Posts Tagged ‘demographics’

In general the growth of the internet in people’s lives has been closely segregated by demographics, primarily age and location. The old didn’t think they would ever learn how to use these new tools yet alone see the benefit in them and those living in the poorer nations just took longer to get access to the internet. But today you have to go quite far out the way to get away from a connection to the internet which in itself has become a much simpler task, coupled with the user interface becoming so intuitive that more and more of the older generations are now using the internet and its wonders too.

In a recent special article in the Economist, it quotes that if Facebook was a country it would be the third largest by population and this is just one of the social media networks out there. What this brought forth for me is that even though we are can now easily connected to many more people in our networks, our networks are generally age and geography independent as a result.

I have had two interesting situations in the last week that opened my eyes to potential breakdowns in the fast paced and fleeting electronic interactions of social media communications. I am a South African living in Boston, USA. I illustrate in real life what a long distance social media network relationship is like if we were to live them, as I come from a far away land where I call things by different names and I speak with a funny accent to the local American community.

The other day I was at the Home Depot store, where I made an inquiry to a store attendant about the ‘fall’ required in a particular DIY plumbing application. The store attendant looked at me blankly and did not understand me. He actually gave up on me until I picked up some parts and showed him what I was asking – “oh you mean the ‘pitch’ he replied”, YES!

The very next day we were interviewing and we asked the applicant if they had any experience performing data queries? The applicant looked at us blankly, and responded NO! Then my colleague gave some examples just to dig a little further, to which the applicant responded like running a catalog inquiry? YES.

If you have traveled internationally lately you will have noticed HSBC Bank’s advertising campaign “The World’s Local Bank” that seem to cover most airports today. This campaign illustrating these differences brilliantly as in the sample below.

In our online social conversations we need to be mindful of peoples backgrounds, particularly as the amount of time spent in these conversations today are briefer and shorter, many opportunities may be missed.

Tagged as: active garage, backgrounds, business, Communication, conversation, demographics, Guy Ralfe, Social Media, technology, www.activegarage.com

There are numerous concerns an entrepreneur has to take care of, when starting a new business. To list a few:

The idea: This is about what concern(s) in the marketplace the business will take care of.

Organizing: This is about organizing around specific concerns the business will take care of.

Business Planning: This deals with answering the Why, When, What and How for the business.

Establishing a Structure: This is where entrepreneurs putt the ‘real’ parameters in place based on what resources are available and organizing them in the best possible way so that they produce effective results, in a low-cost manner.

The Investment: This answers the questions – how much is needed? How much do we have? Where will the rest come from? (assuming there is a gap in available funding)

The technology: Assuming the entrepreneurial venture needs to deal with technology, entrepreneurs need to choose the best technology available within the limitations imposed by investment, demographics and other factors that might affect the availability, procurement and usability of technology.

The market: This pertains to studying the market for the product or the service the business is coming up with.

… and then there are more that I will not list here, in the interest of keeping this post readable in the limited time you have.

The question is: During what stage of this journey do entrepreneurs feel totally committed to the cause… is it at the idea stage… or is it after they are done with a business plan… or is it once they assess the technology or the marketplace… or is it at some other point in the execution of the project?

By observing a few entrepreneurs in action, what I have discovered is that the answer to this question lies wherever entrepreneurs put their ‘skin-in-the-game‘! Once entrepreneurs invest something that they consider valuable to part with, they become committed to the cause ‘for real’. This ‘something’ can be anything and in most cases it is their investment because that is the most limited commodity entrepreneurs work with and that is what they need the most while building the business.

This investment is the ‘real’ cost they incur. This is the point where they ‘stop’ entertaining the thought of quitting. This is the point where they start holding themselves and others around them accountable for the execution of the venture, this is where…

The rubber meets the road!
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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.

Tagged as: accountable, active garage, business planning, commitment, demographics, economics, Entrepreneurship, execution, investment, market, organizing, technology, www.activegarage.com