Barry W Thornton Blog

I think that the market crash teaches us a lesson about information processing technology.  Primarily that lesson is . . . IT DOESN’T WORK!!!.

The idea was all this data collection and processing power, all the decision making software, data mining, analysis, and of course, automation and automated work flow stuff was going to tell us the future.  the problem is simply that it doesn’t work.  In fact, most of it exacerbated the problem.

Technology does make it happen faster, in the current case this means spin-in, out of control, but faster than if done by hand.

We have be awash in promises and claims that the great god of technology would make our business lives easier and better.  Business owners and managers could make better decisions and predict, thus control, the future with greater accuracy and in greater detail.

So we tanked with the help of the illusion provided by software that was to guide us.

The fundamental reasons for this are also simple; a L and the two Great D’s.

1 - Laziness - Thinking is hard, reacting is easy.  When we should have trusted common sense and critical thinking we chose the easy way, let someone (or something) tell us what to do.

2 - Denial - When the crap started hitting the fan we denied it.  We told ourselves it was only an anomaly, we ignored, in fact denied, the signs of what was going on.  We denied what our common sense should have screamed at us.

3 - Delusion - We deluded ourselves into thinking that it was not happening and what did would not happen to us.  It was the other guy’s problem.

Aren’t these a common and reoccurring set of issues.  Let George do it, in this case George was technology.

The lessons are simple.

1 -Technology doesn’t think, it doesn’t even react, it does execute . .  it can do that very fast.

2 - You can’t program common sense with Java or C+++.  Though I now do think that you can program greed in those languages.

3 - In general, EXPERTS SUCK.

4 - In the end, rational human thought and decision-making must prevail for us to succeed.

Nothing new here, that’s why we ignore it and chase the fairy dust.

Remember that slogan? I always see it with an image of a gaggle of ducks, brings a smile, sometimes a chuckle.

Forget about the person in the way, he is a moron and lost. And you can’t tell a follower to lead, it is not in their DNA. Eh? Leadership and DNA? I question that because everyone is born a leader, but not necessarily obviously one but given the right conditions and guess what?.  Maybe it would be most accurate to say that leaders discover themselves over time. We all have leadership DNA in us, we are humans and it is part of the stuff we are made of. Most people don’t want to lead, which is simply denying a trait. It may be they never have an opportunity to lead, it may be that they don’t want to deal with the responsibility that always goes with it, or for some reason leading just doesn’t happen in their life cycle.

Leaders are rarely managers, managers usually follow. Once in while you get a combination of the two, I am not sure it is desirable in the large scheme of the things to have one person be both. I’ll tell you why. Leaders typically have an internalized goal that they drive to. This drive is almost spiritual, it is pure in nature and a combination of abstraction and solidity, but most of all it is non-negotiable. Such a presence inspires faith and thus motivates people far beyond what fear or greed can do.

The problem is that leading is non-negotiable. Getting things done requires negotiation, and that’s what managers do. You can lead to a goal so that people can manage to it. A leader responds in the moment to crises as they arise, never imagining they didn’t exist or wishing them away. And a leader never asks his followers to do something he or she wouldn’t do themselves. Most important is that they never give up, they endure.

A little too ‘John Wayne’ for you? Well it’s only the beginning of the traits you have to possess to take on that job. Let me offer that most CEOs I have met don’t have these characteristics. They are fair to good managers who acquired the job of Leader and let it go to their heads. Take a look at Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, or GM for a good starting reference point for the last sentence.

When you decide to take the reins and truly become the leader of your troops, you will bow to no one and you will finally be a truly free person. So get to it, onward into the fog.

I found this page in an old files, it comes from Texas Instruments from the mid-60s but is ever so true today.

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The Ten Essentials Of Our Business

The Customer . . . .is the most important person in our business.

The Customer. . . . is the purpose of our work, not an an interruption to it.

The Customer . . . . is not dependent on us -  we are dependent on him

The Customer . . . . is part of our business, not and outsider.

The Customer . . . . is someone to work with - not against

The Customer . . . . does us a favor when he calls, we are not doing him a favor by serving him.

The Customer . . . . is deserving of the most courteous and attentive treatment we can give him.

The Customer . . . . is a person who brings us his wants, it is our job to fill those wants.

The Customer . . . . is a flesh and blood human being with feelings and emotions like our own, not a cold statistic.

The Customer . . . . is the person who makes it possible to pay our salaries

———————————————

Not much else to say compared to this.

Wow! A couple of days ago someone smacked me upside the head with a Ph.D! It’s been a long time since that has happened and it still tickles.

I was at a lunch of an organization to find out about them and determine my interest in working to get on their Board. I like their premise and know I could help drive them to where they want to go. What I learned was that after 10 month of existence they still don’t know where that exactly is (they’re not a business but a non-profit). Those of you that know me, well, you know how I can be a pain-in-the-neck with my pressure to discover and my thruthaches and the like. So I was torturing the Board to push them to find out what they really want to be and no one understood what I was doing. I ask questions that sound like opinions to get a more profound answer and push people into self-discovery. While I am seeking knowledge they think I am telling them what to do, don’t worry, it is confusing but is style that leads from chaos to order (in a very Shakespearean way). Well, a person there and I had differing opinions and as you also know, I kneel to no one so I didn’t yield to this person’s sense of self-authority and importance.

Anyway, I was taking some heat from them and not responding in the desired fashion when the person in question whipped out the old line ’I know because of my education and my Ph.D!’ It was classic, I couldn’t have found a better line in movie. Surprise - I did conduct myself as a gentleman, I didn’t fall down laughing or say the obvious. I just looked around at the other folks to see if anyone else got it, some did, some didn’t.

I like these folks and what they ultimately can do, I would like to help.

But to the point, which is that you as an entrepreneur are subject to lots of people trying to influence you. Many of them have lots of letters before or after their name. Typically those letters say that person may know a whole lot about a narrow topic. None of those letters indicate that the have any COMMON SENSE.

Only you know the real truth about your enterprise, only you know the real goals, only you are responsible for what happens, only you live it. Don’t ever let an ‘expert’ dissuade you from what you know is right.

I repeat - THERE ARE NO DEGREES IN COMMON SENSE!

Does that make sense?

copyright Barry W Thornton all rights reserved

I was talking with an old friend, he has problems with some property, the zoning, and it’s future use as perceived by the city he lives in. Seems the city wants turn the area into a hipper, more modern area and didn’t like his industrial use of the property, they wanted to fine him and directed him to make some expensive changes. As we talked about it I realized that the only way to beat them (the city) was to take over the leadership. The old ‘find a parade and then get in front of it’ approach, something that politicians understand intuitively which why they are politicians; they have nothing to offer but the appearance of leading. In essence, I told him to “out politician the politicians”.

Politics is perhaps the best marketing in the world. The best of ‘someone is unhappy and we will lead them out of the wilderness and onto the blessed fields of plenty, sign here, and here, and, oh yea, sign here too!’

My friend is an entrepreneur. After our conversation he made up a sign to put on the wall of his office, he FAXed me a copy and I used it as the title of this blog.

He went on the attack, got a meeting and sat down with his City Councilman who immediately explained to him that he, the Councilman, couldn’t influence the zoning enforcement people. My friend didn’t complain about zoning but explained that he wanted to become a participant in their plan and do it now. He noted that the expensive work for the present zoning (which would be different in the new use plan) would mean he couldn’t spend the money on an architect to create the new plan to fulfill the City’s dream. And he wanted to be the first to get this dream going. The now cordial Councilman meeting ended, they shook hands and smiled.

A couple of days later my fiend calls up the enforcement agent to try to get a couple days extension on the compliance review. The agent’s boss remarked that the Councilman called and said that they had a good meeting, the review got put off because the zoning guys were suddenly busy, and that they would like to see his ideas to work with him on the direction. My friend is now leading the parade, not being trampled by it.

Now I know this is a long story but what does it mean to you as an Entrepreneur?

This is not about honey rather than vinegar. It is about getting those who you thought were leading to instead be follower. Your power is in your movement, it is mental jujitsu; use your antagonist’s energy to get what you want by stepping up the pace, get ahead of him. Sometimes your antagonist is an association you work with, sometimes it is associates that can’t focus or move clearly.

Just something to keep in the back of your mind as you work to change the landscape of your world.

Copyright Barry W Thornton all rights reserved

I had noted in an earlier Blog that the key to marketing is to make someone unhappy, it is then the job of sales to them make them happy again, that’s how the two work together. - - So what are the tools of unhappiness?

Try F.U.D. the acronym for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt!

If someone is happy with what they have you clearly aren’t going to sell them a replacement. Only when you break the relationship between what they have and how they feel about it can you expect to get new brain space, and brain space is what you need to convert them into a customer.

So F, U, and D are three great pry-bars or tools you can use to loosen up some brain-space. All of them start out as probes, until one hits a chink in the armor and gets some traction you have nothing, you just slide around on the outside of someone’s “satisfaction shield”.

You must probe with constant FUD questions to elicit response that will start someone thinking. Do this and in most cases a door will open.

Is this marketing or selling? Maybe it’s both.

Anyway, you must do a series of probative adverts, always asking questions that center around ‘what makes you think you are happy?’. Maybe you communicate a message that shows why they should be unhappy or happier. Maybe you do positioning statements or explanations that are really questions in disguise. Statements with words like ‘new’ or ‘better’ or the like are really questions, they ask ‘why don’t you have the newest or the best?.

Ever consider that the opening of any sales pitch is a marketing message or proposition? You bet it is! Every opening sales pitch is essentially an advertisement. Even if the target says no and walks way, just how is that different than having looked at an ad in a magazine or on TV ,and passed on it? It only becomes a sales pitch when some brain-space opens up and an idea enters the mind that can feed the unhappiness and start a change to occur.

In most ways technology marketing and sales is the easiest. Technology offers an addictive solution. Whatever the customer has, it is on the way to being out of date, not enough, too slow; whatever was good about it making the customer happy is now fading away. Technology is about change and change means something better is coming. It is only a matter of time.

What does this mean to the entrepreneur? - - It means two things. One is that the range for new ventures is almost unending and virtually unlimited, it is as wide as the scope of human endeavors and ideas. The second is that you only need to change one thing to make it new; only one problem has to be solved to tap a market. Your business will be based on what makes someone unhappy.  It really is simple after all.

copyright 2008 Barry W Thornton all rights reserved

A technology pundit noted that “‘We live in an era when nothing can be built to last. Everything is in flux; nothing can sustain.’”

Initially this would appear to be true.  If you look at the Fortune 500, of the 500 that appeared on the first list in 1955, only 71 are still there, on the list that is. Some of the biggies that disappeared from that list are well know to you, like Scott Paper, Zenith, Rubbermaid, Chrysler, Teledyne, Warner Lambert, and Bethlehem Steel.  Some died, some just gave up their independence.  There are though those who have persisted; consider GE which has been around for over 100 years, or P&G which started before the American Civil War and continues to succeed; as does Johnson & Johnson whose roots were planted back in 1886. Then there’s Nucor Steel who rose from near bankruptcy to the 151 spot on the Fortune 500 list or Xerox which turned over profits of over $1 billion in 2007, a mere seven years after suffering losses of over $300 million.

So what is at the root of long-term success and how do you build a company that will go the distance?

I think the key is self-afflicted abuse.  It is not what the world does to you but what you do to the world.  In the end it is you, the entrepreneur and with growth big-time business persona that is at the core of long term success.  You get your start as a leader, people follow for all the reasons that leaders lead and followers follow.  When this relationship malfunctions the game is over.  Inertia and management may keep the company going but not necessarily growing.  And you become jetsam to the company.  Unless another leader comes along your baby, the company will die of attrition.

Harsh reality - you must lead or die.

An oversimplified generality that is reality.

Much of marketing is about the message.  And what is the message about?  It is about making someone unhappy.

The message is that what they have now makes them unhappy and what you have to sell will make them happy.

A primitive view of one of the most elusive crafts in business but it is true.  They won’t pick up the phone or tap the keyboard to find out about you unless they are motivated - and being unhappy is one of the best motivators there is.  Your message is not about making them happy, it is to remind that they are unhappy and that there is a way to eliminate that feeling.

Too short and too simple, it must be right.

Think about it.

It is far too easy for us to want to simply charge ahead once we have an idea.  Part of the problem is that we love our ideas, they seem so clear, so easy to implement, so clearly going to succeed. Ideas are breed  and steeped in enthusiasm.  We see a problem, we solve it with a new idea, our mind is in love with itself.

How many times have you seen this happen in others and in your self?

Along comes the idea, the solution, and we kick the ol’ horse in the sides and Giddy up!

One thing that kills off so many entrepreneurial efforts is that Giddy up part.  When we start a business we are inundated with challenges, we need many solutions, and each is a new idea inthe making.  When we are hurdling forward through time and space, spending money and resources to solve those problems that appear so critical we hardly ever look at the Whao-Back side.  We get ahead of our selves.

It used to be that our choices were reasonably limited, we could take the time to understand and appreciate each one of them.  Today our choices are almost infinite, each seems to have its own advocate, and they always to have to be selected immediately. We jump ahead full of energy, masters of the half-baked idea based on untested assumptions, only to stumble on our own feet.

This can be foolish, fanciful, and fatal.  Whao-Back counts a lot, try not to run amuck.

If you are an entrepreneur it’s time to GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR!

The market is tanking, your home isn’t worth bubkes (goat droppings), politicians are demonstrating that they are truly the maroons (thanks Bugs Bunny) that we voted them in to be, dark clouds swarm in and inundate us, TV is all about non-reality reality, and the press has gone stark raving mad.  Even Kramer is slipping his moorings and drifting out to sea.

But . . .

Inc. magazine tells us that a large percent of the of the companies listed in this year’s Inc. 500 were formed right after 9/11!

So you are an investor, what do you invest in now?  Real Estate sucks and the Market is a joke.   What do you do with cash to prevent it from attriting (I know it’s not a word but you get the idea) into toilet paper.

One answer is that you invest in small businesses that look like they have a good idea and market.

That’s what happened just after 9/11, one of the scariest times in decades.  So now those companies are filling the Inc. 500.

Get the idea?

Something I shouldn’t have to bring up but because I just saw it again I will.

I’m out of town on business. I am in the hotel bar with a guy from a company that could be a vendor for me in the future. We are both married men. He takes some time to hustle a lady down the bar; I’m not comfortable with it so I leave him to his devices. Later I find that he struck up a relationship with her and have subsequently meets her every so often.

He comes to me to do business and I say no. He asks why. Our possible friendship ends when I tell him the following.

“If you cheat on your wife, your closest, longest, and most trusted relationship, what makes me think that you won’t cheat me?”

To the entrepreneur – your personal character is the character of your business. I’m not a prude; but I am a very practical man. Get it?

copyright Barry W Thornton all rights reserved

Our head of sales has been working on a deal for about 4 months now, we sent them a first draft contract 50 days ago. Yesterday I told him to send them a note withdrawing our offer in10 days. Needless to say there is some push-back on his part, this is a good deal with a good package for him.

But it is starting to smell bad to me. The other party has not created or asked for a MOU or LOI (Memo Of Understanding, Letter of Intent) and never asked to talk with me, the big cheese in this case. My man wanted me to write and LOI to give them, I said no. I found out that they have gone and represented our work to their investors as part of their plan. Supposedly their CEO knows what he is doing, but I am getting the feeling that they are really amateurs in all this business stuff. This gives me a cold feeling in my stomach.

Business relationships are a process. A bonding, a series of understandings and commitments, built in steps so that everyone knows what is going on and trust each other. These guys are representing a relationship between us and them to their investors, it involves our company and yet they have no relationship built with us. Not even a handshake, all they have is a contract from us stating our terms, not negotiated, not commented on, not sighed, it is only the rough draft.

I am concerned because experience tells me that no matter how optimistic we are, it can only get worse. These guys are fast and loose in a world that is getting more competitive and tight. It is not the right direction and one of my jobs as CEO is to protect us against our own enthusiasm.

What does this mean to the entrepreneur? Simple, follow Andy Groves’ thinking, only the paranoid survive. Common sense says that without the relationship process having taken its course, things will probably go wrong downstream. It is easiest to stop the problem before it starts, that way my guys can use their time, energy, and skills to nail deals that will be winners, not entanglements.

copyright Barry W Thornton all rights reserved.

Back from vacation and I sat here today sending out an email watching the Google mail tell me it is still sending. The email was about a contract that is now 2 months behind because the recipients are still raising the money to do it.

I have been working on a spreadsheet for a project that is now behind because the partners in it are still working out problems.

As I write this I go back to the email, it is still working.

Nothing happens on time!

I look at the political scene, the war we are in, the stock market crashing, none of it is on time.

I order glasses, the say they will arrive in two weeks, it takes 3.

I go to a concert of a local group, they are an hour late getting on stage.

I go to a restaurant with a reservation and wait half an hour.

We live in a world that lacks predictability other than it will not be on time.

I guess that actually makes it a very predictable world. So what is the lesson learned?

Simple, don’t plan on it happening when you think it will.

Is that what you customers think about when they deal with you?

As an entrepreneur you are in a trap. Everything people promise you will be late yet your success will depend on your being one time to everyone else.

One of life’s little but consistent pains, figure out how to beat it and you will be very successful.

I once had a project manager working for me (actually he was in Marketing but I had special pull as the Fonder). Once we had a very cool idea for a whole new product line and he went out to test customers on it. From my talks with customers I had envisioned just two items in the line, when he came back and talked to the engineers they presented us with 15 products to build. At the product meeting I was amazed at my ability to not lift a 20 foot long conference table up and roll it through a big set of beautiful plate glass windows (I m getting better in my age, the adrenalin was there, but wisdom prevailed) with the ear-defining scream of “what the fXXX are you clowns thinking !!”. Which of course they weren’t, thinking that is, they were reacting.

I repeated the story of Steve Jobs coming back to Apple and reducing the product line from 20 some-odd major products to 4 and turning the business around. I then described to them what is called the “Tyranny of Choice”

Psychologist have long recognized that too many choices cause considerable stress in individuals. We know a family, good friends of my wife and son (they tolerate me, my son is falling into the same class as I because he too sees the reality of the situation and has started to asking the common sense questions) who, when searching for a new car, almost had to go to a therapist. The stress of deciding made her physically sick, him neurotic (I know, I am not a clinical professional so this is an opinion based on his conduct and not a legitimate analysis) and the kids (two) distanced and abstracted themselves as a shield.

Why so much detail? Simple, it is an exaggerated but real example of what you do to your customers when you don’t apply common sense to what they want.

Margaret Mead, the famous ethnologist, demonstrated to the world (much to her humiliation and discredit) that people will tell you want you want to hear because of the context and content of the questions you ask combined with their desire to please and be of value.

I always tell you to go first to the customer to get the truth about what you should do. The real truth is that you have listen with the ear of common sense. In between the dreamy maximum and the abbreviated minimum is reality, the reality of what they will buy because it does just enough to solve the problem, not too much to create more problems, and represents both safety and value. Delight to the upside is based on the old tome, just solve one real problem and you have a good product. You can always (and should) come back with more solutions, but don’t overwhelm the customer, do one thing excellently as Bill and Ted would say, make it easy to see the value, KISS, and build the relationship and reputation for doing something excellently, then look for another good problem.

copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved.

The other night I went to a meeting to listen to a guy who wrote a book about marketing. I took my 19year old son; I try to expose him to everything even though his current ambition is to be a code monkey. I was smart enough to sit us in the back so we could sneak out early; the guy talking was a putz. A college professor who saw some simple things and churned a book out on it. He did studies, set up and ran three years of tests, in essence he re-invented the wheel. He was so full of himself for his discovery, and most of the audience was mesmerized. Why do people think they can find IT in a book? And what had he discovered and proven in such a complex way?

COMMON SENSE

When I was 18 through 21 I worked in a carriage-trade hi-fi salon run by an old merchant named Paul Holtz. He had sold cloths, jewelry, and at that point hi-fi. [Carriage-trade refers to retail stores a couple of generations ago. Hi-end shops did not have street access, you had to have your carriage driven through a port into a courtyard where you alighted onto a portico, customers stepped out the carriage right into the salon. If wanted to walk in you used the trade entrance and you were not a customer. Thus you started your buying experience for that store with a grand entrance.].

I didn’t want to be a salesman but I needed the money so I did what Paul said, constantly think about your experience as a customer and it’s easy. High-end sales were and still are an experience event. Always KISS to the ‘n’th degree, way beyond just the words Keep It Simple Stupid, and always remember that value was in the eye of the beholder, which is driven by his dreams. It is your job is to manipulate, fulfill, and harvest those dreams. Always offer three choices (avoiding the ‘tyranny of choice‘, good stuff for my next blog) and keep the best one locked to create a final theatrical stage to work on. Most of all always remember that from the first awareness of the product (or service) to the final delivery it is dance and both partners know it. Dance well!

Well this professor had discovered some of what this old merchant naturally did based simply on watching people, no collage education needed. And guess what? Every bit of it is common sense. There is no magic, only an honest understanding of how you buy, and how others buy. No special words to write down in a lecture, no special SEO stuff, no book long explanations, only simple thoughts you already know. We are all trained consumers, your mom pushed you around in a shopping cart when you were a year old and your education began. - -So what is my point? KISS! You don’t need gurus, mentors, professors or the like. You do need to look inside yourself because you already have experienced all you need to market and sell successfully; only your personal fear (my definition of ‘the box’) blocks you from seeing it and executing it fearlessly and flawlessly.

And remember, everything starts with a sale. Sell first, then analyze

copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved

Boy, this ones going to get me in trouble - but here we go.

IP ain’t worth crap.

I just finished a bunch of work-arounds, that is I looked at several different patents and for each figured a way to do the same thing that didn’t violate the original patent’s claims. In a couple of them I came up with novel and unique ways to do the same thing that weren’t covered so I created new IP. In effect I rendered the original patents useless. So with guys like me around what good are patents, especially to the entrepreneur?

In fact they have tremendous value, but not as patents. The most powerful patent is a Provision Patent. Provisionals are vague and indeterminate; no one gets to see them (unless you are so foolish as to show them to someone, in which case you deserve what you get) so no one knows what you are doing. You have a year to turn them into a real patent so you can say patent pending immediately on your product or process and even I can’t do a work-around because you have not been granted any claims for me to work with. After you file no one really knows what claims the USPTO will give you, and your original claims may be modified, so it is still a minefield.

Patents take years to be granted, you can hassle with office actions for 4 or 5 years if you want (look up submarine patents (nothing to do with underwater boats)). If you are an entrepreneur in a hot field the real value, by the time you get the claims granted the technology or process will probably have been obsoleted by the market and not used in your product anyway.

IP does impress investors, gives them lots of security. IP impresses corporate folks because they live in fear anyway. IP impresses acquisition folks, IP is a great vanity device, for you personally and the company in general. IP’s value is intellectual and emotional security more than technological reality. It gives you an asset out of nothing in the early stages of your business. It is a rallying point for everyone who doesn’t understand its reality.

This truth should give you confidence. It’s like the Emperor’s Cloths, knowing truth you can then use it to your advantage and not be taken in by others.

Oh yea, watch out for all those patent professionals and consultants, their views are self motivated, use them to your drive your goals but don’t be taken in. You and your patent attorney must scheme to use everyone else’s beliefs to your end. It’s the idea of the IP that’s what makes it so valuable. Like most things, it’s the illusion as it appears in everyone else’s mind that is the real power.

copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved

Yes Yogi, entrepreneurs are smarter than even you. Why do I make this outrageous statement you ask? You did, didn’t you? Well who cares if you didn’t, I’m going to tell you anyway.

The big difference between homo-sapiens and homo-sap is the quality of the use of the mind (you can have a big brain but a small mind, I see it all the time in corporate slugs).

There are two quintessential differences in the sapiens and the sap, or in your more comfortable vocabulary, the entrepreneur and the worker bees that make the non-entrepreneur world. It is all about decisions, that is of course decisions of merit, not just which movie will I go see or which restaurant will I go to. But the conscious decision to affect others lives.

If an entrepreneur is in fact “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise” (Marriam-Webser – remember that the word enterprise goes far beyond just making money) then the entrepreneur lives in a state of constant question and decision. This exercises the mind in an absolutely unique way. It mixes what I call ‘noodling’ (grinding something over and over until you see a new pattern or way) with action, doing something. By my definition even a good General of an army is an entrepreneur. When you think and act your mind and brain change and you enter an elevated state of awareness. Taking responsibility for your actions takes you away from average people, your friends and family become more like associates, you don’t and can’t share this altered state of thinking with them, in the end you are alone and thus face the truth of human existence. We are isolated mortal individuals and that’s it.

Entrepreneurs are foragers, alone and unique, picking our way through space-time making constant decisions and acting on what to keep and what to throw away. A pretty cold view, a pretty cold reality, and pretty comforting to me because it is devoid of BS and guilt. We are free, and freedom tastes of reality.

Yea, I borrowed that last line. But what the heck, go for it, you don’t have any real friends anyway, just people you know and then of course, fellow foragers. Share the truth as you sit around the campfire with them for only those fellow foragers have even a clue of what you are talking about when you look inside.

copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved

Last year I was approached by a local consulting group to create an Innovation Practice for them.  Because I have so many inventions and created so many things of value they, and I, wrongly thought that we could build a practice of it. What a crock of, well, you know. I tried to apply myself to it for a couple of months, followed all the popular stuff, got into it, and found that it could only be a scam which could go nowhere. Sure it could make the consultants and me some money, but there is no honor in fooling stupid people. So I bailed out.

It became increasingly clear to me that the term innovation is about hindsight. I have done many ‘innovative’ things, but at the time I didn’t think about innovation. Later, when there was a bandwagon going down the street, others, who I see in hindsight didn’t have a [Censored] clue, celebrated the ‘innovation’, patted me on the back, and tried to run around and get in front of the parade. I always felt humiliated inside and did my usual orthogonal turn and headed off somewhere else leaving it all to them.

To innovate is to introduce something new. To create something new is to invent, which is really to find or discover, to devise by thinking. And in that process what you think about is not an innovation; it is a solution. It is a solution that is good - the best solution. It comes from a love of work and taking risks, a drive to do it well, to see a need and understand it, and to being very, very, attentive to the details. It is the goodness of the result that gets people’s attention. It is the satisfaction their needs and wants that creates real value. It is their discovery that there is more than they thought in the world. It is making something that is great.

So when you listen to someone talk about innovation consider that you are really listing to someone with ‘has been’ thoughts trying to sound hip and on top of it.

Just do it right, do it well, think it out, and take the step forward. If your idea changes the way people do or perceive things and they pat you on the back for being innovative, it is time to run for you are in the presence of the 21^st Century’s version of the unwashed masses and their hunger to touch creativity will eat you alive.

What does all this mean to the entrepreneur? Simple, don’t think about innovating; just come up with a great answer to someone’s needs and sell it to them. Keep it that simple and the rest will be history.  Leave the talking about innovation to the non-creative, you don’t have time to be with them, you are on the way to your next great thought!

Copyright 2008 Barry W Thornton all rights reserved

My son reminded me that in an earlier blog I remarked about Power Point presentations. As an x-executive (CTO) in the computer industry I was subject to hundreds of Power Points (hereafter referred to as PPTs).  I am told that about 100,000 PPTs are given each day. In general I see two types of PPTs.

First are those things a salesman or manager brings in to a meeting, 50 slides of who, what, where, why, and how. It is usually prepared by an expert (that guy who used to be named Pert again) in marketing or the like. These PPTs are the primary ingredient in Soma (Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ for you youngsters). Usually they turn the lights down a bit for dramatics, which means you can slip off into a light slumber without being noticed, just don’t snore.   What could be worse than a mindless delivery of someone else’s work (who is not there) that dictates the path of the meeting?

My usual reaction was to stop the presentation at the third slide (usually the presenter was just warming up to the topic of who they were) with the simple question - “specifically, in less than a minute, tell be which of my pains you are going to solve and how much will it cost”. If the answer gets my attention then I can become interested in the credibility of the company, etc. If not, why waste my time when I could be doing some thing for my customers? My peers used to tell me I was very ‘unprofessional’ (even brutal) and then thank me for cutting the meeting to its essentials, that makes me the essential unprofessional - think about it.

Second kind of PPT is just the facts. Slides brought upon demand to present data, information, and knowledge. Usually the purpose was for me to gain or express wisdom based on that collection. In any event, the presentation can go where the audience wants it to with the aid of the presenter, communication is two way, PPTs aren’t.

The problem with the first type of PPTs is that they rigidify the mind of the presenter, he is working to the slides and not the audience. They distract or conflict the mind and confine thinking. In many cases this is probably good because the presenter is a moron anyway. My son’s comment in an email to me is:

“A power point binds the mind and prevents abstract thinking through visualization (much like a movie compared to a book.). Talking on the other hand allows for input and flexibility.”

A presentation should be improv theater. I try to make each presentation a little different so it is fresh to me, that way it is spirited to the audience. I know where I want to go in the end, but the path to get there are different each time because each audience is different. You are there to get into people’s heads and you can’t figure out how to do that from a PPT. You do that by talking with them, not to them. Everyone knows where you are trying to go when you get together (the meeting has an agenda, right?), so why not just go there? When I present I do a hand out if illustrations are needed, or a white board in real time, otherwise it is I, looking into their eyes while weaving my arms and moving around, that are the tools of choice.

Passion is what gets people to think and act, and there is no passion in a PPT, just rigor mortis and pretty pictures.

Copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved.

Sometimes an entrepreneur doesn’t need a new idea, just a old one that can be made to work better. A month ago some guys selling a product built in Europe came to me with the idea of building it here and cutting out the Europeans. The problem was that the Euros have a US Patent on the product. The local guys had the market, know the customers, can raise the money, and rather than buy more they wanted to go off on their own. Entrepreneurs they are (as Yoda would say).

Well let’s see. They have customers. They know what they want based on the most practical test there is, that is the customers are buying the product. They are willing to take the risk. They clearly can manage the process.  They can dig up the money. Time for a new business.

But the Patent Law says they can’t do it, so they come to the ol’ techno-whore, yours truly. I do what is called a work-around, a different way to get from Point A to Point B without going through the patent.

So now they have a better product (cheaper to build and delivering more effective customer features, benefits, and results) and it has fresh IP (the new product works in a unique and novel way so we applied for a patent on it).

An old idea with a new way of looking at it offering new customer pleasing features and benefits, built in the USA so some local folks get jobs, and the money stays here.

That’s an Entrepreneur at work, hats off to them. Customer first, then product.

Copyright 2008 Barry W Thornton all rights reserved.