The debt crisis no one is talking about

By Mike Periu   Article

“There is a debt crisis in China no one is talking about. Let’s take a closer look at it.

China is a huge country. With a population of nearly 1.34 billion people spread out across 3.7 million square miles, managing China is no easy task. Over the past 10 years, Chinese cities have seen a tremendous population boom as people from the country moved in search of economic opportunity. In 1978 approximately 17 percent of the population lived in urban areas. Today, nearly half the population lives in urban areas. The scale and speed of this urbanization is unprecedented. While this has helped shape China’s economic rise, it has also taken a tremendous toll on municipal governments. Managing this growth through the expansion of services and infrastructure has cost a great deal of money. They obtained the money by borrowing it. Lots of it.

According to a study by Standard Chartered Bank, local governments in China owe the equivalent of an estimated $1.5 to $2.1 trillion. This debt burden is putting tremendous pressure on local governments across China. Interest payments alone total $7 billion to $10 billion per month. The problem is so extensive that it is unlikely that tax increases and the sale of municipal-owned land to private investors can solve the problem. …

This has all the ingredients of a crisis in the making. The Chinese government will most likely have to step in and offer some type of support to the banking sector as well as to local municipal governments. This has two important implications for U.S. businesses. ….”

 

Steve Jobs was a jerk. Good for him.

By Gene Marks   Article

“But I wasn’t learning much about Steve Jobs the person.  The boss. …

That is until I read this great piece from Ryan Tate.  And I really began to learn something about Steve Jobs.  Jobs wasn’t successful just because he was creative, brilliant and hardworking.  There are a lot of creative, brilliant and hardworking people running technology businesses.  Jobs had an extra little something going on that further separated him from his peers:  He was a jerk.  Good for him. … because being creative and hard working isn’t that uncommon.  Being a jerk is.

Tate says that Jobs exercised censorship and authoritarianism.  To put anything on an Apple device you needed Apple’s permission.  “Apple’s devices have connected us to a world full of information,” he writes.  “But they don’t permit a full expression of ideas.  Indeed the people Apple supposedly serves – the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers – have been particularly put out by Jobs’ lockdown.”

Jobs wasn’t about to let anyone use his products for activities that would negatively reflect on his company.    He knew the risks of giving up control.  He knew that people would accuse him of restricting free expression.  He didn’t care.  He was a jerk. …

“Inside Apple,” Tate continues, “there is a culture of fear and control around communication:  Apple’s “Worldwide Loyalty Team” specializes in hunting down leakers, confiscating mobile phones and searching computers. … Wow, the Apple Gestapo.  I love that too.”

 

8 signs your business Is losing its edge

By Jeff Haden   Article

1. “The parking lot is empty at 5.30 p.m. Once there weren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done; now there aren’t enough hours in the day to maintain a “proper” work-life balance. …
2. Meetings are an end in themselves. When you started out you didn’t have “meetings.” You pulled people together to share news, you asked for ideas, you solved problems… but you didn’t schedule meetings. Spending time in meetings was a luxury you couldn’t afford. …
3. Interpersonal skills are more important than results. Remember the programmer who seemed a little odd but built your first database? Remember the salesperson who was a little too demanding in-house but landed all your big customers? Remember the warehouse worker who seemed to have no friends on the staff but was amazingly organized and kept product flowing?…
4. The lights are on… but no one is home. Early on you worried about every dollar; it was easy since you had few dollars to keep track of. You turned out lights, turned down the heat, re-used packaging and paper… you worried about every expense. …
5. You say, “What we need is…” instead of, “What we should do is…” Early on you solved problems and overcame obstacles through ingenuity, creativity, and effort. Now you throw money at problems. …
6. New ideas seem too hard to even try. When the day-to-day feels overwhelming it can seem impossible to add new items to an already crowded plate …
7. You think in terms of customers, not individuals. … You may make thousands of sales each month but behind every sale is a person. When you first started out you were excited to land a new customer; you still should be, even if you add dozens of new customers every week. …
8. You think most of your customers are irritating and even stupid. Let me guess. Sometimes you say, “Jeez, that guy just doesn’t get it.” Maybe he doesn’t because you haven’t described your services well enough or explained how you provide real value. Or sometimes you say, “If I have to answer that question one more time…” … You’ve definitely lost your edge when you see customers as a necessary evil. Instead, find meaning in what you sell. Customers are the best friends your business has — customers write the checks.”

The difference between management and leadership

Be Seth Godin   Article

“Managers work to get their employees to do what they did yesterday, but a little faster and a little cheaper.

Leaders, on the other hand, know where they’d like to go, but understand that they can’t get there without their tribe, without giving those they lead the tools to make something happen.

Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility.

We need both. But we have to be careful not to confuse them. And it helps to remember that leaders are scarce and thus more valuable.”

Six strategies to get your tough on

by Dan Rockwell   Article

“Err on the side of pushing harder not easier. When you wonder if you should challenge or comfort someone, challenge them. Expect more not less. Encourage those who are struggling but don’t exclude challenging them. Reject the temptation to coddle. People rise to challenges.

Maxed out: A few on your team are maxed out. Strengthen them; don’t give them more challenges. Many on your team think they are maxed out but they aren’t, challenge them.

The leadership line: Being tough is harder than being tender. Toughness is the line between average performance and high achievement. High performance leaders know how to be tough.

6 ways to be tough:

1. Believe they can do more and be better.
2. Avoid letting anger or frustration fuel toughness.
3. Focus on mission and vision, not tasks when calling people to reach higher.
4. Honor past achievements.
5. Ask how you can help them reach higher.
6. Remove ambiguity.”

Eight types of leaders

Source

Using PR techniques can get you hired, promoted

By Laura Raines   Article

“If you’re waiting to be discovered in this job market, best stock up the fridge and upgrade your Netflix account. You’re going to be on the sidelines awhile. Whether you’re looking for a job or a promotion or starting a business, there’s never been a better time to learn the fine art of self-promotion, say Jessica Kleiman and Meryl Weinsaft Cooper, authors of “Be Your Own Best Publicist” (Career Press, 2011). …

According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, “PR is about reputation — the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you … . It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics.” …

“Have your key messages down and practice talking about them, because you’ll only have a few minutes to get your points across and make a good impression,” said Cooper.

Make sure you have something to say before leaving a digital footprint on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

“Know your goal. If it’s to freelance, what is your expertise and what makes you right for potential clients? Think about what in your life or work experience makes you stand out and adds to your qualifications,” she said.

Develop your signature style. “I define a personal brand as doing what you were meant to do, driven by the themes in your life. It’s a way of being in the world that is authentic” …”

How to be a human

by Pete Abilla   Article

“I had an experience recently where I spoke with a group of friends and acquaintances about the economy and the existential despair that is all around us.  Then, a friend said something that shocked me:

. . . it’s terrible that (company x) went through such a huge delayering

What?  “Delayering” as a euphemism for a human losing his or her livelihood — these are people who have spouses, children, a mortgage, dreams — that will be affected.  To refer to each of these human beings as a collective “Delayer” felt very wrong.

I challenged her and asked what she meant by “delayer” — through a socratic dialogue, she finally said something that was less jargon-filled:

. . . it’s terrible that so many people lost their jobs

This experience caused me to reflect on Kierkegaard’s poignant question “what does it mean to be a human?”, then on Martin Buber’s explication of the “I/Thou” relationship, then on Martin Luther King Jr.’s notion of “nobodiness” and, more recently, on Josh Bernoff’s invitation for all of us to become more human.”

Relative morality?

by FFF Team   Article

“For centuries, great religions and philosophers have provided guidance on moral choices, many of which are embedded in legal codes.  Whether the ten commandants or the teachings of Plato, ethical bedrocks have been replaced in the minds of many young adults with nonjudgmental relative morality—relative to what feels right to each individual. To the degree this is accurate, the moral cohesive that binds our diverse culture together has been weakened.

What does this say about where we are going as a society? Does it reflect how well we have instilled core values in our children, as parents and teachers? What does this portend for the future and decisions and judgments made by emerging leaders who hold such beliefs?  If morality is relative to the individual, how can there be overriding ethical expectations for conducting our lives and our business? Is right and wrong truly dependent on individual judgment?”

15 ways to have a fair fight

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“15 ways to have a fair fight:

1. Involve people with skin in the game, no one else. (except for a facilitator)
2. Flatten the group by valuing every voice. Leaders and decision makers are participants with everyone.
3. Say what you really think.
4. Withhold judgment.
5. Never reward yes-men and brown-nosers.
6. Never attack a person, ever.
7. Train people to listen fully and understand clearly before challenging an idea. Purposeful conflict requires understanding.
8. Institutionalize improvement and excellence.
9. Stay on target. It’s about the product.
10. Honor dissent; never punish when alternatives are presented.
11. Avoid defensiveness. When it gets personal productive conflict turns ugly.
12. Embrace the pursuit of excellence as an organizational value.
13. Apologize with humility.
14. Eject participants that don’t fully embrace mission, vision, and values.
15. Pull together once decisions are made, even when you disagree.”

Richard Branson vs. Steve Jobs

By James Clear   Article

Entrepreneurs Vs. Managers: Which Are You?

“Branson is an entrepreneur. His Virgin brand now encompasses over 400 different businesses. 400! When he succeeds with one business idea, he is on to the next. In fact, the following quote from Branson is one of the reasons I wrote this article.

“An entrepreneur is not a manager. An entrepreneur is someone who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas…and then handing them over to really good managers to run the business.”

Steve Jobs was a manager. Last month, Apple had the largest market cap of any company in the S&P 500. Jobs built a $300+ billion dollar business by operating in a manner very different from Branson.

Jobs was famously a micromanager and a perfectionist. Employees have noted him calling out tiny details in design changes (all of which had to be approved by him), grammatical and spelling errors in company documents, and so on. He would even answer customer service complaints as the CEO on occasion.

Which are you?”

Politically correct

Source

Want to create a breakout product?

From fastcodesign.com   Article

Want To Create A Breakout Product? Start With A Narrow Focus

“When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, he famously described it as being a combination of just three things. “It’s a widescreen iPod, a revolutionary phone, and a breakthrough Internet communicator.” … glaring holes were evident in the iPhone. Why didn’t it have 3G data? Where was real support for corporate email? And why couldn’t you write real applications for it?

On closer examination, it seemed Apple had blundered in its product strategy. Most famously, CBS MarketWatch’s John Dvorak claimed that Apple should cancel the iPhone before it shipped even one unit. How could a device with this many missing pieces ever succeed?

We know the rest of the iPhone story. Over the next four years, Apple has systematically added every single feature that it left out of the original iPhone while moving more than 100 million units. …

What the media took for missing features or technical incompetence was actually a series of strategic choices that Apple made to scale down from all of the possible things a smartphone technically could do to the handful of things that the iPhone could do better than any other product on the market–media playback, visual voicemail, and multitouch web browsing.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

… Oddly enough, seemingly under-powered and narrowly focused technology platforms tend to outperform their more broadly aimed peers. The Nintendo Wii dramatically outsold powerhouses like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for years. The Amazon Kindle is the market leader in e-readers. The original Flip handheld video camera began outselling much more full-featured camcorders shortly after its launch. And Apple’s “big iPhone that can’t make phone calls,” the iPad, quickly seized more than 80 percent of the share in a tablet category that also includes devices capable of running all of Windows.

In technology, simple beats complicated in almost every case.”

Sales is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality

From Business Coaching Blog   Article

My favourite finance saying is 

“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is reality”

In just a few words, the phrase, which is known as the “Banker’s Mantra”, sums up everything you need to understand about financial control.

Turnover, sales, revenue, fee income – whatever you care to call the top line – doesn’t matter in finance terms.

It’s what you get to keep after covering the costs that matters and most important of all, how much money is in the bank.

All business owners should memorise the saying and live by it.

All together now

“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is reality.”

Updated proverb: content is king

From Technobabble 2.0 Blog  Article

“Images courtesy of Google image search – the proverb is mine, the pictures aren’t”

Career profile: Engineering management

By John R. Platt   Article

“Into every life, a little responsibility must fall. For engineers, that might mean leading projects. For others, it might mean advancing up the corporate ladder to become a manager or a corporate officer. It could even mean starting your own company and becoming the boss.

But taking those first steps into management can be difficult, and there are many questions you might ask before moving forward. Is going into management the right career path for you? Are you right for management? Do you need extra training or skills to become an effective manager? What if it doesn’t work out for you? Are the best paths for career growth with your current employer, or must you switch companies before you can advance?

Don’t worry. The answers are just a few paragraphs away. …”

There Are Stupid Questions

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“Who ever said there are no stupid questions was wrong. Drucker said, “The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.”

When leaders ask questions they establish, limit, and maintain focus. …

A comparison:

1. “What should you have done,” is a backward facing criticism. Should have’s belittle sincere effort and past wisdom.
2. “What can we do next time,” accomplishes the same objective while building rather than tearing down. It presses into a future of possibilities, together.

Stupid “why” questions:

Asking why someone did something suggests there’s a good reason. Why did you hit your sister? Why did you throw a rock through the window? What questions, in this context, are better than why questions.

Well-crafted questions create your future.”

Evil corporations

By Doug Powers   Article

Evil Corporations Get Unwitting Support at Wall Street Protests

Federal finances: Budget and growth

By Barry Ritholtz   Article

“Interesting pair of charts from the JPM collection:

The first very clearly shows what the 5 buckets of US government spending is: 1) Health Expenses, 2) National Defense, 3) Retirement Costs, 4) Interest & Other, 5) Discretionary Spending.”

The impact of unlearning on leadership

By Mike Myatt   Article

“Many leaders are very skilled at challenging the thoughts and opinions of others, but are woefully inept when it comes to challenging their own thinking. The reality is that it takes no effort to cling to your current thinking; however to change your mind requires you to challenge your mind. I’ve believed for quite sometime the most profound and commonly overlooked aspect of learning is recognizing the necessity of unlearning.

How difficult is it for you to change your mind? When was the last time you actually changed your mind? Do you consistently challenge your own thinking, or do you wait for others to bring the challenge to you? When your thinking is confronted, how do you react? …

If your opinions change with the wind based on little more than the court of public opinion, you’re not a leader but just someone else trying to fit in with the cool kids. There is a big difference between taking a principled stand and trying to be liked. There’s also a big difference between standing on conviction versus just wanting to win an argument. When evaluating your position on any given topic, are you trying to learn something, or are you just trying to justify your opinion? Having strong convictions is a healthy thing so long as you’re convicted by the truth and not your pride or your ego.”

The top 20 most inspiring Steve Jobs quotes

TNW Blog   Article

 

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

—Wired, February 1996

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.

—Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, May 13–16, 1997

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown our your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

—Commencement address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005″

Top 10 deadly networking mistakes

By John Heckers   Article

“Everyone probably knows that the only effective way to find employment in this market is to network. But too many networkers make deadly networking errors that can actually hurt them, rather than help them. Here are a few infamous ones.

1). Collecting names and business cards. Some people think that networking is about collecting as many business cards as possible. It isn’t. Networking is about helping others and, in return, receiving help. …

2). Going ill. One woman came to one of our networking events clearly very ill, and infected several people there with her creeping crud. Need I say that those she infected don’t feel very positive toward her. If you’re sick, the best place to be is in your bed, not at a networking event.

3). Inappropriate attire. If it is a business/professional event, go business/professional or don’t go. If the organizers of the event aren’t clear about suggested attire, call and ask before you go and make a fool of yourself. If in doubt, go here to see the rules for appropriate attire.

4). Bedecked with jewelry. The bling bling detracts from your credibility. One ring per hand, and only on the ring finger, please. (Women: Your wedding set counts as one ring.) No big earrings. Guys – no earrings period. …

5). Monopolizing the conversation. Don’t blather on. Say your piece and shut your mouth. Don’t speak too fast, either. And please speak up at a networking event (women, this means you, too!). If I can’t hear you or understand you, I can’t help you.

…

10). Hitting on someone. …”

Everyone’s a Genius, But …

by Mitch Ditkoff    Article

“If you want to create a culture of innovation in your organization, make sure you are matching people to projects that have passion for and have enough competence to succeed in. If you’re sensing that “things” aren’t going all that well, it may be due to the fact that you’ve got fish climbing trees. Your task? Find a pond for the fish… and find some lovers of tree-climbing to pick the fruit or swing from the branches. Problem solved.”

Pain is Necessary and Good

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“Life eventually hardens like arteries unless there’s painful intervention. Positive statements affirm us. Negative statements change us. Furthermore, compliments and affirmations validate the past and solidify the present. But, crisis, criticisms and corrections change us.

Spencer Johnson correctly observes, “Change happens when the pain of holding on becomes greater than the fear of letting go.”

Don’t fix pain-points too soon; making them go away short circuits growth, limits potential, and solidifies the present.

How much is too much? When should organizational frustrations be quickly solved rather than worked through?

Solve now or work through:

1. Are you willing to courageously state the brutal facts?
2. Will a long-term approach cause permanent damage?
3. Are current team members willing to rise to new challenges with training, mentoring, or coaching?
4. Can you apply new resources to old challenges?
5. Do current pain-points indicate it’s time to stop? Sometimes success is about stopping; less is more.

Frequently, crisis initiates transforming. For example, an economic downturn may unnerve leadership enough to consider tangible innovation.  Pain makes changing trajectory possible.

Learning and change:

Learning requires change. Learning is change. Therefore, learning is central to transformation. You create learning opportunities when you: ….”

The new patent law

by Heather Schafer   Article

The New Patent Law: What does it mean for your startup?

“On Your Mark….Get Set…GO!

With a swift stroke of his pen, President Obama signed the America Invents Act last week that will completely overhaul the U.S. patent system.

And what should be of interest to startups and entrepreneurs everywhere is the transition of U.S. patent law to a “first-to-file” system.

Currently, the U.S. is the only developed country on this planet to grant patents to the “first-to-invent.”  Under the first-to-invent system, there are several procedures within both the Patent Office and the Federal Courts that allow an inventor to assert prior rights due to prior invention over patents that have an earlier filing date than theirs.

For example, today, I may file a patent application on my invention for dog food that is completely 100% metabolized and therefore never comes out the other end of my dog (“Zero Emission Dog Food”).  Five months before today, Purina may have filed a patent application disclosing and claiming my exact formula for Zero Emission Dog Food.  Under a first-to-invent patent system, upon my proving my dates of invention predate those of Purina, the Patent Office would be persuaded to grant the patent for Zero Emission Dog Food to me rather than the earlier to file Purina.

After the new legislation takes effect (in about 1 year) I will no longer have recourse if I lose the “race to the patent office.”  It won’t matter how many days or years ahead of Purina I am in development, if I don’t get my application on file first – I lose.”