What is a business without its people? Intuitively, most individuals understand that people are the lifeblood of any business. However, many businesses might not take time to examine their people lens in depth. The people lens is more than just who does what in which department. The people lens also considers the personal assets individuals bring to the business and the culture of the business. By gaining understanding of the human element of the business, it is possible to understand the strength of a business.

Don Cohen, in his book In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work, uses UPS as a case study for examining company cultures. To the average individual, UPS is merely a package delivery company. Yet, to the employees of the company, UPS is a mission. Cohen draws attention to stories of veteran drivers going out of their to train new members, eight-months-pregnant managers taking over routes for workers who called in sick, and retired drivers still calling their protégés to see how their job is going. Such camaraderie and dedication drives (no pun intended) the success of UPS.

Achieving this kind of company culture is the dream of every business. However, many fail to build successful cultures because they lack insight into how business culture operates. Too often, businesses will assume they understand their business culture without critically examining it or considering how it affects their daily operations or strategies. These types of assumptions obstruct insight.

All is not lost, however, when it comes to understanding the people in a business. Using tools of social discovery helps drive insight because it allows the people involved in the business to talk about the business. Since the people know the company the best, the power to transform the culture is in the people.

Interested in learning more about company culture, but do not feel like digesting 500 pages of technical jargon? Read Miller’s book 9Lenses Insight To Action.

Ever get that 2:30 feeling? Where the workday slows and productivity slumps? Have you seen those 5-hour energy commercials which promise that 3:30 boost? At 9Lenses, we have a different way to slam through the afternoon malaise: push-ups. You've all heard of them, done them, and probably hate them. Well, at 9Lenses we don’t believe in limiting organic, all-natural growth to our business; no, we’re holistic. We take care of our bodies, too.

The interns took 9Lenses to a “whole-nother-level” by doing 10 push-ups every 15 minutes.  “We give our bodies a chance to get some blood flowing.  Besides, taking a quick break from the desk is never a bad thing,” stated push-up co-founder and Analyst Intern, Patrick Farrell.  Another co-founder, Sales and Marketing Intern Ryan Williams added, “It keeps you fresh, energized, and physically fit all at the same time.  It's a struggle to ‘get after it’ in the gym when you’re at work all day, so we decided to bring the workout here.”

The push-ups encourage healthy competition within the whole office.  Sometimes we compete to see who can do the most push-ups at a time. We have even gotten Zach Enos (Marketing Catalyst), Steve Shaffer (VP of Client Services), and Isaiah McPeak (Head Analyst) to gain from the pain. Although the winners are usually Interns (it should be noted here that Zach does 1 arms, so as not to pain our tender egos), who’s youthful vigor and good looks provide an unbeatable edge, the whole company enjoys the event.  Our office was skeptical at first, but our continued perseverance has won the critics, improved our physicality, and generated an awesome team environment at 9Lenses.

Can’t stand push-ups? Is it too hard for ya to crank out 10 every 15 minutes? Try starting with just a couple each hour.  It will give you something to look forward to, and give you a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. Push-ups aren’t the only way to mix in a little fun. Get off your duff and bring a little competitive fire to your office!

The Point: Every day doesn’t have to be all work and no play. The best teams focus on working hard, but also enjoy winning and collaborating together. A fun and loose environment can be productive and hard working as well. Try something new in your organization that will bring people together, foster camaraderie, and lighten up the atmosphere. Let us know how you incorporate business and pleasure into your work environment.

As we say here at 9Lenses, get out there and turn that Insight Into Action!

Our world is dominated by data.  Ones and zeros are the lifeblood of business, entertainment, and social interactions.  A 2011 McKinsey study concluded that "five new kinds of value might come from abundant data: 1) creating transparency in organizational activities that can be used to increase efficiency; 2) enabling more thorough analysis of employee and systems performances in ways that allow experiments and feedback; 3) segmenting populations in order to customize actions; 4) replacing/supporting human decision making with automated algorithms; and 5) innovating new business models, products, and services."

Data is pervasive.  Businesses spend billions of dollars per year acquiring and utilizing tools that help them collect, store, and analyze data.  Unfortunately, many of these tools are limited in function and, therefore, benefit. 

Many tools attempt to help businesses diagnose and remediate problem areas. Unfortunately, most are too narrow and focus on isolated domain silos.  These tools could provide rich content in an single area, but lack the sort of holistic context businesses need to succeed. 

As McKinsey rightly pointed out in their 2011 study, there is tremendous value in "abundant data."  The real challenge for businesses is to leverage that data across business silos--to connect the dots and understand the strategic impact of relevant data across the whole organization.  The 9Lenses metastructure empowers organizations to make sense of abundant data, analyze it, and then turn that unfiltered insight into meaningful action.

Unlike the narrowly focused tools that are ubiquitous in today's business environments, 9Lenses social discovery software applications provide a powerful assessment of all the drivers of business success: Assets, Processes, and Structure.  The 9Lenses has mapped every aspect of business into a simple and powerful hierarchy providing unparalleled insight.  As a result, companies can collect, analyze, and use data immediately--and they can use data not just in one business domain, but across nine areas that are key to business success.  The 9Lenses application suite sits atop the advanced insight Engine architecture integrating hard statistical data with user perspective trends through four layers of logic: Interview, Score, Interpret, Recommend. 

9Lenses can help you use Data to drive:

Strategy

• Reveal your organizations top challenges and opportunities for immediate improvement.
• Targeted action plans based on unfiltered insight from employees. 
• Tailored to efficiently and quickly meet organization needs.

Transparency

• Empower employees through social transactions by giving each person in the organization a voice.
• Candor and transparency are hallmarks of a healthy organization and facilitate corporate responsibility.  

Efficiency

• Streamline operations. 
• Crowd source business optimization

Better Analysis (Experiments and Feedback)

• A cutting edge metastructure that captures data and focuses analysis around nine critical areas that determine an organization's success. 
• Run social baselines at strategic intervals to encourage continuous improvement and track success.

Innovation

• Leverage your organization’s Internal IP.

1. Preparing for strategic offsites
2. Bring a new executive rapidly up-to-speed
3. Design executive education programs that addresses critical knowledge gaps
4. Complete comprehensive due diligence before making a strategic acquisition or investment