Category Archives: Small business
Never take NO

Never take “no” from someone who does not also have the power to say “yes”. – Eleanor Roosevelt I’m inspired by this, and I often focus the topic of efficacy: ie, our understanding of our capacity to Get Stuff ….»
JIT training

Just in Time (JiT) education & training is ” … the negotiated provision, in corporate (or community) workplaces, of learner-generated immediate skill formation.”* It’s a little like automobile manufacture. Car plants don’t have warehourses full of wheels and windscreens ….»
Profit and value creation

… The fundamental mission of a business (is) not profit, but value creation. It sees profit as a vital consequence of value creation – a means rather than an end, a result as opposed to a purpose. The Loyalty ….»
Business models

Business models! There are a hundred ways to skin a cat. I see businesses of certain kinds, like retailers, folding everywhere. It’s not just bookshops any more, it’s pretty much everyone, any high-street-model-reseller. Once 3D printers come of age, ….»
Altruism in business

A kind of dog-eat-dog mindset seems to be at the heart of many business cultures, capitalism framed as ‘looking after number one’, and if that has to happen at the expense of another, then sorry, it’s just business. I ….»
What you measure is what you get

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. – Milton Friedman I ….»
Entry level entrepreneurs are older

At Edgeware, and in my private practice, we’re moving toward a customer base that is distinctly older. Baby Boom = Entrepreneurship Boom The U.S. may be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom because of its aging population. In the ….»
Signs of Creeping Entrepreneurship

Since the 90’s there has been a tsunami of studies and treatises and papers about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs; the field has been burgeoning as a subject of research – in other words, as the term gains currency and academics ….»
Persistence

A number of Edgeware presenters, and writers on entrepreneurship generally, emphasise the value of persistence, of constant striving and application to your business goals. But if you feel you’re not strongly inclined this way, how might you develop this core ….»
Johnny Bunko’s six lessons

Ever read a business book in manga comic format? That’s what Dan Pink and the illustrator Rob Ten Pas have achieved, and it’s a cracker. Edgeware has used the book as a discussion point for some time now, and feedback ….»
Cash flow

If I’m a business educator and I’m trying to convince you that an MBA is worth two years of your life and AUD60,000, it’s in my interest for you to understand business as complex, difficult and arcane, isn’t it? The ….»
How trees grow

It sounds counter-intuitive that, while a tree is rooted in the ground, it actually feeds on what it extracts from the air. I think this is a compelling metaphor for business (and life, if it comes to it): we ….»
Love signals real

In this Age of Metaphor, love will be the signal of real. One of the ways we will know when a thing has passed from “as-if” to “is” is when it earns unalloyed love from humans. Kevin Kelly, As ….»
What do accountants count?

We think we make rational economic decisions. We don’t. Our decisions are driven by intangible values of which we may not be aware, or about which we may not care. ‘Radical accountant’ Baruch Lev, along with others, is ….»
After a certain point, money is
meaningless

Just for fun, here are some thoughts from much better heads than ours … A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. Henry Ford After a certain point money is meaningless. It ceases to ….»
Networks, niches, hives, tribes

Maybe you’ve seen the formulaic scroller websites that harvest your email address in order to receive something ‘free’ and go on to sell you strategies for making a million on the internet. Pretty lowest common denominator stuff, and it works. ….»
Edgeware’s Build Your Business

Edgeware’s Build Your Business program is an alternative to business education for new entrepreneurs, and for entrepreneurs who want to re-imagine or grow their businesses. Each time it runs, it changes, because the needs of participants and the dynamics ….»
Podcast on Ethical Entrepreneurship

I’m pretty new to the world of podcasting, but I found this interview refreshing in that Cameron Reilly, the owner-operator of the G’Day World Podcasting Network, allowed time to really explore and flesh out ideas in a way that ….»
Speaking at the Hive
I was asked to give a short talk at a Brisbane networking function called The Hive on 30 June 09, on the topic of ‘entrepreneurship’. The talk was filmed, and video is now on Youtube, but to save the bother ….»
Business Ethics

Business ethics is an important field for Edgeware because it’s in the ‘change the world’ bit of our DNA. You don’t ‘adopt’ ethical practices; you can’t operate without ethics, even if you couldn’t name them and you don’t have a ….»
Speaking at the Brisbane Ideas Festival
I was invited to convene a session at the Brisbane Ideas Festival in March 2009, a panel on the topic of Creative Entrepreneurs: The Artists of Commerce. I selected a group of Edgies from a variety of businesses and a ….»
What a Coach Does

I think a coach does four things: 1. Mentoring – a coach should have the capacity to empathise, and to relate the coaching experience to his or her own mind-set, world view and direct experience of analogous situations and contexts. ….»
Generosity

I can think of four things to say about generosity. It’s a quality of behaviour which requires very little in the way of resources but which has enormous power to influence and change things, beginning with yourself. Firstly, generosity is ….»
The Value Proposition

“… The fundamental mission of a business (is) not profit, but value creation. It sees profit as a vital consequence of value creation – a means rather than an end, a result as opposed to a purpose.” Frederick F. Reichheld, ….»
Physician, heal thyself

A working hypothesis: every coach needs a coach. Like every shrink needs a shrink. Something about keeping yourself honest, setting up a sounding board for reflection on the practice, shrugging off the Mantle of the Expert (something I learned from ….»