In my consulting practice, I have noticed that many executives will use business terms they do not have the expertise to put into practice. ‘Brand promise’ is one example that comes to mind. A great brand clearly articulates what customers can expect from their experience with your organization and describes a compelling value proposition that outlines why they should buy from you versus your competitors.

A brand is more than a logo or slogan. It is the reflection of your organizational DNA and should drive company investments in people, process, and technology. It is an inspirational vision of what your organization stands for, its core purpose, values, and strategic intent. It represents the promise to your customers—what they can expect from your company at every interaction.
All employees should be able to describe your brand promise to others and his/her role in delivering the ‘branded customer experience’. If employees cannot do this today, your company is missing out on one of the most effective and proven marketing techniques in the industry.

To make a brand come to life, companies must teach employees what the brand means for their specific role or responsibility. It starts by mapping the customer experience journey, highlighting every interaction a customer has with your business. At each step describe for employees how their role will impact brand perceptions and what customers need to see and feel to ensure the brand promise is delivered.

Attend an OCRI partnered event with Janet LeBlanc + Associates, March 22nd, to learn more about the branded customer experience. Register today!

I was recently asked what inspires or motivates me, and the first words that leapt into my head was a quote from A Bronx Tale, a movie I had seen when i was 12.  The quote by De Niro that has been imprinted in my mind was :  ”The saddest thing in life is wasted talent” –  A Bronx Tale.   Ever since I heard them I’ve been very afraid of falling into the routine of daily life and missing out on opportunities.  What a nightmare, to think that I would nothing significant in my life.  So I guess fear of that reality inspires me to NOT waste opportunities that come along.

Other sources of inspiration are my parents.  All they have done and all they have accomplished and how far they’ve come in their lives.  Of course, that also makes me afraid that I will not be able to provide at least the same, if not a better , life for my kids as my parents gave me.  Which would be even sadder if you take into account the head start advantages I had compared to them, because of what they had accomplished in their life.  I’m afraid that would be disrespectful to their efforts in providing us with a more advantageous life, and it’s a high bar they set for us to follow.  

My other source of motivations comes from competition.  I always think to myself, wow, if they can do it, so can I.  I just need to step up my game, learn some more, and focus on a goal.  A friendly competitive rivalry urges me to be on top of my game at all times – whether it be in card games or real life.  

So summing it up, guilt, fear, and competition motivate me.  Sadly, they are all generally known as negative feelings.  I guess this is an example where two make a right.  A few negative emotions cause motivation and inspiration.  The end justifies the means. :0)

It’s out there.  We know it exists, we know it’s hungry, and we can feel it lurking.  Ottawa is full of supremely talented individuals and yet a program deriving it’s namesake from that very thing, “TalentBridge”, is perpetually hungry.  A starving tiger wandering amongst a veritable feast of young, undeveloped prey, for some reason unable to gorge itself on the handouts by which it is surrounded.

We find ourselves in a curious situation where the very personality trait we’re seeking, entrepreneurial spirit, should be the same thing that brings people to our doorstep, should it not? How can it be that a program existing for entrepreneurs tasked with the singular goal of fostering the youthful business community in Ottawa, is not effective in garnering people to it’s cause?

Working within the premise that young, talented, entrepreneurial individuals exist in Ottawa, it would seem a logical assumption that these people will strive to leverage themselves and better their positions in life as is becoming of their nature.  In this scenario if TalentBridge were a program that would help these people attain their goals, surly they would attempt to become engaged?  Since we here are acting on the notion that TalentBridge is indeed an excellent and effective program, we can then assume that it does in fact have much to offer to the endeavoring youth.

It has been established that Ottawa has an untapped pool of young business potential.  It has been established that these entrepreneurs would try to use TalentBridge if they thought it would help forward them in life.  It has been established that TalentBridge will indeed aid a business savvy individual to accomplish their goals.  Finally, it has been established that there is a disconnect between the pool of talent in Ottawa and TalentBridge.

This scenario brings to light the fundamental question at hand – why is an effective program being deemed ineffective by it’s intended constituents?

Poor advertising?  Lack of an identifiable product?  Is the established scenario incorrect in it’s assumed factual base?

Toss out some possible root causes for our problem, followup with some possible solutions.   The followup article will address what the community has to say concerning this issue.  Keep in mind that many problems and their best solutions, are multi-layered in nature, not simply a causal relation.

I took part in a Social Media Breakfast for the first time today,  and quite enjoyed the talk given by Mark Kuznicki. He discussed the use of social media tools such as twitter, and blogging as it can be applied to citizen participation by communities and governments, in the context of unconferences.

If you don’t know what an unconference is, Wikipedia describes it as “An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term “unconference” has been applied, or “self-applied”, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations”

It was very interesting to hear about this model being applied to urban issues, and how the participants would come together to aid our elected officials in designing new policies to improve our quality of life. Even more interesting was a remark that Mark made in regards to the inability of some of these officials to take full advantage of the social media tools, and how this was the main cause of some of the initiatives not being as successful as they could have been. Mark said “they were great in person, in face to face conversations, but did not fully understand the diffusion power of web based social media these days”.

That statement is extremely interesting to me because saying that the incomplete use of social media was the reason an initiative was not successful, implies that for it to achieve the desired results, a certain type of social media use HAD to be part of the solution. Feels kind of the same as asking: if Obama did not make use of social media technology as much as he did, would he have won the elections?

It sounded like Mark was suggesting a shift in the essence of social media, from an added element in strategic planning, to something that is essential towards achieving your goals. Social media is no longer sufficient, it is necessary. 

And if that is the case, as this trend becomes more widespread, you cannot but wonder – what is the next thing going to look like? And in a day and age were we suffer from lack of human connection due to advancement of technology, will this make things worse?

At the beginning of our book club meeting on Outliers, Stephen Daze asked us a question: If we are to believe the theories stipulated by Gladwell in Outliers, what are the skills or opportunities needed to become an outlier entrepreneur?

Well that’s an interesting question. Because it makes you have to think long and hard about what an entrepreneur is. According to Wikipedia – an entrepreneur is “an ambitious leader who combines land, labour, and capital to create and market goods or services. They are the type of personalities who are willing to take upon themselves a new venture/enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome.”
How do you acquire ambition? Or risk? Or street smarts? Are these things you can learn, or are you born with them? I was debating with Manu Sharma, and he said if you had to spend 10,000 hours doing something to become an expert entrepreneur, it would be spending 10,000 hours amongst smart people. I agree to some extent. But I think it’s more than that. Researchers for example spend hours and hours amongst other smart people (or at least reading other smart people’s work), but they’re not necessarily entrepreneurial. But yes I agree, spending that many hours engaged with other smart people is defiantly a step in the right direction.

Then I’m lead to another question – what is it about where we come from that makes us entrepreneurial? I’m going to make a very general comparison here. My family origins are Tunisian. Tunisians in general (and yes I’m using stereotypes) like stability. Tunisian immigrants tend to want to be employed rather than be the employer. Now compare them to the Lebanese. Both Arabs, both Mediterranean countries, both have Phoenician heritage, both have been colonized at some point. The list of similarities goes on and on. Lebanese immigrants on the other hand are known to be businessmen and entrepreneurs. Why the difference? Well, it could be due to the fact that there was a civil war in Lebanon that caused a huge number of immigrants to be spread out all over the world, while Tunisians have had a relatively stable history. Maybe. I really have no idea. But does that mean (again generalizing) if you come from an environment with some sort of instability in its history, you are more likely to be a risk taker? I definitely don’t know, but it’s an interesting thought.

As for trends that we can identify now so that when the revolution peaks we’ll be atop that wave and ready for that opportunity….well if I knew that, I’d be busy getting my 10,000 hours of expertise in that field. The problem with revolutionary trends is that by the time you notice it, you’ve already missed the boat. Like nanotechnology, DNA, haptics etc. We’ve missed that boat to be the next Bill Gates of those fields. Maybe we should be focusing on picotechnology? Or ways to revolutionarize nuclear energy to make it more efficient? I don’t know. But if you do, please let me know :0)

I think we all have, at one point or another, heard the spill on being an entrepreneur: you should be able to motivate your team, manage time lines, set goal,  and so on. However after reading Stephen Daze’s post, I started realizing how those skills are manifestations of other traits like  self confidence and self esteem.

When we hear the famous “move confidently in the direction of your dreams”, most of us stop to think of what their dreams are, and take solace from imagining a world without boundaries, a world where to achieve something one must just desire it.

But how many times do we reflect on the word “confidently”? How many people know what their dreams are, and are intimidated by them? In my opinion entrepreneurship can be applied to all spheres of life, and it really is that moral fiber that allows to go after your dreams confidently. I have a very visual brain, and when I am trying to understand something I always try to develop a mental picture of it: when I think of entrepreneurship I imagine a very sharp, very sturdy, roman warrior type spear. When launched properly this spear is able to break through the hardest walls; its sturdiness related to self esteem, and its sharpness to self confidence.

I think everyone has a certain amount of entrepreneurship in themselves but the key to unlocking its full potential lies in our willingness to try new things, challenge our assumptions, and stay the course.  All things that stem from being confident in one self, and having good self esteem.

Save the date for the 7th annual ELORIN conference focused on sustainable building and design, featuring Keynote Speaker Ian Prichett of Lime Technology Limited.

I recently found myself indicating my desire to do something – something that I hadn’t yet done but had been asked to.. a couple of times. It got me thinking about how desire alone isn’t enough for something to be done – of course that is obvious for most but not always a concept that we think about as we are putting things off or dreaming big.

I’ve often used a concept of desire, willingness and ability when teaching concept of assessing market demand for a new product or service.  The story would go something like… a marketer calls me up and asks if I would like to own a Porsche. Of course I say yes. If s/he ends the call and assesses the market need at that time they might foolishly think a sale is possible. If they clue in to the fact that they need more information, they might call back and ask a follow up question related to my being willing to pay 100k for a new Porsche. Again, I might provide a positive response based on seeing good value for money and they might again go away with incomplete information. Of course it wouldn’t be until they looked into my wallet to see if I could actually buy a Porsche (ability) that they would receive the information required to make a decent assessment on the likelihood of me buying a Porsche.

That seems logical, but it is a simple process that isn’t often followed in market assessment. It’s often too tempting to stop the process with only one or two answers to any of: ”do you like it?” ; “would you buy it?”; “can you afford it?”  Without a positive response to each question, you can’t move forward with any real hope.

Random thought re: desire, willingness and ability. If I want (desire) to become an entrepreneur, what does willingness and ability look like? Is anything still missing? How does this relate to “Outliers”?

sd

ps I drive a corolla and am quite happy with it.

April 24, 2009

Two research teams led by Ontario scientists have been awarded nearly $8 million in funding for genomics research from Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI).  One project focuses on the conversion of industrially-processed plant residues and wastes into biofuels and other bioproducts, and the other project aims to improve pest control in the vegetable production industry.  Together with funding raised from other sources, the budgets for these two projects will total more than $17 million over four years.

Full Story

Duration: May 11 2009 10:00am – 4:00pm

Location: National Arts Centre, Ottawa

The bio-based economy is a driver of innovation and key contributor to the country’s economic well-being.  Yet, it faces a number of challenges, including attracting investment, commercializing new technologies, and attracting and retaining qualified workers.  Meanwhile, other countries are investing aggressively in biotechnology, pioneering innovative partnerships between industry and academia, and building the fiscal and regulatory environments in which biotechnology can flourish. 

This event will bring together a broad cross-section of stakeholders from industry, academia, and governments to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the bio-based economy in Canada.  Expert speakers in the morning will set the stage for a deliberative session in which participants will discuss the framework proposed in BIOTECanada’s forthcoming document Beyond Moose and Mountains: Building the World’s leading Bio-Based Economy, which sets out a Canadian Path involving people, capital, and the operating environment.

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