Blogmatic

This is a guest post from Houston Neal who is looking to gather feedback on his ERP Software Timeline.

ERP software has come a long way since the days of performing accounting and inventory management on mainframe computers (e.g. IBM’s 360 series). In the 70’s we saw the introduction of material requirements planning (MRP) and the founding of today’s ERP leaders (SAP, Oracle). The 80’s included the emergence of MRP II and introduction of the coming Y2K bug. “Enterprise Resource Planning” was coined in the 90’s, and “merger mania” dominated the early 21st century. Today, cloud computing is all the rage. Will “social ERP” be the next game-changer?

To understand the context of current enterprise software events, check out the manufacturing & ERP software timeline at Software Advice. They have included 17 key events that have shaped the industry over the last 50 years. Feel free to share your ideas on what should be added. They want to expand the timeline to 30-50 events/dates with the help of industry experts. Sort of like a “wiki” timeline. If you have any ideas, please forward them on to Houston Neal (houston@softwareadvice.com).

 Ian Graham

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I was chatting with one of my favourite new start-ups the other day in the common area at TheCodeFactory and the topic of selling on the Internet came up. They explained that they were consulting with a local Entrepreneur in Residence and the first question asked by the EIR was “Who is your first customer?” I am reasonably certain that the expected response was something like Big Red (fictional service provider), Big Blue (another fictional service provider) or Dancing Goats (yet another fictional service provider). However, that was not the response that they received.

The answer “if you give me $2.99 you will be my first customer.”

Fortune magazine annually produces a list of the top 500 companies in North America. This is known as the Fortune 500. These are large companies with likely thousands of employees and multiple locations.

The Fortune 5,000,000 is a term coined by David Heinemeier Hanson of 37Signals used to describe selling to small businesses online. The Fortune 5,000,000 is arguably that mythical Holy Grail we often hear referred to as SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprise). Selling online has opened an incredibly efficient channel for tapping into this vast market.

From a local perspective, as I see it, the challenge in Ottawa is that there is a significant paradigm shift from selling to the Fortune 500 (traditional telecom sale) compared to selling to the Fortune 5,000,000. If you are selling BIG ticket items to Big Red or Big Blue in a pre-millennium mindset it is quite a leap to selling web aps. The difference between channels, value chains, direct sales and other traditional sales is light years away from the virtual distribution and selling online.

If your first question to a start-up selling web aps is “who is your first customer?” You are likely coming from that Fortune 500 paradigm and don’t get it.

Next post will delve a bit into what are some considerations for selling online.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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I had the opportunity to attend a session this morning at City Hall regarding Innovation and the knowledge based sector in Ottawa. The session was well attended and there were probably 30ish folks representing a number of different groups around the table doing a SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) exercise. There was one gentlemen (whose name I didn’t catch) sitting at the end of the table that made an interesting comment. It went something like this;

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“I would rather have one well funded organization doing ED than spreading things around and giving everyone peanut butter.”

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Here are my thoughts on peanut butter. First of all I like peanut butter. Peanut butter has plenty of protein which is great for building muscle. Peanut butter is relatively inexpensive, a jar can make a lot of sandwiches and if times are tough peanut butter can go a long way. I like peanut butter and personally my preference would be to have an equitable system where everyone gets to share.

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Interesting to see what comes out of this SWOT review. In a recession we need to be thrifty and peanut butter for everyone sounds far more appealing than more Twinkies and cupcakes for the pudgy kid.

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Cheers,
Ian Graham

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Great video link from Natasha of David Miller (Toronto’s Mayor) on social media in municipalities. The link is here.

thank you Natasha.

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Depending on where you start your entrepreneurial journey, your life skills, your lessons learned thus far and the obstacles you face in getting up and running your lessons learned will vary. Here is a short list of some of my most valuable lessons learned and how they relate to some advice I received from Peter Kemball.

Peter provided me with one of the most memorable and important lessons I have ever learned. Basically it goes something like this; 15% of people are truly altruistic and do things for the right reasons all the time, 70% of people are normal do things for the right reason most of the time and finally 15% of the people are just out for themselves, arrogant, bullies and just generally nasty. Understanding what motivates people and which bucket they fall into; 15% good, 70% normal or 15% nasty is super important.

Some of the best advice I ever received came from very close to home, my wife. Her advice to me was being nice to everyone. This is great advice and since Ottawa is really a very small town with everyone connected by one degree of separation and usually by multiple paths being nice is important. This applies to the first two buckets or 85% of the people. Usually the people in the top 15% bucket (Altruistic) are great to have as close friends.

Being nice to people doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is your friend, there is a difference. You need to collaborate and get along; however, certain relationships are more about business and less or even not at all about being friends. Separating business from being friends and knowing which category people fit into is really important. You need to deal with people in your life and business in the appropriate tone and tact. This has been a valuable lesson and one best summed up in a quote from Ben Franklin; “Those things that hurt, instruct”. This applies primarily to the second bucket or the 70% who could be either good friends or business associates, have a firm idea in your mind where people stand.

Finally there is the third and final bucket or that lower 15%. Keep an eye on these people, however, they will never and should never be friends and in a business situation be sure to protect yourself. If someone like this threatens your business then you should take appropriate action. Good entrepreneurs have a ruthless or shark streak in them that is kind of a survival mechanism and when threatened this characteristic kicks in. Identifying this type of person is super important and often they are great chameleons. Use proper business etiquette under normal circumstance, however, if threatened remember your first goal is the survival of your business.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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I am a firm believer that your most precious resource is time. There is only so much of it, you must spend it as it becomes available and “Time is money”. You can never reclaim time, or make more of it you can only schedule it wisely. Personal productivity and time management are tightly coupled.

In my opinion one of the highest forms of praise you can offer someone is saying that “I have a lot of time for that person”.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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Do you get better decisions by taking less time to think about them?

I am currently reading the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is certainly one of my favourite authors have learned from “The Tipping Point”, found “Blink” an amazing read so far and am looking forward to outliers. Blink is titled the power of thinking without thinking. Well worth a read if you have the time.

Now back to the original question are decisions that take less time actually better than those that require time and a due diligence process. I honestly believe there is considerable merit in those blink decisions. The computational power of the unconscious human mind is considerably more that the conscious mind. There is tremendous value in that primitive intuitive sort of thinking that you feel rather than actually think. Making decisions with the heart instead of the head can produce far better results.

A really important question to ask yourself in the decision making process is “How do I fell about this decision?” Once you are in tune with your unconscious computer great things can start to happen.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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I am really impressed with the attitude and preparation of the Canadian Olympic efforts for Vancouver in 2010. There is a series of media ads being run under the campaign of “Believe”. The ads highlight potential Olympic gold medalists talking about their intention to win gold. What a refreshing change from previous Olympic outings where the athletes were often there to do a personal best.

Frankly if you are being funded to compete at the Olympics you had better have your sights set on Gold. I find the intent and expectations of both the Olympians and the public focused in the right direction. We are seeing results on the World Cup in various winter sports already this year. It is great to see Canada setting itself up with the goal of challenging Germany for leadership in medals won at the Olympics in Vancouver 2010.

If Canada continues on its current trajectory my Blogmatic prediction is that we will deliver our best ever performance at an Olympic games in Vancouver 2010. If you set your goals for gold then you have a reasonable chance of getting there.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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The title of this post is a line from the movie “Stand by me” certainly one of my favourite. In this scene Gordy, Chris, Teddy and Vern are chatting about stuff and life in general when Vern comes out with “What the hell is Goofy anyaway”. Is he a dog or a person or what?

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This sets the scene for my Facebook dilema. “What the hell is facebook anyway”. Is it a personal social networking site is it for business or is it something in between. Linkedin has a very clear identity and it is business. Facebook seems to have multiple personalities. Early on when everyone on the site was under 25 it had a very clear and distinct idea that it was for friends to connect. These days it seems to be trying to be everything to everybody and in that attempt pleasing no one.
Facebook continues to be one of the top 3 internet destinations in the world, however, if it continues to suffer from this Goofy identity crisis not knowing who they are as a social network then the decline is only just starting.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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The logical answer would be: “Yes, of course you need to be smart, how else you will succeed?”

I know what I know and like to think I know what I don’t know. You don’t have to be smart to know what you don’t know, however, you do need to recognize your weaknesses and figure out a way to mitigate them. Probably the best way to mitigate your weaknesses even if you aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer is to surround yourself with smart people. 

One of the highest compliments anyone paid me recently was by John Doran President of Domicile when he said “you are not afraid to surround yourself with smart people.” I had originally negotiated for a property owned by Domicile for TheCodeFactory, alas it was not to be. However, a great learning experience.

Anyway back to the original question: “Do you have to be smart to be successful?” If you are capable of recognizing your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with people smarter than you can accomplish a whole lot. I think that answers the question in a roundabout sort of way.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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