Archive for October, 2008
Do you annoy your customers?
I love that sign you see every once in a while in a diner or dry-cleaners: “If you loved our service tell your friends, if not tell us.” That’s a great sentiment and was probably hung on the wall to send the message that management is truly interested in quality service and being responsive to [...]
LinkedIn vs. Facebook: initial impressions
I’ve been a user of LinkedIn for quite a few years now, although I only started using it’s advanced features over the last year. I’ve had a Facebook account for coming up on a year, but again, it’s only been over the last month or so that I’ve really started to explore using it with [...]
Leveraging Social Networks
Good news! The entrepreneurial qualities survey has reached one of my milestones. As of late Friday, I have ten responses from entrepreneurs. As you remember, I was going to leave the survey open until I had thirty total responses or ten responses from entrepreneurs. I’ve taken a quick peek at the responses and while I [...]
Entrepreneurial Qualities Survey
So after a little break (that included sleeping overnight on the floor of the Houston airport), I’m ready to start diving in to entrepreneurial qualities. I have some clear opinions on the topic. However, instead of just starting off with what I think, I thought it would be fun to take the temperature of you [...]
A surprise package in the mail
Every once in a while life throws you a little surprise; a gift-wrapped smile from parts unknown. I got one of those over the weekend. Checking my work E-Mail, I had a message from someone I didn’t recognize. There was no signature, no introduction, no marketing – literally nothing to help me figure out where the [...]
Conference take-aways: Strategic Planning and 1 Question Survey
I’m at a National Business Incubation Conference (NBIA), Monday through Wednesday this week, and this is keeping me very busy. The Weekly Reader may also be in jeopardy as I’m scheduled to attend an after-hours event Thursday night after I get home. To while away the useless hotel hours, I thought I’d post a couple [...]
Building character through entrepreneurship
Inspired by a short article with the same title over on Dr. Jeff Cornwall’s blog, today I’d like to talk briefly about how entrepreneurship can build character, and how you can do the same even if you’re not an entrepreneur. Dr. Cornwall references a post that lists five reasons why entrepreneurship improves your life. For those [...]
7 steps to stop team finger-pointing
Another busy weekend and I didn’t get to the article I wanted to write for today. However, this little gem just came through from Harvard Business Publishing. The article, written by Marshall Goldsmith, uses the current economic crisis to launch a discussion on how to get teams focused on moving forward versus finger pointing. I’ll [...]
Farewell, my friend
The E-Mail came across late in the day when most of us are trying to wrap up a few last tasks and our minds have already started to drift off to the evening’s activities. The subject was “FW: bad news”, generally not a good sign. The message was from someone who used to be on the Board [...]
The Quarter in Review – 2008/Q3
Many of the blogs I read have quarterly, or even monthly recaps. Some of these blogs are personal some are professional, and the information in their recap generally reflects their orientation. Personal blogs tend to focus on their best content, what keywords seem most relevant in their space, comments or discussions of interest, etc. The professional blogs [...]
