SustainableWork

One of our major utilities recently brought in an unusual economic development specialist from Colorado named Chris Gibbons to give presentations in our area.

I wasn't able to attend, but I've been reading about Chris' work since he was here. His approach is one of 'Economic Gardening'. This approach emphasizes the creation of support programs that focus on growing local entrepreneurs in smart, low-cost ways. They do this by creating attractive, entrepreneurial communities. In essence, grow your own economic development from the inside out.

Here is how Chris summarizes it on the Littleton, CO, website where he is Director of their economic development activities: "We are more convinced than ever that our fundamental concept (entrepreneurs drive economies) is right and that healthy communities have a healthy base of entrepreneurs."

As a long time entrepreneur who has worked with business assistance programs of all kinds, I'm in a good place to highly recommend Chris Gibbons' work. As someone who has developed and taught my own curriculum for successfully launching micro-enterprises, I strongly agree with his conclusions.

This is a time of terrible economic news. The macro-economics of the world economy are under historic strains. There seems to be more difficulty with every new headline.

Yet we will come through this. Hurt and battered in many cases, but the cycle will continue on its way until we let another bubble get big enough to burst again.

What has changed permanently, I believe, is the sense of trust many of us felt leaving our economic security entirely in the hands of others.

The Economic Gardening approach to business development is to stop chasing any old big-is-better outside solution. The idea is to quit throwing money at businesses development, but rather, create communities in which creative new enterprises of all kinds can thrive. Help entire communities become more entrepreneurial. Help startups of ALL kinds. When some of those startups turn into 'gazelles', or faster growing organizations, help them plug into the next steps.

Chris calls this kind of sustainable development 'the edge of chaos': "This term describes the area between stability and chaos, where innovation and survival are most likely to take place. As a way to think about these regimes, consider what form H2O takes in each. In the frozen regime, it would be ice. In the stable regime, it would be water. In the chaotic regime, it would be steam."

Yes, yes, yes. Through the years I have seen peers vaporize wonderful companies because they could not control the chaos. I have seen other friends stay frozen in place because they did not have the constitution or the support to innovate.

What I teach in my micro enterprise courses is that you should launch your own startup as soon as possible. The idea is to invest in yourself to help gain some measure of financial control over your own life. This is especially true in times of economic trouble like we have with us now.

I teach my startup entrepreneurs and small businesses that running your own enterprise will be a giant lesson in making mistakes. If you haven't thrown a ton of money at your business, you can - and should - make as many mistakes as quickly as possible. They will be invaluable and inexpensive with this approach.

Here is what Chris Gibbons says on the subject:

"We came to equate the edge of chaos (success) with lots of changes and experimentation and lots of little mistakes. It seemed like the mistakes that accompanied the process of innovation were like earthquakes: if you don't have lots of little ones, you end up with a big one. We read a study out of Dallas that indicated the most vibrant economies (in terms of producing jobs and wealth) were highly unstable in the sense that they had the highest rate of business start ups and business deaths. This turbulence also looked like an economy operating at the edge of chaos."

The current state of Economic Gardening relies on 3 major approaches to creating successful economic development from the inside out. They are information, infrastructure, and connections. Notice they don't include throwing money at the issue. Those days are over.

Information refers to the capture and sharing of as much valuable data with entrepreneurs as is possible. Chris in Littleton, CO says he spends about three-quarters of his agencies time providing tactical and strategic information. Amazing.

Infrastructure refers to building sustainable, supportive communities that attract and retain entrepreneurs. It also refers to building intellectual infrastructure; that is, making world class ideas and resources available to local firms and the local community through local courses and training.

The emphasis on connections means that economic development and innovation are driven by the ability to connect with people and talent outside of your immediate area of knowledge. In my own region, this means the ability to plug into the University, the Technical College system, great regional and national economic development organizations, and my own favorite, our wonderful Inventor and Entrepreneur Clubs.

The economic headlines are awful lately. This is not a time to get into the fetal position and hide. It is a time to begin building more economic security into your own life and into the life of our regional communities.

Starting and growing your own sustainable business is a step you should take. In spite of the headlines, there has never been a better time to do it.


Chris Gibbons' story about economic gardening

Labels: bootstrapping, business plans, databases, entrepreneurship, new product development, The slow start up movement

That headline is a quote from Medal of Freedom winner Dr. Peter Drucker.

I believe his statement is life-and-death true for startups and emerging enterprises, as well as the rest of the economy.

And it sounds so simple to execute. Measure the important stuff, then manage the important stuff.

However, for people I call independent entrepreneurs - venture capital folks often call them solo entrepreneurs - this can be painful to hear.

It's not so much as a 'Duh!' moment, as it is a Homer Simpson, 'Doh!' moment.

How can you measure anything when you can't find it? How can you ever trust your conclusions when you're not sure you've found it all? That's not management, that's sleepless nights stuff.

I have self-interest in this post.

I released the very first beta copy of Diligence™ last night. This is my new tool for organizing enterprise workflow I wrote about several posts back. Yikes, am I excited.

Here is the premise behind this tool…

Small enterprises of all kinds need to measure and manage their business accurately.

There is contact management software to add people to your digital rolodex.

There is accounting software to take care of your financials.

There are many, many details in between. All of it is critical to your being able to survive and grow as an enterprise.

And where do we, as startups and small businesses keep all of those details?

We all have our systems. This is good. But as we grow, we begin to patch our systems. Then we patch some more. Pretty soon our system is nothing but patches.

I've personally done this. To epic proportions. It's just what you do.

Some of our information is in text files, some is in eMail, some in spreadsheets, some in piles on the desk, some in file drawers, some in our notebooks, some in our contacts files, and on and on. As our businesses grow, the real number of storage locations is typically many more than these. It just happens over time.

Pretty soon, nothing is connecting to anything, and what is connecting is wrong and giving you fits.

That's why I'm calling this new tool 'enterprise workflow software'.

I've carried a story around with me about a certain class of very successful retail businesses that would first buy their software, then build the business around that. The idea was that you put the tools in place as soon as possible so that your enterprise has the capability of growing without crashing. You want to avoid dieing in the details of a patched up mess. Yet, that's an all-to-common path.

Doing your own business should be a lot easier.

That's why I've written this new tool I'm calling Diligence™

Whenever you're ready you can put your enterprise into this tool. Then, as Peter Drucker sorta says, you measure and you manage. Then repeat.

Diligence™ lets you capture all that random workflow data and organize it easily. The purpose of the tool is to make it efficient to store, search, use and measure your business information on demand.

This is intentionally NOT accounting software. There are many good options we all use for that.

I've built this tool for everything that comes before the accounting software kicks in.

Diligence™ is a powerful contacts manager (that's not nearly enough). It can also create and track orders and all the many associated details. Create quotes and bids and efficiently store critical business details. It manages your vendors and all their specific information. It gives you a place to efficiently organize all those small details that always end up being critical when you can't find them.

Most important of all, with a bow to Peter Drucker, the new tool lets you measure this stuff.

Organize. Measure. Learn. Manage better. Repeat.

I've had my biz running in this new tool for about 2 months now. Shaving off burrs, looking for breaks, making it simple, etc. It's certainly an early iteration, but I'm really loving it. This is the first embodiment of what I've learned building new businesses over the last 35 years.

It's in a tool that's as simple and easy-to-use as a big-button calculator.

So, I've been the alpha test and I'm a tough judge. The beta test started last night Feb. 1, '08.

I chose my beta very specifically because (1) she is doing her own independent entrepreneur startup and (2) she is an expert in business database software.

I'd love to tell you some early results, but this post would be too long. It's a great story. My favorite piece of the tool wasn't working, of course. But we didn't care because we were both so happy with the first results. I fixed my favorite part and got some great feedback.

I don't think I'm going to write much about this new tool any longer on this blog. I'd like to keep SustainableWork as focused on entrepreneurship support as much as possible.

I'm going to start writing specifically about Diligence™ on a blog linked to my day job, Business Diligence. I'll link below, and put a permanent link into the settings on the top right.

Whew. The beta is underway.


Wikipedia for Dr. Peter Drucker

The new blog for Diligence™

Labels: bootstrapping, databases, entrepreneurship, startups

This post is directed to first time start ups or seed stage enterprises looking to get smarter about doing commerce as fast as possible.

I'm only afraid of what I don't know. This supports my conclusion that I have every reason to be paranoid.

Approaching your first start up enterprise – and again, this is for folks that don’t have much experience with this – there can be a lot of unknown and potentially scary new stuff in front of you.

There is good and bad in that.

Butterflies in your stomach are good. Not being able to store and retrieve all your enterprise information all the time is bad.

To make those butterflies work for your benefit, you need to get them flying in formation. Same with your data.

If you can’t get to all your enterprise information in real time, you’re screwed. Be afraid.

Spreadsheets only help you plan for all the ‘what ifs’. Planning and spreadsheet work has a place, of course, but it can’t stop there.

Spreadsheets don’t help you when the phone rings.

You’ll need information management. You’ll need databases.

People create enterprises without databases and without data capture processes in place all the time, thinking they can grow into that level of management when the time comes.

It reminds me of walking the plank in pirate movies. Probably some survived, but I wouldn’t volunteer.

A sustainable enterprise is one that can create repeatable value.

Repeatable processes require the highest quality, customized data management tools you can create for yourself.

Create for yourself? Yes, it’s easy, so hurry the hell up. The world of databases awaits you.

You can start your databases in your notebooks. These work if that’s what you need to begin with. I’ve started nice sustainable enterprises with notebook databases then morphed those into computer databases when appropriate.

Making your own, personalized computer databases is easy when you use the right tools.

There are a number of products out there to let you make your own databases. I cut my teeth on the late, great HyperCard from Apple. Bought my first copy in 1988. I didn’t even know it was called a data base program. I thought it was some kind of tool that would let you create places in your computer to store your stuff digitally. Did it ever. Bless that HyperCard team, especially Bill Atkinson.

I currently use FileMaker. It’s a simple, easy to learn, make-your-own-databases tool. It works across all platforms. You can print out any kind of report you can dream up. You can eMail your files, so working with partners remotely is simple. Your library may have a manual you can look through.

What is most useful to me about databases in general and FileMaker in particular, is the ability to create simple, easy to understand layouts for entering and managing your information.

The beauty of this is that databases allow you to enter your information once and then reuse it a zillion times in a zillion ways without ever reentering that same data ever again.

If you visit the FileMaker web site, don’t be daunted by their shiny, high end, new stuff. The kitchen door into FileMaker works fine and their core product / core value stuff gives start ups the kind of info management tools you can build on forever. There is a free 30 day trial you can download from the FileMaker site.

Because databases are customizable, they allow you to continuously improve your data capture and reporting techniques.

Getting control of that ‘stuff’, that information flow through your enterprise is like watching a really great sunrise that never quits. It just gets more and more beautiful as time goes on. The idea is to get out in front of the data flow with your ability to manage it through databases.

Sustainable = repeatable. Repeatable = data control.

Databases make you faster, smarter and much, much more efficient. Don’t wait until the phone rings to get your new enterprise organized.

The ability to organize information creates sustainable enterprises. Get your plan and your databases in place.

Get smart first. Smart ups before start ups.


FileMaker site

Wikipedia HyperCard

The quote about the butterflies flying in formation is from a Professor who taught at Dominican University, (Illinois) during the 1950s. Will cite her when I can find her name.

Labels: databases, startups

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In the world of enterprise there are not a lot of answers.

The only one I can put on my list with any certainty is this: When something REALLY works, keep doing it. Then keep doing it better every day. When something doesn't work, well, you get the idea.

Unfortunately, all the rest seems to fall in between. Things work and you push them. You find limits. You work the limits to the best of your ability and finances. When you beat those limits down to a manageable size, you're getting within reach of REALLY works territory.

That's when you get to switch from working hard and smart to working harder and smarter. However, you get to do it on your terms, not those dictated by the problem.

There are certainly guidelines, if not answers, to how good sustainable enterprises get welded together and stay afloat. That's what I've been trying to talk about in these posts. My general point is, if you want answers, you'd better like the looking.

That's the temperament I'd recommend in approaching any start up or start up type project, even when it's within a big outfit.

Look for answers, but look very carefully at how you look. Think about what you should look at and how you look at what you find. How are you going to measure what you find? If you're smart, you'll be doing this a bit differently, and hopefully, a bit smarter all the time.

Data is key, but picking what you look at, and how you look at it is much more important. Then, my friend, learn to enjoy that process. Because, if you don't control the data, you're not going to enjoy your enterprise very much.

Answers are never readily available. Your role as a start up or a sustainable enterprise is to ask better and better questions all the time.

You can do that by controlling as much of the data as you can regarding your enterprise. Then, as you think of better questions, you can use your ability to get at all your information immediately. The success of your enterprise depends on your ability to reshuffle your data to get increasingly meaningful answers to your increasingly better questions.

If you want to move the blue sky stuff forward, you've got to capture the details. As I've said before, paper and pencil work, but digital databases are easy and much more helpful. You get to set them up any way you want to look at your data. When you think of better questions, you can quickly make newer and better windows into the data.

Before I drift off into database design, I'll stop and get back on point.

I don't know many answers. I just really like the looking for 'em. If you’re looking for sustainable work, you should too.
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Labels: databases, entrepreneurship, startups