Category Archives: Company Culture and Notes from the Inside

Inventing The Wheel – Entrepreneur Community Strength

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We are challenging the social construction of entrepreneurialism - a system that is minting chaos. 

Going it alone as small business owners has given rise to enormous personal tolls. Doesn’t it make sense if we want better results, to build a better system?  Isn’t that what entrepreneurship is all about? Seeing a problem and fixing or improving it? ( I hear the coaches whispering, NO! Don’t call it a problem. It’s a challenge or an obstacle! Actually you can call it a can opener – but whatever you call it, it’s the thing we have to recognize to change!)

The survival of American entrepreneurs is the reason I get up in the morning. 

I am you and you are me - tough, resourceful, incorrigible and driven. 

Succeeding in what we love to do is linked to our sense of possibility, creativity and accomplishment. It is linked to our hopes, dreams, survival and survival of our families. Most importantly it is linked to our personal freedom. Entrepreneurship gives us the freedom to decide what we want to do with our lives. 

I want to assure you I will be there, next to you, beside you and with you every step of the way. But I am not an I, I am a WE serving a purpose that is so much bigger than myself.  Together we can can build a climate of achievement where success is no longer the exception, but the norm. 

Chuck Blakeman has remarkable insights and clarity on this conversation. Enjoy!   http://chuckblakeman.com/2010/9/texts/business-as-community 

Change – Do it right?

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Sunrise over the south beach of Jamaica.Image via Wikipedia

In reading Impossible Thinking published by the Wharton School, their business model of change is neither a blind leap nor in the dark but rather a measured shift -  parallel paths of two existing ideas followed purposefully through a fog of exploration until one path outpaces the other and allows you to let go of one and swing to the other like a trapeze.

I think about change because I’m in constant change and there are many varieties to choose from.

Measured calculated change, ass-backwards change, anticipated change, imagined and manifested change, out-of-the-blue change, bright-idea-at-the-time change and lastly, the I-must-be nuts-change (let me tell you about the elevator story sometime).

Now sometimes I’ve landed on solid, soft ground and other times I’ve landed in the jaws of swirling waters, into the free-fall of deep space or onto a burning fire.   Sometimes change has been almost too easy and other times it’s been unexpected, unendurable and explosive.  There are times when I’ve been crushed and other times when I have bounced.

And all I can tell you is that I keep getting up AND WILL keep getting up as a lifestyle.

There is no protecting ourselves from the sky, the sea, the storm or the calm.  No protection from the fog or worse – the silence, darkness or emptiness.  There is no shade from cruelty only deflection.

But if we insulate from those things and close down the hatches, how will we ever be open enough to feel the warmth of the sun when it appears suddenly and without warning?  How will we ever be able to seize the day when dawn and dark become so intertwined that we can not tell the difference?

Now you must think that something has happened to cause this current reflection.  And what I can tell you is that nothing out of the ordinary is transpiring. It’s is just a Monday. A new day in a new week that sets the tone for something wonderful/horrible/exciting/humdrum & delicious to emerge.Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Business from the Heart – How Great Companies Are Built – part 1

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When you look at the media empire of Oprah, like her or not, the leadership of Obama, the purpose of Kashi, the popularity Yoga & why charity is prized – it’s all about leading with your heart.

Companies that are built on purpose began with ideas generated from love, concern and innovation.   Having just finished the amazing little book, The Go-Giver, I am struck by how the universe does indeed reward grace.  Love and generosity can drive profits, because everyone from the company to the consumers do profit.

The examples are many. There are companies built on humane treatment of animals, the desire to educate children, making aging easier for our parents, giving careers new direction or relationships a chance.

If you are in transition and thinking about becoming an entrepreneur but don’t know what to do, look inside your heart, into what you care about and where you can make a difference.  This whisper might be your first guiding direction on what company to build.  Tell us about your heart and how it has influenced what you are doing now.  Share ideas you are considering and allow us to generously comment.

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Words, Words, Words!

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Words

When I was writing pithy, one star screenplays, I was fastidious about capturing every original thought I had on pads of paper by the bed, in my purse, the car, on used cocktail napkins, dog-eared pages, old envelopes, scraps and matchbooks. (God forbid I should forget these forgettable strokes of genius.)

During that decade I filled up files, notebooks, folders, screenplays, demo tapes, treatments, pitches, adaptations and synopsis and stuffed them into closets and boxes. Draft upon draft upon draft upon draft.

For all those words and all those years I made exactly no money.

But I had a dream.

Then I discovered the word client and this led to the word income.

Now I’m creating the BigOoga™ which is leading me to lots and lots of new words and phrases, like flow charts , cash flow, privacy policies, site maps, pod scripts, CRM, HR, HQ, HTML, PDF, PR, AMEX, payroll and Mother of God.
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Photo — what are word for, by Darwin Bell on Flickr)

Small Business Wisdom – A World of Not Opposite Opposites

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Consider that the opposite of operating on all cylinders is operating on half cylinders. No cylinders is a decision, all cylinders is a decision, but half cylinders is a default setting. When you’re operating on half cylinders it is a rationalization…a whatever zone where apathy is the opposite of energy. Sometimes half is all you got. Sometimes no cylinders is all you’ve got left. Sometimes entrepreneurs can’t sleep. Other times they can’t get up. Sometimes they know exactly where they’re going and other times they’re completely lost. Business highs are not permanent, business lows can be. We live in a world of not opposite opposites where irrational judgments can be the same as intuitive guideposts, depending on how the scenario plays out. Simplicity is not at odds with complexity. Authenticity is not at odds with professional conduct. You can be the same person at work and at home. This may play a role to living on all cylinders. How can you expect to be fully engaged if the opposite of you – is you at work?

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