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Tech Talk with Jim Goldman: From San Diego to Silicon Valley and Beyond

A Wrap-up of the University Club’s Roundtable on the Tech Industry

Christine Benton

The biggest challenge facing the technology industry is people. Or more specifically, the lack thereof, according to tech industry leaders at a recent San Diego business breakfast. The event, hosted by the University Club San Diego, brought together executives from a broad swath of the technology industry to discuss the state of the industry in San Diego and beyond. The discussion was led by Jim Goldman, chairman of the U.S. Technology Practice at public relations firm Burson-Marsteller and former CNBC Silicon Valley bureau chief.

The panelists didn’t identify capital or revenue as the greatest challenge facing tech industry companies. They said their biggest challenge was staffing and recruiting tech-related positions—such as software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople.

In a time of double-digit unemployment, “there are more than 6,000 technology-related positions open in San Diego alone,” said David Titus, president of the San Diego Venture Group and managing director at venture capital firm Windward Ventures.

George Mathew, president and COO of Irvine-based Alteryx, nodded. “Fifty percent of my time is spent on staffing and recruiting,” he said.

While a few were surprised by this, Titus backed up Mathews, saying that when he looks at companies to invest in, he looks for senior executives who spend a significant amount of time on staffing, pointing out that these executives are more realistic than those who turn to recruiting and staffing as a second or third priority.

The challenge is exacerbated by U.S. immigration policy, said Titus, which currently requires foreign students who matriculate and earn advanced degrees at U.S. universities to return to their home countries after graduation. “We are educating them and then sending them back,” noted Titus. “Why not allow them to work here and make our companies and economy stronger?” He urged people to support the STAPLE Act, which would authorize certain students from foreign countries to be admitted for permanent residence after earning a PhD from a U.S. university in the field of science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

Admiral Jim Zortman, sector vice president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, shared a few ways that he has approached the staffing issue, including working with high schools and colleges within the framework of internship programs. “If you have a good internship program, by the time the intern is in his or her third year of internship you have a pretty good idea of whether they’re a good fit for your company,” he said.

In addition, he pointed out, “Not everyone peaks at the moment of graduation.” While other companies go for the top graduates, he may aim a few spots down, looking for qualities in a candidate that will help them to be strong in the long-term. Zortman mentions that, like others on the panel, his team has been able to lure candidates to move to San Diego from other parts of the country by giving them a taste of Southern California in the winter. However, many leave after two to three years, so he has learned to focus on candidates he believes will be here for the long run.

Do you share the same challenges in your industry? Use the comment section below to let us know!

Christine Benton is a director in the Technology Practice at Burson-Marsteller. Based in North County San Diego, she is an avid lover of both San Diego and Technology. You can reach her at christine.benton[at]bm.com.

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Trust in Leaders is at an All-Time Low

I have spent considerable time speaking with business friends about trust in leaders.  These conversations were prompted by last year’s results of the 10-year annual Edelman Trust Barometer survey.  They sampled 4,475 opinion leaders in two age groups (25-34 and 35-64) in 20 countries, a 30-minute telephone survey of “informed publics.”  (www.edelman.com/trust/2009/)

One disturbing finding that led to these conversations is that only 17 percent of the 35-64 year old “informed publics” trust information given by a CEO about his or her company.  This is six-year low.

For better or for worse, my understanding is that, in terms of influence, it only takes about 15% of people agreeing to anything (a philosophy, a code of behavior, a belief) to change the tide and move the masses.  Robert Porter Lynch, who has done considerable research in the area of trust and leaders, posits that trust is the bedrock of democracy, and when our trust is damaged, we are doing damage to the very principles upon which this country is founded.  We are precipitously close to that tipping point.

Since I coach CEOs and their executive teams, I am personally appalled.  But more appalling than the sense that our business leaders have behaved badly and deserve this reputation — some do and most don’t — is my concern that all CEOs have been painted with the same brush as those who deserve to be penalized and put away for a very long time, damaging others’ reputations by association.  There are leaders who do wrong intentionally, and others who are simply careless.  In a Financial Times some months ago, for example, BP’s CEO Tony Hayward admitted that they were not prepared for a category disaster he called “low probability, high risk.” Indeed.

BP, after an estimated $20 bn leak with costs to our environment and the human psyche that are unconscionable and immeasurable finally began looking into their strategy and tools to resolve such risks.  Tony Hayward is not a bad person, but inadequate thinking and planning has exacted an extraordinarily high toll.  Regardless, whether they make a mistake of wrongful thinking, or they are out to get us as was the case with Bernie Madoff, bad decisions of those in power cost us trust in leaders inclusively.

A recent release that should be a MUST READ for every executive in the world is Herb Baum’s The Transparent Leader, in which Baum said, “A lot of executives who made headlines (because of a scandal) were just plain white-collar thieves who deserved to do time.  And there were others who were basically good people who made compromises when they shouldn’t have.  They stretched the truth because they thought they had to, and they made some business decisions that were short on integrity. They had risen to leadership positions, but they failed because they didn’t understand how to be open with various constituents and they were unable to build a culture base on trust in the organizations they led.”

Let’s assume leaders should do more to warrant our trust.  BP’s Hayward has admitted the criticism of the oil spill and subsequent inability to stop the damage was ‘entirely fair.”  Ok, it was an event, a mishap.  Let’s look at an ordinary, reoccurring factor.  Who is culpable, for instance, for extraordinarily high CEO wages?   Considerable finger wagging has been going on in the press at CEOs about this.  It isn’t the CEO who sets his or her own salary; it is the board of directors.  Yet they are invisible to the press in these stories.  So often our assumptions lead us to conclusions that malign others without full consideration for the facts.  This disturbs me greatly but I know I have done it, too.  Why is that?

Walking with a friend, I mentioned a situation that was just this kind of wrongful maligning, and she asked me, “How long does it take to find a witch?”  She was alluding to the days in Europe from 1480 to 1700 when legally sanctioned and official witchcraft trials resulted in from 40,000 to 100,000 executions. It was decided someone was a witch, and next thing you know that person was burned at the stake.

While we’ve moved beyond flagrantly burning people at the stake, we still do character assassinations every day, in the form of judgment and gossip.   Some of this finger wagging and witch-hunting and broad-brush painting is projection — making someone else responsible for what we, ourselves, don’t want to be responsible.

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The FINE Art of Getting Things Done

Clearly I have NOT mastered this fine art of getting things done, as it has been a month since I last posted something.  Since then, however, I have been educating myself in the fine art of managing my time and the productivity of others.  I am currently availing myself of interns, with whom I am getting systemic changes accomplished that daily demands would have me ignore.  Like moving into Cooler Email, for instance, lock stock and barrel for managing my business from software-as-a-service.  There’s more to the story — stay with me.

Without some troops I would not tackle a project like shifting the locus of my business from my computer to another system so that others could share it.  Having that locus of control shifted makes many things possible that weren’t possible before.

While I have them (before they move on with their REAL lives), Ipek (on the left) and Semih (on the right) are making possible this transition to Cooler Email and other great tools of productivity.

On a related topic, I attended a business gathering last evening where we talked about execution of strategy.  The overarching theme of the evening was that for there to be a shift in the collective consciousness of bringing our heart to the business world, and not just our head, we all need to work for the common good and make decisions with the common good in mind, not just our selfish interests.

This is a theme of mine, and fortunately not JUST mine!  Working for the common good means that as we go about our regular work, we bring in the fine art of considering how what WE do will impact others.

I have helped Semih find a school where he will get his MBA, and I will help Ipek get a job.  I met these two young adults through an earlier intern, Orcun, whom I helped find a job and in doing so I lost him as an intern.  He replaced himself by introducing me to his two friends who needed internships.  THAT, my friends, is the FINE art of getting things done!  When I released my need for Orcun to be my intern, little did I know that I would end up doubling my workforce of interns!  My deciding based on the common good turned out to be good for me, good for Orcun, and good for Ipek and Semih.

I think that’s the way the world REALLY works, and it is NOT intuitive any more than leaning into the curve on a motorcycle is intuitive.  It is a choice, and in the end things get done that should get done, even though in the beginning we don’t see the whole picture.

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