I was about to leave work so I was reading the news (not blogging) and I noticed this article on the Nintendo Wii.  I don’t own one but I can’t say I am all that surprised.  I played my six year old at tennis on a friends Wii.  I would say it’s which is a really good example of marketing strategy.  On the one hand gamers love it but it’s also managed to capture the attention of my kids who aren’t that old.  The reason I felt compelled to blog about it was because it struck me as a good example of synthetic thinking.  That is, thinking across multiple domains at once.  It’s simple enough for kids to enjoy yet complex enough for gamers to get a great amount of joy out of it as well.  No, this isn’t a sponsored review… just a brief thought about why it’s so popular!  At heart it makes use of the principles of multi-perspective thinking which is essential in today’s business world.

I subscribe to problogger, like I imagine most bloggers do, and I came across this article this morning about full time blogging being a process.  In the article it referenced (I am academic what can I say) the article from Get Rich Slowly about finding the guts to follow your dreams.  Now, I am reading the E-Myth Revisted by Michael Gerber at the moment and I think he would have something to say about becoming a ‘full time blogger’.  Gerber identifies three roles of the business person:  The Entrepreneur (visionary), The Manager and The technician.  The manager runs the business whilst the Entrepreneur focuses on it’s creative growth when the technician is performing the duties required to get the work done.   A friend of mine says it this way.  There is the pioneer who blazes the trail and then there’s other people who support that work by being ‘administrators’ and keeping the work going.

One of the great revelations for me in reading the E-Myth was the realisation that it’s okay to be an entrepreneur.   I am totally the person who see’s the vision and knows what needs to be done and so forth.  I am a very bad manager however and an even worse technician.  If you are like that, then you will find management work to be boring, heart wrenching and difficult to do.    Judging by experience so far and what I read in the blogosphere, full time blogging really is not an entrepreneurial pursuit.  It’s another job.   So what’s the difference?

Work versus Entrepreneurship

Work is routine ‘technican’ work.  Blogging, even though it’s a creative pursuit is largely work.  Why?  There is a creative marketing element for sure.  You have to write articles that attract visitors, put advertising in sidebars and in posts and so on.   Blogging is a ‘technical’ skill that you become good at like most forms of writing over time.  Say my dream is to be a fireman and my friends dream is to be a blogger.  As a blogger he is self-employed and most people would say ‘entrepreneur’.  I would say my blogger friend is just using his skill to make money the same way as a fireman does.  There is no difference.  Two technicians in different application fields.

Entrepreneurship is based on creativity and growth work isn’t

Now you will use your creative abilities in your job as a fireman, for example but this does not mean you are reinventing the practice of fire fighting.  The fire fighter who reinvents and continually improves firefighting is the entrepreneurial fire fighter.  The blogger who reinvents the job of blogging continually to find new streams of income is an entrepreneurial blogger.   Why?  Entrepreneurship is not simply going out on your own and making a new business.  There is a pioneering element to entrepreneurship where a vision for something is put together.   I meet people who I would consider to be entrepreneurial academics.  These are people reinventing things and using creativity and vision to bring forth pioneering change into their lives.  Clearly, blogging can be entrepreneurial but in most cases this isn’t so.

What makes me realise this is just how hard it appears to be to make a living as a blogger.   Some people I have read about find it very difficult and metaphors are drawn between blogging and hand to hand combat.   A case in point is the Problogger versus Shoemoney interview.  Have a look at the amount of time Darren Rowse puts into blogging!  That’s a full time job.  Two hours of writing versus how many hours of routine, technican like work?  I rest my case.   Work is hard, routine and after all BORING to the entrepreneur.  I therefore submit that whilst blogging can be entrepreneurial, it most cases it’s just another type of job.

Technorati Tags: problogger

I have found out recently that Greenpeace have filed a suit against Apple’s new iPhone. The question that I think us business minded people are asking is: how will this kind of negative word of mouth effect the toxic iPhone? Even though it’s clear to me that the phone violates laws and as a result could have major problems for the future of the planet, people seem to showing support for the iPhone. When I read this I thought… why is this the case?

What we have here is a clash of value systems. The first is based on materialism and the other is based on environmentalism. A materialist philosophy puts ’stuff’ ahead of people and other concerns, whereas an environmental philosophy puts the planet and it’s concern to the fore. In my book materialism wins hands down and always will. Why? Because largely we are a materialistic society. Economics come before the environment. However, this environmentalist concern against the iPhone is a business problem. What can they do to appease environmentalist concerns? Should they even bother?

Yes they should, I think, make some kind of statement about the toxic chemicals and how it can be best dealt with, environmentally speaking. I say this for two reasons. I think that a company has to show a human face (which Apple do regularly). It would be consistent with their marketing strategy for the mac as well as for their iPhone product. Secondly, people are much more aware of environmental concerns these days thanks to the constant coverage it gets in the media. We are having an election here in Australia in a short while and what each party thinks of a pulp mill project in Tasmania is a source of hot debate.

This is a business problem for Apple. Granted, not a major one but I think they need to show their customers that their values are appreciated and that they take the environment problems seriously. After all this is one of their promises to their clients is it not? How they do this could be in the form of an impact statement, a plan to recycle old iPhones that leads to their safe disposal, an reduced price upgrade option for iPhone users if they want a version that’s less toxic and so on. Companies cannot afford not to take such issues lightly in modern times.  More importantly for a greener Apple, there needs to be some decisive action on their part.

Technorati Tags: Greenpeace, Apple, iPhone, toxic iPhone, environmentalism

Over breakfast yesterday morning I was watching Sunrise, a local morning show. They had a man from Melbourne talking about property ownership from a perspective that I wasn’t familiar with. His core argument was that leasing (and he conceded) and renting were better than owning. He cited some examples which you can read here of the going rise in costs that I think show the overall trend in this country. What interested me was that he was a lessor and said, ‘this side of the grave I will not own a house even though I have owned five of them!’.

I was gobsmacked! This was an interesting point of view because it’s a common, if not unmovable, dream in Australia to own your home. It’ called the ‘great Australian dream‘ here at to be honest it’s now out of reach of more people than it has ever been in the history of this country. The point that got my attention the most was that putting your money into a managed fund or stocks may actually get you better financial returns. Several factors like: maintenance, rates and the like were cited as on-going expenses. I have to admit as I have before… the place I am living in now is fairly dodgy! As a renter I wonder about the future of something that may or may not be sustainable.

There is a lot of rhetoric about it being a sound investment but in closing this short post I would like to point out that homeownership is a dream for a lot of us. It’s the intangible desire to have a place we can call ‘home’ that is somehow built into our psyche. That goes beyond sound economics and is something else entirely.

Technorati Tags: property, house, home, Australian dream

In recent times there has been a spate of articles floating around the blogosphere about how to grow a blog. I think there is a real need to draw a distinction between what makes things work and what doesn’t in social circles. There is a sad misconception out there that the right technology, software or scheme is what makes for a popular blog. I would argue that things grow based on the underlying social network NOT some fancy SEO technology.

Clearly SEO is important I am not denying that. But consider for a moment why things are popular through the following examples of movies. Cutthroat Island flopped terribly whereas Pirates of the Caribbean was a huge hit. The reasons things fail are often blamed on poor promotion or bad marketing. The reality is, the social climate at the time rejected the idea. In the case of Cutthroat Island the reception destroyed the company that made it!

Things like SEO, linkbaiting and the like are only good if the content is what people want to read. If you are a successful blogger, then sure everyone is going to want to read your article on, ‘how to build a successful blog’. Why wouldn’t they? If I wrote an article on it… it would be dubious! That is really a question of authority in this new web 2.0 environment we find ourselves in. Who do we trust… those that appear to be authority figures? Surely not.

I would like to see more in the blogosphere about how social networks can be leveraged and tapped into rather than more technical information about SEO and the like. There are always underlying perceptions and ideas that grow and shape the way things emerge in social systems. You cannot nail everything down to a technical point of view which (though relevant) ultimately obscures us from the reality of networks of people sharing what is thought to be relevant. The question for me is: why do we think technology is more important the social systems?

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, blog, social network, linkbaiting, blogger

I recently had the pleasure of buying a can of Dr. Pepper from a local man in a shopping centre. Considering we don’t have Dr. Pepper here in Brisbane the price was considerably more expensive that you might think… but I didn’t mind paying it. Why? Every time I go into the store the man greets me with a smile and always has something great to say. You can just tell he absolutely loves what he does. How can I tell that he does? Because his heart is in what he is doing.

The opposite of what I am saying

Yesterday I bought my very first table at a local furniture store. The man who runs the store was sitting in a recliner with his eyes closed and didn’t even acknowledge us as we walked in the store. Probably didn’t help that I said, ‘Wow, they are dead on a Saturday,’ as we walked in. Whoops! The table we had picked out of the catalogue was ordered and the man hardly moved. Now I am not one to makejudgments on the spot but I would say he was not happy with his job and his heart was somewhere else.

Where is your heart?

My heart is in creative, idea generating things. I like to make new things out of old combinations and build things. Now, I don’t know which end of the hammer to pick up but in my heart this is how I am.  The point of this post to ask … is your heart in what you do?  Check yourself.  Ask yourself… do I want to do this for the right reasons or the wrong reasons?  Look at the mirror and ask yourself what’s the deal?

How do you know your heart is not in it

When you go to work do you feel the ‘ugh’ feeling?  What do I mean?  A while ago a colleague of mine walked up to the office he was in and he had recently quit.  I said to him, ‘Why?’.  He said to me, ‘Every time I walked up the stairs to come to my office I would get depressed.’  I instantly saw his point.

Now I have to caution you here.  Sometimes you have to build something else in order to move forward before you make the shift.  But, don’t lie to yourself.  Tell the truth.  If you know you aren’t putting your heart into it… find out what you should be and go for it.  That however is another story for another post.

Technorati Tags: Dr. Pepper, Brisbane, heart, judgments, truth

At the core of the human beings lie a heart. Now I am not talking about the blobby looking red thing that pumps blood round your veins… I am talking about you. The real you. Did you know that every business has a heart to it? If you are more inclined to the intuitive you will notice there are certain places you go to that have more heart than others. The people have a smile on their face and are just happy to be there.

In my local bank there is a lady who works on a teller who consistently gives the best service of anyone in the whole bank. When I go in their she always has something positive to say and in my mind she creates value beyond measurable bank dollars. Why is that? It’s because she lifts the spirit of the workplace through her positive approach. Ever been to McDonalds and the person serving you gave off a certain level of heart? After you got your burger you felt like you weren’t even valued as a person? They are conveying a heart that says ‘I don’t like you and I don’t want to be here’. That underlying heart is what this article is about. What’s the heart condition of your business?

Knowing the heart of your business

What is it that you do that makes you better than your competitors? What makes them keep coming back? Recently a course I was teaching got a new convenor who is dedicated. When she lectures she believes every word and consequently students have taken to this person like a duck to water. Why? They recognise the heart in what she is doing? Do you know the heart pulse of your business or workplace? If so what’s it like? Ask yourself… how do I feel when colleagues talk to me? Do I feel good? What is the core feeling you have after you have spent one hour at work?

Does your business have heart trouble?

Here is a check list of things I have noticed that mean your business has a heart problem.

1. You have a lot of complaints

Customers just don’t seem to like you do they? No matter what you do you just keep hearing negative feedback. This could due to a defective product or service but the chances are you simply are putting a heart that’s sick out there and that leads to me next point

2. What do your people think and how do they act?

One of the key things you can do to test the heart of a business is to see how people in the business treat each other. What are the words like? What is the body language like? Chances are there might be slumped shoulders… people taking longer lunch breaks and a genuine lack of heart. One of the best ’strategies’ Virgin has used is to only hire people who want to work in a close knit team environment. They find people who want to work for them because they want a place with heart. Being a business Virgin uses this to their advantage by creating an atmosphere to work. Subsequently people who work them usually work longer hours, put in more effort and make the business what it is today. The heart is the underlying conditions that cause us to speak, think, and act the way to do. This does not stop happening in business because we are professionals. The heart is central to all human affairs and you cannot separate it from what you do.

3. Where are the artery cloggers?

A scoffer is someone who resorts to negative criticisms instead of constructive activities. Unfortunately, if your business is filled with people like this it’s because that’s the atmosphere you have allowed to foster. The only way to deal with this is to systemically change it by removing people who act this way. If you are serious about creating a business with heart find out where the artery cloggers are and remove them. The last thing a business needs is to be filled with negative people who choke up the flow of your life blood.

4. Is your workplace overly competitive?

I do not believe it’s fruitful for a business to allow it’s employees to be overly competitive towards each other. This kind of problem allows the growth of personal ambition which in turn creates people who are willing to step over their colleagues to get ahead. It’s a good thing to have people that work well but it’s quite another to have people who work well with each other. A business is like a body. Each part of the body serves and works with the other parts in order to make it function as a whole. If the body turns on itself what will happen? Organisational suicide that’s what!

As I write this I am listening to song by James Taylor called ‘Copperline’ from Eric Clapton’s guitar festival. I am struck by the man’s passion as he sings about something that clearly means something to him. The heart is coming out in the music. Today why not do a ‘heart test’ on your business by carefully looking at the words and actions that are flowing in your business. It will help to discern what the heart of your business really is like. When you know that you can carefully build the right kind of heart over time and create the platform for lasting success.

Technorati Tags: heart., intuitive, spirit, business, negative feedback, passion, success