Hi there,
I hope you’re doing well, I just wanted to take the time to update with the latest news from Mäd.
General News.
- Head of Projects. We welcome Jonathan Tep as Head of Projects. Originally from Canada, Jonathan has Singaporean and Cambodian origins, working with various SaaS businesses and agencies in both business development and project management roles. He will be overseeing overall project management and quality at Mäd, ensuring that we’re constantly delivering our best work as we grow. We’re excited to have him on board, and he has already been making a large impact.
- Digital Transformation. This year has for sure been one of most transformational years in recent history, and many industries have seen a complete shift in “business as usual”. We’ve been fortunate that COVID-19 has made technology uptake and branding even more important, and so this has been a year of growth for us and yet, there are still changes. We’ve undergone a significant digital transformation in our back office, significantly simplifying our operations, billing, and finance, taking us further towards being a fully API-Centric organization, where all data is available via APIs for consumption. We wrote up details of our journey in this article on how we automated 95% of our back-office operations.
- New Legal Entity. The most important thing to note is that later in 2021, Mäd will be exclusively operating under Mad Creative, Inc - a Delaware based legal entity. If you’re an existing client of Mäd, you can still expect the same service levels and quality that you’ve come to expect, but note that this may cause some changes to our billing and legal arrangements, especially after the 2021 tax year is over (April). Our team will be in touch with more details later this year.
Client News & New Wins.
- New Clients. We welcome both Smart Axiata and re : edge Architecture as recent new clients of Mäd, and we look forward to showcasing our work with both of these industry leaders with you next year.
- HungryApp. If you’re based in Phnom Penh, it’s likely that you’ve already heard of HungryApp, and perhaps have even had the chance to try it out. If not, we highly recommend that you do, and you can download it right here. It’s a food delivery application with a twist, you can order from multiple trusted brands within the same order, and you also get always-free, super-fast delivery. We welcome Nicolas Martin as the new GM of HungryApp under RMA/EFG Group, and we look forward to a significant number of innovations coming soon across the entire region.
- Multiple Natures. We’ve launched the new multiplesnatures.com. They offer a unique HAT (Human Alignment Tool) that enables individuals to understand their true natures, to grow both professionally and personally.
Interviews.
We’ve also been interviewing industry leaders, and you find the latest two interviews below:
- Denver Gibson, CTO of Click. We sat down with Denver to discuss best practices on running a technology team at scale, and the challenges in building a high-performance team.
- Sopheakmonkol Sok, CEO of Codingate. We spoke with Sopheakmonkol on starting a business, digital transformation, and on developing and nurturing talent.
We’ll be running 2-3 interviews per month on an ongoing basis, and if you know of any particularly interesting business leaders, please reach out and make an introduction!
Latest Insights.
As mentioned in our previous newsletter, we’re doubling down on research and development of foundational ideas to ensure that we are constantly providing additional value to clients.
Please see our recently published insights:
- Emotional Intelligence. The essence of a teamwork success stems from mutual understandings. A team with high emotional intelligence people are able to reach goals in an efficient and effective manner.
- Facebook Verification. The Blue Badge is an authentication stamp for your business online. The badge will help your company grow regionally and internationally which will significantly increase your chance of getting discovered. We list down the benefits and steps to get verified on Facebook.
- How to Hire The Right People. Bolstering teams with talent, and importantly finding the ‘culture-fit’, is a sure fire route to success. We decided to share our thoughts on best industry practises on building a team, to make sure you don’t waste time and money on premature hires.
- Two Types of Decisions. Simply put, reversible or irreversible. Being able to identify the decision type in advance will help you and your team map out the importance of said decision, and how long to spend deliberating.
- The Ikea Effect. Whilst it is convenient to have a furnished product delivered to your home, the IKEA effect offers a purchase with an experience by requiring the customers to build and complete their own products. The IKEA effect proves that we feel a sense of accomplishment and add more value to the product when it comes from our own effort.
- Ditching Job Titles. There can be a degree of gravitas attached to certain job titles, or conversely some titles may confuse or dissuade collaboration. We weighed in suggesting occasions that job titles become a hindrance, and when they’re key for dealing with clients/customers.
- Explaining Master Service Agreements. Contracts and MSAs- they can be wordy, jargon-filled, overall confusing. As always, we offer insight to simplify the complex.
- Mäd Design Sprint FAQ. Our design sprints have been a proven path to prolific results, but this practise is still relatively unknown and underused in many industries. To help out, we’ve laid out some common questions, with succinct answers.
- KPI Dashboards with Google Sheets. Without intelligent reporting, progress is hard to gauge; We decided to put together a guide on how to use Google Sheets to create a simple yet effective dashboard.
- Thinking in First Principles. Elon Musk champions this mental model, which has proved effective with many historic giants of philosophical thinking. We break down the practise into simple steps, to consider the usefulness of it.
- The Pomodoro Technique. We love productivity hacks, and recently one of our team members gave this task-sprint technique a try. Learn more about how focus, punctuated with breaks, can lead to increased productivity.
- When Your Meeting Could Be An Email. We’ve all been there, ten individuals wasting an hour (or more) of their time listening to a messy agenda that leads to nothing substantial. Figuring out when a meeting is needed, and when they can be avoided, can reap huge benefits.
- Shortcuts Make Long Delays. Living in a fast-evolving world requires us to move quickly, hence our tendency to opt for shortcuts in reaching goals. However, shortcuts often lead to a detour for people and their goals.
- ™ vs ®. Trademarks and registered trademarks, we see the symbols daily but it’s not widely known what the difference actually is. We outline what they are, and when to use them.
- On Starting Up. Creating something completely new can be daunting, and difficult - so we roadmapped our advice on making the process simpler, easier, and overall more productive.
- Collaborating Better. Time levels the playing field across all businesses, but being able to use it more effectively is an obvious advantage. We decided to share some useful tips from hard learned lessons, and diligent self-assessments of our practices.
We wish you a fantastic two final months to this year and, as usual, the entire team at Mäd is on standby to help with your most pressing business problems and strategies.
Kind regards,
Manny.
