Whether you’re an emerging entrepreneur with a small management team or a corporate leader with a much larger staff, you know that the unique talents of your team make up the overall effectiveness of your company. Each person has a talent that makes your company move forward.
You, as the entrepreneur, have to give direction to your teams’ talents. And you, as a team member have to work towards that entrepreneurial vision. In many ways, a team dynamic in the office parallels that on the performers stage.
While I’m not a huge fan of choreography, this video is quite fascinating and illustrates the team dynamic:
When Facebook opened its doors to the non-.edu audience, the site grew exponentially. They refined and refined to make a great social media space, then opened its doors to the rest of the world. Essentially, it went out of beta.
Google does this all the time. It puts limits on accessibility (think invitation, developer preview only) to refine the product — makes it more stable, enhance its features, etc — then launches it to the world. From there, it grows exponentially. Both Facebook and Google exemplify how limiting access during the fine tuning stages can make for a better product when it is unveiled to the broader audience.
It’s interesting then, why Pandora recently created a 40-hour listening limit per month. Now that they’ve had years to refine and grow their product and audience, the online music streaming service is turning back the clock. If anything, they are penalizing their strongest advocates.
You’d imagine Pandora would try to make their product more accessible — similar to the Google / Facebook strategy. Though the move will not completely stunt the online music streaming service’s growth, it does discourage advocates from using the player.
You never know who you’re going to work alongside in say 15 years. Consider this picture of Ronald Regan in 1988 shaking hands with the pre-pubescent Vladimir Putin. Who are you going to cross paths with now that will rise through the ranks to join you someday on the same level:
If you’re an established industry leader, investing in young talent is key to injecting new life and ideas into your company. Even more important is finding the right talent to begin with. The strategy is to invest in young talent with drive, motivation. This signals potential to grow and flourish within your company.
The secondary attribute your should look for is the right personality. If you do not mesh on your first interview, you might not want to hire them though they are talented and driven. You are as efficient and effective as your ability to communicate and share your ideas. Gut feelings are powerful and while you should not always rely on them, it’s not wise to ignore them.
Who really matters to your bottom line? Many executives and managers have been asking themselves this question lately. Do you need Larry from IT? Maybe not, so you lay him off. Sorry Larry, we just don’t need you anymore… we’re looking out for our bottom line.
But what about customers? Customers can hurt your bottom line. For instance, a couple walks into your furniture store and there are children bouncing off the couches, jumping on the beds, yelling and screaming. Many of us have been in this situation. Though the furniture store might have slightly better prices or a more friendly staff, those kid are so annoying that they tip the scale — in essence, the selling advantage is outweighed by the kids with oblivious parents.
Those kids are hurting your bottom line by pushing prospective customers out the door. The challenge many business face is finding the guts to say no. Saying no to customers that hurt your bottom line can be just as cost-saving as firing Larry from IT. With this holiday shopping season in full swing, consider saying “no,” or “you have to leave” to disruptive customers — who knows, it could help your bottom line.
Sports Illustrated recently released a demo of their product on an Apple Tablet-like device. SI illustrates how a large touch screen can create an interactive experience where users are completely immersed in the product. It does this by aggregating all multimedia and text platforms — that are currently fragmented across the web — to bring users a completely unique and seamless experience that can certainly be monetized.
Here is the newly released video:
The newspaper industry could take a few notes on the potential of such a new product design. This tablet-like device allows content producers to develop a branded experience that users cannot get anywhere else. Getting ahead of the curve like SI is how other publishers can compete. Once the device is launched, you have a product that cannot be duplicated and therefore, can be monetized.
Although this new product innovation will not alter the fate of many newspapers, it will give them a leg-up in a game they are losing. Finding new ways of delivering a product unique to your brand and market is how newspapers and magazines can survive.
Details make everything seem a bit more real. For instance, it’s much more interesting to say “the woman wore a deep red coat with a lace collar that looked like a delicate hands choking her neck,” than to say, “the woman wore a red coat.” You can imagine the red coat with the lace, can’t you?
The video below illustrates my point about detail. Look at the camera and the way the film is shot:
Now think about the same video with a steady camera that you typically find in movies. It wouldn’t be the same, would it? Shaking the camera brings you closer to the action — it makes it more real, tangible and chilling.
Now think about how you can add detail to your business. Is it describing the pecan sauce in the description of your menu item (think high-end restaurants) or mailing your client a thank you card or even something as simple as saying good job to your employees. You’d be surprised what a little more attention to detail can get you.
One of Mac’s most famous pioneers, Guy Kawasaki (behind Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) and Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer go head-to-head in this video:
The point Steve makes about Microsoft innovating on many different fronts is interesting. While Microsoft is developing MP3 players, mobile and desktop OS, gaming systems, browsers and search engines, the question becomes, are they losing focus? Are they concentrating on too many areas and diluting their efforts?
The company faces even more competition from Google (beyond browsers and search engines) with their new Chrome OS. So while Ballmer says he wants to innovate on many different fronts, should they be instead re-tooling their strategy? One that brings more focus to their efforts?
This is a similar situation many entrepreneurs face as they begin their startup. There are so many things that could be done that you could lose sight of what needs to be done.
Create a list of your goals, then figure out how to get from A to B. This will help you develop your priorities. Next, keep to this list — try not to stray too far from your key priorities. After a while you should begin to make progress towards your goals. This strategy will help eliminate unimportant tasks from your daily schedule — allowing for more “me time.”
Wolfram Alpha recently released a new feature on their “computational knowledge engine” that shows each step in solving math equations. Simply write “solve” then the equation and Wolfram will take you through the problem step-by-step. It makes me wish Wolfram was around when I was struggling through statistics.
This new Wolfram feature illustrates step-by-step how you get from A to B. If you look a layer deeper, it’s about transparency. Instead of saying, “you’re fired” and leaving it at that, explaining how you arrived at your decision is critical.
Some bloggers make it their job to write about how they grow their user base. Darren Rose from ProBlogger does just that. He blogs about how newsletters and other online marketing initiatives have helped him increase his ad revenues.
How can you peel back the layers and show people how you got from A to B? Is it a blog where you review airlines from your business trips or is it helping your non-digitally savvy users fix their computer problems by showing them how to do it? It doesn’t have to be complicated or overly involved. Just telling people how to get from point A to point B is essential in helping people grow — whether it’s how to delete browser cookies to increase your processing speed or getting to 1,000 visitors to your website.
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apoinb is about connecting the (a)typical everyday musings to (b)usiness concepts.
