For you, which comes first: happiness or success?

For you, which comes first: happiness or success?

My guess is that you have already answered that question several times today. You answer it every time your brain says, "I'll be happy when I find a job." "I'll be happy when I get a promotion." "I'll be happy when my dissertation is finished."

The formula is clear: Work harder, then you'll be successful, then you'll be happier. When I asked some of my Harvard students, their answer was easy: "I'm working my butt off now so I can be happy when ... [fill in the blank with a six figure banking job, make a scientific breakthrough, get into medical school, etc.]."

But here's what these brilliant students often forget: Getting into Harvard was supposed to make them happy. How many of them in high school thought they'd be happy once they got in? Why didn't the success then happiness formula work?

It's hard to find happiness after success if the goalposts of success keep changing.

Now for the good news. Based on the findings in "The Happiness Advantage," If you reverse the order of the formula, you end up with greater happiness and greater success rates. Happiness and advantage, and the precursor to greater success.

Read more here...

Why Jobs said that those jobs in China are never coming back

Why Apple builds iPhones (and everything else) in China

President Obama reportedly once asked Steve Jobs what it would take to make iPhones in the U.S. Jobs' response wasn't encouraging...

POSTED ON JANUARY 23, 2012, AT 12:07 PM

An assembly line in Shenzhen: China has created an "unparalleled system for taking something from idea to reality faster and easier than any place on the planet," says Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily.Photo: Qilai Shen/In Pictures/CorbisSEE ALL 49 PHOTOS

Should Apple and its rivals make their gadgets in the U.S.?

	Yes. American companies have a moral obligation to hire American workers
	They should. But they'll need Uncle Sam's help.
	No. U.S. manufacturers just can't compete with their global rivals.
	No. Businesses exist to make profits, not to act as job-creation programs.

When President Obama famously dined with a handful of Silicon Valley titans a year ago, he had a question for Apple chief Steve Jobs, say Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher in The New York Times: What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Jobs' answer was unambiguous and sobering: "Those jobs aren't coming back." Now, in a lengthy story, Duhigg and Bradsher explain — based on conversations with executives at Apple and its tech rivals, economists, and government officials — why Apple and just about every player in the consumer-electronics universe has all but given up on "Made in the USA." Here, a concise look at the secret to China's success:

What does China have that America lacks?Quite a lot. China has more mid-level engineers, a more flexible workforce, and gigantic factories that can ramp up production at the drop of a hat. China also offers tech firms a one-stop solution. "The entire supply chain is in China now," a former high-ranking Apple executive tells The Times. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."

It's not just about cheaper wages?No. Wages actually aren't that big a part of the cost of making consumer electronics, according to The Times. Paying American wages to build iPhones would add only about $65 to the retail price of each handset, according to analysts' estimates. That's an amount Apple could likely afford. And in fact, China no longer offers rock-bottom wages. But when it did, it used that window "to innovate the entire way supply chains work,"says Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily. China is now "a place other countries can beat on sheer cost, but not on speed, flexibility, and know-how."

What does China's competitive edge look like in practice?One example from The Times article: When Jobs decided just a month before the iPhone hit markets to replace a scratch-prone plastic screen with a glass one, a Foxconn factory in China woke up about 8,000 workers when the glass screens arrived at midnight, and the workers were assembling 10,000 iPhones a day within 96 hours. Another example: Apple had originally estimated that it would take nine months to hire the 8,700 qualified industrial engineers needed to oversee production of the iPhone; in China, it took 15 days. Anecdotes like that leave you "feeling almost impressed by the no-holds-barred capabilities of these manufacturing plants," says Edward Moyer at CNET News, "impressed and queasy at the same time."

Is there anything the U.S. can do to bring these jobs back?At the Silicon Valley dinner, some tech executives suggested that a "tax holiday" on foreign profits would allow their companies to repatriate money to create jobs at home. Such a tax break would save Apple about $8.2 billion, says Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune. "That's a lot of lettuce." Jobs also suggested at the dinner that Apple could bring some skilled manufacturing jobs to the U.S. if the government helped train a new cadre of engineers.

Was Steve Jobs generally down on America?No. Apple has actually added quite a few jobs here in the U.S., even as it outsources more of its labor overseas. And at the end of the Silicon Valley dinner, Jobs reportedly told Obama that he's "not worried about the country's long-term future" because the U.S. "is insanely great."

Zynga IPO And What it Says About the New Economy

...."It takes decades after an iconic turning point for structural revolutions to come to full flower and upend the social and economic order.  The profound impacts of the first era of computing didn’t start until the late 1980s, nearly 30 years after the invention of the first mini-computer, Digital Equipment Corporation’s PDP-8.   What makes a Zynga possible comes decades after the invention of the Internet.  Now, as then, the velocity of change will accelerate.".......
.....more
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2011/12/18/the-good-news-behind-the-zynga-ipo-and-what-it-says-about-the-new-economy/

Steve Jobs and the Seven Rules of Success

When we built System Software Associates as an enterprise application software company in the emerging mid market in the 80's & then reinvented it in the mid 90's we lived by  lessons learned from companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Coke and McDonalds. 

1. Be fast, flexible &  focused
2. Change the way the world does business and change the playing field for competitors
3. Do it right or don't do it
4. A quarter pounder should taste the same everywhere around the world
5. Think globally, execute locally (distributors/affiliates/business partners)
6. Act like what you want to become
7. If you think you can, or you think you can't....your probably right
8. Sell the whole Vision but install in digestible pieces - lead from the front
9. Luck is the intersection of where preparation meets opportunity and you take advantage of it - make your own luck
10. Earn the right to own your piece of the market - clients/customers are what matters most - the rest flows from there

Here is Steve Jobs list for when he founded then reinvented Apple.

BY Carmine Gallo | October 14, 2011|

107

inShare4,742

Steve Jobs' impact on your life cannot be overestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly every aspect -- computers, movies, music and mobile. As a communications coach, I learned from Jobs that a presentation can, indeed, inspire. For entrepreneurs, Jobs' greatest legacy is the set of principles that drove his success.
Over the years, I've become a student of sorts of Jobs' career and life. Here's my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our "inner Steve Jobs."
1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.
2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision.
Related: Why Entrepreneurs Love Steve Jobs

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.
4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each product. What are you saying "no" to?
5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?
Related: 10 Things to Thank Steve Jobs For
6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.
7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don't care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you'll win them over.
There's one story that I think sums up Jobs' career at Apple. An executive who had the job of reinventing the Disney Store once called up Jobs and asked for advice. His counsel? Dream bigger. I think that's the best advice he could leave us with. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision, and be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.

Emotional genius?: IBM chip mimics the brain?

This is one of the new cognitive computing chips created by researchers at IBM that is said to mimic the human brain.

(Credit: IBM)


 
Computers with processors that mimic the human brain's cognition, perception, and action abilities are a lot closer than they've ever been after IBM on Wednesday unveiled the first generation of chips that will power them.
The announcement comes nearly three years after IBM and several university partners were awarded a grant by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to re-create the brain's perception, cognitive, sensation, interaction, and action abilities, while also simulating its efficient size and low-power consumption.
The grant was part of Phase 2 of DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project, the goal of which, IBM said, is "to create a system that not only analyzes complex information from multiple sensory modalities at once but also dynamically rewires itself as it interacts with its environment--all while rivaling the brain's compact size and low-power usage."
According to IBM Research project leader Dharmendra Modha, the first tangible results of the grant and a great deal of work by those at six IBM labs and five universities is finally ready to be shown to the world.
"What I hold in my hand as I speak," Modha told CNET by phone Wednesday, "is our first cognitive computing core that combines computing in the form of neurons, memory in the form of synapses, and communications in the form of axons...[and] in working silicon, and not PowerPoint."
The development of the new chips comes two years after Modha's team finished work on an algorithm called BlueMatter that spelled out the connections between all the human brain's cortical and sub-cortical locations. That mapping is a critical step, Modha has said, for a true understanding of how the brain communicates and processes information.
While it's too early to say exactly what kind of applications will be powered by the new chips, Modha suggested that they will likely tackle some of the thorniest problems in computing. Among those he foresees are programs that could analyze financial markets with extreme precision and attention; that could monitor global water supplies and track and report information on things such as wave height, ocean tides, water temperature, and even issue tsunami warnings; and those that could allow a supermarket worker to instantly sense when produce has gone bad.
Others see even more potential applications. For example, the chips could offer earthquake detection due to "infinite patience" and being our eyes and ears on a seismic fault line in a way that would bore people, said analyst Rick Doherty, co-founder and director of the Envisioneering Group. Similarly, the chips could be used for a wide range of military, public health or public safety purposes, Doherty suggested.
All of this is due to the fact, Modha said, that the chips can enable biological "senses" such as sight, sound, smell, and touch, and "drive multiple motor modes while consuming less than 20 watts [of power] and occupying less volume than a 2-liter bottle of soda, and weighing less than three pounds."
While Modha wouldn't say when the first commercially available applications based on the new chips will be available, Doherty said he thinks the first such programs could be ready by 2015 or 2016. And Doherty, who was briefed on the cognitive computing news, said he thinks that IBM's latest work is "exciting" and significant because of the fact that the chips are designed to learn and even give feedback on what they've learned.
Beyond von Neumann
To Modha, his new chips are nothing short of an entirely new computing paradigm, perhaps the first in decades, and one which could far surpass the decades-old von Neumann architecture on which today's computers are based.
IBM's new chips contain no biological elements, the company said, but do have digital silicon circuits "inspired by neurobiology to make up what is referred to as a 'neurosynaptic core' with integrated memory (replicated synapses), computation (replicated neurons), and communication (replicated axons)," IBM said in a release.
At the moment, Modha's team has come up with two prototype chip designs. Each contains 256 neurons, while one has 262,144 programmable synapses, and the other has 65,536 learning synapses, IBM said. For now, the company has used the chips to demonstrate basic applications such as pattern recognition, machine vision, classification, navigation, and associative memory.
And the company expects that the chips will move away from von Neumann computing to "a potentially more power-efficient architecture that has no set programming, integrates memory with processor, and mimics the brain's event-driven, distributed and parallel processing."
Eventually, Modha said, IBM hopes to "weave the [building] blocks together into a scalable network and progressively scale it to a mammalian scale system with 10 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses, [all] while consuming 1 kilowatt of power [and] fitting in a shoebox. Think of a cognitive supercomputer in your pocket."
Not replacing today's computers
Although the chips may some day create a new computing paradigm, Modha said he doesn't see them as replacing existing computers. Rather, he said, it's about "extending and complementing today's computer stack."
Perhaps more to the point, Modha's team has set out to come up with a new computing architecture that isn't weighed down by the imminent end of Moore's Law.
Today's computers, he argued, are hobbled by three fundamental constraints: first, that they must have progressively increasing clock rates; second, that those clock rates require smaller and smaller devices that are quickly approaching hard physical limitations; and finally that today's computers are essentially programmed systems with linear sets of instructions that are occasionally interspersed with if/then/else statements. By contrast, IBM's cognitive computing chips could in theory put off those physical limits for some additional time, enabling a wide range of previously impossible applications, Modha said.
"Everyone else is playing within the [Moore's Law] system," he argued. "We're changing the game."
(Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between.)

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20093845-52/ibm-says-new-chip-mimics-the-human-brain/#ixzz1VidP8xpq

Groupon IPO not worth the price

Assuming Groupon has a successful IPO - it seems the math shows it will be way over hyped and astronomically over priced.

Learn almost anything for free

What started out as Sal making a few algebra videos for his cousins has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history.

Five Must-Have Characteristics of Nonprofit Mobile Websites

On the Mobile Web, it’s 1999 all over again. Those nonprofits that are pioneering mobile websites today will reap the benefits of Mobile SEO tomorrow. Mobile search engines like Google Mobile, Yahoo! Mobile, and Bing Mobile are hungry for mobile content, especially fresh content. That said, the uber vast majority of nonprofits have not even considered launching a mobile website. They have either not yet had their “Aha” moment about the Mobile Web, or think it is too expensive and time-consuming to be an early adopter. I am here to tell you (and train you) that it is not. Not at all.

Regardless of the nonprofit sector’s slow adoption of mobile communications, the Mobile Web continues to soar. One out of four Americans now access the Mobile Web daily and that’s a trend that will continue to increase rapidly as smartphones become more affordable. Also...........

VC fix?

Many entrepreneurs have longed for a new model. Is it realistic?

Entrepreneurs can use their skills to create self sustaining non-profits, by Paul Lavallee

If entrepreneurs put their venture developing skills to work, more non-profits would be self sustaining, and not reliant on government grant funds from tax payer money. In addition, more services would be made available to those who need it, while the costs to society would be decreased by lessening the loads on systems such as health care and criminal justice. Here is one example which has accomplished all of these goals.

I know this is true because the latest venture I am involved with has nothing to do with the software industry - it is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit located on the historic former homestead of Daniel Webster in Franklin NH. The name of this venture is Webster Place Recovery Center. It is a place of hope for people from all walks of life who have problems with alcohol and other drugs.

My other ventures included founding software ventures, raising venture capital for software ventures, getting involved in mergers or acquisitions of software ventures, or taking software ventures public.This was my first venture into the world of non-profit services.

In 2007, several others and I were asked if we would help form a non-profit board to create a recovery center. I accepted the call, as did the others, and I took on the Chair role during the start up years (2008-2009) and remain a committed board member today.

The person bringing together the board was mutual friend and restaurant entrepreneur Alex Ray, founder/owner of The Common Man family of restaurants in New Hampshire (where our family has a second home.) The non-profit organization would be leasing a portion of Alex's newly acquired property consisting of the Daniel Webster homestead and farm. This historic property had a rich history over the years and had  morphed  from farm, to post civil war orphanage, to convent / school run by the Sisters of the Holy Cross and finally abandoned and left in disrepair. Alex picked up the property as the last standing bidder, and saved the property from demolition and a condo project. There were three 30,000 sq. ft. brick buildings and several house sized structures and a good sized parcel of farm land along the Merrimack river. His vision was to create a place of service and hope for people in need of recovery from alcohol and other drug problems, and to do so with a new model.

The model for this project would be to gut and renovate 1 of the main buildings first, and to create an environment of dignity and respect where people who need services could find an affordable alternative to expensive celebrity type rehabs popularized by movie stars and sports figures. This facility would house a non-profit organization, governed by a volunteer board of directors with diverse backgrounds, who would hire a staff of people who were capable of providing peer based recovery support heavily relying on the 12 step evidence based models successfully used in non-organized recovery peer support groups. The staff would be complimented by local peers in recovery who would come in to offer their stories, mentoring, experience, strength and hope that the new residents could learn how this all worked and see that recovery is real.

There would be no government grants to start the operation, rather it would be self sustaining from program fees. Most of the high end private pay rehabs charge anywhere from $15,000 to $150,000 (on a beach in Malibu) but this program would be targeted to be less than half the low end. In addition, being a non-profit, the mission would be to also include scholarships for those who could not afford such services. In this way, people from all walks of life, would have a recovery experience where professional, lawyers, doctors, pilots, musicians, carpenters, software engineers, restaurateurs, publishing ad executives, electricians and unemployed  single moms (see a case story published in the Plymouth Record Enterprise) could all learn from and support each other in a nurturing environment.

In addition, as opposed to institutional rehabs, people would not just sit around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, but would be engaged in enhancements to the program of recovery which would include some of the enjoyable things life has to offer such as gardening, farming, culinary arts, music, reiki, acupuncture, karate, furniture refinishing, exercise, spa trips, sports and other activities.

The operation was angel funded via a cash flow loan guarantee from Alex and bootstrapped from operations.

Start-up included renovation of the first building by Alex's realty company - a minimal investment resulted in converting the institutional layout into semi private rooms each with it's own bathroom and showers. All furniture (ALL) was provided by the surrounding community and businesses. Beds, bureaus and the like, giving the place an eclectic, almost antique and homey feel. The first resident arrived in March 2008, and by December the 40 bed capacity was half utilized. By December of 2009 the operation had become cash flow positive and has been so since - facilitating substantial repayment of the initial cash flow loans. The loan should be completely paid down with substantial positive cash flow during the coming year. This money can be used for capacity building and additional scholorships. Another benefit is this private pay model does not add any cost to the overburdened health care system as it is not funded by insurance. Those who can afford the low cost of care, and a low operating cost due to the peer based model (no expensive licensing or regulation to drive up costs) combine to provide opportunities for care for those who can not afford it. To date, some donations have come in, but we have yet to have to have a major fund raising effort.

Most importantly, residents and alumni, from all over New England and beyond, are getting help with their problems with alcohol and drugs. A community of over 400 alumni continues to build. Social networking is keeping folks in touch with each other when on the road, or for those who don't live in the area. Referrals are coming in from industry professionals, treatment centers, rehabs, doctors, and alumni. A need is being served for services. Services which had been all but shut down in the state due to budget cuts, insurance abuses in past years, and lack of political support.

There were the usual start up challenges, but as with any other start up, a program of continuously surveying, monitoring and improving is in place to refine the model as we grow.

The hope is that this model peer based recovery system of support can be replicated in other places where facilities can be re-deployed into value building investments that improve the surrounding community. Perhaps alliances with other non-profits will develop to adjunct competencies. Perhaps mergers to gain scale. The key is that the same skills used to build successful ventures in the business world can be put to use in the non-profit world. It's a way to give back, and help the community without taxing to do it.

So, you're perhaps wondering, why this cause for me personally? Fair question. Family, friends and I have all been positively impacted by the power of long term sustained recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. As a result our lives have become substantially better, and so have those of our families and friends around us. We have also witnessed the destructive nature of these problems if unaddressed. A life of recovery, including giving back to help others, is a much better life.This is just one way to give back. Other non profits I am volunteering my board skills to include Saving Teens in Crisis Collaborative as well as RI Communities for Addiction Recovery Efforts.

Questions or comments? Feel free to email me.

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen .

Harvard Business Review Article

How Will You Measure Your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen
7 pages.  Publication date: Jul 01, 2010. Prod. #: R1007B-PDF-ENG

Harvard Business School's Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In this article, he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity? The answer to the first question comes from Frederick Herzberg's assertion that the most powerful motivator isn't money; it's the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute, and be recognized. That's why management, if practiced well, can be the noblest of occupations; no others offer as many ways to help people find those opportunities. It isn't about buying, selling, and investing in companies, as many think. The principles of resource allocation can help people attain happiness at home. If not managed masterfully, what emerges from a firm's resource allocation process can be very different from the strategy management intended to follow. That's true in life too: If you're not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you're likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what's really important to you. And just as a focus on marginal costs can cause bad corporate decisions, it can lead people astray. The marginal cost of doing something wrong "just this once" always seems alluringly low. You don't see the end result to which that path leads. The key is to define what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

Excerpt:

..........Choose the Right Yardstick

"This past year I was diagnosed with cancer and faced the possibility that my life would end sooner than I’d planned. Thankfully, it now looks as if I’ll be spared. But the experience has given me important insight into my life.
I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.
I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success."

Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch

Advancing technologies and their swift adoption are upending traditional business models. Senior executives need to think strategically about how to prepare their organizations for the challenging new environment.

AUGUST 2010 • Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, and James Manyika

Source: McKinsey Global Institute

(heads up from the blog - McKinsey articles require you to register to read the full article, so I usually to not 

post them on the VentureFuel blog, but this is worth the effort.) 

In This Article

• Trend 1: Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstream
• Trend 2: Making the network the organization
• Trend 3: Collaboration at scale
• Trend 4: The growing ‘Internet of Things’
• Trend 5: Experimentation and big data
• Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world
• Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service
• Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model
• Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
• Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid

Two-and-a-half years ago, we described eight technology-enabled business trends that were profoundly reshaping strategy across a wide swath of industries.¹ We showed how the combined effects of emerging Internet technologies, increased computing power, and fast, pervasive digital communications were spawning new ways to manage talent and assets as well as new thinking about organizational structures.
Since then, the technology landscape has continued to evolve rapidly. Facebook, in just over two short years, has quintupled in size to a network that touches more than 500 million users. More than 4 billion people around the world now use cell phones, and for 450 million of those people the Web is a fully mobile experience. The ways information technologies are deployed are changing too, as new developments such as virtualization and cloud computing reallocate technology costs and usage patterns while creating new ways for individuals to consume goods and services and for entrepreneurs and enterprises to dream up viable business models. The dizzying pace of change has affected our original eight trends, which have continued to spread (though often at a more rapid pace than we anticipated), morph in unexpected ways, and grow in number to an even ten.²
The rapidly shifting technology environment raises serious questions for executives about how to help their companies capitalize on the transformation under way. Exploiting these trends typically doesn’t fall to any one executive—and as change accelerates, the odds of missing a beat rise significantly. For senior executives, therefore, merely understanding the ten trends outlined here isn’t enough. They also need to think strategically about how to adapt management and organizational structures to meet these new demands.
For the first six trends, which can be applied across an enterprise, it will be important to assign the responsibility for identifying the specific implications of each issue to functional groups and business units. The impact of these six trends—distributed cocreation, networks as organizations, deeper collaboration, the Internet of Things, experimentation with big data, and wiring for a sustainable world—often will vary considerably in different parts of the organization and should be managed accordingly. But local accountability won’t be sufficient. Because some of the most powerful applications of these trends will cut across traditional organizational boundaries, senior leaders should catalyze regular collisions among teams in different corners of the company that are wrestling with similar issues.
Three of the trends—anything-as-a-service, multisided business models, and innovation from the bottom of the pyramid—augur far-reaching changes in the business environment that could require radical shifts in strategy. CEOs and their immediate senior teams need to grapple with these issues; otherwise it will be too difficult to generate the interdisciplinary, enterprise-wide insights needed to exploit these trends fully. Once opportunities start emerging, senior executives also need to turn their organizations into laboratories capable of quickly testing and learning on a small scale and then expand successes quickly. And finally the tenth trend, using technology to improve communities and generate societal benefits by linking citizens, requires action by not just senior business executives but also leaders in government, nongovernmental organizations, and citizens.
Across the board, the stakes are high. Consider the results of a recent McKinsey Quarterly survey of global executives³ on the impact of participatory Web 2.0 technologies (such as social networks, wikis, and microblogs) on management and performance. The survey found that deploying these technologies to create networked organizations that foster innovative collaboration among employees, customers, and business partners is highly correlated with market share gains. That’s just one example of how these trends transcend technology and provide a map of the terrain for creating value and competing effectively in these challenging and uncertain times. Register to continue.

Help save a teen ! -

I received the news that my friend and collegue John Reuben lost his son....an anquish no parent should have to have to know. Please read Johns outreach - and make a donation to his non-profit that helps teens. I did - I believe in Johns good work and have seen the results. If you already made a contribution from the email I sent, thank you - you have helped a teen!
Sincerely,
Paul Lavallee

From: John Reuben [mailto:jreuben@savingteens.org] Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 10:16 PMTo: VentureFuel@msn.comSubject: Passing Away Of My Son Michael

Friends & Associates,Many of you may have already heard about the passing of my son, Michael, this past weekend as the result of substance abuse related issues. As much as I have tried these many years, I could not help Mike escape the grip of his drugs of choice. And now I am faced with a void in my life that will be impossible to replace.Substance abuse is a horrid disease, a plague on our society. In 2004 I realized that my son had this problem and looked for a constructive way to channel my energies from worrying about my son. I formed a non-profit called Saving Teens In Crisis Collaborative (STICC) to help disadvantaged families with their children. STICC provides long term, substantive care for the children and support for the rest of the family. To date we have helped several families, some of which you can read about on our website at www.savingteens.orgWe are currently funding a family from Columbus, Ohio. His single Mom works three jobs and has watched her 14 year old son cycle into drug abuse and all that brings socially, academically, and legally. STICC will provide Billy with an environment where he can deal with his addiction, regain his academic initiative, and confront the emotional issues he has that in many cases can be the root of the problem. Afterwards we will provide the family transitional assistance to help Billy back into the mainstream and for the entire family to heal together.I hope that you will think about my story, read about the families we have helped, and participate in this war on this disease, one kid at a time. Please do so by visiting our website at https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/SavingTeensinCrisisCollabo/OnlineDonation.html Let's not let this happen to one more parent than it needs to.Thank you,John________________________John D. ReubenChairman & FounderSaving Teens In Crisis Collaborative(978) 852-2144mailto:jreuben@savingteens.org

The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits

The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
By Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant
We spent three years studying 12 of the most successful nonprofits in recent U.S. history. They have come up with innovative solutions to pressing social problems, and they have spread these ideas nationally or internationally. In the business world, these organizations would be akin to companies like Google or eBay.
What we learned about these nonprofits astonished us, and intrigued others with long experience in the field. We believe that the framework we've discovered offers a new lens for understanding the social sector and what it takes to create extraordinary levels of social change. Any organization seeking to increase its social impact can emulate the six practices that we describe in detail below.
The secret to success lies in how great organizations mobilize every sector of society -- government, business, nonprofits, and the public -- to be a force for good. In other words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than how they manage their own internal operations. Textbook strategies like relentless fundraising, well-connected boards, and effective management are necessary, of course, but they are hardly sufficient. The high-impact nonprofits we studied are satisfied with building a "good enough" organization and then spending their time and energy focused externally on catalyzing large-scale systemic change. Great organizations work with and through others to create more impact than they could ever achieve alone.
"Give me a lever long enough, and I alone can move the world," is the common paraphrase of Archimedes. These twelve groups use the power of leverage to create tremendous change. Like a man lifting a boulder three times his weight with a lever and fulcrum, they have far more impact than their mere size or structure would suggest.
The organizations in this book seed social movements and help build entire fields. They shape government policy, and change the way companies do business. They engage and mobilize millions of individuals and, in so doing, help change public attitudes and behaviors. They nurture larger networks of nonprofits and collaborate rather than compete with their peers. They spend as much time managing external relationships and influencing other groups as they do worrying about building their own organizations. These high-impact nonprofits are not focused only on themselves but also on the relentless pursuit of results.
After a long process of studying these organizations, we began to see patterns in the ways they work. In the end, six of these patterns crystallized into the form presented here -- the six practices that high-impact nonprofits use to achieve extraordinary impact.
The first four practices are more external; they represent how these groups dramatically expand their impact outside the borders of their own organizations. In observing this external focus, we also realized that working outside the organization entails special practices inside that help these nonprofits relate more effectively to their environment. This led us to discern two additional internal practices that enable high-impact nonprofits to operate successfully in the outside world and bridge boundaries.
More specifically, we learned that great social sector organizations do these six things:
1. Advocate and serve. High-impact organizations don't just focus on doing one thing well. They may start out providing great programs, but eventually they realize that they cannot achieve systemic change through service delivery alone. So they add policy advocacy to access government resources or to change legislation, thus expanding their impact. Other nonprofits start out doing advocacy and later add grassroots programs to supercharge their strategy. Ultimately, all of them bridge the divide between service and advocacy, and become good at doing both.
2. Make markets work. Tapping into the power of self-interest and the laws of economics is far more effective than appealing to pure altruism. No longer content to rely on traditional notions of charity or to see the private sector as the enemy, great nonprofits find ways to work with markets and help business "do well while doing good." They influence business practices, build corporate partnerships, and develop earned-income ventures -- all ways of leveraging market forces to achieve social change on a grander scale.
3. Inspire evangelists. Great nonprofits see volunteers as much more than a source of free labor or membership dues. They create meaningful ways to engage individuals in emotional experiences that help them connect to the group's mission and core values. They see volunteers, donors, and advisers not only for what they can contribute to the organization in terms of time, money, and guidance but also for what they can do as evangelists for their cause. They build and sustain strong communities to help them achieve their larger goals.
4. Nurture nonprofit networks. Although most groups pay lip service to collaboration, many of them really see other nonprofits as competition for scarce resources. But high-impact organizations help the competition succeed, building networks of nonprofit allies and devoting remarkable time and energy to advancing their larger field. They freely share wealth, expertise, talent, and power with their peers, not because they are saints, but because it's in their self-interest to do so.
5. Master the art of adaptation. All the organizations in this book are exceptionally adaptive, modifying their tactics as needed to increase their success. They have responded to changing circumstances with one innovation after another. Along the way, they've made mistakes, and have even produced some flops. But unlike many nonprofits, they have also mastered the ability to listen, learn, and modify their approach based on external cues -- allowing them to sustain their impact and stay relevant.
6. Share leadership. We witnessed much charisma among the leaders in this book, but that doesn't mean they have oversize egos. These CEOs are exceptionally strategic and gifted entrepreneurs, but they also know they must share power in order to be a stronger force for good. They distribute leadership throughout their organization and their nonprofit network -- empowering others to lead. And they cultivate a strong second-in-command, build enduring executive teams with long tenure, and develop highly engaged boards in order to have more impact.
Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits; Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant; Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.