Posts Tagged ‘business’
Posted By Aly Juma / 29th June 2011
Small businesses are the heartbeat of the economy and true entrepreneurship. Unfortunately we often focus on the few startups that make it big, turn into gigantic corporations and file for million dollar IPO’s down the line. In the meantime, the hundreds of thousands of smaller businesses are overlooked. I feel like its often the same in government, as they focus on bailing out the major corporations, giving them incentives and tax breaks, but we’d be served well not to forget about the little guys. In the following infographic we get more information on small businesses in America and the Hard Facts if you will.
Infographic courtesy of Focus.com and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Posted By Aly Juma / 26th June 2011
Welcome to this week’s top links!
William Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine, recently wrote an article for Harvard Business Review about the idea of how talented people are overrated in terms of their value. Its an intriguing article that generated a lot of conversation, resulting in a follow-up post that can be read here.
Freddie W, YouTube star, features in this short film about stereotypes and how they can play out in exaggerated situations. Freddie W is known for his high quality content, humor, and solid story lines, so be sure to check out his other stuff.
This post by Chris Brogan talks about the simple truth that we never learn something until we’re ready to learn it. He touches on the dynamics of teaching, learning, and preaching. The preaching part especially relates well with my own post ‘On Giving Advice’ that you can read here.
The Discovery Channel has launched a new initiative focused on satiating your curiosity by answering all kinds of questions that people are interested in. I always enjoy these types of sites, despite the randomness of content they are always very informative. One of my favorites is I Always Wondered by Jarrett Green.
The newest member of the billionaires club, Bob Parsons of GoDaddy web hosting service shares some advice with The Wall Street Journal. In this article we get his 10 Rules for Success, such as making decisions quickly and not taking yourself too seriously.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
Posted By Aly Juma / 13th June 2011
Sorry for the delay, was travelling and had some technical difficulties, but here’s this week’s top links!
This HBR articles acknowledges the importance of collaboration for success, but there are a number of misconceptions that can seriously derail productive teamwork. These include harmony, fluidity, size, communication methods, leadership, and talent.
Education has been a hot topic this year and one trend that is apparent is the movement of learning into a digital format, accessible to all. In this video, we are introduced to DIY U and the future of education, based on the new book from Anya Kamenetz.
This article from behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the interesting situation in which we make many of our choices. More importantly he shows how we often alter our choices to match our underlying preferences, despite external pressures.
In this Q&A with Janet Echelman from the TED Blog, we learn more about the creative overlap. She talks about the need for time to stumble upon the creative, the importance of collaboration across fields, and pushing the limits.
Seth Godin does it again, as he compares and contrasts the work we do in two very different contexts. Either we can work for someone or we can work for ourselves, which do you think is more fulfilling?
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
Posted By Aly Juma / 29th May 2011
Welcome to this week’s links!
Seth Godin talks about how we often are looking for the right excuse in preparation of something failing, and how this is often the first warning sign that things probably will not be going well.
Fast Company has put together a list of 100 individuals deemed to be the 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2011. Of course its essentially impossible to create such a list and I’m sure its mostly filled with well-known big names, but its an interesting list all the same.
As part of Berghs School of Communication’s upcoming exhibition, ‘Could Have. Might Have. Should Have.’, a number of creative professionals share their thoughts on the fear of failure. In this video the esteemed designer Milton Glaser shares his thoughts.
Skillshare is a new platform that allows anyone to teach anything to people that are interested. I feel this is a great idea and further allows everyday people to share their knowledge and expertise. Although it has only taken off in New York so far, there’s great potential for such a platform.
In this piece by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, he explores how creation happens. More specifically he is focused on the development of the PC and the involved parties of Xerox PARC and Apple. He brings up some interesting points about creation and its myths.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
Posted By Aly Juma / 15th April 2011
SHINE is a collaborative film project produced by Biznik.com, an online network for small business owners (mostly solopreneurs). In this short film, the story is shared of hundreds of entrepreneurs and why they do what they do.
I really enjoyed the wide range of perspectives that were covered in the film, hitting on both the highs and lows of this career path. It was also interesting to understand some of the psychology behind entrepreneurs, and their traits of novelty seeking. Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Posted By Aly Juma / 11th March 2011
I’m currently reading The Element by Sir Ken Robinson (great book by the way) and he briefly touched on the concept of ‘groupthink’ and how it affects individuals.
Groupthink occurs in a group who make decisions based on avoiding conflict, accepting the perceived expectation, and ignoring individual beliefs. Essentially this occurs in a group where the expectation and the need to conform often overrides the value of independent thought, despite the potential outcome. We see such behavior in business, where managers may agree with CEO’s or upper management, on the basis of not going against the authority figure even if they may disagree with a decision. A great example is seen in the cartoon below.
It seems that those who are conditioned to this groupthink mentality of not speaking up are more prone to behave similarly in the professional world, so the source of the issue needs to be addressed. The first instance of groupthink is often experienced in school, through the defined hierarchy, the social clicks, and the strict rules. The entire basis of education is more focused on the collective instead of the individual, which thereby ignores individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking.
Greater focus on personal development is paramount for the future of our education systems. At least thats my opinion, what do you think?
Posted By Aly Juma / 5th December 2010
The top links from the first week of December…
The HTML 5 Calendar gives you a rundown of 24 of the best examples of HTML 5 to date. Check back often to see whats new for each day until Christmas.
From a Harvard professor, we get a well made Prezi going over the basics of everything Social Media. Check it out, and if you haven’t used Prezi before, its a great tool for creating presentations with a little more visual appeal for your audience.
An awesome tool brought to you by Ze Frank that allows you to create your very own kaleidoscope! It’s a lot of fun and even though it looks a bit complex, you can get started simply by drawing in the black square.
An interesting article by Rob Walling a serial entrepreneur, giving advice on how business books really aren’t useful for entrepreneurs. Now if this the case or not, I’m not sure, but he does bring up some great examples to get your mind working.
A fun little flash game from BBC that allow you to test your reaction speeds by… shooting darts at sheep?! All you need to do is click the dart button when a sheep starts running and at the end you’ll be evaluated.
Posted By Aly Juma / 30th September 2010
These are 5 aspects that are important to ensure that you’ll be successful in any business…
1. Enjoy what you do.
This one is pretty self-explanatory, yet there a millions of people in the world that are working somewhere that they hate and they all have passions, hobbies, activities that they enjoy beyond measure. Why not focus on those and see what you can do, so that your true potential is achieved in your work.
2. Don’t be safe, stand out.
You need to do something different to have true value, and the only way to judge this is when you have people who hate what you do and others who love it. If you don’t ruffle some feathers then its probably not going to make quite the impact you’re looking for. Take risks.
3. Create a product that everyone is proud of.
By creating a product or service that everyone loves, you instantly create an atmosphere that lends itself to hard work. Your team will really take ownership of what they’re doing and be sure that produce high quality work because they actually care.
4. Be available.
When you’re at the top, its easy to just sit there, delegate tasks, and barely interact with your employees. This type of mentality won’t do you any favors. You need to interact, mingle, participate, and you’ll be seen as part of the team, not the boss. Its from this type of connection that trust is born.
5. Be a good leader.
Being a good leader is vital for your business and being at the top, you have to be conscious of your actions. Listen to your employees, communicate clearly, praise where praise is due, don’t humiliate your colleagues, and most importantly lead by example.
Posted By Aly Juma / 5th April 2010
When I was in college and working on my first startup, it was all about the plan. You need a business plan, you need financial projections, you need to know where you’ll be in 5 years, so on and so forth. Where did all that planning really get me? Nowhere.
Planning is all good and great when you’re doing it, feels valuable, but the fact of the matter is, nothing ever turns out quite like you expected it to, no matter how much you plan, which is truly why planning is guessing.
There is of course value in understanding the core of your business, having a clear vision, and doing research, but everything that deals with projections in particular I feel are a waste of time when it comes to the actual success of your business.
The only value I can see for creating these types of plans and projections is when it comes to funding for your business. It seems like they want to see a plan to put them at ease and show them that the company they are investing in knows what they are doing and will use this money wisely.
Aside from this funding factor, there appears to be no true business value connected with extensive planning that we so often see in startups.
What do you think? Is planning worth your time? And if so, to what extent?
Posted By Aly Juma / 8th February 2010
There’s all kinds of possible issues that could arise when you are starting a business with your friends or family, but truly, what matters most is the relationship between those involved because that’s the only real area where the dynamic is a bit different to any other business.
The key lesson here is when you are doing business with friends or family, you have to drop the ego and just put that relationship aside for the good of the company.
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and realizing and utilizing this fact is the key to success, but time and again this point is overlooked when it comes to business with friends and family. A lot of the time we get caught up with titles and whose CEO, whose President, whose in charge of this, whose in charge of that, when really it doesn’t even matter.
If everyone just focuses on what they are good at, you have the recipe for success. What difference does it make whose CEO? The person that is, should be suited to that position and have strengths of looking at the big picture and running a business, whereas someone tasked with COO would be more analytical, strategic, and capable of the day-to-day grind. And really, at the end of the day, it only benefits all of you because its your business, despite what your title may say.
So just drop the ego and be successful!
