How to implement a meritocracy using analytics?

It's unlikely that companies would look to outsource such a critical component and also it would be near impossible to create trust around 3rd parties accessing their data especially via an intermediary service.

Absolutely. And it is easy as your imagination.You can create it to fit your culture. That said, I believe that the biggest incentive is to tie compensation to the profitability of the unit. 1) Be sure to include everyone who touches outcomes. 2) Create a profit share by deciding how much you want to land in the hands of your employees. Be sure to use a net profit and be sure to account for future capitalization and cash flow. (Typically between 5-25%) 3) Divide the profit share by salaries or some other very obvious criteria. In other words, don't make it arbitrary or people will be dis-incentivized. 4) The profit share is always paid to the group, not the individual. 4) Be very involved in teaching net profit creation. They will need business acumen. Lastly, 5) While stock options and employee ownership may be a future goal, a profit share let's people hit the ground running, creates excitement right now, teaches needed business and finance skills and adds a fabulous team culture. Work with your unit to create the options or ownership they want later when they understand the principles and can help design the rules and criteria. I practiced this for over 20 years and the results were phenomenal. People grew the business, put cash in everyone's pocket, created an exciting environment and was in real time, not future time. It is magic. This is a quick answer. Let me know if you need more. I'm happy to discuss. Ruth Schwartz High Performance Advocates 530 802-2075

1) Look through posts and just and tally which "side-topics" show up the most within the last week. Rank them. The top two side-topics for each group will be the most promising ones to suggest to that group in the future. You'll basically be making a 'word cloud', like this: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/ 2) To test your new hypothesis, occasionally start making your own posts on the groups with links to articles about the most promising side-topics you've identified. Either make brand new posts, or cross-post from other groups. See how popular the posts are. 3) If not, move to the next most popular side-topic and do some tests with that. 4) Repeat steps 1 - 4 (each time you do step 1, use the most recent week of posts) If you'd like more detailed advice on how to do this, and test its effectiveness with regard to your specific groups, let me know, best, Lee

You mention, that you can code and maintain yourself, and at the same time it sounds like your data can be dispersed across multiple sources. And you want to minimise license cost. In my business we use R a lot for both analysis and reporting. It is free (open source), but you will have to build programs. But it will read any format, and also create output to any destination you want. So you could start off with a mix of R, Excel and pdf, just to get things going. However, it could make sense for you to build a database already so you familiarise yourself with data warehouse thinking, since you want to expand with marketing automation. At that point you will need a database for monitoring response, sales etc. So it is important to build the right foundation as ealy as possible. If you don't want to code, but want point-and-click, there is boatloads of software for that, but probably more license cost (unless you can find open source for that). So If I were you, I would start off with something smaller. After all, you want to focus on the value you create for the business and your colleagues, and the time you save, rather than a smooth IT-infrastructure for this. I have lots of experience building reporting and analysis in the areas you mention, so if you want to discuss further, feel free to set up a call. Good look with your development. Best regards Kenneth Wolstrup

Hi, so I've been part of multiple startups, successful and "failed". The pattern with most is that the originators of an idea tend to be the ones wanting to be the CEO... If the originator is a team, together you guys need to honestly answer each other questions such as: 1) who handles pressure better? 2) who is COMFORTABLE speaking to random people 3) and able to articulate clever responses and craft a pitch that hits the right spots to a variety of people. (This people could be in some sort of leadership/marketing- the vast majority of a startups effort goes to marketing and development) 4) Who is the technical person available to solve technical (or coding) problems? 5) who can bullshit their way through situations? 6) which one has sales experience? Training? Or management? 7) who is willing to work and earn the equity over a period of 1 or 2 years to be fully vested? Whoever is not, prob aren't as committed and thus shouldn't be on leadership.. 8) does the team really need everyone on board full time? 9) putting ego aside, would your mom see you as a leader of others? Can you make tough decisions when needed? Or do you get pushed over? A startup is an experiment, just because you structure things a certain doesn't mean your stuck with it. It's a mantra for a product and definitely more for the management. sometimes the ideators are not even the best option or is the leader the best CEO. Best of luck. #unthink