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The following column I wrote was printed in the July 14, 2010 edition of “Sioux Falls Business Journal”:

Try to think of the last day you spent without your cell phone. That’s right: No calls, e-mails or texting.

If you are a typical American professional, chances are you will have a tough time remembering. Most professionals today are hooked mercilessly to their smartphones, and claim that without the device they would be out of touch almost immediately.

I would like to think my Blackberry exists to help me get more done. But is this really true?

To be clear, there is no doubt that mobile technology can drastically improve communication and real-time decision-making. But do business professionals become more productive by heavily using technology or do they just communicate more often?
In my career I have noticed that mobile technology does improve communication, but it also increases multitasking – sometimes severely.

A recent story by NPR’s Science Friday examined the effects of multitasking. The conclusion is that multitasking does just the opposite: It causes gross productivity losses due to the “switching costs” of moving between tasks. In other words, each time your phone beeps, blinks or plays your latest ring tone, you lose time by switching to a new thought process. I have noticed an identical effect – the more I pay attention to everything that is blinking on my phone, the less I get done.

Because of this, some professionals have sworn off the devices and chosen to operate “off the grid.” This decision has some real downsides. Mobile technology, if used properly, can help professionals get critical information when it matters most.
In addition, a smartphone is a lifesaver when you are working out of the office.

Professionals can gain tremendous productivity by taking advantage of the improvements devices can bring to your workday.

I propose that mobile technology should be used as a tool with a specific purpose. Multitasking all day is not the answer to getting more done. Becoming a slave to your phone could derail your productivity.

Instead, silence your device during times you need to focus on a project, meetings, times with your family and other critical time. Then, when you are available for communication and taking care of details, set your phone to let you know it has messages for you.

I also try to group the reading of e-mail into three to four blocks each day. Then I am free during my focus blocks to get things done. I set the expectation that I will respond when I read e-mails, which may not be for a few hours.

Remember, your device exists to help you, not dominate your thinking. Responsible use of mobile devices will result in fewer accidents, less distracted meetings and more productivity.

I’m often asked why I’m so focused on the seemingly boring idea of software integration. The reason is simple: “because my life is already too complicated!”. I entered the business world with a very utopian view of technology – software should do all the mundane work so humans can their minds to do interesting, innovative work.

When I entered the business world, I was shocked and saddened to find that most corporate workers were a slave to their software. They spent a lot of their day pulling reports from one system, manipulating (often manually), and then inserting into some other system. On the business development side, highly effective salespeople still kept piles of business cards on their desk, had no way to manage their tasks, and did sales initiatives with a pen and a pad of paper. Their reason? Their CRM didn’t talk to anything and didn’t produce any useful information.

I saw a core reason why technology either wasn’t used or people were slaves to it: bad delivery and no consolidation. Software was crash prone and couldn’t be trusted. Servers went down, data got lost, and paper and pencil just seemed more reliable. Also, seemly useful software programs that had similar information just didn’t seem to work together. It was all fragmented, it was difficult to upgrade, and data was pigeonholed in the application it was created in. Therein lies the opportunity.

Software shouldn’t be so hard. You shouldn’t have to hire a full time IT guy to (sort of) figure this stuff out for you. It should be available inexpensively, and it should be integrated out of the box. This is the problem we’re solving at DataSync. We’re really doing 2 things:

1. Making software inexpensive and easy to access. We do this by delivering everything to our customers’ web browser as an inexpensive service. No more expensive updates that break your computer, no more “the server is down today”. The industry buzzwords for this are SaaS or cloud computing.
2. Consolidating – We’re building a great software tool that eliminates manually entering the same information into multiple software packages. This means if you put a contact in one system, it’ll synchronize to all your systems. The same goes for other types of business information. There’s a bunch of different industry buzzwords for this, but they all boil down to consolidation.

I’m excited about the day when I show up to work at DataSync and I won’t have to enter anything twice. We’ve already made major progress. The applications I use every day don’t go down anymore, and I can access my data from anywhere. But when the day comes that my information is truly consolidated, I will finally feel that software has accomplished its mission: to help us do the things we care about, not serve software.

I’ve noticed that very few people focus on doing what’s important; ideas that actually matter in the big scheme of things. Most people do whatever is next on some list, or just fill time with whatever task is easiest. I’m often guilty of this myself at times. We focus on working hard and getting lots of tasks done, but focus very little time and thought on the actual impact of what we’re working on.

Focusing on what matters changes how we think. Instead of showing up each day to get tasks done, we must show up to make an impact. DataSync is my primary form of reference for this. We constantly battle ‘getting stuck in the mud’. It’s a term we use to describe getting distracted by details and ideas that don’t really impact the bottom line. They are good ideas, but they don’t have maximum impact on our future.

An important principle that must be applied to focusing on what matters is ‘opportunity cost’. Now matter how many hours you work, it’s important to focus on projects that will create the greatest impact on moving your goals forward. Should you work on a project that will generate $1 or another that will generate $10? The answer is obvious. However often we find ourselves doing tasks that are easier or we’re comfortable with, rather than asking the question “what can I do today that will impact progress most?”. Doing this every day will change how you think about time management. Right now I’m reading Drucker on effective management (“The Effective Executive“), and this management genius makes an important point about time management. Drucker points out that what makes executives successful often isn’t their ability to focus on doing things (accomplishing tasks), but instead their ability to make decisions to focus on the right things. Anyone who’s motivated can get tasks done and be pretty darn busy working on these tasks, but an effective person focuses on doing things that actually matter.

Remember, sometimes the busiest people are also the most ineffective. I know so many people who claim to be ’super busy’, yet when you look at what they are actually impacting, it’s really little or nothing. They are just keeping up with the hamster wheel they have created for themselves. People who impact the world refuse to be too busy to focus on things that matter. Instead they constantly reassess their priorities and align their day with long-term goals that they have considered thoroughly.

Next time you feel too busy to think, understand the decision you are making. You’re making a decision to focus on things that may not make any difference at all. You may end up working endlessly on something that just doesn’t matter. You may need to ditch ideas and projects if they aren’t contributing to making an impact. We all have the desire to matter, make sure you don’t lose sight of the importance of doing what matters.

The weather was warm, the people were outstanding. The 3rd annual SugarCon conference was a great experience, and a lot of fun to be a part of. SugarCon is SugarCRM’s annual developer and partner conference that’s held in the valley. I always enjoy a break from South Dakota cold this time of year. SugarCon is a place where I’m surrounded by people who hold a lot of the same ideals on how better software will make a major impact on business.

I was privileged to speak on a panel for the partner track at SugarCon, and got some excellent feedback about what we’re doing at DataSync, and how it fits into Sugar’s channel program.

The conference had an very polished feel this year – Sugar obviously understands its market space extremely well, and has assembled a solid team and group of partners (which we’re excited to be a part of!). This year’s conference was obviously slanted towards selling in a bad economy. However most partners, like DataSync, haven’t seen a downturn in business. Open source is a tremendous value play in today’s marketplace.

Conference Highlights

• John Roberts (SugarCRM’s CEO) opened the conference with a brief discussion of SugarCRM and how it fits into the global move to open systems and cloud computing. His perspective on the distribution model of software, and how flat the world actually is with open source is a good reminder for everyone.
• Jonathan Schwartz (Sun’s CEO) announced Sun’s upcoming cloud computing initiative. Details were scarce, but the overall push of the message was engaging open systems and the cloud. I was surprised that Schwartz chose to use a conference like SugarCon to announce such a large initiative – a major endorsement of open source and SugarCRM. It’s worth noting, however, that Sun doesn’t actually use SugarCRM, they use SalesForce.com (reference here). Still trying to figure out why Schwartz has been doing keynotes at SugarCon the last couple of years…
• Jim Fowler (CEO – Jigsaw) delivered what was, in my opinion, the best keynote of the conference. He understands open information like no one I’ve heard. Watch for his company to go places.
• Mark Leslie (former CEO of Veritas and board member at SugarCRM) – This guy understands the sales model at startups. Ramping sales is something every startup (including DataSync) is confronted with every day. He had some great strategies for doing it effectively.
• The sessions – SugarCon had some great sessions about its platform. My favorite session was done by Amie Dolittle, VP of inside sales at Sugar. She did an outstanding job articulating how Sugar uses it’s own platform to automate and streamline sales processes.

Overall the conference was a great experience. As with all conferences, the contacts I gained were the greatest benefit. I’ll be cruising back to San Francisco next month for OSBC (Open Source Business Conference), another great open source conference. Drop me a line if you’ll be at OSBC and I’ll make an effort to connect.

For those of you who are watching the company I run, DataSync, you’re probably aware that we raised our Series A venture funding back in December, 2008. It was quite the journey.

According to a recent article by the Angel Capital Assocation, early stage investing went down in 2008, and will probably drop more in 2009. Because of the recession, angel groups are focused on ensuring existing portfolio companies survive, so they are spending less on new startups. Raising capital wasn’t easy to begin with – fewer than 1 in 100 companies actually acquire venture funding (src: Launch Utah). That number is probably worsening every day.

So how did we do it? The answer, in my opinion, is found in more than one factor:

1. Low capital requirement – It takes a lot less capital and time to get a software company launched, compared to ‘invention’ or research type companies. This put DataSync in a great position to ask for capital now – we didn’t need a lot of dough, have fast growth potential, and an ‘annuity’ type income stream.
2. Product already in marketplace – We already have a significant and growing customer base, so investors have the assurance that our product would actually generate revenue.
3. Product sells well in a bad economy – DataSync offers software that requires very little upfront and recurring cost and has an immediate payoff to our clients. Often our clients save money the first month.
4. Great advice – The Small Business Development Center built out our financials and advised heavily on positioning the deal, the Enterprise Institute worked with our value prop for investors, and RAIN Source Capital helped wrap out the deal with their capital network. Solid, experienced advisers are key to successfully raising angel capital.
5. Unshakable belief in our vision – I believe wholeheartedly in what we’re doing at DataSync: providing businesses with the best software, consolidated it, and delivering it for a competitive price. That’s what we’re all about at DataSync. We live it, we breathe it, we’re going to make it happen. You have to have that level of belief in your vision to fight through obstacles. We have that desire.
6. ‘Hardiness’ and tenacity – Hardiness is a word we use a lot around DataSync – one definition is “capable of surviving unfavorable conditions”. It took us a year and more presentations than I care to remember to raise capital. We knew we could execute on the goals we set, so we kept knocking on doors until we found investors who saw promise in the same mission.

If you’re running a company that’s poised to succeed, but need capital to get there, take heart. A bad economy weeds out bad ideas and people who aren’t as committed as you, giving you a long term competitive advantage. However it’s not going to be easy to get there. Make sure you have a solid idea you can believe in, build a network around you to best position your company, and network around the clock to find investors who believe in your idea. You’re going to have to beat the odds. After all, you’re trying to be the less than 1 in 100 companies who actually gets funding. It’s not supposed to be easy.