Great Management Quote of the Day!

Confuscious says..... "You should teach your team to fish.  But give your boss the whole fish!".... and preferably fileted, deboned, grilled and served with a lovely lemon butter sauce.

Love it!  Actually Bill Hayes said it!

Finding THAT First Customer..... to build your business around!

These are summary bullets of a presentation I gave yesterday at the ATDC.  Folks in the audience asked me to post.

1. Interview everyone


2. Don’t Give it AWAY


3.  I am SoRRY…. YouR IDEA  STINKS


4.  Not All Customers are created equal


5.  Listen to the market and ignore logic and reason


6.  Get someone using your product ASAP
7.  MAP your Ideal customer Profile

Tell Your Idea to EVERYONE

Most folks think that sharing business ideas without a non-disclosure/confidentiality agreement is a big mistake. I say "hog-wash"!

Ideas are a dime a dozen and you don't ask for a Prenup after the first couple of dates. That comes later.... after you realize the person that you are going to be in partnership with has the propensity to screw you over at some point in the future (some irony there of course).

Face it....people are too wrapped up in their own work, families and hobbies to steal your idea and run with it.

I heard former Atlanta Braves pitching coach, Leo Mazzone, say that the best way for young kids who wish to strengthen their arms is to throw hard every day, until tired. That is how I feel about pitching new business ideas. PITCH, PITCH, PITCH until tired, every day.

If you have gone to the trouble of forming a company then you have a responsibility to protect the intellectual property of the business. However, until you have formally created your company..... TELL EVERYONE YOUR IDEA!

Pitch your friends, your relatives, your neighbors. Talk to potential customers, investors, partners, and suppliers. The more you pitch it the, the more refined the idea will become. Without pitching "your idea" at nauseum, you will never know where the pitfalls and trouble may be?

You will get a lot of negative feedback. You will get a lot of bad advice. But don't fear the wrath of negative feedback. It will hone your pitch skills and sharpen your responses. PITCH, PITCH, PITCH. Good luck!

Dare To Do!

I took my 8 year old son to DC 2 weeks ago. It is something that I always envisioned doing with my children to help them gain an appreciation and some context of what they are about to learn in school as they enter 3rd grade. When their teachers start to talk about US history, my kids will be able to say "i have been in that room of the White House" or "I was inside Ford's Theatre". It made history jump off the page for me growing up and I hope it does the same for my kids.

The Air and Space Museum was our second stop on our tour. He saw how small the Gemini capsules were and how big the Saturn V rockets were. He saw how in less than 70 years man was able to go from the Wright Brothers to the moon. We watched short movies of how 1 idea... the reality of flight.... could be used for warfare and for commerce.

As long as man has roamed this earth, he has looked up at the moon and wondered how he could reach out and touch it.... and my son touched a moon rock. It was doing that got us there. It was the thousands of failed attempts at flight that made the moon mission possible. As you see the position of Wilbur essentially laying down on his stomach gripping the controls, you realize how vulnerable and dangerous a venture this was. Injury and death were a strong probability.

So today on the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing.... possibly man's single greatest collective accomplishment, I challenge you to risk something today by "doing". Stop wasting precious minutes/hours and write down that idea that has been bouncing around your head, that business plan, that concept. Start it today! Do something and you might let other children touch the moon.

Andy

Thinking Big and Acting Locally

I saw this CNN.com piece titled, Heroes of the Economy, that really exemplifies the Think Bigger Now mantra.  I really like how folks have decided to act locally to make a difference. Take a look at the examples of folks who are paying forward or giving back to help neighbors in need.  It seems like when the world is in turmoil, the best in human kind is revealed.

Enjoy and get out there and Think Bigger Now!!!

Andy

What should we be doing?

Everyone can agree that this market is bad and getting worse by the day.   The Dow just dropped below 6800 with no end in sight.

We can either crawl into a corner and cry or we can go to battle and make life better in your own house, for your neighbor and for a stranger you have never met.  It is a timefor collective change that if everyone were to adopt would for life easier for all. 

What can we do?

1.  Sacrifice something valuable

2.  Create something unique

3.  Do something earnestly

4.  Help someone altruistically

5.  Stop 1 bad habit

That is a lot of good to be done that could make the world more interesting, more charitable, and a better place to live!  

Edward R. Murrow... where have you gone?

Watching the tube over the last several months..... it hit me.... I am either really confused or journalism really is dead.   Roland Martin and Candy Crowley... are they journalists or analysts?  DL Hughley.... I thought he was a joke...ehhh... I mean comedian... not a journalist.  Edward R. Murrow's trademark high standards for honesty and integrity in reporting the news may never return again.

Who is a journalist anymore?  Doing an interview doesn't make you a reporter.  It's about objectivity. It's about reporting news with transparency.

Oprah does interviews, but is she a journalist?  Katie Couric is not a journalist.  The format's look similar.  Interviewer......Interviewee.... solo camera shots with muted backdrop.... subject seated.... hot lights.... narrator provides backdrop story intertwined with music.  The line has been fatally and forever blurred to the point that the average viewer can not distinguish between journalism and entertainment.

• Watch Matt Lauer on the Today Show get crushed at (8:23) and admit his bias to Obama by John Zieglar who made a documentary, Media Malpractice.

A Feb. 5, 2009 Time Magazine cover story titled "How to Save Your Newspaper" detailed the tragedy of losing large newspapers due to their failed business models. What about the role of "crap journalism"?  A failed business model says something profound....news has been commoditzed.  People would rather trust their news from free and varied sources, regardless of a journalism degree, regardless of a Pulitzer Award.  The difference between "Joe Blogger" and Cynthia Tucker is that at least "Joe blogger" lays his biased information out there with  honesty.  

 

First of Many

So.... "where do we go from here?" you ask.  How we got here matters less than how we are going to get to where we need to be.....as fast as possible.  Purge the world of bad habits and start anew.  Not to be misconstrued as "throwing out the baby with the bath water", but abandoning thingss that have historically not worked.  This is what the new administration promised... Change.

What is there to change you ask?  Lets start with the campaign promises:

Government transparency..... can someone build an application/service that tracks the pork, uncovers the fraud, and helps this countries electorate become qualified, informed consumers of government

Public Education..... flip it on its head....somebody..... please!  Give it to Nike and Coke. They already fill our kids heads with product placements and advertisements from 3pm to bedtime.  Who cares if "this pop quiz is brought to you by McDonalds".

Healthcare......basic/quality national healthcare doesn't mean stem cell research and advanced/expensive treatments of complicated illnesses.... rather give us emergency care and preventative care for free and upsell patients more advanced treatments.

My feeling is that there is an opportunity for world change NOW!  Why? Because everyone is listening.  That is half the battle!  Now lets think BIG and start the chain reaction of change.