Vision and Mission are two of the most misused and therefore meaningless words in business. But it doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t, be that way.
Read MoreSee Vision and Do Mission
Onwards and Upwards
The capstone of the Entrepreneurial Action Levels framework is Level 5: Onwards and Upwards. As with your entrepreneurial journey in toto, your need to act at any of the five levels is not a linear path.
Read MoreThriving with the Fittest
Your customers are always looking for better outcomes and higher value. There are no two ways about it, price is a key factor in the perception of value.
Read MorePutting Out Into the Deep
Launching. Learning. Listening.
While you may not always act at this level, someone in your company had better be!
Read MoreMaking Plans and Gathering the Clans
Exploring. Imagining. Trying.
It’s time to get serious in your entrepreneurial journey. It’s no time to go it alone.
Read MoreBeing Data-Driven is Dumb
5+ years later, software vendors and consultants are still advertising the importance of being data-driven. It’s good for them to sell software and services, but it’s not at all what you need.
Read MoreWhat is “Digital Transformation” and do I need one?
As an entrepreneur in our modern digital economy your business needs to leverage technology for success, and “digital transformation” has been the buzzword de jour for years to describe what companies need to do to become competitive in the 21st Century. Even so, business owners rightly respond, “But what is it and do I really need to it?”
Read MoreEmpathic Entrepreneurs are Expert Entrepreneurs
Your mind is a powerful computer. Expert entrepreneurs, as well as the best leaders and managers, use it to simulate the experience of customers and employees.
Read MoreWhy Expert Entrepreneurs Know Humility Is Key
“I started my own business because I wanted to be my own boss!” Great! But if you want to grow that business and have it thrive, you had better have a healthy dose of humility to navigate the situations where data and feedback show that you’ve been wrong.
Read MoreLearning from Failing
I have been listening to the Cautionary Tales podcast all year long as I drive with my 10 year old son to and from his Saturday Art of Problem Solving program. The delivery and style of the stories create both and emotional and intellectual response of joy and satisfaction; frequently mingled with discomfort, sadness, longing, and pathos. This Saturday we listened to another episode and it was no different. Except it was.
Read MoreWhy Expert Entrepreneurs Make More Decisions
Would you believe me if I told you that expert entrepreneurs regularly make decisions without all the relevant information? That they take action knowing that they could do additional analysis and get additional advice? Do you think that you have the courage to become an expert entrepreneur?
Read MoreWhat’s more valuable, electricity or the equipment it powers?
Earlier this week I enjoyed a webinar from the TSIA, From Traditional to XaaS Hardware: Navigating your Digital Transformation, and got many good notes from it. (“X” is for “anything.”) I thought I would share this point because it also illustrates the “mindshift” necessary on the part of vendors and customers to imagine the value of XaaS hardware.
Read MoreGrowing Your Business and Making It Last
Every entrepreneur dreams of growing their business to serve all the people they envision need their offering. At some point, most entrepreneurs get stuck in the execution and operation of what they’ve built, while their dreams recede with regret in their rear-view mirror. Simbiotrek (sim-bÄ“-ˈä-ˈtrek) was founded to get entrepreneurs unstuck—or better yet, so they avoid getting stuck all together.
Read MoreYour Business: The Innovation Engine Society Needs
If you run a small- or medium-sized business, you likely have a very intimate knowledge about your customers’ needs and goals that many of your larger competitors do not. This is why we, at Simbiotrek (sim-bÄ“-ˈä-ˈtrek), believe there is huge opportunity for smaller firms with established offerings to grow and have oversized impact by focusing on customer value.
Read MoreSome Notes On Reinventing Your Business
Here are some “old” notes that come a cross a bit like a buzzword soup, but I’m pretty sure there are some germs of good ideas in here. If you can avoid going cross-eyed and dizzy reading the notes (or just scroll right past them), I follow them up with some bullet points that extract what might be those ideas to extract and expand on.
Read MoreImagining Your Business using the NABC Framework
The NABC business model framework was developed at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and is credited as a major component of its successful turnaround through the development of impactful innovations.
Read MoreHope and A New Way Forward
About two months ago I shared my final decision with my supportive leaders and teammates at Globant: I’d be leaving the great situation and fantastic opportunities we’d created together, and starting my own business, Simbiotrek (sim-bÄ“-‘ä-‘trek). Now, what I’d left to go create is starting to emerge…
Read MoreJourneys in Journey Mapping
I have had a journey with journey mapping. Through it, I have noticed different types of customer journey maps requiring different inputs and resulting in different outputs/impact over time. I think that there is a time and place for each type of journey map and that it is worth categorizing the kind you’re using or creating in light of what you intend to achieve. I also believe that customer journey maps (and personas and scenarios) if kept as “living assets”, can help give all your teams “line of sight” to your customers, and that they are a powerful catalyst for organizations looking to reinvent themselves as truly customer-centered and empathetic.
Read MoreOvercoming the “Achilles Heel” of Agile
I recently noticed a former colleague gain a Disciplined Agile certification. In my congratulatory message I also indicated my interest in learning more. In addition to that conversation, he also pointed me towards a series of meetups and LinkedIn articles led by Ivar Jacobson around “Essence for Agility”. I won’t go into all the aspects of that, but I do want to share some of the thinking that it inspired me to do about how I’ve been been working and why that has been a solution to the Achilles’ Heel of Agile Adoption.
Read More3 Necessities for Becoming a Repeatedly Innovative Organization
The article below was originally published in June 2018 and was based on a previous article from November 2017. Over the course of 2020 I had the opportunity to return to these ideas, refine them, apply them in new situations, and learn a bunch more from my experiences and also the study of others’. I intend to revisit and provide updates and expansions to some of the ideas in this post over the course of 2021 – and beyond: learning is a lifelong activity and learning is at the heart of innovation.
Read More