Walking Up Hills and Running Down: Effectively Utilizing Limited Resources

Today I ran my first half marathon. Around the 10th mile I was struggling to run up a steep hill, and I looked over and saw another runner walking up the hill next to me faster than I was running. I realized that it took a lot of energy at that point to try [...]

Consulting for Social Media, Niche Social Networks & Digital Monetization

“Approximately once a decade, a radical new technology emerges that fundamentally changes the business landscape.  In every case, regardless of prior competitive dynamics, businesses that understand and appropriately adopt the technology win, while those that fail to do so lose.  In the 1970s, this was mainframe computing.  IN the 1980s, it was the PC. In [...]

Building a Skyscraper on Leased Land: Does Someone Else Own or Control the Key Asset of Your Business?

In my digital monetization consulting, I have worked for two companies that are far too dependent on other businesses that own or control key assets on which my clients rely.  One client is completely dependent on a publishing company that has a virtually monopoly on the niche publishing market of my client.  The publishing company [...]

The Mother Teresa Principle – Looking at the One

I recently finished Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath and thoroughly enjoyed this book.  One of my favorite portions described the “Mother Teresa Principle”.  One of this saintly woman’s famous teachings was, ”If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”  
 
Made to Stick talks [...]

The Parable of the Cement Pylon

Years ago I heard a story about a person who was driving down the freeway and approaching an interchange with two possible directions the driver could choose.  One person in the car was telling the driver to go right and another person was telling the driver to go left.  The driver was unable to make [...]

Bill Gross, the Genius Behind IdeaLab

Bill Gross is the founder of the IdeaLab business incubator, with sales exceeding $435 million. It is one only tech incubator that survived the dotcom crash in its original form. IdeaLab has built many different ventures, such as:
· GoTo/Overture (became Yahoo Search Marketing) – paid inclusion search engine that was renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing after [...]

Trying a Lot of Things and Keeping What Works

In Built to Last, the authors said:
In examining the history of visionary companies we were struck by how often they made some of their best moves not by detailed strategic planning, but rather by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and–quite literally accident.
This week I read an interview in Founders at Work with Paul Buchheit of [...]

Changing the World with Microlending

Kiva is one of the greatest uses of the Internet to do good. Kiva is an online microlending service that allows people anywhere to lend money directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries around the world. Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.
Kiva works to qualify [...]

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

All companies have goals, but many of the most successful companies set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (”BHAGs”). There is a big difference between merely having a goal, and being fully committed to a huge, daunting challenge–like a mountain to climb.
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, [...]

Tyranny of “OR” and Genius of “AND”

According Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Build to Last, the “tyranny of the OR” leads businesses to feel that they can only choose one option or the other, but not both, such as:

Change OR stability,
Conservative OR bold,
Low cost OR high quality,
Creative autonomy OR consistency and control,
Invest in future OR do well in short-term,
Make progress [...]