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Just How Powerful Are You?

By on April 30, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, Market Power, The Personal Story

When you write online, no one checks to see if you have a journalism degree before they start to read. If you experience an earthquake and want to report on its danger or safety, no one asks your credentials before you report to Ushahidi. And if you were interested a creating a new company, you [...]

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Advice to Writers

By on April 17, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, The Personal Story

When I was in grad school, I had this habit to clean the house to avoid the act of studying. I would study with some amount of focus for 20 minutes, and then go scrub the tub and so on. Someone could have created a barometer of sorts for how near it was to Test [...]

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The Secret to Being Really, Really Smart

By on January 10, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, The Personal Story

Surprised I was when I opened the Christmas present that held a Canon T3 Digital Camera. After the tornado that is Christmas was over with the ribbons saved and mounds of wrapping paper recycled, I sat down with the manual only to find myself regretting getting this present. How could that initial squeal of delight [...]

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2 Ways to Skirt Self-Handicapping

By on December 19, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

So, why don’t we choose stand out? (Part II of a series on being distinct) If you’ve built a business, you want to have a unique competitive advantage that others can’t copy easily. For any individual, you want to be clear what ideas you are fighting for…or perhaps discovered your superpower.  Distinction being the thing [...]

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No Pause, No Processing

By on December 16, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

Everything important happens in the pause. Understand that the pause is the between space where an idea is shared, and that idea is understood. I just finished doing 6 weeks of speaking – my first-ever “high season” of doing a bunch of paid keynote speeches back-to-back. At these many venues, I watched the other speakers: [...]

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Are You Standing Out Today?

By on December 15, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

People buy two categories of things. The distinct. And the generic. The distinct items are the things that have a limited commodity, that are artisan in nature, that are worth paying a premium for. They stand out for some reason. The generic items are, well, the things you find on Amazon. If I start to [...]

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What Ideas Are You Fighting For?

By on December 9, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

Leadership always operates at two levels. There is the immediate and perhaps even pragmatic stuff of leadership – who is in charge, what responsibilities do they own, what defines the shape of their arena. We spend a lot of time paying attention to this stuff, in all domains – work, economies, and especially now during [...]

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Courage Does Not Roar

By on December 8, 2011 in Entrepreneurship, The Personal Story

Today, I was in a room full of remarkable people, making a list of what qualities make someone remarkable. The predictable elements were listed: Hard-working Resourceful Creative Intelligent/ Smart Organized… After 15 or so elements were listed on the post-it board… courageous was added to the list. When you are courageous (or fearless, bold – [...]

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Gratefulness Amplifies Creativity

By on November 26, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

We’re ambitious. We strive. We grow. We achieve. We do. We hustle. We push forward. We fail. We learn. We don’t give up. We build. We create. We innovate. There is goodness in all of these things. No doubt. This is the path of progress. We live in a culture with far, far too much [...]

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Kill the Meetings

By on November 21, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

After coming off a 6-month sabbatical from Apple, I returned to work at about 5:30 am, cleared my inbox by 8 a.m. (hey, it was 1994 – this was still humanly possible, back then). By 8:30, I was sitting bright and cheery in the conference room for the regular weekly kickoff meeting that our work [...]

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