America's Healthy Infatuation With Entrepreneurs - David A. Shaywitz

REUTERS

America has fallen hard for entrepreneurs.

The aesthetic appeal is easy to understand. Compare the Fortune 500 CEOs interviewed on the HBR IdeaCast talking about Campbell's Soup or Coca-Cola (podcast here) with the entrepreneurs at the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Seminar Series discussing Pandora and Instagram (podcast here). The big company CEOs sound just like you'd expect. They are competent, factual,  and in control. But while most of them presumably have strong interpersonal skills and a high EQ, they come across as dry, unemotional, and focused on the "core business."

In contrast, the entrepreneurs presenting at Stanford wear their hearts on their sleeves. They are vividly passionate. They exude emotion. They are selling themselves, with a kind of animated desperation. They tell student to "do what you love." It's an appealing message, and you can see why it catches on.

These two personalities generally reside at opposite ends of the business spectrum, presumably reflecting two very different business needs. It's essential to be brash and irrationally exuberant to start a business. But to sustain a large multinational corporation, you've got to be calculating and rational.  It's also a well-described phenomenon that as start-ups evolve into progressively larger companies, their character changes, and their needs evolve, or "mature."  Mature organizations are supposed to act predictably, responsibly, unemotionally. The qualities embraced (or at least tolerated) at the start-up level can become liabilities. Many start-up CEOs hand over the reins at this stage, or at least share them (as Google did for years when Brin and Page hired Eric Schmidt), explicitly acknowledging the need for an "adult in the room." Talk to us about leveraging your capabilities.

While many large organizations might similarly benefit from having a kid in the room -- someone who is energetic, passionate, emotional, excitable - it's hard to envision a corporate phenotype that would be more doomed: the environment just doesn't support it.  Sure, companies trot out bromides about "cultivating entrepreneurship," while HR departments sponsor group training sessions on innovative thinking. But the reality is that the culture of most big companies is geared to performing established activities in increasingly efficient ways. Simply stated: doing the old things better takes precedence over doing new things well enough. Most employees (and certainly the ones who last) figure out extremely quickly how you're supposed to act at work (Sir Joseph wasn't far off). You could say most large organizations have elected to trade the passion of young love for the predictability of adult relationships.

And perhaps this is why we look so wistfully at entrepreneurs. They seem to exude the raw passion that experience has taught us to modulate, the vivid emotion that we've learned to suppress, the intense energy that we learn must be channeled, the unreasonable audacity that has been replaced by sensible objectives.  We cheer for them because they represent our youthful hopes, our idealism, our ambitions and our dreams. And when these entrepreneurs defy the extraordinary odds, and succeed, we rejoice, for at the moment we can sense, if only fleetingly, the exceptional untapped potential within each of us. We rejoice, and wonder: what if?

It would be easy to dismiss our infatuation with entrepreneurs as misty-eyed revisionism, the way we might selectively recall and invoke treasured childhood memories while forgetting the many painful challenges of youth and adolescence. The day-to-day reality of getting a new company off the ground is generally far less glorious than the inspirational experiences trotted out by the small minority of ultra-successful entrepreneurs who are routinely invited to share their stories. There's a significant selection bias here, to say nothing of the urge to write oneself into a heroic cultural narrative.

But I'd argue that if we had to find a group of people to admire and admittedly idealize -- and you know we're going to -- we could do a lot worse than taking our inspiration from impassioned, dedicated individuals seeking against all odds "to make a dent in the world." via theatlantic.com

Consulting, Speaking & Coaching. Driving Growth through Innovation  

Innothink Group is a strategic management and innovation consultancy. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting over a third of our fees at risk subject o hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships. 

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Learn How to Build a Stellar Team at a High-Potential Startup

Imagine trying to convince a Yankees star pitcher to join a new, unproven Major League Baseball franchise. An impossible task? Not necessarily. Corey Reese, co-founder and CEO of Ness Computing, took on the tech-world equivalent of the challenge--and succeeded.

Reese wanted Apple engineer Scott Goodson, a member of the team that developed the iOS platform for the iPhone and the iPad, to decamp from Apple and join Ness as director of engineering. It was 11 months before Reese got a yes out of Goodson. What did it take?

"It was a mutual respect and recognition of each other's situations," Reese says. Over many (many) conversations with Goodson, Reese made it clear that the engineer could really shine at Ness, and that he could help solve a problem that had never been tackled by a startup. "It was more like, ‘Whenever you're ready to move, let's talk,'" Reese says, "and it was definitely worth the time to develop that relationship, because it really does start with hiring great people."

The Los Altos, Calif.-based startup, founded in October 2009, came out of stealth mode late this summer with the release of Ness, an iPhone app that makes personalized, on-the-go recommendations for restaurants (and soon, shopping, travel and night life) based on people's preferences and their friends' activity on social networks. They've raised money from Khosla Ventures, Alsop Louie Partners and the founders of Palantir Technologies, and they count the creators of FarmVille and Mint.com among their advisors. Reese, however, still spends between 30 and 50 percent of his time recruiting talent for his team, which numbers around 15.

"If a CEO looks at his function as [finding the employees] to achieve business goals, spending a significant amount of time hiring the very best people for key positions is a great way to run a business," says Reese, who spends as much time searching for--and getting to know--potential interns and recent grads as he does looking for industry leaders. "Great things come out of a culture that combines experience with youth and enthusiasm," he says, citing Bill Gates, who hired a similar mix of "kids" and "veterans" in the early days of Microsoft, as an example.

As a former associate at a venture capital firm, Reese leveraged his existing networks at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University--and now also MIT and the University of Texas at Austin--to pinpoint the brightest talent in the freshman and sophomore classes, before Silicon Valley's big guns start competing for their attention. "Find where your target employees are, and evangelize," Reese says. He also established Ness's on-campus reputation by sponsoring engineering "hackathon" competitions and by focusing recruitment efforts at a small number of prestigious computer science programs, looking for students interested in "building stuff," rather than just maintaining sky-high GPAs.

Hackathons make it easy to spot the best candidates for internships: "They're the ones everyone goes to when they run into programming problems," Reese says. His strategies have paid off. He met two of his three co-founders at a 2009 hackathon--one was the winner, the other an employee of another sponsor--and one of his intern hires built the first version of the Ness app. After the app's basic framework was developed, former Apple staffer Goodson stepped in to turn Ness into a market-ready app and, along the way, mentor the young employees.

Reese takes a long-term view of the hiring process. "Even if you're not looking to fill a specific position, you want to get to know people and build a reputation for when you do need to hire," he says, and that includes socializing at events that aren't directly related to recruiting. Ness holds barbecues regularly, inviting potential hires to meet the staff and advisors in an informal setting. People who already have jobs might not respond to an interview request--"but when you say, ‘Come hang out, bring your friends, have some food,' it's a good way to get people comfortable and talking--and interested in working for you," Reese says.

Jared Hecht, co-founder of New York City-based GroupMe, says a company's core idea is one of its most valuable assets for recruiting--and retaining--talent. It doesn't matter how many great people you hire if you can't keep their attention, he says. Launched in July 2010, Hecht's mobile group-texting and conference-calling service has raised more than $11 million from investors, has partnerships with Bon Jovi and MTV and sends more than 100 million messages a month.

"The biggest key to engaging employees is a great idea," Hecht says. "It's also an excellent litmus test, to see if your idea is good enough to keep brilliant people interested."

GroupMe, which has 20 employees, offers potential hires an "engineering-centric culture" that allows them to have creative input, and, more important, to work with smart people who push each other to do better. The idea and the company culture both contributed to two of Hecht's hires, each of whom passed on offers to work for Square, a prestigious startup in the mobile payments space, after consulting with GroupMe for a few weeks: "They fell in love with the service and ended up joining the team full time," Hecht says.

The Matchmakers
While companies have long turned to sites like Monster and CareerBuilder to fill open jobs, they're not always the best options for startups--especially those in specialized fields or that require specific skill sets.

"After money, the hardest thing to find is the talent," says Chris McCann, co-founder of NextDigest, which publishes the StartupDigest newsletters. But, when it comes to recruiting top talent, the employees you want rarely bother with job boards. Most are bombarded by recruiters every day.

That's led to a boomlet of niche services for the tech industry, including networking sites like VentureLoop, StartUpers and Startuply, as well as services like Interviewstreet, which tests candidates' programming skills.

McCann recently joined the fray with his StartupDigest VIP, which aims to help startups find engineers and designers. The service focuses on bringing together a small pool of startups with prescreened job candidates who specifically want to join a startup. In just the first month, two of 11 users received job offers, and two more were flown out for final interviews. The service is growing fast, and McCann says he'll probably partner with VC firms as he expands.

Non-tech businesses have shiny new options, too. Bangalore, India-based Recruiterbox is streamlining the hiring management system for startups and companies with fewer than 30 employees. "There's a big demand for this," says Raj Sheth, who co-founded the company late last year. "Hiring at startups is often unstructured, and recruitment software is only available to big enterprises." For a monthly fee of up to $200, depending on the number of job postings, customers get a one-stop spot to post, advertise and manage job listings and applications.

The company's stable of paying clients includes Groupon China and Levi's India, and in the U.S., consulting firm 2ndWave. Sheth has also signed on tech startups like Blue Mountain Labs and Cloudscaling, but at least 70 percent of his clients are non-tech companies.

Sheth advises founders to pay special attention when posting job ads, because often it's the first impression candidates get of a company. He recommends posting in relevant places, like a niche startup board or through an incubator like TechStars or Y Combinator, which will yield more responses from candidates who understand what to expect when signing on with a startup--more equity than salary, a big job footprint and a ton of risk.

Next, spend as much time writing the job description as a motivated candidate would responding to it. "You're not hiring for a normal job," Sheth says. Be articulate and communicate the expectations, but also make sure to introduce the company properly, so you can filter for candidates who are aligned with your culture.

As historian and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh once noted, "The employer generally gets the employees he deserves." All the more reason to do it right at a startup, where every hire makes an exponential difference. Read more of this article via entrepreneur.com

Consulting, Speaking & Coaching. Driving Growth through Innovation  

Innothink Group is a strategic management and innovation consultancy. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting over a third of our fees at risk subject o hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships. 

For speaking, coaching or consulting inquiries contact: 

CEO Jim Woods

+1 719- 649-4118

 

 

Can a company create demand or are they simply lucky?

The smart companies recognize that new and existing customers often can’t articulate what they really want and moreover, that creating demand is often just a matter of recognizing untapped demand; disruptively innovating an existing market. Talk to us about leveraging your capabilities.

Disruptive creators identify hassles or problems that bedevil all of us and instead of simply accepting them as ubiquitous, they ask, “Why do they have to be this way?”

Say what one will about Netflix’s problems but, Reed Hastings founded Netflix after a personal frustration with a $40 late fee. By making the leap from the way things are to the way they should be, he unleashed demand to the tune of $2 billion. So did Jeff Bezos of Amazon while on a family vacation.

Speaking 

As the CEO and founder of InnoThink Group, Jim can help your organization enhance the strategic innovation and competitiveness of your business policy and strategy, with an emphasis on increasing top line growth.  

If you’re interested in having Jim speak at your next event, simply use this form to send us your details and speaking requirements, and we’ll be in touch shortly. Or you may call us at 719-649-4118. Thank you!

Sam Biddle: The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time

Below are ten ceremonious "accidental innovations." Certainly these are wonderful stories. Actually, though, while we delight in retelling such Horatio Algier like successes, I would not really label these "accidental innovation." The innovation itself can't really be said to be "accidental," even though it involves accident. For it takes a considerable capability to see the value in an accident, and to build upon it to create even more value. Jim Woods

 

1. The Microwave - Percy L. Spencer

Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon after his WWI stint in the Navy, was known as an electronics genius. In 1945, Spencer was fiddling with a microwave-emitting magnetron—used in the guts of radar arrays—when he felt a strange sensation in his pants. A sizzling, even. Spencer paused and found that a chocolate bar in his pocket had started to melt. Figuring that the microwave radiation of the magnetron was to blame (or to credit, as it would turn out), Spencer immediately set out to realize the culinary potential at work. The end result was the microwave oven—savior of eager snackers and single dudes worldwide.

 

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2. Saccharin - Ira Remsen, Constantin Fahlberg

In 1879, Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg, at work in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, paused to eat. Fahlberg had neglected to wash his hands before the meal—which usually leads to a quick death for most chemists, but led to him noticing an oddly sweet flavor during his meal. Artificial sweetener! The duo published their findings together, but it was only Fahlberg's name that made it onto the (incredibly lucrative) patent, now found in pink packets at tables everywhere. That is to say, Remsen got screwed—he later remarked, "Fahlberg is a scoundrel. It nauseates me to hear my name mentioned in the same breath with him."

 

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3. Slinky - Richard James

In 1943, Navy engineer Richard James was trying to figure out how to use springs to keep the sensitive instruments aboard ships from rocking themselves to death, when he knocked one of his prototypes over. Instead of crashing to the floor, it gracefully sprang downward, and then righted itself. So pointless—so nimble—so slinky. The spring became a goofy toy of many childhoods—that is before every kid inevitably gets theirs all twisted up and ruins it. 300 million sold worldwide!

 

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4. Play-Doh - Kutol Products

Before being found ground into the rugs of child-rearing homes everywhere, Play-Doh was ironically created to be a cleaning product. The paste was first marketed as a treatment for filthy wallpaper—before the company that produced it began to go down the tubes. The discovery that saved Kutol Products—headed for bankruptcy—wasn't that their wall cleaner worked particularly well, but that schoolchildren were beginning to use it to create Christmas ornaments as arts and crafts projects. By removing the compound's cleanser and adding colors and a fresh scent, Kutol spun their wallpaper saver into one of the most iconic toys of all time—and brought mega-success to a company headed for destruction. Sometimes, you don't even know how brilliant you are until someone notices for you.

 

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5. Super Glue - Harry Coover

In what have been a very messy moment of discovery in 1942, Dr. Harry Coover of Eastman-Kodak Laboratories found that a substance he created—cyanoacrylate—was a miserable failure. It was not, to his dismay, at all suited for a new precision gun sight as he had hoped—it infuriatingly stuck to everything it touched. So it was forgotten. Six years later, while overseeing an experimental new design for airplane canopies, Coover found himself stuck in the same gooey mess with a familiar foe—cyanacrylate was proving useless as ever. But this time, Coover observed that the stuff formed an incredibly strong bond without needing heat. Coover and his team tinkered with sticking various objects in their lab together, and realized they had finally stumbled upon a use for the maddening goop. Coover slapped a patent on his discovery, and in 1958, a full 16 years after he first got stuck, cyanoacrylate was being sold on shelves.

 

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6. Teflon - Roy Plunkett

The next time you make a frustration-free omelette, thank chemist Roy Plunkett, who experienced immense frustration while inadvertently inventing Teflon in 1938. Plunkett had hoped to create a new variety of chlorofluorocarbons (better known as universally-despised CFCs), when he came back to check on his experiment in a refrigeration chamber. When he inspected a canister that was supposed to be full of gas, he found that it appeared to have vanished—leaving behind only a few white flakes. Plunkett was intrigued by these mysterious chemical bits, and began at once to experiment with their properties. The new substance proved to be a fantastic lubricant with an extremely high melting point—perfect at first for military gear, and now the stuff found finely applied across your non-stick cookware.

 

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7. Bakelite - Leo Baekeland

In 1907, shellac was commonly used to insulate the innards of early electronics—think radios and telephones. This was fine, aside from the fact that shellac is made from Asian beetle poop, and not exactly the cheapest or easiest way to insulate a wire. What Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland found in instead was—get ready—polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, the world's first synthetic plastic, commonly known as Bakelite. This pioneering plastic was moldable into virtually any shape, in any color, and could hold its form against high temperatures and daily wear—making it a star among manufacturers, jewelers, and industrial designers.

 

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8. Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch

An assistant professor at the University of Buffalo thought he had ruined his project. Instead of picking a 10,000-ohm resistor out of a box to use on a heart-recording prototype, Wilson Greatbatch took the 1-megaohm variety. The resulting circuit produced a signal that sounded for 1.8 milliseconds, and then paused for a second—a dead ringer for the human heart. Greatbatch realized the precise current could regulate a pulse, overriding the imperfect heartbeat of the ill. Before this point, pacemakers were television-sized, cumbersome things that were temporarily attached to patients from the outside. But now the effect could be achieved with a small circuit, perfect to tuck into someone's chest.

 

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9. Velcro - George de Mestral

A dog invented velcro.

Alright, that's something of an exaggeration, but a dog did play an instrumental role. Swiss engineer George de Mestral was out for a hunting trip with his pooch, and noticed the annoying tendency of burrs to stick to its fur (and his socks). Later, looking under a microscope, Mestral observed the tiny "hooks" that stuck burrs to fabrics and furs. Mestral experimented for years with a variety of textiles before arriving at the newly invented nylon—though it wasn't until two decades later that NASA's fondness for velcro popularized the tech.

 

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10. X-Rays - Wilhelm Roentgen

Okay, yes, x-rays are a phenomenon of the natural world, and thus can't be created. But sshhh! The story of their discovery is a fascinating one of incredible chance. In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was performing a routine experiment involving cathode rays, when he noticed that a piece of fluorescent cardboard was lighting up from across the room. A thick screen had been placed between his cathode emitter and the radiated cardboard, proving that particles of light were passing through solid objects. Amazed, Roentgen quickly found that brilliant images could be produced with this incredible radiation—the first of their kind being a skeletal image of his wife's hand.

Eureka is our week-long meditation on the wonders of invention, inventors and genius.

Illustration by our contributing illustrator Sam Spratt. Check out Sam's portfolio and become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page. via gizmodo.com

Speaking 

As the CEO and founder of InnoThink Group, Jim can help your organization enhance the strategic innovation and competitiveness of your business policy and strategy, with an emphasis on increasing top line growth.  

If you’re interested in having Jim speak at your next event, simply use this form to send us your details and speaking requirements, and we’ll be in touch shortly. Or you may call us at 719-649-4118. Thank you!