Planning, Startups, Stories

USASBE Corporate entrepreneur of the Year

Last Saturday (1/13/07) I was awarded the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) "Corporate Entrepreneur of the Year" award at the USASBE annual event in Orlando, FL.

Humanizing Powerpoint

I just read and recommend this piece, plus the links it recommends:

Humanizing PowerPoint by ZDNet's Marc Orchant -- Cliff Atkinson inspires me every time he writes about how to use PowerPoint to engage rather than lecture to audiences. While PowerPoint is, for too many people, one of the things that is broken in their work, it doesn't have to be.

Why Don't we Talk More About Displacement?

Displacement: In the real world of small business, everything you do is something else you can't do.

Understanding displacement is vital for business planning, vital for growing a business, vital for small and medium business in particular. Consider the picture here, marbles dropping into a full glass of water. The water comes splashing out of the glass and onto the table. That's a good illustration of displacement and how it works in business.

I've seen it so many times: trying to plan their business, people start making lists of things that ought to be done and end up with huge unrealistic and impossible business plans because they haven't come to terms with displacement.

Everything you do displaces something else that you can't do. Learn to live with this and you'll do better planning your business, and, particularly, growing your business.