6 Golden rules of presenting numbers

If you're put in charge of presenting a lot of numerical data to a group then what can you do to make sure people see what you need them to see?

@Joey7Barton is always listening

I have always been sceptical of the value of Twitter, after what of value can be said in so few characters? Who would be interested in what I have to say? However through the encouragement of the Leicester Award for Employability, and due in part to the enthusiasm for the medium of a business colleague I decided to take the plunge and open an account.

It would be fair to say I had low expectations and accordingly set myself simple goals for the project; to better understand how Twitter is used and how it could be useful for me.

Being a technically minded person, in the past I have found it helpful to understand how the mechanism works and then concentrate on content and I used the guides provided through the Award to understand how the platform was organised.

The first step was to find some people to ‘follow’. This was fairly easily accomplished as twitter has become de riguer for any high profile celebrity and I found many people that proved suitable. I set criteria in that I felt it would be less productive to follow random people so I chose a variety such as prolific writers, comedians and sports men and women. I decided to follow not only those who were celebrated for using Twitter but also those who were berated for their outbursts. I felt that this would give me a greater understanding of what not to do!

What I found was that Twitter has its own rhythm and cadence and it’s an art getting your point across in so little space. I also discovered that despite its simplicity, the medium can provide valuable and up to date information but at the same time its immediacy can be destructive as some footballers have found out.

The surprising thing was that I gained followers. Not many, but some people I followed, followed me back and some people I suspect were using a paid for service to follow a lot of random people simply to gain interest and some were people that I actually knew.

What became clear was that the medium is a busy and vibrant place where getting your voice heard is more than about simply shouting ‘me too!’

Twitter was all at the same time everything I thought it would be and nothing like it. It can be a place full of trolls with only negative thoughts but also people with good hearts and intentions. As someone famous must have once said - all of human life is there.

It is also plain to see that it can be a very useful tool for business to interact with their customers and to this end I will start to use Twitter more, initially on a stream of consciousness basis but also late moving towards a more targeted audience with a specific message. This should help with the development of my own business as it will allow me to speak directly with my customers. I’ll use it with caution though as @Joey7Barton has taught me you need to be careful what you say as someone is always listening!

When Sharon cried wolf

Every workplace has one person who is a constant stream of complaints, it’s too hot, too cold, too noisy. Nothing is ever right and it’s only human nature that we tend to block these out, rather like the story ‘the boy who cried wolf’.

So when Sharon (anonymised) came to me and told me that her wrist hurt my face may have said that I was deeply concerned but inside I was wondering how to get the grime off my barbecue griddle.

I listened as Sharon told me how she was having to click 18 times to produce 1 invoice. I couldn’t see the problem, after all the system hadn’t changed. In the end I asked her to take me to her workstation and show me and sure enough she was clicking a huge amount of times whilst making no input or choices that I could see. I asked if the number of invoices had changed recently and it turned out that the company had started taking on many more smaller clients and so the number produced had rocketed from 50 a month to around 300 and they all got done during one week. No wonder her hand hurt!

So I rang the guys at the software company and asked if there was anything they could do. The voice down the phone sounded deeply concerned but I knew that at the other end he was googling ways to clean barbecue griddles. I realised that the only way it had become real for me was when I actually saw the operation in action and I needed to find a way for them to see it but, as the developers were in York and my client in Bournemouth, and because developers don’t like to travel (at least not during daylight) I was a bit stuck.

Then it occurred to me that if I videoed Sharon carrying out the operation I could send it to the developer guys and it may help them to see the issue. Being a camera geek I set up my DSLR on a tripod (using a 38 -150 lens if you’re interested) and got Sharon to run through the process, describing what she was doing whilst I recorded it. I packaged it up and then sent it off to York with a recommendation of brillo pads.

Two days later the guys came back to me with a brilliant 1 button solution that automatically accepted default choices that Sharon always made and reduced the amount of stress her wrist was feeling immensely. I think that they appreciated the fact that we’d made an effort to show them what was happening rather than just having a good old moan.

When I thought about it later I realised that sometimes, people might cry wolf a lot, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wolf. At the same time it’s important to use new technology wherever we can to illustrate our point and make issues real for people who may be able to help.

In the future I’ll use this to ensure that I actually listen to the root cause of what people are saying rather than just the tone and I’ll always go and have a look for myself because seeing really is believing. Of course being a geek I’ll make sure that I keep abreast of new technology but now I’ll ensure that I look for ways to use it in a practical way in the workplace.

Hop off the hamster wheel occasionally

I'd been asked to help at a charity near where I live because 'you know a bit about IT'. Which is a fairly apt description of a career spent with software.

They were having a problem. They had recently changed policy which meant that it was taking a lot more time to serve each customer at the paypoint. They asked me to see if there was anything I could do to make the computer faster.

Meeting the staff was a revelation. Despite the fact that they deal on a daily basis with the most unimaginable hardship they remained happy, committed and dedicated. They were not only an inspiration but a good lesson in how to act when things aren't going your way.

So I used some of the skills I'd built up working for 'profit maximising' companies to help a group of people who were pleased and grateful to see me and just doing their best. I spent a short amount of time analysing where the real problems were and having a quick look at the software and it became clear that they needed to be printing out cheques instead of handwriting them because that was where the blockage was - if only they had some cheque blanks we could test the system on.

"Oh yes we've got a load of boxes of them in the back" announced one of the volunteers "They've been there for years but we haven't known what to do with them nor had the time to find out".

Digging out the boxes I was able to set the blank cheques up on a test system and get them to print out properly, then transfer the settings onto the live system. For me it took a very short time but it wasn't particularly technical and the volunteers could have done it if they had rung their software providers helpline.

But of course they were so busy helping people that needed them that they didn't have time to stop and analyse the situation to see how they could save themselves some time or as the volunteer put it "step off the hamster wheel".

The experience reminded me how difficult it is to step back from a fraught situation, take a breath and pause to analyse whether you are doing things in the right way - especially when you are doing everything you can to keep your head above water. I had the luxury of coming at the problem with new eyes and an empty 'to do' list.

It also reaffirmed my faith in human beings. Some people do things for the best and purest motive. They don't get paid and don't ask for thanks. Just helping people is it's own reward.

The experience was like a breath of fresh air and one I want to repeat in the future. I've agreed (after only a tiny bit of arm twisting) to help out some more by becoming a board member. I think that this will give me an opportunity to broaden my experience into other sectors and bring different point of views into my daily life. It'll increase my personal network outside of the usual corporate world and it I'm sure it'll make me a happier person.

Which can't be all bad.

There's nothing like good customer service...

...And this was nothing like good customer service!

We ordered a barbecue because the old one was rusty.

I paid extra to get it delivered at a time I knew I would be in.

The BBQ didn't turn up.

So I sat in all day and waited for nothing to arrive. It wasn't total loss as it was on the first day of the Tour de France so I sat and watched with the sound down so I wouldn't miss the doorbell that didn't ring.

We all make mistakes though. So I emailed customer service to ask what had happened.

And customer service decided to ignore me.

Two days later I rang customer service to see if everything was alright, after all they may have had a fall or something.

They were OK. But it seems that the van had broken down and although they tried to call me, mysteriously they had the wrong phone number. Odd because they had phoned me the day before the non delivery to tell me to wait in especially so that they could deliver nothing.

So I asked them to deliver and they said they couldn't for two weeks. I asked them to put this in writing and they said that they couldn't because they weren't the puttingthingsinwriting department, they were the talkingtoannoyedcustomersonthephone department. I'd have to email in.

I told them that I'd already had the benefit of being ignored by the puttingitinwriting department and they said 'yeah, we've had loads of complaints recently'.

I suppose that if you've got lots of annoyed customers then what's one more?

But to take something positive from the whole experience it just reinforced what I've learned about cocking up.

Say sorry quickly, don't make things up and make it as better as you can.

I once spoke to guy who used to own a marina. He said there was one particular company that had awful quality control but was massively loved by its customers because they had an exceptional customer service department. Buyers valued the fact that when something went wrong (which it did often) they said sorry, never argued and put it right immediately.

Aren't us customers odd?

Weavo's MBA Blog!: Here goes the virgin blogger!

My old mate from the MBA course has written a blog.

Weavo is one of those guys you look forward to seeing because he's the life and soul. Not bad for an accountant!

Good effort mate


Weavo's MBA Blog!: Here goes the virgin blogger!: They say there's a first time for everything.... never a truer word spoken..... Blogger   & you can't teach an old dog n...