Category — Ideas

Scott Anthony has a piece on Harvard’s Discussion Leaders about the do’s and don’ts of innovation. And I believe this is a key point also in the field of the consulting that we as self-employed individuals tend to do:

Disrupting competitors—following approaches that competitors consider unattractive or uninteresting—is a great thing. Disrupting customers—asking them to put up with solutions that seem worse to them or require behavior changes—is not.

The only small reservation I have is that I do think there are cases where clients need to change their behaviour to succeed and prosper. And we should never be afraid to tell them so.

One of the big risks of being self-employed is to become complacent and embroiled in ones own little world. A world where everything is fantastic, opportunities are endless and the idiots are all the people, who don’t understand how brillant you are.

That’s exactly why it is so important to have an outside perspective on things. Not only on the more personal matters but also on work. Where you are going with what you’re doing and why?

Pat Thornton of The Journalism Iconoclast says it’s “good to have non-wired friends”. And I agree totally. Because amid the passion and excitement it’s always good to have someone asking the hard questions.

To me these are my wife and to a lesser extend my mother. They are really good at it. And I’m profoundly grateful that they do it.

One of the hardest things of managing everything yourself, is that you’re ultimately the one holding yourself accountable for everything. You cannot assign that role to some boss, who will be standing by your desk at the end of a long day unless you’re really productive.

It’s all about not getting distracted doing the things that takes time but doesn’t really contribute towards your business making money or just progress for that matter. And it’s hard.

According to Mike Smith from the Bootstrapping Blog it’s about thinking in black and white: If what you’re doing gets you somewhere with your business, do it. If not, don’t. I specially enjoyed this quote, which says it all:

Do what you need to, when you need to. Do what you want to, when you have time.

Easier said than done. But nonetheless really valuable advice.

One of the best motivations for embarking on something new is to want to make a difference in this world. But however nice an aspiration it may be, as a self-employed individual pushing for change can be hard. There’s only so much you can do, right?

Well, perhaps not. It’s all about the idea.

Look at Joy Apparel for instance. This is a t-shirt company that lets you buy t-shirts, with somebody elses drawn face right at the place of the heart. The idea is to promote peace and understanding across borders by allowing you to use a t-shirt to relate to a complete stranger in a very different way.

It’s all started by this one man: Jeff Woodrow. And this is key. Because Jeff had an idea or a vision about wanting to contribute to change in the world. Admitted, he can’t solve everything, but he’s t-shirts are making a difference to the people who buy and wear them. And in the end that’s all that matters.

(Via Procrastrinating Entrepreneur)

This may sound incredibly stupid to you, but for me, there’s a lot of emotion, ambition and inspiration in the bag.

When I bring my Crumpler bag, I’m laid back, casual, creative - but not too overly focused on stuff. When I bring my high-quality leather bag that Louise bought me for Christmas three years ago, I may not be casual. But I’m focused on getting things done and being in a business mood.

I brought my leather bag today, because I needed it for me to reinforce the drive and commitment towards actually crossing the finish line on several exciting projects, I’m currently working on.

It may be a lot to put in a bag, and you may think it’s stupid. But it works for me.

Spring cleaning is not only something to do at the place, where you live. Its also a great thing to do in your business life. Reassessing goals and ambitions, taking new initiatives, closing down on old ones etc.

Your laptop is also the obvious choice for a bout of spring cleaning. Yesterday I did it for myself. I undocked applications I use very seldom, I deleted applications I never use - and I deleted around 1000 files that were just filling up space. Finally I changed the background picture to a nice ’springy’ one, and voilá; spring cleaning completed.

Now my laptop is lean and mean and focused on bringing to the forefront the tools and files I need for my job. It feels invigorating.

One of the most daunting tasks of being self-employed is to stay focused. It’s so easy to jump along on the next cool idea someone present you with either because you’re curious by nature (which I certainly am) or because you need the money (which - in some cases - I’m guilty of too).

I have long struggled with a way to cope with this and actually get a more systematic approach to what I do and - more importantly - decide NOT to do. I have been thinking about writing it down in the form of a mind map for myself and then call it my strategy, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

But now I may. After reading ‘10 Reasons Why Documentation is a Startup Secret Sauce’ from FoundRead, I’m convinced that the idea about writing things down is excactly right. Because it’s not when everything is peachy that I need to sit down and look at the written commitments I have put to paper. Its when the going gets tough and I need to get reacquited with the original idea and concept behind what I d.

Better get that down on paper ASAP.

This weekend I will be attending JCI Denmarks annual spring conference. In fact I’ll be leaving home in a few minutes from writing this.

Why do I choose to spend valuable times being at conferences without any direct relation to my business? Because I am a very strong believer in exploring new networks and in networking in itself. Because in networking, opportunity has a habit of presenting itself.

Furthermore there’s a value towards approaching networks with seemingly little relevance to your everyday life: You get challenged on your thoughts and ideas. You may struggle with projects, concepts or ideas and miss a piece here and there. And then something somebody says at a seemingly unimportant conference puts everything in perspective. Its a human art, if you ask me. And priceless.

FoundRead has an excellent list of advice on how you maintain your companys original vision, when everyday challenges catch up with you.

I do however think that one very important piece of advice is missing from the list: Applying the KISS principle.

If you Keep It Simple Stupid in your vision statement, it becomes so much easier to keep focus in everyday operations. Hey, maybe you won’t even need the five other pieces of advice, FoundRead offers?