A Path to Success

Useful tools for Small Business - CTV interview with MikeMcDerment from Freshbooks

A great interview with Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment on 3 great tools for small business. Freshbooks, Paypal and Shoeboxed.

http://watch.ctv.ca/clip252996#clip252996

What tribal stage are you in?

I'm at Stage 3 "I'm great" with a bit of Stage 2 "My life sucks". I want to be at Stage 4, "We're great" -- all the time. And of course Stage 5 "Life is great" is the ideal.

The Candle Problem -- Dan Pink Talks about Innovation at TED

Dan you've come a long, long way. Great talk at TEDGlobal 2009! We hope to see you back in Toronto soon, Dan!

Dan Pink talks about the mismatch between motivation in business -- he makes a case for Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose being a better motivator than the "carrot and stick" motivation approaches of the 20th century. It seems counter intuitive, but he gives many examples where letting people be independent, become masterful and work with purpose leads to a much greater rate of success. Heady thoughts for heady times.

Here's the Atlassian company philosophy that Dan talks about:

Dan Roam Adds Clarity to the Health Care Debate

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)

Project Management rewards lazy, bright people. In an article on project managers working too hard, the author makes a point for 4 different types of project managers. You'll be surprised by who should be promoted to leadership, or maybe this will underline something you already know from "The Office" or "Office Space".

Fascinating article on how content management helped win the White House

Quote:

"It turned out that his timing was perfect—a new world was forming and technologies like YouTube, Facebook, and text messaging that barely existed just four years prior had matured to become a part of everyday life. And from the first moments of Barack Obama’s campaign in February 2007, his bottom-up, revolutionary style contrasted sharply with that of Hillary Clinton and John McCain."

http://www.aiim.org/Infonomics/Obama-How-Web2.0-Helped-Win-Whitehouse.aspx

And a great presentation from the President of AIIM -- the Association for Information Management:

Here's the SocialMedia8 presentation on the Obama Campaign Case Study mentioned in the presentation.

The Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits: Fundraising, Communications, and Outreach

Idealware is publishing a field guide for Non Profit organizations. A prototype of the guide is available here. Newpath is considering licensing this guide and attracting non profits in Toronto to our group to a discussion of the content within this document. Idealware is a "Gartner for non profits" so the guide will be a non-biased, realistic look at how non profits can benefit from technology innovation.

Are you interested in NewPath licensing the guide? One approach could be asking NewPath members to contribute $20/each as a business development opportunity. If we get 50 folks we can license the guide for 500 organizations. We can then offer the guide for free for non profits and collect a very good mailing list of interested organizations which we can target for future events and meetings. This will bring the non profits closer to NewPath. 

Another approach would be to sell the guide through NewPath as part of traditional licensing exercise. In this case we would be hard pressed to use the data after we sold the guide to the non profit. NewPath would need to invest in the Guide up front and ask for permission to sell the guide. I wonder if a non profit would pay $20 for a 3 year subscription to the field guide?

If so please comment here or email us.

Sources of Financing your Startup Business

NewPath is working on getting a speaker on this topic in the fall. In the mean time here's a great presentation from Brian Macdonald from Ontario's Business Advisory Services on the topic:

Scott Thomas on The Power of Design for the Obama Campaign

Scott Thomas, Lead Designer for Obama's Campaign talks about what it was like to design Obama's digital campaign on the fly. This video culls the highlights from his presentation and catches up with him afterward to find out more about his theories on simplicity and his plans for working in politics in the future.

Do Not Be This Manager - Sesame Street Spoof of "30 Rock"

Pretty hilarious, if not surreal a bit... But seriously, this may be ok for kids but for adults -- they rarely like such managers... A good story here for treating people like adults, not children.