Entrepreneurship and Innovation Today

Innovation directly tied to profits and stockholder value-Innovation revival at Xerox & Mastering the "Art of Customer Delight"

In at story just published by Fortune Magazine called "Xerox's inventor-in-chief An innovation revival has lifted profits to $1.2 billion." we get Fortune's Geoff Colvin asking CTO Sophie Vandebroek about the innovation revival at Xerox and  if the company can keep it up?

Fortune starts off:

If all goes as scheduled, President Bush will hand Xerox's Sophie Vandebroek the National Medal of Technology at the White House in late July.  It will be a sweet moment for her and for a company that was built on a world-changing innovation - xerography - but that lost its way for a while in the Digital Revolution.

The story of how Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s failed to capitalize fully on two of the most critical elements of the personal computer - the graphical user interface and the mouse - has become legend.  In 2000, then-CEO Paul Allaire admitted that the company's business model didn't work anymore - a conclusion Wall Street had already reached.  A year later Xerox's innovation ranking among its peers plunged to tenth (i.e., last) on Fortune's annual list of America's Most Admired Companies. (see chart in article comparing innovation ranking and stock price)

[…]

Recent years have been better.  At a shade less than $16 billion, revenues have not changed much since 2003, but Xerox (Charts, Fortune 500) has increased profits every year, added $7 billion in market cap, and more than tripled its profit margins.

One key to the turnaround: Xerox has become an innovation power again, producing new technologies that can read, understand, route, and protect documents, among other things.

Fortune's Geoff Colvin asks CTO Sophie Vandebroek: Innovation may be the hottest topic in business.  How can it be a competitive advantage for Xerox?

Sophie Vandebroek replies: It's a matter of making sure that our customers constantly want to buy our products and services.  Ultimately innovation is about delighting the customer, and that results in great economic returns for Xerox.  If you innovate and it doesn't end up as something that the customer benefits from, then it's not innovation.

Fortune's Geoff Colvin asks: How does Xerox make sure that what it comes up with is not just what the engineers think is cool but what customers actually want?

"It's tough, replies Sophie Vandebroek.  "Innovation has two elements." 

"No.  1, there is the creative piece, the "Aha!"  Moment.  These are our own scientists and researchers and engineers, and our partners.  A lot of what we do early on is dreaming and innovating with the customers.  These are the early moments of understanding and seeing what nobody else has seen before that could result in a great product or service." 

"The second piece is the "intrapreneurial" role within Xerox, making sure that this creative idea goes through the whole value chain and becomes the right product for the customer."

Full story here>> […]

Want to know how to continuously delight your customers? Innovation is not a mysterious "hit and miss event" as the above article suggests. There's a tried and true process that focuses in on the cognitive (thinking) skills behind "customer delight" and brilliant strategic thinking in general. It's a process that most entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs can master in less then an afternoon, but that most MBA, business or design schools don't teach. Tools such as "attribute maps" can help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs design blockbuster products and services. The big secret here is that most small and nible firms are better at this then their larger less-agile cousins.

......Invest in your own thinking skills and become a brilliant strategic entrepreneurial thinker.

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko"
• .......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead
• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Innovation in Small Project-Based Firms

The notion of sustainable competitive advantage is increasingly interwoven with the ability of  firms to successfully create, manage and exploit appropriate innovation--so goes the logic.

People generally have a sense that SME's view innovation differently from large established firms. Yet most of the research and textbooks on innovation focus on large incumbents (the Google's and Microsoft's of the world) and not on the small startup.

In  a recent 2006 British Journal of Management issue, we see a article titled: Innovation in Small, Project-Based Construction Firms  by Peter Barrett and Martin Sexton who are at the Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment, University of Salford, The Old Fire Station, Salford, M5 4WT, UK

They shed some light on innovation in the UK design and construction industry which could be transfered to  project-based SME's in other industry sectors.

Abstract (English):

"Relevant literature is synthesized to provide a holistic picture of our current knowledge of innovation in small, project-based firms, highlighting significant gaps in the broad areas of ‘focus and outcome’, ‘organizational capabilities’, ‘context’ and ‘process’. 

The following three issues appear to be significant gaps in the literature:

• What is the general strategic focus for innovation, or definition of innovation, for small, project-based firms? 
• What is the general motivation for small, project-based firms to innovate? 
• What are common innovation outcomes in small, project-based firms?

Research findings from fieldwork focused on the [design and] construction industry are offered to address these gaps.  In particular, a consensus model is given of the organizational factors dynamically at play.  It is shown that typically the innovations of small, project-based firms are closely tied to their operational activities and are pushed forward by owners who utilize very scarce resources to make progress in the interstices of normal business.  This leads to an emphasis on taking up established technologies through ‘learning on the job’.  Growth per se is not an important target.  The motivation to act is generally to get past a survival mode of operating and to achieve stability by satisfying clients. 

These characteristics contrast with large organizations, especially in terms of the role of the owner, the close focus on niche markets and the lack of slack resources to innovate in parallel with normal business.  It is hoped that these results will be of interest to other sectors where small, project-based firms operate."

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko"
• .......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead
• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Boosting Britain's Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs

Great Britain's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has recently announced creation of a new Ethnic Minority Business Task Force to help boost business ownership among Great Britain's ethnic minorities and to help existing businesses achieve faster growth rates.  As in the US, Britain's minorities face some unique hurdles when trying to start or grow a new business.  Recent DTI-sponsored research that British minority business owners are more likely to be rejected for business finance and to be discouraged from applying for outside financing in the first place.

Survey findings include:

• Ethnic minority-owned businesses pay higher bank loan charges than White-owned businesses, on average;
• The gap between the amounts of business finance sought and the amounts agreed is significantly greater for Black African and Pakistani-owned businesses;
• Black African and Black Caribbean-owned businesses are much more likely than Indian, Pakistani and White-owned businesses, to be rejected for loans outright;
• Black African and Black Caribbean owned businesses are significantly more likely to feel discouraged from applying for finance than Indian, Pakistani and White-owned businesses;

Some of these differences may be the result of market forces, but researchers have found that other factors may also be at play.  The Task Force's job is to assess the role of these additional factors and to offer recommendations for closing the finance gap.

Learn more about Great Britain's new Ethnic Minority Business Task Force. 

The 263 page survey, 'Finance For Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises: Comparisons of Ethnic Minority And White-Owned Businesses' is available here.

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko"
• .......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead
• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Working for your Kids?

More and more retirement-age executives are taking jobs at their children's companies. Senior writer Anne Fisher, at Fortune Magazine has a few interesting family business profiles on June 21 2007-a reversal from the traditional appoach-kids who work for dad or mom.

Abstract (Document Summary)

"Going to work for one of your kids, as more and more retirement-age executives are doing, is a challenge.  It requires a huge psychological shift on both sides, and experts say that many an enterprise has gone down in flames because parents and their children can't shed old habits and adopt new, businesslike roles.  Most entrepreneurs with a parent in their employ admit to experiencing deja vu, especially if the employee is also a stockholder.  Because her dad owns 25% of her company, Marissa Shipman says sometimes when she needs to spend money to launch a new product, it reminds her of being a kid asking her dad for allowance money.  [...] Robert Shipman sold his clothing manufacturing company that had $130 million in annual sales and retired in 1980, at age 45.  Today Shipman works for his daughter Marissa, 28, who started a cosmetics company called the Balm in 2003"

[...]

"Plenty of parents know they need to back off and let the kid run the company, but they just don't know how.  Ira Bryck, director of the Family Business Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, recommends learning a new way of making suggestions that he calls strategic questioning.  The deadliest power struggles, it seems, occur between fathers and sons.  Some families work out private code words for defusing the stress of an argument.  Having performance objectives from the get-go can make a huge difference."

Full story in Fortune here>>[...]

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

How to convince an investor to back your startup? What's missing in your pitch?

At some point, most entrepreneurs will need to go out and look for money for their business startup. Look at any pop management or business magazine or newspaper column on small business or entrepreneurship. Sooner or later you are bound to run across an article on how to craft a winning proposal to bankers, angels or VC’s. You’ve seen those headlines…10 steps to a dynamite business plan.

The problem with most of these stories, is that they are nothing more then stories.

Compare any 5 random articles, and you’ll notice no common rhyme or reason. They are all over the map. Each will have a different set of priorities and a different focus, based most often on the whim of the writer, consultant or journalist. What likely happened is that the story started out with 12-15 priorities and the editor told the writer that they only had room for 10. You have to wonder what got cut and why?

Rarely will these articles refer to any credible academic research  ie what are investors ie bankers, VC’s and angels really looking for, when they are deciding to invest their money in your company?

The following quote offers a hint on what to stress the most.

The Venture Capitalist’s Maxim

I’d rather have a Class A entrepreneur with a Class B idea

Than  a Class A idea with  a Class B entrepreneur

While most entrepreneurs will intuitively rank and stress the business plan as the  most important thing that professional investors are looking for, most VC and Angels rate it as number 6, way down the list

I’ve seen too many business proposals that largely ignore the profiles of the management team or hide it at the end of a report in the appendix, instead of trumpeting it front and center. One piece of yet unpublished academic research cites up to 30 points that a savyy VC or Angel will look for in a management team. Many of these points are often forgotten or ignored by the novice entrepreneur in their pitch to angels and VC's.

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Business Survival Rates in Canada

The way the mainstream media reports on SME business creation/survival is highly biased and skewed. The press likes to report on the wild success stories and ignores the all-to-real failures, which gives the general public and budding entrepreneurs a false sense of hope and security, ignoring the stark reality of small business life in the first 5 years of existance.

Here are the bare facts that you won't see in the media every day, as reported by Canadian designer, John Arnott at a recent Design Exchange annual conference:

• 140,000 new firms started in Canada (2004)
• 130,000 businesses closed
• Net 10,000 new firms, creating between 20,000-100,000 new jobs
• Only 10% of new companies survive
• 25% < 2 yrs,
• 36% > 5,
• 20% > 10
• If we could change that to 20% from 10%  it would add $6 billion to the economy

Blog reader Gray Hammond also reminds us of a Strategis web site with a title: How many businesses appear and disappear each year? at strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/sbrp-rppe.nsf/vwapj/KSBS_July2006_Eng.pdf/ The above failure rate has a number of implications, least of which is a 90% loss of your customer base annually, if you play in the busines to business (B2B) space or if you are a bank, lending money to them. Want to improve you chances of SME success? ...keep reading this blog and enrole in the new University of Toronto Certificate program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Success in Business? The Big Secret? Good Design

If I told you there was a simple strategy to improve your chances of success in business against your competition by 200%, that was available to both small business and large established business incumbents, would you believe me? No you are right. I wouldn't either.

But there is.

The secret is....ready for this? Good design.

In a presentation by Doug MacLeod titled Design, Economy & Policy: Towards a More Effective Canadian Design Sector;  at a Roundtable Meeting, June 14, 2007 of the Canadian Design Research Network (CDRN), that I was invited to, Doug offered research from the UK Design Counsil that shows that companies that incorporate good design into their products or services, over a ten year period outperformed their competition that had mediocre or no design elements in their offerings by 200%, both in good times and bad recessionary times. Specifically 63 companies identified as effective users of design (called the Design Index) outperformed the UK FTSE 1000 index over the full 10 year period by 200% .

...and here we are talking about all designs stripes ranging from product/industrial or fashion design to interior design to landscaping or architecture or graphic design etc.

Canadian designer John Arnott adds a side note to the above

Walter,

"The studies that Doug quoted were from the London School of Business and are quite old; late 80’s I think.  I mention this because from my reading, I suspect (but don’t have proof) that today the returns may be far more substantial.  Look at a company like Apple (clearly exceptional) which I used as one case study in my course.  Literally everything is well designed and I mean everything, including behaviour.  This is what I call ‘Touch Point Control’.  They are a marvelous example of what can be achieved with a relatively small team of designers (20) when the CEO is committed.  The shareholders should be ecstatic as the value of the firm has doubled in the last year and is projected by Business Week to double again in the next two years.  And this is from a company that is using off-the-shelf technology that is available to all its competitors!  Design can be very powerful when properly executed."

John.

JOHN ARNOTT.  IDSA, DMI President STRATEGIC DESIGN MANAGEMENT

So, is Canada a design-intensive economy? Well, NO.

According to statistics presented by John Arnott, at the DX annual conference, a full 88 % of Canadians businesses do not use or create any form of new technology, therefore they are unlikely to be big design employers. Furthermore, of the ones that do, all the studies I've seen that ask entrepreneurs where they go for good business ideas, never once have I seen a study that mentions "designers" as a primary source of inspiration. Then, what do the 12% of the firms use when creating new products?-well mostly your in-house engineer, who may or may not be trained in design. We seem to have two solitudes-SME's and designers, who like oil and water don't mix. We need a new social innovation - a"social emulsifier" to get these two groups talking to each other.

It's a shame. According to Richard Florida, Ontario already has one of the biggest regional clusters of creative people, which includes the design profession, and they all seem to be so under-used and under-appreciated.

The other myth  is that only large companies can afford good design talent. That's not true. Small startups can always work with students designers who are still in school, and who are always looking for real world experience to complete class projects and assignments (example Vertical Farming)

For every dollar invested, banking returns 1.4; computing returns 1.47 design returns 1.76 ...an increase of 26% over banking and 20% over computing, according to the CDRN and  International Enterprise (IE) in Singapore .

Final word?

I can't think of a better business case -200% to take a designer out to lunch and explore new business opportunties together. Want some introductions? call me.

...and with Canada falling behind in global competitivenes from 6th in the world in 1999 to 16th spot in 2006, we need all the "creative edge" that's out there.  When I was speaking at VTT in Helsinki last year I was told that Finland, with a population of only 5 million people, ranks fourth in the world in terms of innovation and second in the world in terms of overall global competitiveness. Canada ranks 13 and 16 respectively. What's on the horizon? In 2000, China only produced some 1500 industrial designers annually. By 2005 China was producing over 10,000 industrial designers with 400 schools offering design courses

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; U of T, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Marketing that Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to any Sized Company-Book Review

Summer Reading Suggestions for the Savvy Entrepreneur

Marketing that Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to any Sized Company

by Leonard M. Lodish, Howard L. Morgan, and Shellye Archambeau (Wharton School Publishing, 2007)

The authors bring a wealth of experience to this review of the latest thinking about marketing. Lodish is a long-time Wharton school professor, and Morgan and Archambeau both have diverse private sector experience as entrepreneurs and investors. They use the term “entrepreneurial marketing” to refer to an approach that is flexible, responsive, and unorthodox. This is a very helpful guide for entrepreneurs seeking to improve their marketing skills

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007.

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The Entrepreneurial Society-Book Review

Summer Reading Suggestions for the Savvy Entrepreneur

The Entrepreneurial Society

By David Audretsch (Oxford University Press, 2007)

David Audretsch is well-known in academic circles for numerous articles and papers on the entrepreneurial economy.  In The Entrepreneurial Society, he presents a compelling statement of how entrepreneurship has helped drive America to global financial leadership.  He contends that the entrepreneurial economy represents a strategic response to the growing importance of knowledge as the key factor in economic success.  In the past, capital and labor were the key ingredients for prosperity.  Today, knowledge capital and entrepreneurship capital have assumed a more pre-eminent role.

Source: Certificate program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which startes in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days-Book Review

Summer Reading Suggestions for the Savvy Entrepreneur

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
by Jessica Livingston, (Apress, 2007)

The best way to learn about the challenges of a start-up business is to go out there and do it yourself. But if you’re not ready to take the entrepreneurial leap, this book offers another peek into life at a start-up. Founders at Work is a compilation of interviews with founders of technology companies, such as Apple, Hotmail, PayPal, and Adobe. The 32 interviews provide useful information and maybe some inspiration, too

Source: Certificate Program in Entrepreneurship & Innovation; U of T, School of Continuing Studies, St George Campus.

© 2005-2007 

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

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