increasing the level of communication within teams and across teams about what was being worked on. We saw an immediate jump in organizational awareness - both in what work was being done and not done, translated into faster more informed decisions. We continued to test this for 2-3 months. This left the functional managers hungry for more.

At that point we began applying much more of the Agile/Scrum framework across all functional teams within Balihoo. This included:

team backlogs, with product owners and scrum masters
sprint stories estimated with story points
use of software to track burn-down rates for each team
sprint planning and retrospectives for each group
Weekly cross-team scrum-of-scrums
Identification and tracking of team impediments

Although we are still making refinements and teams are progressing at different rates, agile and scrum are now becoming ingrained in our culture. For instance - we use software called Jira to manage all team backlogs and sprints. We have agreed that if a request does not exist in Jira it does not exist. Another example on a lighter note is a new concept one of my fellow managers made up as we were all making the transition - 'jira-me-crazy'. Yes Agility and Scrum isn't always pleasant but it is an extremely good framework for execution excellence!

Looking back I started thinking a little more about the process we have been going through and put together this simple framework to explain the transition at a high level. (still a work in progress - feedback welcome!)

In our case we started right in at cross functional roll-out however if you are just starting out I have added some thoughts for getting to this point via a pilot process.

It is important to note that in any organization the time involved in the movement from left to right will vary greatly as well as how a company iterates within each of the phases. While we are still actively refining and iterating within the cross functional roll-out phase, as an organization we have now started moving into stage 4 which I am calling Vertical Alignment linking strategy right down to execution using an agile management system with the support of OpenView Partners. Although likely the final stage, you are never really done with this process. Continuous improvement is the name of the Game. As we state in one of our organizational values - 'Make it great and then make it better'.

Santa Paws is Coming to Town! - Balihoo Culture

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 by Piper Andrisek

Merry Christmas from all of us at Balihoo!

Balihoo Culture

Halloween 2009 - Balihoo Culture

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by Shane Vaughan

Note: This was originally posted on the old Balihoo blog on 11/02/09 by Betsie Richardson

Balihoo, in traditional Balihoo Culture, put another successful, ridiculous-costume-filled Halloween on the books. The prize winning costumes included Valerie Gammel as the “tree killer,” Meg Splittgerber and Betsie Richardson as “White Trash Christmas,” and Megan Heath as “Roy.” Megan could not have timed her mocking of a fellow Balihoo employee better, as Roy happened to dress in his usual Friday garb instead of a traditional costume, which includes a hockey jersey, jeans, brown Balihoo baseball cap, black sneakers and large headphones.

I will spare my usual blogging verbosity and let the Balihoo culture pictures speak for themselves…