A friend designs adventure tours for business leaders and as it happens I'm in the early stages of suggesting an world class entrepreneurial tour. What would you add or take out from this? chris macrae, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Entrepreneurial highlights of tour below --------------------------------------------- Inspirational is not irrational: We are interested in visiting places where a founder -or someone very determined - decided that human value was in some totally opposite direction than the conventional big company/consultancy wisdom at that time - and planted this structurally in a way that no subsequent manager would be likely to change. I believe this is how the most sustainable value growth is branded by leaders. It is particularly salient today because a net connected world produces many extraordinary change opportunities in the very medium and channels you brand through, not least because 2-way communications and relationships link us to a whole new world of human productivity. Key interpretations of lessons from: Toyota : designing manufacturing so that everyone is in a customer feedback loop South West Airlines: A great airline serves the social-economics of a whole region as well as the day's passengers. See your work that way, and business becomes inspiring and win-win Silicon Valley: Arguably the first time in the modern era that a whole region was built to serve the needs of a target emerging industry sector. Quite a lot of social capital lessons in this too because it was the first sector that could only grow through co-opetition Fast Company: The only business journal I can think of which is really using the net to develop all sorts of communities of readers. It's better to be 6 years young on this learning curve - warts and all - than not to have started at all. Business economics and social responsibity is changing in so many exciting ways that a group of staff writers who are not open to learning from their readers' deepest experiences will increasingly produce c ontent which is not much more than PR fodder. They will also devalue bigger direct customer relationship franchises than almost any industry sector has ever had. e-inclusion & Barbara Waugh : e-inclusion just might be the birth of the 21st C most valued global Corporate Social Responsibility brand network (ie any brand) and even if it isnt, Barbara rates top in my book as most authentic manager of everyday organisational learning Community designers in Brixton: well there's a risk of putting an unknown company in such exalted listing but these people live & breathed community before they lived and breathed the web. Two good worlds to imbibe and a very low cost half day's excursion from London airport - a fitting end to the journey's learning circle. -------------------------------------------- My short Western tour (assembly point London) is focused on win-win values, with an emphasis on people who seek cultures that spiral the creative tension between communal and entrepreneurial. Lets' start in a small town in Ireland where community pops around every corner, and visit one of Superquinn's stores. Quinn is nicknamed the pope of customer service - Ireland's Sam Walton albeit on a smaller scale that's never wanted to go beyond serving local communities. Then let's cross the Atlantic to... A large manufacturing company where everyone treats everyone else as a customer is Toyota in Georgetown, Kentucky. Here they can produce over a million different car designs at higher quality and lower cost than any other leading manufacturer can do ten thousand.I'll wager this is the most humanly organised factory you'll ever see as well as being driven directly by customised orders. then we'd connect by South West Airlines - yes I do hope it feels like this: The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. and this... We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer. Then to Barbara Waugh who runs http://www.hp.com/e-inclusion perhaps the greatest global brand concept of the 21st C., certainly one of the few businesspeople whose bio "Soul in the Computer" is an eyeopening read for humanity as well as intriguing business practices. Silicon Valley was once the most creating place in the West; I'd like survey if it still is. ( There's a museum of electronic futures which they say is one of the wonders of the modern world (need to check its name); do the locals still rate Palo Alto or Apple as stop offs while we're in the neighbourhood? If Peter Drucker is still receiving people, knowledge-workers should pay homage to this great source of organisational learning.) Back to East Coast, we should interview Alan Webber because I think what he's done as editor of Fast Company is the savviest win-win thing in business journalism, which may not be that great an accolade, but I'm sure his team keep searching for social capital networking leads. ( And I didnt expect The Economist where my father www.normanmacrae.com used to work would slip so far behind as a paper where readers are teased into learning what establishment lose-losing to overthrow next. That's what market leadership does for the future - isnt it?) Then I might surprise you with a visit to Park Avenue where a CEO keeps his thinktank for global re-organising far away from headquarters, and then as a Brit I must come back to Brixton where some of the world's most capable designers of virtual community conflict-resolution spaces do great work such as design of http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Macrae helped charter the World Class Brand Standards of Brand Architecture, Brand Learning :Living Scripts & Identity Systems, and Brand Measurability/Integrity. He is co-founder of Chief Brand Officer Association. Register now to fully participate in our NEXT COMMUNITY : standardising the relationships audit that global & intangibles-led companies need alongside quarterly numbers.email [EMAIL PROTECTED] subject wcb2002 Network Bookmarks include: www.allaboutbranding.com & http://www.normanmacrae.com/brand_as_value_exchange/dynamic_valuation.pdf ----- Original Message ----- From: "fabio guillermo rojas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 31 March 2002 23:16 PM Subject: Emotions and Entrepeneurship > > Is there any good writing on the role of emotions in entrepeneurship? > Basically, I've come to wonder if what distinguishes entrepeneurs from > the rest of us is that they have irrational expectations of what their > business can produce. Think about it this way. Entrepeneurship is the > activity of exploiting opportunities others can't or won't see. Ie, based > on the available information and prior knowledge entrepenuers will > jump into an activity that would appear to the rest of us to be a bad > investment. Because they have such strong emotional attachments to what > they are doing, they are willing to expend the time and effort to solve > the unforseen problems that most new businesses encounter. > > Of course this isn't the only side of entr'ship, but it is a hypothesis > worth thinking about. Any comments? > > Fabio > > [Disclaimer to Armchair Philosophers: I'm not equating emotions with > irrationality, so please don't flame me on that point.] > >
