Wrapping up the Program - Part IV - "Working harder than ever".....

On the last day of the program, we had the chance to have an open and candid discussion about the future with Ram Baliga, professor of Global Strategy. Ram is incredibly well respected as both a teacher and strategic thinker. He consults globally with some of the world's largest companies, and amazed us every week by leading lecture and discussion without any notes or slides.

Dr.Baliga's comment which left the most lasting impression on me was, "I am now working harder than ever to keep up with the pace of change, forcing myself to learn the critical skills of the 21st century (technology & analytics)".

Coming from a man who is world-renowned, tenured and vaguely discussing retirement, it was inspiring. It just shows that you can never stop learning, and that the application of knowledge is critical to retention. Dr.Baliga constantly reminded us that concepts need to be internalized and applied.

So it is with that mindset that I have decided not to sunset this blog, even though the program is complete. I will use it to highlight the application of knowledge we gained from our program. To challenge myself to apply theory to real-life, and to challenge the theories and models as the business climate changes in the 21st century.

To Dr.Baliga, I say "thank you" for the inspiration. We learned a tremendous amount from you both in knowledge and character over the last 18 months. I hope to be able to apply it with great efficiency over the next 10-20 years.

Open Technology

Recently, Google posted a blog where they provided Google's definition of "open". In that post, there was an interesting section about how open systems can be viewed by people with traditional MBA training.

"To understand our position in more detail, it helps to start with the assertion that open systems win. This is counter-intuitive to the traditionally trained MBA who is taught to generate a sustainable competitive advantage by creating a closed system, making it popular, then milking it through the product life cycle. The conventional wisdom goes that companies should lock in customers to lock out competitors...."

Most of my working career has been centered around an "Internet DNA", so maybe I'm overly biased, but this is a comment that I made to my classmates time and time again as we studied different scenarios and cases during our program. The numbers are fine, and thorough analysis is necessary, but too many times it leads to decisions that don't result in driving new customer value. It results in decisions that create short-term advantages, or temporary "wins", but it often misrepresents whether or not a company is truly prepared to be competitive in the market, and how they can position themselves for the next opportunity.

The 21st century is not going to be about long-term sustainable advantages. Advantages will be short-lived, and the companies that survive and succeed will be those with a open mindset that encourages competition. Competition drives innovation.

Competition also makes some people &/or companies uncomfortable because they were built around an inflexible model, or one that doesn't allow for radical changes in the market structure. Google is an excellent example of a company that is constantly trying to change the dynamics of markets. They are not always right, and actually fail quite often, but their culture and business are built on the foundation of competition. Many companies would do themselves a favor by studying Google and adopting their mindset to open systems.

Wrapping up the Program - Part III

In previous wrap-up posts (here & here) I talked about broad lessons learned and projects that impacted my new ways of thinking about the world. In this post, I'd like to talk about some of the people in our program. Through the program, I've spoken about our collective journey, often highlighting elements of classmates that caught my attention. As the program progressed, I had the opportunity to better understand the strengths and goals of my classmates.

One of the most challenging things for an Executive MBA is to move outside of their comfort zone. They don't lack for great ideas or leadership, but families and mortgages and job seniority can be a difficult elements of life to sacrifice for the next "what if..."

I'd like to highlight some of the projects and "next steps" that graduates of the Executive Class of 2009 will be leading in 2010.

Terra Verde International - After Hurricane Felix ripped through the coastal areas of Nicaragua, much of their forests were downed by the storm. Through a church-mission relationship, Robbie Lee and his partners become involved in a unique situation to create opportunity out of tragedy. Terre Verde was established to clear the downed trees, mill the wood and byproduct, and take it to market. The mill and operations are staffed by the local Mistiko Indian tribes, and funds from the sale of wood are brought back to the village to establish infrastructure and create new opportunities (farms, education, housing, etc.). In addition to the mill, Terre Verde has plans to create an electrical utility that uses the wood byproduct as a biofuel source to power the electrical grid. In the US we take the electrical grid for granted, but for people that have no light in the evenings, the possibilities are endless. The hope is to allow people to go to school in the evenings, or church, or participate in other activities that are driven by electricity.

TPM Partners - After successful careers at Danaher and Que Pasa, respectively, David Ivan and Domingo Isasi saw an opportunity to take their knowledge of process-design and operations to start a consulting company focused on Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma improvement. By moving quickly to show clients how change can effect their bottomline, TPM Partners has already created hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost-reductions in just a few months.

Precision Farming in India (business name TBD) - Combining his passion for his homeland and expertise in Information Technology, Vish Manickam is creating a new venture to help rural areas in India that are struggling with poverty and limited food supplies. Working with professors in India and Michigan State University, and utilizing the latest Precision Farming techniques to produce vastly better crop yields and a sustainable economy. Vish is not only building a model farm in his home state, but also creating a franchise model to allow others to sell and distribute this technology to other regions of India. By combining technology, government subsidies and market demand, Vish will be able to help a portion of India that rarely see the headlines from the news media.

Commercial Solar Distribution & Installation (business name TBD) - Building on the momentum from the Obama administration and the COP15 talks, Chris Basinger is bringing his passion for building the future to commercial properties in North Carolina. Chris is currently working with several large North Carolina-based companies to design and implement a solar power infrastructure for several hundred facilities. By leveraging national and state credits for solar installations and leading-edge photovoltaic (PV) technologies, Chris has been able to demonstrated positive NPV returns on these upcoming investments. Chris is working directly with VCs to fund this start-up opportunity, with hopes to operationalize it in 2010.

Gracely Girl Design - Highlighted previously as a model for building a completely online business that operates around a part-time or mother's schedule, Gracely Girl has successfully completed 3 months of operations and is now cash-flow positive.

KinderCulture (tentative name) - This is a project that I pitched to the class as part of our Entrepreneurship program. I was humbled when several of my classmates and professor offered to invest or raise money for the idea on the spot. In 2010 I'm hoping to pull together the team to execute on this concept. It would allow me to combine my interests in Social Media and Internet technology, International culture and children's education.

Those are just a few of the projects that I expect to see launched or expanded in 2010. And based on late-night conversations and brainstorming sessions with several other classmates, I wouldn't be surprised to see several more get hatched in some form or another very soon. We were lucky to have such a diverse group of people and backgrounds in our program, and I fully expect them to go on to greater things in the future. My hope is that we are able to continue to leverage the ideas and talents of the group as these new ventures and opportunities arise in 2010 and beyond.

Wrapping up the Program - Part II

Following up on Part I, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite projects from the program. Some were things that I was a part of, while others came from classmates. I've mentioned some of these before, in previous blog posts.

The first was the summary presentation we gave for Leadership & Organizational Behavior (LOB) class. The 1st semester was an interesting transition for everyone in the class, not only readjusting ourselves to academia but also transitioning into a structure where teamwork and trust were critical factors in success. The focus of the presentation was supposed to be analysis of our personalities against LOB criteria, but what it turned into was a very revealing look into the personalities of our classmates. Their history, their fears, their hopes and dreams, and their ability to trust the people in the room with personal information. For most people in the class, it was the first opportunity we'd had in 3-4 months to really understand who we'd be going through the rest of the journey with. For me personally, I used it as an opportunity to try out a presentation style that I had seen a few times, but had never used before. It's a variation on something called Pecha Kucha, which we eventually used in the 4th semester for our final Leading Change presentation. When I gave the presentation, I think I made some people uncomfortable (less structured, less formal, limited analysis). I was trying to use the style to convey the pace at which my working environment (Internet Technology) moves, and I believe that came across to some extent. Regardless, it was my first attempt at using the MBA program as a vehicle to try new ideas which could be reused in my working world.

BGracely LOB Personality Semester Project 5Dec2008

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Our final Business & Global Economics (BGE) project involved a country/region and investment analysis in Emerging Markets. BGE was the 1st semester course that really taught me that I had much to learn about the complexities and inter-dependencies of the global economy We choose to analyze UAE, which at the time of our selection (Aug.2008) seemed like an exciting, vibrant new beacon of the global economy. Our analysis and recommendation highlighted many of the possibilities being created by the massive influx of petrodollars, but it also cautioned against a potential bubble. Having new eyes for UAE, it has been extremely interesting to watch the reports of the demise of Dubai in the early to mid part of 2009, and then the more recent reports of its resurgence towards the end of the year. I believe the stories of Dubai, and its ultimate success or failure are still to be written, with results being somewhat unknown for another 5-10 years.

WFU-MBA-BGE-Team5-UAE-5Dec2008

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Towards the end of our 2nd semester, our Managerial Accounting professor (Dr.Bern Beatty) asked Brian Healy (EVP, Kindermusik) to come speak with our class about how they implement Open Book Management. Not only was this an excellent look at how an entrepreneurial company was putting unique leadership styles to work, but it also began a business relationship with Mr.Healy that I hope to leverage for another start-up that I may launch in 2010.

Open Book Management - Critical Number

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Another 2nd semester project allowed Portia Mount and I to explore an element of Marketing that gets heavy coverage from the press, but is still not well understood my most of the business world or academia. We explored Social Media and Social Marketing in the context of the Obama Election campaign, but tried to constantly bring the context back to everyday business environments. It was an interesting culmination to our Strategic Marketing course, as each sub-team also created a final presentation that focused on an angle of Internet or Social Marketing. Since that presentation, I've actually had 5-6 companies approach me about training/educating their executive teams about Social Media/Marketing best practices and way they can engage with this new media.

ObamaNation - Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Media

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The 3rd semester was all about International Business. We had the option to focus on China, Japan or South America (the India trip was canceled due to the Mumbai bombings). Eight of us choose to spend two weeks in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We chronically our journey on the China Blog. It's still difficult to put the magnitude of that trip into words, but needless to say it completely changed my views on my career and the 21st century.

To conclude our Entrepreneurship course, we were asked to focus on a new business model or idea. I decided to focus on Gracely Girl Designs, which is an online appearal business that I created with my wife in October 2009. The primary motivation for the business was to allow her a creative outlet to coincide with the raising of our children. But what we found in designing the business was an ability to operate almost entirely virtual and with a structure that was incredibly flexible. I presented this business as a model that could be adopted by classmates that wishes to stretch their entrepreneurial legs, but also maintain their existing jobs (at least for a while).

Gracely Girl Design

View more presentations from bgracely.

Our Management Practicum was focused around the theme of Environmental Sustainability, and how we could attack that problem in a way that found balance between environmental challenges and business challenges. Many of my classmates came up with incredible ideas (to be discussed in Part III), presenting ideas to start businesses that will have lasting impacts for thousands of people in the US, Latin America and India. Their work will go beyond business success and will thrive in the future successes of mankind. Our team took a technology focus, looking at ways to more efficiently deploy IT Data Centers, the 21st-century "bit" factories that will drive the output of electronic addictions. Considering that today's Data Centers consume 2-3% of all US electricity, with exponential growth expected as Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles become part of the US economy.

Looking back on the breadth of our projects, I'm still amazed at what can be learned in just 18 months. Not only did we develop domain-level expertise in many areas, but we created a framework of knowledge that will allow us to take on strategic challenges throughout the 21st century.

Wrapping up the Program - Part I

As of 1pm, barring any last minute disasters (not sure what they would be), my journey through the WFU Executive MBA program is complete. Our final grades were posted today. All that's left now is to receive my diploma at a ceremony in January.

As the last group to ever go through the Executive Program, the ending is somewhat bittersweet (the format was canceled in Fall 2009 due to strategic changes by the WFU Schools of Business). Being EOL brought us closer together as a group, but unfortunately we won't have subsequent classes to build the alumni base. The Executive program was started over 25 years, and was the original MBA program offered by Wake Forest.

Instead of just waving good-bye to this blog, I thought I'd finish it with a series of posts recapping some of the most important things I learned over the last 18 months.

Breadth of Knowledge Matters

Whether you're faced with a Strategy problem, a Marketing problem, a Finance problem or an Organization problem, no decision can be made in a vacuum. Having a fundamental understanding of a breadth of subjects, learned across a wide range of industries (through case studies, classmate experiences, etc.) is invaluable in making executive level decisions. Today's markets move much too fast to build companies that operate in silos, so bringing a breadth of knowledge to daily decisions will make the difference between survival and failure in the 21st century.

The World is Global...and Semi-Global...and Regional...and Local

While the Thomas Friedman's of the world grab many headlines, not every problem today is global. It is invaluable to have the experience of visiting and working in international markets (which we experienced), but knowing when strategy needs to be global is even more valuable. You must be ABLE to step out of your CAGE and see where it makes sense to bring ADDING solutions to market expansion. You must think globally, but act locally.

Create True and Lasting Value

As we saw from the financial crisis of 2008, and in numerous other examples, it is incredibly easy to financially engineer the books or manipulate markets in the short-run in return for near-term profits. But the 21st century, with it's hypermedia cycles, will quickly destroy companies that are not competitive and do not create true value for customers or partners. NOTE: "Lasting" is a relative term. It may only be 3-5yrs, but it's a mindset that should be infected into every company that strives to be competitive and differentiate themselves by creating tremendous value with their products and services.

Think like a CEO

All too often we tend to get caught up in the value of our functional area or market, and fail to see the bigger picture in front of us. Without the correct strategies, financial models and product portfolios aligned to solve customer problems, many ideas are just a set of random details.

Think like a Baby

At times, we plug all the data into our fancy MBA models and answers emerge. But do they always make sense? Have they taken into consideration local factors, or basic inter-dependencies? Have we thought through the simplest of details, asked the simplest of questions? For parents, we're often amazed at the way children are able to ask the most direct questions for complex topics. That type of questioning is valuable for executives as well.

Build Your Personal Brand

The personalization of media and the ubiquity of the Internet allows each of us to be our own Marketing/PR/Ad agency. Companies will come and go, but your personal brand is the one element over which you can have direct control. This blog was created for alternative learning purposes, but it eventually became a foundational aspect of me beginning a journey to better understand how a personal brand is built, cultivated and expanded.

Free'er than Freemium, "hmm....BUT...."

I've written about Freemium several times before, discussing it's impact on existing markets and incumbent companies in several industries. Brian Gurley (Partner, Benchmark Capital) does an excellent job explaining how Google is further leveraging their mobile services like StreetView to further move into Mobile Advertising.

As an MBA student, Google is an interesting company to study and analyze. On one hand, so many of their projects are difficult to apply typical MBA skills to (NPV, Cash Flow analysis, etc.) because they are fundamentally experiments, and they make not drive direct revenues. On the other hand, their ability to expand upon their core strategy of "organize all the world's information" is incredibly interesting to follow. It is a massive concept that has so many possibilities, but I suspect it only works within a culture that allows large amounts of freedom to explore "crazy" ideas.

Having a cash cow like AdSense or AdWords obviously makes it a little easier to fund and maintain the Google culture, but it still requires employees and managers to take huge risks. Personal risks, technology risks, strategy risks.

I'm trying to imagine what a conversation at Google a few years ago might have gone like:

Employee: Mobile devices are going to take off and people will consume huge amounts of data on them someday.

Manager: Agreed. We should figure out ways to accelerate this, as we could drive ads to their mobile devices.

Employee: My kid was reading about Lewis & Clark the other day. We should try and be the world's source for mapping information.

Manager: But what can we do interesting with maps?

Employee: Eliminate paper maps. Make maps that move with the touch of a finger. Show live traffic overlaid on a map. Street-level views. Open it up to any location-based service (voting, gatherings, flu outbreaks, restaurant listing, etc..)

Manager: How might we do that, besides buying mapping data?

Employee: What if we had a fleet of cars that drove around the country with a camera on the back? We could pay high-school kids, college kids, starving artists, or anyone willing to drive around?

What would your manager have said at that point in the conversation? Would it have started with something like, "Hmm, interesting.....BUT....". I suspect that in most companies it would. At Google, I doubt there are many "hmm....BUT...." moments when ideas are being formulated.

Imagine the possibilities at your company if you had the ability to hire really smart people and not feel like you had to "hmm..BUT..." them all day long.

CAGE, Biomimicry and a big lull....

For anyone who reads this blog, I have to apologize for the lack of content and ideas recently. Not only has my day job been extremely busy lately (blog hits over there are up 500% Y-over-Year), but this semester has left me in a funk. It has no rhythm to it, and the pending 50-page papers for GSM II, Management Practicum and Entrepreneurship haven't left much time for writing about new ideas (let alone tidbits from class).

One of the important concepts that we discuss quite a bit with Ram Baliga are analogies, and the importance of making connections outside your current view of a problem. He stresses that many problems have already been solved, just at a different time, or in a different industry, or by looking at the problem outside the context of the existing situation.

So in that vain of thinking, I highlight a couple of analogies:

• In GSM II (and in International Business), we used a framework called C.A.G.E (Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic) to analyze expansion and M&A activities. I loosely used that framework to analyze a problem happening in corporate IT organizations as technologies like VMware's virtualization are creating organizational problems (although saving companies money). It's not an exact fit for the framework, since we're not really dealing with global expansion, but it seems to have some alignment for groups that speak different languages and have different priorities. Apologies to Dr.Lord and Dr.Baliga for stretching the framework a little more than is probably acceptable in their eyes.
• In Leading Change & Entrepreneurship, we often talk about ways to come up with new ideas or sources of new ways to solve problems. This recent article in Fast Company by Dan & Chip Heath highlights the concept of biomimicry to help solve some of your company's most head-scratching problems. Dr.Fogel had given us some papers to read on biomimicry, but not having much in the way of free time, I was highly appreciative of Heath's use of brevity to show examples of a powerful concept.

Analogies can be powerful tools in not only trying to explain new ideas, but also for looking outside your current frame of view for new solutions. Often times an analogy can be the best way to connect you with a customer, especially when you come from different backgrounds and you're trying to find a common language.

A brief look behind the founding of Twitter

As I've discussed many times before, I'm a huge fan of Twitter and the new forms of communication that it opens to users around the world. I found this brief video showing Twitter creator/founder Jack Dorsey discussing how the company was founded and the ways it has been shaped over the past couple of years. Coinciding with our Entrepreneurship course, it's an interesting look at how to take simple concepts (immediacy, transparency, approachability) and align them with powerful forces to create something great. It also conveys the best idea for any entrepreneur, "start....just get started with something small and see what happens."

I'm looking forward to utilizing many of they valuable ideas in the two start-ups that I'm working on now.

Are MBAs necessary for Start-Ups or VC?

With our Entrepreneurship course in full swing, and keeping my interest, I thought I'd post another interesting article from one of my new favorite Entrepreneur/VC blogs - "Both Sides of the Table".

I'm not going to get into the argument of whether or not people with MBAs are good fits or not, since that's a generalization and not relevant. People can decide from their experiences if the degree is useful or not. But there were a few points that I found interesting &/or thoughtful:

• Curriculum - I would tend to agree that you could learn as much from reading topical books (or internet research) as you do from the topics taught in the classroom. One of the things that I find incredibly valuable in our Executive MBA program is the breadth of experience that I'm able to derive from our classroom discussions and outside discussions. The professors that are valuable to me have been the ones that provided a conceptual framework, but the primary focus of their courses have been the application to our personal experiences or current/future roles.
• Colleagues - This is far and away the most valuable interaction from an MBA program, but I believe that if often gets under-estimated if the culture/sub-culture within the program is overly focused on grades/rankings. I've told people many times that I'll be happy if I recall 50% of the coursework concepts in 5yrs, but I'll be extremely disappointed if my work/personal network doesn't include at least 75% of the people from my program in 5-10yrs.
• Sales - I completely agree that sales/influencing is a subject that is lacking in most MBA programs. I'm sure it gets neglected (or completely left out) because it's not considered a science or area worthy of academic research, but it is the lifeblood of every company. Not only that, internal selling of new ideas (innovation, change management, etc.) hinges on the ability of leaders to sell. Maybe it needs to be added as an elective. The occasional classroom presentation just doesn't equate to sales.

Some Excellent Entrepreneur Blogs

Here's a few of my favorites. Some business starters, and some business investors:

Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) - A VC

Marc Cuban - Blog Maverick

Seth Godin - Blog

Mike Hirshland (Polaris Ventures) - VC Mike

Marc Andreessan - pmarca

Jeff Pulver - Blog

Tim Ferris - Four Hour Work Week

Phil McKinney - Killer Innovations

Andrew Warner - Mixergy

Mark Suster - (GPR Partners) Both Sides of the Table

10 Characteristics of Great Companies and Great Investors

As we start to dive into our Entrepreneurship course, exploring new ventures, I thought these were a couple of great lists for people to review as they think about new ideas or new places to invest money.

• Fred Wilson's 10 Characteristics of Great Companies
• Matt Blumberg's 10 Characteristics of Great Investors

As one of the leading voices in technology and venture capital, Fred's blog (A VC) is a great daily read. Not only does he give great insight into various aspects of the business, but he encourages complete transparency through the comments and on-going discussions. It's an excellent example of realizing that there are 1000s of great ideas out there if you're willing to listen and be open-minded. He also acknowledges that he's been mentored by some of the greats before him, and he encourages giving back to newcomers to the industry.

China -

[cross-posted from our WFU MBA China Trip blog]

It's been just over three months since we returned from our International Trip to China and it felt like the right time to reflect on how that experience has changed my thinking about the world. This isn't going to be terrible formal, just a list of stuff that I've been thinking about recently:

1 - Sort of like the soldiers that returned to the farms after WWII ("you can't send them back to the farm after they have seen Paris"), it's very difficult to get the allure of China our of your consciousness.

2 - When you're in China, the opportunities feel like they are so close and completely within reach. It's only when you're back in the US do you realize how far away they really are (even with today's communications technologies). The immediacy of opportunity in China is intoxicating.

3 - Like anything else, it takes practice and repetition to get better at China. For the first 45-60 days back, I read the Chinese newspapers online religiously, trying to take in every little nuance. Since then, US life has been creeping back in very quickly and I feel like my China-ese is getting rusty. I need to get back into practice.

4 - Two weeks doesn't sound like a long time, but it provided an incredible foundation for understanding the basics of the complex world of Chinese business and culture. Our summer and fall semesters incorporated International elements in every session, and our trip more than adequately prepared us with the right mindset to have success in doing business with/in China.

5 - I miss the food. I miss the adventure of what it was, what it might be, and only using chopsticks. I never felt like I overate in China, yet I also never felt hungry. They seemed to have figured out the perfect mix of variety, healthiness and entertainment with their meals. The US needs to take a page out of the Chinese cookbook.

6 - I've been thinking about ways to start a business that involves China in some way. I'd say that at least half of the people in our class (from the trip) have been having those same thoughts. I have the skeleton of the business plan in place, and a key first meeting in a couple weeks. It's a great time to be an entrepreneur.

7 - If you are ever part of any of the WFU Business School programs and have an interest in International business, do not hestitate to engage Mike Lord. If you are passionate about International business, Mike will match your passion by 2x.

8 - We have problems here in the US, and they have problems in China too. But their problems just feel much larger in scale. So even if you're not going to doing something China-related or International-related, do something that has some scale to it. Make a difference!!

OK, I'll end it with #8, since 8 is the number signifying good luck and wealth in China. I hope you all get to visit China some day, as it's an incredible country and one of the highlights of the WFU MBA program.

A weekend of Contrasting Viewpoints

Our first weekend back in the final semester was a showcase of contrasting viewpoints, and some very dire predictions.

Our first session was lead by John Allison, Chairman of BB&T bank. Mr. Allison is now part of the faculty at the WFU Schools of Business, and his talk was on leadership, focused around the 10 core values that he used to lead BB&T. Well known for his affinity for the lessons of Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged, Allison talked about how these values were founded in philosophy and economics and how they guided BB&T to be one of the few US banks that did not "require" TARP funding from the US Gov't. Not only did Allison's talk focus heavily on the strengths of market-based economies and capitalism, but it also highlighted his viewpoints on the errors made both in the present and the past by the Federal Reserve. He spoke about being on committees back in the late 1990s and early 2000s that highlighted flaws in the concept of "expanded home ownership", but he was unable to convince Congress or the Federal Reserve to modify their policies. He also spoke about recent speeches he gave at the Chicago Federal Reserve where he mathematically proved that the US will be bankrupt by ~2025, unless major changes are made to the structure of the US economy.

Our next set of discussions and viewpoints came from our Management Practicum on Environmental Sustainability and Renewable Energy. This session did a pretty good job of dividing the room between "it must be done, it's our future" and "it's too expensive, even though it might be needed". Using a framework from the following books, we began to walk through the challenges, opportunities and existing approaches to the US energy economy.

• Natural Capitalism - Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
• The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
• Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility

Environmental and Energy Sustainability are difficult topics to discuss because not only are they extremely complex technologies and economic models, but they are charged with personal emotions and MBA-learned skills about finding costs (usually near-term costs vs. long-term TCO). I've argued before that it involves massive scope that needs better communication and vision to be successful. And I'm also learning that it very much will require a shift in mindset from Costs of Acquisition to Total Costs of Ownership and Impact. The latter is something that I'm very familiar with from selling large-scale technology solutions in the face of rapidly commoditizing computing devices. And of course all of these discussions were had under the guise that we're reached the level of "Peak Oil" and that many natural resources on earth could be near extinction levels by the end of the 21st century.

Saturday's classes were a contrast in management and leadership evolution between large corporations (Leading Change course) and start-ups (Entrepreneurship course). Using the 8 step framework laid out by John Cotter, we looked at how leadership skills align to different types/levels of changes within large corporations, and how leaders can adapt their skills to these various changes. This framework served as an interesting contrast between larger corporations that often struggle during times of change because they expect their managers/leaders to adapt to ay type of change, and the skills required by start-up entrepreneurs in our Entrepreneurial Essentials course. While it may often be a VC firm that pushes leadership changes at start-ups as they grow (ie. bring in an experienced CEO/President), this seems to better align to the concept that not all leaders have the skills to manage a company through all types of changes. It will be interesting to explore how successful corporations are able to create leaders with these skills, or how they transition in new leaders as the change-management requirements shift.

All in all, it was a very full weekend of new ideas and intense discussion. There is not going to be any let-up in this final semester, and I expect the overall level of discussion to rise quite dramatically as we find the intersections of many of these important topics and how they will shape our world over the next 5, 10, 20 and 50 years.

Twitter Usage Recommendations

Over the weekend, our Entrepreneurship professor (Stan Mandel, @stanmandel) let us know that he was beginning to use Twitter to comment about some of his entrepreneurial ideas. Since he's just getting started, I sent him along these tips for better Twitter usage:

1) I've written about Twitter quite a bit over the past year, including some usage suggestions and feedback I've received:
http://bgracely-exft2009-wfumba.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter

2) Personalization
- People rarely take you seriously (ie. follow you) if you don't personalize your profile
- People almost always check out your info/background before following you back
- Add a picture. Something that will be easy to recognize amongst all their other tweets (face picture, company logo, etc.)
- Add a profile description; whatever will fit in 160 characters (ie. Babcock Demon Incubator; WFU Professor of Entrepreneurship; Angell Center for Entrepreneurship, etc.)
- Add an interesting background picture/images for your page

3) Lots of great ideas come from other people's tweets. You can look up keywords at http://search.twitter.com, and if you see anything interesting, consider following those people.

4) When you find interesting people to follow, check out who they follow. As you mentioned yesterday, smart & successful people tend to run in the same crowds.

5) It's often useful to add a "hashtag" to your posts, especially if they are about the same concepts. It's a tag that other people can easily search for. Makes it easier for people to find (ie. #entrepreneurship, or #babcockdemon or #wfumba). Just add it to the end of your posts (if you have enough space).

6) Download a Twitter client for your phone (assuming it supports applications), or use the SMS/Text function. This makes it much easier to post, as you don't have to wait to be back at your PC to communicate an idea or ask a question.

• http://crackberry.com/twitter-roundup (Blackberry Clients)
• http://mashable.com/2009/05/02/twitter-iphone-apps/ (iPhone clients)
  
• http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/how_do_you_update_twitter_by_sms (updating twitter via SMS/Text)

7) One method of gaining followers (which is very valuable, because they spread your ideas or answer your questions) is to give them background on your ideas. Send out tweets that talk about your goals (ie. find new ideas), your methods (Angell, Babcock Demon), and what you find interesting (URLs)

8) Re-tweet interesting things you find from other people. This is done using a string like this "RT @bgracely ". Many times, you'll find that people you re-tweet will follow you back.

I know that's a lot of stuff, but considering how many people are moving much of their online communication and information finding to Twitter, it's useful to be using some tips/tricks that have been proven to help get you actively involved in the community.

Free vs. Fee - Learning a Foreign Language

I've written several times about my interest in the nuances of the freemium business model. I've also written about my struggles to learn some basic Chinese (Mandarin) both prior to our China Trip and since then.

So when I came across this article from Bill Gurley (VC) recently, it peaked my interest because of the intersection of these two recent passions. It highlights the differences between Rosetta Stone and Live Mocha, both in their business models (fee vs. free) and their approach to teaching (individual vs. social communities). As Mr.Gurley points out, free or freemium might not be the next generation of business models for everyone, but every company needs to consider how a competitor using those models could impact their business.

Having struggled with the Rosetta Stone model of teaching, I'm going to give the Live Mocha approach a try. I'm intrigued by the community aspects, as I truly believe that the real trick to learning a new language is putting it to use. I was willing to pay for Rosetta Stone in the past, but I truly believe that community-based learning is the way of the future. I hopeful that Live Mocha leads to better success.

The Big Environmental Problem - The First Step to Change

[Cross-posted to The Environmental Capitalist blog]

One of the major themes of our last semester will be Environmental Sustainability, as it will come into play in our Global Strategy, Leading Change and Management Practicum courses.

As prep work, we're reading:

• Natural Capitalism - Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
• The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
• Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility

I haven't read all of these books yet, but a couple common themes come through in each of them.

• The world's current consumption rate of natural resources will deplete the planet by the end of the 21st century (give or take a few years).
• Much of the technology needed to solve today's problems exist today. It isn't necessarily ready to be deployed in a "cost effective" manner, but it exists today.
• The interconnectedness of many of the problems is extremely complex (ie. Pollution comes from A, affects B/C/D, this depletes E/F/G, causing problems with X/Y/Z, etc.)

Unlike many people that want to bash things like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, turning it into a political debate, or a science debate, or a morality debate, I don't believe it's really a debate about any of those things. This is a marketing debate and it's being lost by everyone that is passionate about the concept.

Let's break this down a little bit and see if we can make a few suggestions:

• If the scientists are right and the world (at the current or forecasted pace) will run out of natural resources by the end of the 21st century, almost every person that can influence it (financially, politically, etc.) will be dead before that happens.
• As we've seen with things like the Y2K computer bug, or the underfunded U.S. Social Security program, intelligent people don't take action upon well known issues until they are right in front of them and teetering on the edge of chaos.
• As I've mentioned before, almost all of the discussions about sustainability are phrased in such massive scope that the average person can't grasp what that means. Is the rise of the ocean by 6" alot? Is a 1* increase in water near the Arctic Circle alot? 200 years of coal reserves available in the US seems like a long time, isn't it?

So essentially they are asking people to take action on things where they will never see the final act (or maybe even the intermission), they can't economically afford them today, and they can't actually grasp the scope of them other than in simple things like the price of gas in the summer.

So if you're selling this at the G8 summit, then it's a political or economic or moral discussion. But for the average person, it's hard for me to look at this as anything more than a massive marketing problem. And like many marketing problems, we need to convince people to make a change, especially the first change.

Let's try a simpler concept -

What if instead of the massive amount of money used for some of the 2008/2009 Gov't bailouts, that money had been focused on something that almost everyone in the US could grasp (since the US is the largest net-polluter in the world)? What if they had allowed GM and Chrysler to fail (real Chapter 11, not gov't bailout version), and completely focused the "Cash-for-Clunkers" program on trade-ins for vehicles that didn't use gasoline? You have a clunker, you MUST trade it in for a non-gasoline burning vehicle within 18 months. And within 5-10 years, all vehicles in the US must run on non-gasoline products. And while the initial price tags on the vehicles will be slightly higher, that can be blurred through subsidies, alternative taxes (sales tax, tire tax, whatever..). We have no idea where all the taxes dollars go today. And it's the law.

It would be the equivalent to the JFK "Man on the Moon" edict. It would focus all the industries surrounding automobiles to focus on green technologies because there is already a consumer demand for transportation, and it's the law. And it would be something that every person could grasp because cars intersect our lives on a daily basis. It's simple, it has a understandable timeline and it has massive scope of impact.

Would it have political and economic ramifications? Absolutely!! Both positive and negative, but at least they would be tangible by everyday people and governments.

• Less dependence on foreign oil - lower trade deficits; lower military expenditures to protect sea channels which carry oil; less fear of terrorist bombings
• Less pollution - lower healthcare spends on asthma, etc.
• Job creation - new distribution channels for the alternative energy mechanisms (refueling stations, repair services, etc.)

And it might be partially impractical (at this point), but that's OK. All change is considered impractical until you can convince someone to do it.

This isn't a tree-hugger vs. non tree-hugger issue, this is a citizens of Planet Earth issue. It's a massive set of issues and it's a long-term set of issues. But people need to do a better job of starting the discussion.

I'd just ask that the passionate people around this industry consider this approach for a second. See if it makes any sense. Maybe you aren't in the automotive sector, but how could this type of thinking be applied to your sector or sustainability. What is the first step you wish you could get people to take, and then how might you force that to happen? Maybe it wouldn't all happen through a new law, but maybe it happens through some other event. What would be your first step to change?

200 Posts!!

200 is a completely irrelevant number, but I happened to notice it in the blog-log and it made me stop and think about what that meant. I started this blog between the 1st and 2nd semester as an experiment in trying to foster a new type of conversation between my classmates. My hope was that they might extend some of the classroom discussions online. That never really panned out, but I learned a number of other lessons in it's place:

1. A blog, like anything else, takes practices. A lot of practice. With 200 posts, I've created just under one per day, which isn't too bad. It forces me to find a style (maybe 3-4 paragraphs), but also allows me to try some new things (embed videos, etc.). I am by no means approaching a "moderately average" level for quality, but by making it habitual it does force me to consolidate my thoughts and find ways to communicate them.
2. I have found that a number of people/classmates do occasionally read the blog, but many of their comments are sent to me via email or verbally (face-to-face). I'm surprised by how many people tell me they don't want to communicate their ideas or feedback in public. I would think that MBA students seeking to become higher-level leaders would welcome the opportunity to practice their public writing or communication, but I vastly under-estimated that element of the blog.
3. As I've mentioned before, it's been amazing to me how many people from foreign countries have visited. I hope that maybe that means I'm starting to take a more international view of the world and those international posts are somewhat interesting. The international aspect of our MBA program has easily been the most interestng portion for me.

The other experiment with the blog was to gain a much greater set of "hands-on" experiences with social media and online communities. This is becoming such a huge part of marketing, branding, communicating, community building (internally & externally for companies and new ideas), that I felt like I needed to really understanding it from the ground up. Could I do a better job of building my personal brand? Could I effectively communicate new or complicated ideas? Could I foster discussion with new communities of people with common interests? Could I master some of the basic techniques needed to spread content and ideas around the Internet?

The answer to all those questions is still a work in progress, but I definitely know 1000% more now than I did just 12 months ago. I've been able to take the learnings from this blog and turn it into a Social Media strategy for my company that has drawn over 100,000 visits to our company blog, 50,000 visits to our company's YouTube channel, and over 25,000 downloads of collateral that helps to drive new product sales.

So thank you to anyone that has taken the time to read the blog and provide any feedback. I've found it to be a great experiment and a needed outlet for my itch to write. I'll continue with it through our graduation in December, and take the learnings with me to my various other professional outlets. Maybe I'll be able to get to 300 before the program is completed.

The Final Semester Approaches

While it's still four months away, there is beginning to flicker a small light at the end of this tunnel. This last semester will take us into December, completely the last leg of this 18 month journey. The final semester is a mix of foundational studies, advanced strategic studies, and a deep look at one of the biggest challenges facing our world as a whole.

Here's the line-up for the fall semester:

Global Strategy II - Dr. Ram Baliga expands upon the strategic framework created last semester to explore the next layers of corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, and the global thinking required for the 21st century.

Business Law - I don't know much about this course (no syllabus yet), other than it will be taught by Miki Felsenburg from the Babcock Law School. I know the text book should not be dropped on my toes (about 5" thick).

Leading Change - Dr. Dan Fogel will explore how to take all these brilliant ideas people have and get them implemented in small, medium and large corporations.

Entrepreneurial Essentials - Dr. Stan Mandel will provide us the framework for starting new ventures, fostering great ideas and thinking like an entrepreneur whether we're starting a new business or trapped within a larger corporation. I'm hoping he also proves my previous comments about Entrepreneurship in EMBA programs to be badly misrepresented.

Management Practicum - No academic program would be complete without throwing in a couple of $0.25 words like "practicum", so here we go. Our final practicum will be focused on Green Technologies and ways that they can be applied to improve our companies and our world. I'll talk more about my team's project in a later post. Providing us "20% more Dan", Dr. Dan Fogel will be mentoring these projects and bringing his passion for Sustainability to the classroom as we wrap up the program in December.

The workload for this semester is quite heavy, discouraging senioritis from all angles. It should foster some very interesting learning and discussions, especially with the intersection of Global Strategy, Leading Changes, Entrepreneurship and Green Technologies. I know my classmate Gregg Lewis will have much to teach us from his hands-on experience in the Sustainability field.

End of the 3rd Semester

All the finals and papers are completed and done. There is starting to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel as we move from our 3rd to 4th (and final) semester of the WFU eMBA program. This past semester was easily my favorite so far, but it was obviously somewhat biased by the China Trip, which was a life-changing event for me. I developed a completely newfound appreciation for the challenges of international business, as well as a new passion to become much more of an international citizen (for myself and my children).

Following on the international theme was our Global Strategy course (part I...part II is in the next semester), which was my favorite to-date. Strategy is a fascinating topic to me because it requires a combination of structured thinking/analysis and truly creative thinking to be able to plot moves, plan new products/services, and come up with ways to shift the market in your favor.

One of the takeaways I'll have from this semester is regarding the type of people to look towards as we become a more globalized economy and world. While there are literally thousands of business and strategy books written each year, the ones that are beginning to stand out are from leaders that are either from non-US background or heavily embrace non-US markets and cultures. Whether this is people like Ram Baliga and Michael Lord (WFU professors), or C.K. Prahalad or Gary Hamel or Ram Charan or Umair Haque. By looking at the world from a non-US-centric viewpoint, they are able to understand the pace of change better, as well as understand the flexibility and competitiveness that will be needed by any successful person/company in the 21st century. It's a much bigger picture approach that you see in most classrooms or often US boardrooms.

A Lesson in Permission Marketing

As an avid fan of Seth Godin and his mantra of Permission Marketing, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend about the cost of attention in the digital economy.

I've mentioned before that I'm somewhat of an information junkie, constantly looking for ways to connect the dots between different concepts and different types of businesses. In my mind, there is a certain level of satisfaction in finding those disconnected snippets and sewing them together. Mistakenly, I also believed that the connected snippets might be of interest to my classmates as we try and apply our learnings to our working environments.

After a Q&A session in class this weekend, a classmate cut one of their questions short and instead tossed out a, "I'm sure Brian will send out something on that.." comment. He was partially joking, but 100% accurate that I had now violated any previous permission that he may have allowing me (regarding the sharing of information) in the past.

Where I made my mistake was ignoring four critical factors:

• While the sending of bits (ie. email) is essentially free, the cost of interruption for the receiving party is nowhere near free. And unlike Twitter, where people actively choose to receive your information, email does not easily permit the receiver to filter/ignore your noise.
• Managing information is a completely asynchronous process, with each person doing it in their own way. Not everyone deals with information overload in quite the same way, and very rarely do overload or excessive noise result in positive interactions.
• Permission is not a one-time event. It's a constantly re-evaluated model, where the the allowance of permission can be a binary decision based on the last interaction or the last level of value (real or perceived) provided to the user.
• Permission is not a supply-led function, it's completely demand-based. What's useful (or perceived useful) for me in no way implies that it is useful to anyone else. And this holds true on an interaction-by-interaction basis.

Lesson learned. While their cost of transmission may be the same, not all digital communications mediums are created equal. The same goes for communicating new ideas, or influencing others. It's not always a "lowest-cost provider wins" game.

Once again, it's good to make mistakes in the classroom rather than out in the real world.

The Internet will "Change" your Business &/or Industry

Following up on our discussion about Gary Hamel's innovation video, I made a comment in class that apparently bothered some of my classmates. It was rather terse, so I can understand the reaction to the tone, but it was needed to simplify the concept. The comment was made in response to a number of people not understanding how to get their company to adopt an innovation culture and seeming to be stuck on the idea that they were a data-driven company and innovation often lacks the necessary data to gain approval.

So I recommended to people to have a discussion within their company on, "How the Internet will "Change" (alternative wording used) their business or their industry?" It was blunt and maybe harsh, but it's the reality of today's compressed-cycle economy.

I thought I'd make a list of where some of those discussions could go for the industries that are represented within my class:

Education - I've discussed this several times before (here, here and here), but the Internet will allow the model for education (at many levels) to become collaborative and global. And if the actual education content becomes free via certain outlets, then what new value will schools provide their customers? Is job placement &/or venture funding (or incubation) the new value to provide? Are silo'd discplines (Liberal Arts, Business, Science) easier to blur with Internet technologies, hence creating new opportunities to create "renaissance majors" which may produce more competitive students?

Manufacturing - We're already seeing what digital technology and fabricated labs can do to initiate "creation" opportunities in emerging markets. Combine this with organizations like Kiva.org that provide funding for entrepreneurs, and you have the potential for radical change in how manufactured goods could be created and sold in emerging markets.

Radio & Newspapers - (see New York Times) - enough said. And if you've got a niche in a local market (ie. Hispanic audiences in North Carolina) and you're able to make that model work, why not look to use the Internet to aggressively license/franchise that to other parts of the country? Even companies like AOL and Google haven't figured out "local" yet, so leverage your competitive advantage as quickly as possible.

Mattresses - I highlight this one separately just because one of my classmates is in the "sleep enhancement" business and has an interest in technology. He mention a few weeks ago that their largest distribution channel was a big-box retailer who sold the mattresses vertically in a rack on the floor. Not a fancy showroom where people come in an "try them out", which is how many mattresses are sold. He then said that one of their competitors just decided to move to an all-online model. He said that his company was taking a wait and see approach to moving online because it could disrupt their existing distribution channels (ie. channel conflict). Let's think about that one:

• "Wait and see" on the Internet. How has that worked out for other industries? Maybe those Gen-Y mattress buyers will go against their current buying habits and want to shop in stores (see Zappos).
• Their largest distribution channel already sells the product without the "lay on it" option, but you're still worried that online might not provide the options your customers want?

But even if they aren't sure how to deal with the channel conflict that could happen from an online strategy (hint: channel conflict will always be there), what about setting up an online contest or "fan" page on Facebook or crowdsourcing community that allows people (all ages, all disciplines) to design your next generation mattresses? We've already heard 3-4 good ideas generated in our hallway conversations, why not open that up to 1000x the number of smart minds that might have a suggestion for using a mattress?

Banking - Why should I pay for high-end financial services advice when I can go to Mint or Motley Fool or eTrade or even Charles Schwab? Why should I trust companies that take my tax dollars and make them their dollars without providing any value? The Internet is making financial information more readily available and more transparent, so where could banks do to create need value-creating knowledge for customers? Charging additional fees on ATMs and Account Management is not the answer. Using Internet technologies to expose customers (not hiding information) to knowledge faster, and more globally is where new value will be created.

Healthcare - What are companies doing to get homes for elderly people wired so that low-cost monitoring equipment can be installed to remotely provide services (refill prescriptions, monitor movement for falls, monitor breathing equipment, etc..)? What are you doing to encourage the use of technology (speech recognition, online communities, etc.) that enhance the quality of life when patients are home alone or away from friends (or other with similar illnesses that want to share stories & support)?

Airplanes and Air Travel - The airline industry is already been radically changed by the Internet (see Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline), but now it faces a threat from technology companies like HP and Cisco with their Telepresence systems. But are the airplane companies working with their technology companies (or creating their own) to enhance the connectedness when people do fly? Are they allowing kids to play video-games against each other (in different rows) to help parents relax? Are they helping business travels stay better connected while flying?

That's just a few industries represented in my class, but each of them will be radically changed by the Internet in the next 5 years (if not already). Getting people to think through the possibilities of what could happen is (imho) an important strategic activity for them to consider

Making Innovation a Process/Culture within your Company

After 13 months in the program, I'm convinced that experience is the greatest enemy of entrepreneurs. People get comfortable. People change their approach to work/life after one bad experience. People constantly seek balance, or risk mitigation. People get cynical.

This weekend was an interesting microcosm of how E-MBA's see change. It wasn't completely surprising, because the older you get the more data you have to reference, the more past successes you try and emulate.

Dr.Baliga showed us a video (circa 1998) of Gary Hamel giving a presentation at Stanford. The focus of the talk was how business cycles are radically compressing. If companies want to survive they need to stop thinking about innovation as the next great project/product, but rather learn how to make innovation a core part of their business culture. In essence, re-engineer their process for fostering innovation just like they spent the 1970s-1990s re-engineering their operational processes to reduce costs or streamline efficiency.

A couple of quotes from Hamel stood out to me (paraphrased):

• Speaking with a hotel CEO, he asked why they didn't allow people to rent the rooms in a more flexible manner. The CEO responded that Hamel didn't understand the hotel business. Hamel responded, "And that's exactly why I have a valuable viewpoint on this subject". He explained that in this new economy, 90% of all innovation will come from outside your industry. Companies have to be willing to look for non-industry analogies.
• Following up on those comments, which might have been considered a "dumb question", Hamel stated that, "It's only from "dumb" questions that new value will be created. That new rules will be created. And new rules are what allow companies to gain advantage in any industry."

Following the video, the class discussed the concept. Asked for their thoughts, they responded with things like:

• He didn't give out the "how to do it" answers because he's a consultant looking for new business.
• He dismissed operational efficiency, but that's still a valuable way to create better profits for a company.
• I could never go ask my CEO to start a project like the ones he recommends, I'd get ridiculed for going against the grain.

Granted, Hamel did point out that maybe 3% of businesses today (circa 1998, although probably still true today) have the type of culture that he discussed, so it's not surprising that so many people responded with skepticism. Most companies still attempt to compete in a model that defends their existing business, extends their current models, and exploits their past loyalty from customers. People don't comprehend this because they don't believe they have experienced it. But the reality is they have experienced it, just from the other side of the fence. Their company's competition have implemented it in banking, telecommunications, manufacturing, media, consulting and high-tech.

It's difficult to be a mid-level (or even executive-level) manager and listen to people like Hamel speak, because you can see the future and yet it feels so difficult to obtain because of all the change needed (inside your company) to get there. It might impact your current role, it might impact your future salary/bonus, it might impact your status within a group. But more importantly, and this is the difficult concept to grasp, is that it's not a matter of "if" but rather a matter of "when" a lack of action will result in value destruction by your company. It's a near certainty that failing to implement an innovation culture within your company will result in failures on a massive scale. So if people are worried about risk, this isn't the risk to be worried about (it's almost 100% certainty - "no risk"). The risk to manage or exploit is how to become part of the upside when the innovation culture (that you're driving) takes off and your company starts creating new value for your customers.

As Hamel points out, sometimes it's good to take an "outside the company" (or industry) viewpoint on change. Here's a good quote from VC Fred Wilson's most recent blog:

"Bliss McCrum, one of the two VCs who taught me the venture business early in my career always said, 'if you are going to put more money into a company that is not working, make sure to change the strategy, team, or cost structure, or all three'. It's good advice. You will not get a different result doing the same thing."