Archive for the ‘path forward’ Category
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
These past several weeks have been absolutely crazy for me. I’ve been working almost non-stop and, honestly, I have loved every minute of it.
When working with current and aspiring entrepreneurs, I talk a lot about finding your passion. I used to say that you know you’ve found your passion when you’re engaged in a task and time passes quickly.
I don’t believe that anymore. After all, time passes quickly when I drive the repetitive 40-mile route home from  teaching 2 nights a week. More than once I have arrived home somewhat surprised that I didn’t remember the drive. Has that happened to anyone else? Sure. But does that mean we’re passionate about driving? Not necessarily.
(more…)
Tags: Energy, Entrepreneur, innovation
Posted in Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets, creativity, innovation, path forward | 14 Comments »
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
My daughter and I had an interesting conversation the other day about her PE class at school. She’s a sophomore in high school and is taking team sports for PE. As one of a handful of girls she is, not unexpectedly, in the minority with a LOT more boys in the class.
Normally, my daughter is fairly aggressive on the sports field. She enjoys getting dirty and doesn’t shy away from a
challenge. In this class, however, she’s been holding back. Playing flag football, she would be open and never get the pass. In volleyball, the ball would be coming right at her and a ball hog (guy) would come from behind and take the shot, never giving her a chance. She got tired of fighting, and decided it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the fight.
(more…)
Tags: choices, focus, fortitude
Posted in Being a ParentPreneur, Work/Life Balance, business success secrets, path forward | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Last week, Renee and I gave a talk titled “Getting to Shiny Penny Hell and Back” at the Global Creativity Economy Convergence Summit in Philly. For those of you who aren’t familiar with “Shiny Penny Hell(TM)”, it is that moment when you have so many new ideas – shiny pennies – that you’re overwhelmed into inaction. It is a good place to be if you know how to get out (which, of course we do!). The session went really well - a packed room with over half the attendees requesting copies of our presentation. We had a lot of fun, too! Bonus.
 Blogger's Hub View The funny thing was, the very next day I found myself immersed in my own “Shiny Penny Hell(TM)” at the World Business Forum. As a member of the Blogger’s Hub, sponsored by IBM, I had a great seat and wireless internet to hear the ideas and insights of thought leaders in business, economics, marketing, leadership, the economy and the environment. Although we had some glitches with the internet connection early on, once they increased and secured our bandwidth, the tweeting and blogging went uninterrupted for two days. Unfortunately I had to leave half way through the second day but I believe I got the gist around the general themes that emerged from speakers such as Bill George, Patrick Lencioni, Gary Hamel, T Boone Pickens, and film legend George Lucas. Following are the over-arching messages that I took away from this powerful lineup: (more…)
Tags: #wbf09, Gary Hamel, George Lucas, Irene Rosenfeld, Patrick Lencioni, world business forum
Posted in #wbf09, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets, innovation, path forward | 8 Comments »
Monday, September 28th, 2009
As I stated in a previous post, it is exhilarating when you realize that several seemingly disparate passions can be combined. For me, that is exactly what is happening with my new company, Path Forward International.
In Part 1, I talked about how our innovation methodology developed from our years of entrepreneurship, in practice and in training others. It turns out that two of my other passions that I share with business partner Renee – technology and women’s empowerment – also have a place in our new company.
Technology is straight-forward. While our original vision was to develop a platform to support our innovation process, we’re currently in negotiations for a partnership with a software vendor that has products very close to what we were looking for. What their software is missing, we may add over time. You’ll have to come back to learn more about this as the details come together.
(more…)
Posted in #wbf09, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets, creativity, innovation, path forward | 11 Comments »
Friday, September 25th, 2009
Those of you who know me know that I tend to have a lot of different things going on at one time. I joke that it stems from my entrepreneurial attention deficit as well as the old adage “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”. Like many other busy people I know, I actually do better when I have more to do. I guess it forces me to be organized and not procrastinate.
As my activities and passions have evolved, however, I’ve made a most exciting discovery: these seemingly random things I do actually work together. In fact, with my new company, Path Forward International, these passions collide and combine in a most serendipitous way. My Shiny Penny Hell(TM) is congealing into a cohesive strategy that not only both my partner Renee and I are thrilled with, but seems to resonate with our target market as well.
My first pas sion is creativity. Specifically, entrepreneurial thinking as it relates to innovation. I didn’t get my new title Chief Muse for nothing, after all. That title was actually given to me by my students when one after another commented on how I helped them come up with fresh new ideas or see their situation in a new light. We’ve taken the creative, idea-generation processes that we’ve been teaching for almost 5 years to entrepreneurs and developed the first phase of our 3-phase “Get It” innovation process, Get Sparked, where we help you get to Shiny Penny Hell(TM).
(more…)
Posted in Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets, innovation, path forward | 1 Comment »
|
on 
on 
