entrepreneurship Archives - Page 96 of 235

Words & money

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

When money is behind words, their meaning changes. Even if the exact same words are used.

Mainstream media trained us to know the above statement is true, which is why large corporations are falling over themselves to embrace the new media tools the internet has provided. They think they might be able to trick us. That we might not be able to differentiate between a paid voice and a human one.

Startup blog says: The evidence around the words will always tell us the real story about who is speaking.

Bill vs Gerry

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

With great wealth comes great responsibility. The key word I’d use to describe this is ‘legacy’. When entrepreneurs become successful financially, then I think it makes sense to leave a legacy which creates pride beyond money. Often this comes in the form of the business that has been built. A footprint of good stuff the business created – which is the source of the original monetary rewards. Great entrepreneurs go beyond their business and create value for society.

What successful people do after they are financially rewarded is more important than what they did in order to arrive.

So let’s consider the tale of two billionaires. One from Australia and one from the USA. Granted the USA version is much wealthier, but when we are talking billions, I think it matters not.

Billionaire 1 from the USA: Bill Gates. No introduction needed. Gates has made The Giving Pledge to donate over half of his wealth to charity. He has given more than $28 billion to charity and focuses the majority of his efforts fighting poverty and disease in 3rd world countries.

Billionaire 2 from Australia: Gerry Harvey. Retailing magnate known for having strong opinions and doing his own voice overs for his radio and TV advertising. Sure his industry is changing (Just like Microsoft is under siege from web based software platforms) but rather than being happy he’s a billionaire and doing some good, he’s investing his wealth and energy into lobbying the government to change GST tax law thwart his competitive threats.

Despite the fact the GST is not the reason people are taking their shopping on line, Gerry has really lacked the decorum and perspective that should accompany a billionaire. Sure, Bill has had his fair share of questionable tactics in business, but he has never cried poor. In some ways, it makes me embarrassed to be Australian when our business stalwarts are showing such a lack of leadership in society.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts, but I can’t help but think that it comes down to responsible leadership and legacy. If I’m ever fortunate enough to make one….(a fortune that is)… please remind me of this blog post.

Entropy & business

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The scientifically minded readers of this blog will be more familiar with the law of entropy than the business minded. The law of entropy defined from a physics viewpoint is heavy in maths and description. But from a social perspective the concept of entropy is generally used as a metaphor for chaos, disorder. They way I’d describe it is like this:

Unless we attend to stuff and maintain it, it will naturally fall apart.

We see this every day with old houses and cars. Unless they are attended to frequently, they just fall apart. What we don’t do is take the analogy as deep as we should into the businesses we run. They too require constant attention just to maintain the status quo. To grow, requires extra attention above ‘maintenance levels’. The problem with startups is that we are so focused on gaining initial traction and momentum that we forget about the upkeep. We are so focused on the next win, improvement or iteration, that we forget to check the stuff we’ve already done, built or created. And so it can start to fall apart without us really noticing. In some ways the most important innovation we can make is maintenance.

Lesson: If we don’t maintain what we already have, then the new stuff we introduce will end up being zero sum game.

Famous to the family

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

Seth Godin has an interesting idea of being Famous to the Family. Which is similar to my definition of cool: the stuff that matters, to the people who care.

This short interview is a 5 minute investment worth making.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe7YTuZhv88]

Next steps:

Decide who your family is.
Build them stuff they really care about.
Enjoy doing it enough, to be able to continue without riches.
Be patient.

Brands that have fun – Toyota Prius

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

There’s something about brands that know how to have fun. I reckon the Toyota Prius fits in this category. Their recent advertisement asking the crowd to work out the plural version of the word Prius is very catchy. (I’m a long time jingle lover). It’s also a cool way to build some anticipation and awareness of the new range

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUor4gdFoyg]

Is your brand having fun?

It's just the evolution of language

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I was asked if I thought social media was dead, my response was that it never really was. To me it’s just the next evolution of the human language. At first we had pointing at things and our body language to communicate. Then we had pictographs on cave walls, which evolved into the spoken word. After which the written word and the printing press arrived…..

Social media is just the wider dissemination of human communications facilitated by new technology – just like books once were a new technology. I wonder if they had some buzz word for the common book when it arrived? The fact that the tools were new and shinny prompted us to name them, put them in a definable category, when all it was (is?) was the evolution of humans talking and sharing ideas.

Is social media dead? I’m not sure, what I am sure of is that humans are social creatures and there is nothing more we enjoy than socialising in any way we can.

One Downsmanship – John's phone

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The myriad of tablet and smart phone launches recently seems like a race of one upsmanship which inevitably leads to total confusion. Occasionally something really stands out. In the sea of features, occasionally one product makes you stop and take notice. On this occasion it is because it does less. I like to call it one downsmanship.

Introducing John’s Phone.

It makes and takes calls. That’s it. It’s so simple Alexander Graham Bell would know how to use it. It does have a quirky ‘analogue’ way of storing numbers, sending messages and playing games which you’ll see in the photo essay below. To me that adds some charm and talkability. At $110 it’s not exactly cheap – but it can be bought outside of contract. As entrepreneurs the question we should be asking ourselves is this:

“How can we do less, to stand out more?”