The most successful innovators are consistently portrayed as possessing a passion that borders on dogmatism. They work tirelessly to bend reality to achieve their vision, with Steve Jobs and his “reality distortion field” serving as the prototypical example.

There’s no doubt that passion is a critical component of innovation. After all, innovation is awfully hard work, with plenty of false starts. Rosabeth Moss Kanter teaches that everything can look like a failure in the middle. Mike Tyson puts it another way: “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.” Passion is necessary to keep pushing when the punch inevitably lands.

And without passion it’s hard to do something that’s meaningfully different from what has been done before. It’s next to impossible to prove that a new idea will work. Passion and intuition are necessary ingredients for disruptive success.

Read Full Article in Harvard Business Review.com

Good luck.

Calvin Wilson
Founder and CEO
Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals
calvin.wilson1@verizon.net
http://twitter.com/Upstart__Nation

Upstart: Management

Companies the world over find it tough to turn good ideas into great businesses. That’s partly because, as we all know, organizations and cultures rebel against innovations, especially when they are first conceived. Companies that can protect ideas in their early years usually have a better chance of success.

Take the Vevey-headquartered Nestle, for example, whose Nespresso has become Europe’s leading coffee brand by packing a variety of high quality coffees in aluminum capsules that can be used only with the company’s three types of coffee machines. Executives had to vanquish three

Courtesy: Aleksandr Lobanov/PhotoXpress Free Images

hidden enemies that surfaced before the concept could see the light of day and become the Swiss company’s fastest growing new business in the 2000s.

Nespresso took off when it stopped targeting offices and started marketing itself to households. There was little data on how households would respond to the concept and whatever information was available suggested a perceived consumer value of just 25 Swiss centimes versus a company-wide threshold requirement of 40 centimes. The Nespresso team had to interpet the data skillfully to present a better case to top management. Because it believed strongly in the idea, it forced the company to take a bigger-than-usual risk. If Nestle had gone only by market research — usually innovation’s first enemy — the concept would never have gotten off the ground.

Another enemy Nespresso faced was the incumbent business model. The Nespresso system, a machine and single dose capsules, didn’t fit with the company’s mass-market distribution system. Eventually, Peter Brabeck, Nestle’s CEO, had to create a separate company and locate it in a different building. Only then could the new unit, Nestlè Coffee Specialties, pioneer the mass market household espresso coffee segment and boost Nespresso’s sales.

Nespresso’s third foe was Nestle’s culture, which could have killed the concept. That’s why Brabeck brought in Yannick Lang, a 33-year-old marketer from Philip Morris. Instead of reacting like a typical Nestlè manager, he drove the idea forward any way he could. Being an outsider helped him escape the capability trap; that is, the tendency to repeat what we know and have done in the past. For instance, Lang rejected the idea of selling coffee capsules in supermarkets and started the Nespresso Club. Anyone who purchased a machine became a club member. The club takes orders round the clock over the telephone, and delivers capsules in two days’ time.

Read More:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/04/innovations_hidden_enemies.html

Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals

Upstart: Tech/E-Commerce

Brian Solis is principal of Altimeter Group, a leading research-based advisory firm. Brian is also the author of the all-new Engage!, an award-winning guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web. Follow him on Twitter.

As a consumer, you are blasted with the same request over and over: “Follow Us on Twitter, Like Us on Facebook.” Why should I? What’s in it for me? These are questions of which a significant number of businesses cannot genuinely answer.

Today, a notable number of businesses are approaching branded social channels from a “ready, fire, aim” approach. This method conjures a facade of achievement when in fact, any progress, if at all recognized, is short term and shoddy at best. Many focus on numbers without first analyzing who they’re trying to reach and, more importantly, how engagement satisfies the needs of their customers. Without a mature content and engagement strategy, a great unfollow and unlike movement is inevitable.

The answer is as simple as it is revealing. Create the number of channels that meaningfully extend the focus of your business. Only create channels that enhance the brand message without diluting it. And make sure you have the capacity to keep all the channels relevant.

So what are the best practices for creating an engaging social stream? Let’s take a look at the traits of some of the more successful and regarded brands in the business.

1. Design an Effective Channel Strategy: Evaluate the main brand, sub brands and notable personalities that engender a “follow worthy” or “likable” presence. If there are other accounts that exist beyond the initial strategy, assess their value as a standalone channel and its current state. It may be best to simply truncate accounts or close them all together.

2. Create a Life Support System: Develop an organized framework that supports each presence uniquely. Ensure that each account establishes a rhythm that meets the needs of its audience.

3. Mission and Purpose: Know the audience you’re trying to reach and design a communicable mission and purpose for each account.

4. Develop an Editorial Program: Create an editorial program that addresses the various needs of the social consumer including entertainment, sales, service, engagement, HR, etc. Evoke the new K.I.S.S. (Keep It Significant and Shareable). Create content that’s both engaging, contextually relevant and shareable. Think beyond the basics and use polls, curation, promotional content and questions to your advantage.

5. Construct a Listening Framework: The best listeners make the best conversationalists. Build a listening framework that monitors the brands as well as the distinct conversations related to each account.

6. Establish Conversational Workflow: Each account requires an information path and workflow. They also require bridges between them to ensure that every representative is informed and that the right delegates within the business are on point to engage or respond accordingly.

7. Formulate a Decision Tree: Draft a clear flowchart that details the steps for a variety of “if this happens, then do this” situations. This is designed to help representatives follow a defined path for the real-time nature of engagement.

8. Initiate a Training Program: Representatives will require ongoing training to stay sharp and focused. Every engagement either reinforces or takes away from the brand experience. As technology moves faster than our ability to master its lessons, training keeps employees on track.

Read More:

http://mashable.com/2011/04/28/14-best-practices-for-long-term-social-media-success/

Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals

Face it. Nothing will go as planned. Ever.

Failure is inevitable. Your world will be flipped upside-down on a daily basis, and even the best-laid plans–accompanied by the best intentions–can go belly-up.

To make it as a business owner in the real world, you need to learn to fail like a pro, adapt at will and pay attention to detail in order to make informed decisions that will keep your business moving forward. Your ability to plan for the worst-case scenario and maneuver around unforeseen circumstances will be the keys to finding success as your own boss.

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Matt Wilson is a young entrepreneur who knows a thing or two about failure. He’s hustling it out like the rest of us and created a company, Under30CEO, to provide tools and resources to help aspiring entrepreneurs drop their 9-to-5 and take control of their lives. Under30CEO has helped countless people overcome adversity, avoid catastrophe and survive failure.

What was your biggest failure as a young entrepreneur?
MW: My biggest failure as an entrepreneur came at Under30CEO after wavering from our mission of inspiring young entrepreneurs. We were frustrated because our market wasn’t buying what we had to sell, so we took on an enormous re-branding campaign and changed the name of our company to incorporate a larger audience and drop our under-30 demographic. We spent a lot of time and money trying to expand our market. Still, nobody bought.

It doesn’t matter how big your market is if nobody likes your product. It wasn’t the market’s fault. Our product was bad, and we ruined our brand and had to start from scratch. The most embarrassing part was going back to our old brand and apologizing to our old customers we wanted to welcome back.

That being said, now we spend a lot more time getting to know our market instead of trying to sell anything to anyone. We were in a hurry to turn cash-flow-positive when we needed to stay focused and be patient.

Are there specific obstacles young entrepreneurs need to overcome vs. older generations?
The biggest thing for a young entrepreneur to overcome is credibility. Why should someone invest in you? Why should someone trust your advice? What will make people think you will get the job done with no track record? Building credibility is best done with a stepping-stone approach. Do one thing today that will make you more credible tomorrow. If people won’t pay you or invest in you, give away your product or service for free, get testimonials from customers and build your track record that way. Show customers what value you can provide them, and if you can quantify that value, even better. The more things you can come to the table to brag about, the better.

What about some typical missteps you’ve seen young entrepreneurs make?
One of the biggest mistakes young entrepreneurs make is neglecting their revenue model. Today there are so many businesses that haven’t figured out how to monetize themselves yet. To me, the word monetize is redundant in business. If you don’t have a business model, you aren’t really in business–it’s just a hobby. Sure, investors are dropping millions of dollars into companies with hopes of being acquired by Google, but without a solid business model behind it, you are just building “castles in the sky.”

Seasoned investors and accomplished entrepreneurs can help mentor young people to overcome this hurdle. Show them your financials and focus on how to generate cash flow. There are thousands of people out there who want to see young people succeed–you just need to ask.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who hate their 9-to-5s?
Aspiring entrepreneurs need to surround themselves with others who want more out of life than the typical 9-to-5. There is a great group of motivated people eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every night in your city, scraping by to build their business. Surrounding yourself with these types of people gives you the confidence to know you aren’t alone on the road to success. The minute you quit your job, naysayers will come out of the woodwork, but if you have that support group to fall back on, you’ll be able to overcome the hard times.

Remember, entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint.

How has Under30CEO.com helped young entrepreneurs avoid failure and launch successful businesses?
More than 100 young entrepreneurs from all over the globe have shared their successes and failures on Under30CEO.com. Hearing insights from young people overcoming the same problems they are experiencing in their businesses allows Gen Y to come together and learn from one another. The community has a culture of reaching out to one another and helping each other with the challenges they are facing.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/youngentrepreneurscolumnistscottgerber/article207582.html