Posts in ‘Innovation’

I have been riding the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Commuter rail service for 5 years and the service has not changed much in this time, but year on year the cost of a ticket rises, often more than inflation. In addition the daily parking rates received a 100% increase a year ago supposedly to help cover MBTA staff costs and yet the only way you can pay at most stations is by stuffing one dollar bills through a slot – no monthly contracts, pay by credit card etc that are commonly available in many municipal parking lots across the country.

I am moaning but I am trying to make a point here too – on February 1, 2010 a new rule has been put in place where commuters must only board where there is a conductor present. In effect about a 30% reduction in the number of places to board a train that already only has an entrance at each end of the carriage. I doubt in the history of rail service, its  origins date back to 1889, has this situation ever been the case and it is sad that our modern day educated commuter cannot let themselves on or off a train unescorted.

Most commuter systems around the world are being redesigned to eliminate the human element and to abstract the ticket management to before the actual commute, which is the prime purpose of the conductors on the MBTA. Even the T, the metro system in Boston, running alongside this same service operates with just a driver.

What I observe happening is that people with power today are making decisions because they operate in the vacuum of state/municipal organization, thinking they are immune to the consequences of the value their organization produces. At the end of the day the leaders of the MBTA are exposed to the same market pressures as any other free market business.  When the marginal utility or value does not exist passengers will consider alternative means of transport – it has happened before. When the cost of operation exceeds the value paid by customers and from the state taxes, it will draw significant attention by both disgruntled commuters and non-commuters who will see it as a waste of their tax dollars. It will not be perceived as a necessity but a problem.

Where there are problems there are opportunities… successful businesses thrive on the vulnerability of these sorts of problems. When opportunistic businesses, observe organizations entwined by their own history, they quickly swoop in with fresh ideas not constrained by the existing historical standards and cultures. Today’s impossibilities will become tomorrow’s opportunities. These options will sound welcoming and fresh to a disgruntled commuter and tax base. Although things generally move slowly in state/municipal processes once a movement starts it is hard to stop the momentum of the masses.

When this shift takes place it will become quickly apparent that even the state/municipal organizations are competing in a global marketplace irrespective of if the infrastructure is immovable such as in a train infrastructure. People and organizational practices can always be changed – it depends who holds the most compelling and valuable story at the time, which is what business is essentially. There are many transport service companies all over the globe that given the opportunity, and having no sentiment for existing established policies or traditions, will gladly start anew – possibly without a conductor or possibly one to keep all the doors open for their valued customers.

No customers  = no service, the value has to be there, and if you are not producing value with existing assets and opportunities there are a lot of companies out there determined to make better use of established assets like a rail network. Of late has been the acquisition by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment company of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the nation’s second-largest railroad for $34 Billion, their biggest acquisition yet.

Surprisingly this lesson has not been learned by the MBTA where this situation has already transpired in Boston’s Transportation History to quote

“The West End Street Railway had a virtual monopoly on all streetcar lines in greater Boston, but high profits, poor service, high fares and a general lack of concern for the public had resulted in alienation of the West End’s management from its customers. On December 9, 1897, under the supervision of the Transit Commission, a lease was entered into with the West End Street Railway by which the property of that company was leased to the Boston Elevated Railway Company”

Remember I told you so!

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: Action, active garage, business opportunity, Business Strategy, competition, competitors, Customer Service, execution, Guy Ralfe, services, takeover, value

This post is inspired by Tom Peters. In fact I have taken the topic of this post from Tom’s write-up on “Excellence” straight from the free e-book “What Matters Now” that Seth Godin recently released on his blog and a number of other sites (including Active Garage).

I fell in love with this quote as soon as I saw it and was deeply moved by all that it could mean. Here are a few that got triggered in my thinking:

1. It challenges mediocrity at all levels… because mediocrity deals with accepting what is, as-is. Being in status-quo. Adjusting. Compromising. Coping.  Mediocrity does not produce stellar results. It always produces the same, common result and thus gets priced in the marketplace. That’d explain the gap between the movers and shakers, and the common people.
2. Call for Action: It is a beautifully constructed statement that clearly Calls for Action. Nothing happens without action… Nothing that you intended, actually.
3. It is Purposeful: It is Purposeful, in that, it is a step that needs to be taken in order to do something new.
4. It is a Precursor to Creating: Without creating a space where something new can be brought about, no creation is possible. In other words, until the old takes up the space, the new cannot get in!
5. It is Risky! – Yes, it is… because it will take us to the unknown. But, the unknown is not always undesirable. Just ask Christopher Columbus OR Albert Einstein OR Yourself (when you last stepped into the unknown)

I invite you to reflect on this for a while with work, your entrepreneurial venture, and your life and contribute to this incomplete list of what all this could mean… perhaps this could even make it into your New Year’s resolution list!

Happy New Year!

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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.

Tagged as: Action, active garage, challenge, creating, himanshu jhamb, mediocrity, Purposeful, risky, seth godin, tom peters, what matters now

I am privileged to have had the opportunity to preview Seth Godin’s upcoming ebook What Matters Now prior to its launch. First off, there is little I can write here that will be of any substitute for reading the actual ebook.

This is a brilliant work and you must read it for 4 key reasons:

• Timing – It is the end of the year and those pesky new year’s resolutions are upon us. This book will provoke your thoughts, stimulate your ambition and orientate you for action in the coming year.
• Power – Seth Godin has brought in 72 thought leaders to provide their version of “What Matters Now.” This is providing us a sneak peek into the minds of these thought leaders with minimum time investment from us.
• Network – Through this book you get access to the recognized thought leaders of today, what they are up to and how to tap into their networks – very valuable.
• Diversity – Each contributor has presented their work in their own desired format, which in conjunction with the powerful messages produces a lesson in the art of communication.

The eBook comprises a page per topic word, with diverse topics as Strengths; Poker; Harmony; DIY; Change; Confidence; Productivity, to which a contributor per topic has shared their insight and knowledge, primarily producing a sense of reflection and thought to each topic.

I found it triggered many emotions and thoughts associated with each topic. As fast as they were triggered, when I flipped the page to read the next topic, the sensation was repeated – it is like being in a conversation with the author of each topic.

Later in the  day after reading the book, as I moved about I found I was pondering my situation and reflecting back on what I had read earlier. I think this is one of those books you keep with you as a guide. The format makes for a very easy read and great if you need to read in byte-size slots.

To give you a little insight to the content and contributors – Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App: How to win business and Influence Friends wrote on the topic of Confidence – Tim speaks of confidence as the “Rocket fuel for your business life”. He then exposes the problem in confidence – “Most people don’t cultivate confidence – it just lands on them due to favorable conditions… Good times make for confident people. Bad times crush them, along with their daring point of view”

How true has this been over the last year? Tim then prescribes some sensible action to avoid this situation.

To demonstrate the contrast in presentation Jessica Hagy, author of the blog Indexed drew a simple picture on an index card and it produced just as much thought on the topic of Facts!

Do yourself the favor and download the ebook – but more importantly read it! If you can’t do that then please send the link to someone you care about because they will appreciate it.

Download free now -What Matters Now

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: active garage, book review, business, Business Management, Business Strategy, Effective Thought, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, execution, gralfe, Guy Ralfe, outlook, possibilities, seth godin, what matters now, www.activegarage.com

My article this week is about timing. There is an old saying “Experience is what you get, right after you needed it”.

There are things that you can time, the coffee maker, the bus schedule and so forth. There are many more things that you cannot time and attempting to time them is a mistake.

For Example: timing the stock market, similar to gambling in Las Vegas, where everyone knows the game is rigged and plays anyway. Attempting to time the stock market will eventually get you if you are playing alone. That’s why successful stock brokers get paid no matter the outcome of your transaction with them.

Timing certain types of projects is also a mistake. I work in the large scale software industry and if a project is an addition to an existing product, timing makes sense and indeed is necessary. If, on the other hand, we are building something completely new to the world, we cannot time it, and we are almost never able to resist the urge.

For things that are new to the world, much must be learned, therefor the time required is the time needed to acquire the knowledge to complete the project; be that brain surgery or a new software product. The knowledge and the skill must be acquired over time, a practice must be developed that retains that skill and then the project can be timed. Usually at that point you have completed at least the first pass and are ready to move on. Only after you have the experience can you time the next iteration, and even then, if you are doing something that is new to you, your team or the world, you need to take the time to learn.

I’ve said is almost all of my articles, you will not get where you are going alone, you need help. Help can come in many forms: parents, friends, acquaintances, government structures, business structures, etc. The number one thing that, as business people, we can find to help us are teachers. Find someone better at what you do than you are and learn from them. Learn everything you can, from everyone you can. Be discriminating in your teachers though, find the best, if you find someone better, switch. Move fast and learn to learn fast.

With learning comes obligation. As I said before, you need to learn from great teachers, you must have something to offer them in return like money, time, etc. In return you must spend some of your human capital to learn: time, lost opportunity, money etc. Education comes with a price, you must pay it. When you stop learning you are finished.

Another point about the obligation of learning; you must teach. There is a Buddhist maxim “To know and to not do is to not know”. Teaching cements your knowledge, it is a mechanism of our minds that when we teach we learn as well, the subject we are teaching. So to learn, you must teach, find a student, and be a student.

Go find something new to learn! Stretch your mind and teach someone else something new! Do it for yourself.

This article was contributed by Thomas Frasher, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Thomas on Twitter at tfrasher.

Tagged as: Action, Branding, Communication, execution, Intellectual Property, leaders, Leadership, possibilities, purpose, Return on Investment

We all agree that social media is really effective in discovering people who have similar passions. Still, being in sites like Linkedin and Facebook, where people are connecting randomly it is hard to understand the value of these relationships you are building. It is possible, there isn’t any… But we will never be able to build deep relationships without one on one interaction or meetings in person… So, here are some steps to take virtual social interactions into real world:

1) Be present in community networks

Meet people in community forums that share your common interests. This way you can build relationships with people who live close to you and so you have access to them… In case of social media, these relationships can be in different parts of the world and not be as meaningful for your work or personal interests…

2) Take your business cards to these events

Don’t underestimate the value of business cards…it is great to have blogs, twitter accounts – but there is just a simple problem – to find you in cyberspace, one needs to know your full name….what if they got the wrong spellings or wrong name. With a business card, one can always Google your name…

3) Build Relationships

Yes, you can ReTweet posts and help other elevate their profiles…Still, there is value in sharing other gifts than RTs. Try calling some people you haven’t spoken in a while…you will be surprised how much more pleasure it is to talk to people than to DM or Email.

4) Understand social

Historically, social has been associated with people meeting, talking, exchanging ideas in person. These conversations have led to many innovations, wars and even consensus…the MasterMind thoery dictates that it requires people to exchange ideas that create possibilities they could not see for themselves… Humans will always be Social Animals…Long way before we become Cyber Beasts. So, engage in brainstorming ideas in a conversation….

5) Pleasant Personality

There is a advantage if people see you as having a pleasant personality…that is never visible on social media channels. Some people put pictures that are not true to their real selves…Don’t miss out on being generous to other with your pleasant personality….This will help you surround yourself with people who might potentially become friends, business associates or life partners… So, build connections with social media but power your relationships with personal interactions…

Contributed by Deepika Bajaj, President and Founder, Invincibelle, LLC. Invincibelle helps women who live and work in a multicultural world to accelerate their professional growth. Deepika is also the author of the book DiversityTweet: Embracing the growing diversity in our world. You can follow Deepika on Twitter at invincibelle

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Communication, deepika bajaj, http://activegarage.com, marketing, possibilities, Sales and Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

Ever take a moment to notice how you notice? The intention of this post is to just do that – enable you to notice how you notice. In the fast paced world that we live in nowadays, with our daily schedules full of appointments and what-not, it is hard to take a moment to reflect upon how all action really starts in us. Humans are hard wired – yes, biologically, we are hard wired to be a certain way whereby certain things exist as mechanistic behaviors  (if you disagree, take notice of the next time you burp or have a bout of hiccups) and its hard to do anything about any of it, until we step aside and notice it, objectively. It all begins with noticing things – our surroundings, our behaviors… everything!

The next question that begs some attention then is: So, how do we notice? OR even better… how do we get better at noticing? The answer is in one simple word: Distinctions. The dictionary meaning of Distinction is “Something that Distinguishes”. With distinctions, humans learn to take notice and when we take notice, the things that seem to be happening in our background (i.e. where we don’t have much control on our actions) start happening in our foreground (i.e. we notice them). This applies to any field. Take, for example, playing soccer. Until one distinguishes (or learns the distinction) what is meant by “Off-Side” one does not know one way from the other and cannot take effective action in this domain.

The same holds for the field of Business. Until one distinguishes what “Business” means, one cannot effectively act in the domain of business. That is why people invest huge sums of money to get their MBA degrees, Project Management Certifications or Accounting diplomas and degrees… so that they can learn the distinctions that help them take effective action.

In whatever aspect of business you specialize in, commit to learning the relevant distinctions and you’ll start noticing the power of noticing.

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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.

Tagged as: Action, active garage, behavior, biological, burp, business, degree, diploma, distinctions, distinguish, effective, himanshu jhamb, human, MBA, mechanistic, noticing, Project Management, sneeze, soccer

A professional business people our identity in our marketplace is extremely important.  Identity or brand is an early indicator of the cost of doing business with us. A well respected identity results in lower cost to your marketplace, no matter what that marketplace may be.

Today’s article focus’ on a single aspect of identity management that has raised itself to me several times this week: Telephone Etiquette.

How many of us use conference calling and online meeting sharing systems (Skype, GotoMeeting, Meetingplace, etc) to conduct our meetings?  I have been in 8 conference meetings this week where 2 or more participants were not geographically located in the same area as the main meeting.

Given that we are more and more, required to conduct business in a more virtual fashion, identity management takes on a different complexion. With a virtual meeting, there is little if any visual cues to help people move the conversation along or not step on one another verbally.  Today’s article gives some simple guidelines for making conference calls work more smoothly and helping to build your identity as a competent business person.

1. Pay close attention to your proximity to the telephone or microphone.  Voices will be softer or louder based on this distance and can give the impression that you are either not paying attention or that you are otherwise engaged.  Remember people are "seeing" with their ears on a conference call.

2. Don’t tap the table that is holding the telephone or microphone.  While those in the room may not be able to hear it, the mechanical noise will be transferred to the phone or mic and it is very distracting on the receiving end. Likewise shuffling papers near the phone of mic can be inordinately loud and prevent others from actually hearing what was said.

3. No Side Conversations! This sends a clear message that you don’t consider others thoughts valuable, if a side conversation starts up, as a business leader you need to stop it or bring it into the main part of the meeting.

4. My pet peeve, make sure the other person has finished talking before making your contribution.  care must be taken to manage the meeting so that all the opinions are heard and all the information needed to be passed is passed. I personally must work to remember to not talk over someone. It is very rare when that is required, so be on the lookout for this one.

5. Pay attention to what is being said by others. You have no permanent lock on good ideas, so make sure you are open to the ideas of others, it will improve the quality of your own ideas.  Another peeve I have is when it is obvious that the other person is simply waiting to start talking and they are only gated by me speaking, they are not listening (I admit I’m guilty of this as well).  If you listen carefully to the other people on the conference call you may find the your opinions of them and their contribution may change.

Above all remember to respect your virtual meeting colleagues, which is what the list is all about anyway.

This article was contributed by Thomas Frasher, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Thomas on Twitter at tfrasher.

Tagged as: Branding, Business Management, business planning, Communication, execution, Leadership, management, Project Management, purpose, quality

This weeks article addresses the strong desire for people to fall into the trap of “I didn’t invent it, it’s not as good as it could be” or “Not Invented Here”.

Both of these attitudes usually have some merit and at the same time are usually flawed.

In an earlier article on when good enough is good enough, I made the point that at some point you have to stop development and ship the product or service, before that you have no knowledge of the viability of your product or service. You have to ship/deploy and get feedback from your marketplace, before that you are guessing.

Proof of your accomplishment is after shipment/deployment.

To that end we must as business owners be aware of the landscape surrounding our businesses, our competition, our customers, and our own needs, and what help is available to us at little or no investment. So the question “do I need to do it all from scratch?” is posed here. What parts can you get elsewhere and will it help you to do that?

For example, Matthew Lesko has made a big business out of publishing a series of books on government available loans, grants and funding, and if it works for you, the cost is very low.

There are professional societies for every profession that are a great source of help and ideas. Surprising though it may seem, you can even get help from your competition.

For the technology crowd there is slashdot and sourceforge; for the science minded products and services there is the IEEE with societies for nearly anything you can imagine and Symetry for the more scientifically minded. I would encourage your to sign up for one or more of these, at least take a look to see what’s there and if it is usable.

All of that said, there are countless places to find help in the marketplace, and as I’ve said in nearly every article I’ve written: in business you need help, and not just any help, you need the best help you can get, and help will cost you, the best help costs a lot.

So take a look around you both physically and in your marketplace and find your help, it may be surprising where you find it. Watch out for the “Not Invented Here” trap in yourself and your employees, it can raise your costs and lengthen your delivery times and thwart your chances of success.

This article was contributed by Thomas Frasher, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Thomas on Twitter at tfrasher.

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, execution, Leadership, management, Return on Investment

In my previous article I wrote that you need to actively manage your IP Strategy. This article is about how to build that practice.

OK, let’s say that you have created an IP Strategy document and you know what direction your company is going with the development of the company intellectual property. You have a clear concise roadmap that defines the directions and more importantly what areas you are going to stay away from.

Feels pretty good doesn’t it?

And then….the world changes.

Some markets become obsolete, a new product comes out that makes the original problem evaporate, a new service is available that prevents the cause for your product from existing, your market is gone. There is an old term for this: “Sitting On Your Laurels” and it doesn’t work anymore, there is ample evidence that it never worked. The world always changes, as small business owners we all know that and experience it every day. Our marketplace may be less conscious of the facticity of change (note to the unions, and people that want things to return to the same way they were).

How do you manage your IP in the light of these changes?

1. You must be paying attention to you market as if you were your own customer. What would make my need for this product go away? What would make this product better? What do I find annoying about this product or service? Is it hard to use? All of these are reason’s to abandon your product.

2. Are you in a market that is known for a lot of change? (Real Estate, Technology, Investments, etc.) If your business in in a volatile market with lots of change you have additional work to maintain your position in the market place, and even more work to get ahead in that market place. The good news? These markets have a great deal of energy and can support many new products, services and changes that other more established and stolid markets cannot.

3. Is your market saturated with competition? Additionally what is the complexion of that competition, are they bigger, smaller, better funded? Bigger doesn’t always mean better, large companies have more resources, but they are, in general, slower to recognize new opportunities and slower to exploit or even protect those opportunities. Smaller companies are, in general, much more nimble and innovative, however they can get starved for resources and need to scale back their innovation (remember protecting you IP is costly)

All of the above points need to be taken into account when working on your strategy. As a rule of thumb: when you first start working with your IP Strategy you need to take a look once a week, to make sure you are on course.

As you gain familiarity with your market, your customers, their customers and your products and services you will be able to stretch this time out. In the current climate of chaos and rapid change, you need to re-visit your strategy at least once a month. And remember: this is your document, you can change it at will. Indeed, if something is not working, rather than being constrained by it, use it as a tool to make purposeful changes to get back on track.

In my last article I said to create consequences and rewards for working on the IP Strategy. The consequences will manifest themselves for you if you don’t create them, so you must know what they are. The very survival of your company is in the balance.

The great benefit of creating your strategy is that you will have a clear path, that goes where YOU want it to go, and you can change it, powerfully, purposefully and with predictable results.

Get Started!!

Tagged as: Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Copyrights, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, technology

In the last article we discussed the need to create a cohesive IP strategy, in this article I’ll discuss the first step in creating your strategy.
Like every article I’ve written on this topic, I’ll remind you that you need help, and you need the best help you can get.

Strategy Creation:
A few guidelines to help things along:
1. Be clear on why you are creating an IP strategy. All reasons are valid, some will work better than others. For example: if your goal in creating an IP strategy is to to tell all of your friends how many patents you have; you may want to think a bit more deeply about what you will do with those assets (make no mistake they are assets if treated right) and how much you are planning on spending to create them. On the other hand if you plan to exploit what you have invented, create a new business, and bring new products to the marketplace, then you are thinking in the right direction for strategy development.
2. Determine the direction you want your IP portfolio to grow into, find your market landscape. For instance; if you are making wire coat hangers and you suddenly come up with a new idea to make them cheaper, faster or in some other way better for the same cost, that’s a great invention in your current market landscape. If, on the other hand you make coat hangers and you come up with a great new telescope design, you may want to think about the new invention within the direction of your market landscape and the way you prosecute that innovation in the marketplace. Is it a different marketplace? The direction component of your strategy helps to keep costs under control. Costs can include nearly everything you can think of, from time spent thinking about the innovation, to the actual patent write up and filing fees, and everything in between.
3. Determine what areas you are NOT going to explore, such as a wire coat hanger manufacturer working on auto parts cleaning machines. It doesn’t matter what limits you put in place but you must at least think about them, and draw limits that suit your situation and remember they are your limits, you can change them any time you wish.
4. Determine when you will start, never when you will stop, and start. Create consequences for not starting, and rewards for getting going. Innovation should never stop, it must be continuous if you are to be successful in the long term.
This all sounds like a lot of work and, that said, it’s not a trivial task. However, as humans, we are what we practice, and our practices define us. Therefore you need to develop a practice of creativity, and a practice of managing your strategy.

So, having read all the above; It’s time to get moving!

This article was contributed by Thomas Frasher, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Thomas on Twitter at tfrasher.

Tagged as: Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Intellectual Property, purpose, Return on Investment, Strategy, technology, www.activegarage.com