Archive for October, 2009
Friday, October 30th, 2009
We were privileged to participate in the launch of the newest ACTiVATE program at Texas State. My former co-instructor here in Maryland, Terry Chase Hazell, is leading up the awesome instructional team there and has done a fantastic job recruiting a sharp group of incredible women to join our ACTiVATE community.
 ACTiVATE at Texas State In the all-day session we led, we focused on helping them get to know each other and build community while exploring their personal goals for starting their own business. In addition to having a lot of fun, we saw some real potential. I have no doubt there will be some great new technology-based businesses coming out of that program.
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Tags: Business, Entrepreneur, Maryland, Technology, Texas, Women
Posted in Entrepreneurship, business success secrets | 1 Comment »
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.
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Tags: choices, focus, fortitude
Posted in Being a ParentPreneur, Work/Life Balance, business success secrets, path forward | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
I get frustrated every time I hear stories of women who are unwilling to help other women. In fact, I’ve heard hushed confessions from successful women who have realized that they are actually harder on other women than on men in the same role, such as competitors or potential partners – even customers. Why is that? I think I’ve figured it out.
Success Scarcity.
Although it isn’t limited to women, success scarcity is an inherent and subconscious belief that someone else’s achievement will somehow limit our ability to be successful.
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Tags: Business, Leadership, Scarcity, Society and Culture
Posted in Giving back, business success secrets | 11 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 »
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
One of the highlights of last week’s World Business Forum, for me, had to be the candid conversations with T. Boone Pickens and George Lucas. Both were couch-interviewed and held the audience captive with their stories and their wit.
 T. Boone Pickens Pickens’ accent had me riveted, too, as well as a bit homesick for my home-state of Texas. Reminding us that he was 70 years old before he made his first billion, he had a lot to say about the current state of both the economy and the environment.
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Tags: #wbf09, George Lucas, StarWars, world business forum
Posted in #wbf09, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets, creativity, innovation | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
 Kevin Roberts The energy level went up in the room here at the World Business Forum when Kevin Roberts, CEO of one of the worlds leading creative agencies, Saatchi & Saatchi, stepped onto the stage. From the videos he showed (see below), it is clear they really have down the formula for eliciting memorable emotion in advertising campaigns.
One of his first points was the progression of the whole marketing landscape. We have moved from an attention economy, where an ad’s role was just to get your attention, to the attraction economy where we are now. From here, he posited our future as the participation economy. More and more, people want to be active in the market, not just be fed what they should think and do. Pull, not push.
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Tags: #wbf09, Advertising, Business, Kevin Roberts, Marketing, Saatchi & Saatchi, world business forum
Posted in #wbf09, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, business success secrets | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
I knew from the moment Patrick Lencioni walked on stage and warned the audience about his ADD tendencies (look! A bird!) I was going to like him. My first instinct was dead-on and as he went on to compare parenting to business (which validated MY BOOK), I began to like him more and more  .
Although I’ve read his book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, many times, and even used it with my management team many years ago, he still managed to share the material in a fresh and engaging manner.
Since I don’t want to reiterate the whole book here (it’s a good one so go buy it and read it!), I wanted to share the couple of nuggets that I took away that I don’t remember reading in the book: (more…)
Tags: #wbf09, Business, Patrick Lencioni, world business forum
Posted in #wbf09, Being a ParentPreneur, Business Growth, business success secrets | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
 Bill George Bill George, former CEO of Medtronics and now Harvard professor, was a great choice to open the World Business Forum 2009. Having attended a reception he threw for the Blogger’s last night (where he gave us a signed copy of this book, 7 Lessons for Leading in a Crisis), I was able to catch a glimpse into his philosophies and ideas. I have to admit, I liked what I heard.
He came right out with an unfortunately very male analogy, saying that being a leader us like being a great athlete. Sometimes your throw touchdowns and other times its interceptions. The parallel was drawn to both the leader and that athlete doing the best they can under the circumstances they had. Obviously he’s not a Dallas Cowboys fan, but I digress. The point he was making is that failure comes with the territory and it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of a career.
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Tags: #wbf09, Business, Small business, Startup company, world business forum
Posted in #wbf09, Entrepreneurship, Giving back, business success secrets | 35 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a reception hosted by Bill George, Harvard Business Professor and author of 7 Lessons for Leading in a Crisis. He hosted the party for members of the Blogger’s Hub, of which I am honored to be a part of.
What I loved most about last night, other than meeting new people or catching up with friends from the Blogger’s Hub at the World Innovation Forum, was the conversation. We’re all coming at this event from different angles and with a different focus and I can’t wait to read all the different insights and ideas as we tweet and blog away through the conference. If you can’t be here to watch it, check out the live feed on Twitter or the HSM page with links to all the bloggers. I guarantee you’ll get a myriad of different insights and take-aways from the same conference.
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Tags: #wbf09, bill george, World Innovation Forum
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