Entrepreneurship – Promote Innovation within Your Business
Published February 10, 2012 | 
The most successful entrepreneurs are leaders that get the right people to work with them and to do the right thing, understand all the right reasons, and perform and accomplish tasks the right way, at the right time, using all the right resources and achieving the most successful results.
Support competition with rewards by creating a dynamic work environment in which employees with the most talent get to earn rewards and the best ideas always get recognized, endorsed and promoted, regardless of age, experience or position. Always understand that talent is talent, and never discourage it. This not only creates an atmosphere of healthy competition, but it encourages your employees at the same time, to be vocal and participate in the bigger vision with a sense of ownership or buy-in to your business.
Host regular brainstorming sessions constantly with your employees. Not only does it help you identify and understand the talent in your organization, but it’s the by far the quickest method to access the best ideas in the room. Call it something like your Brainstorm Maximization System.
To get the most successful results you should narrow down your focus and define your goal explicitly, all the while strongly encouraging free-flowing brainstorming action, then go back to sharpen and clarify ideas as many times as you need to. 
Then when you feel like you’ve completed the process to your complete satisfaction, allow the employee team members to vote on what they consider the best ideas.
Always lead by your example and if you’re not moving with a strong sense of urgency and momentum, and adding your own ideas to the mix, it becomes extremely difficult to highly-motivate an innovative team with a lot of talent and potential to really produce great results.
Remember, leadership is constant pursuit including the pursuit of excellence, of elegance, of truth, of what’s next, of what if, of change, of value, of results, of relationships, of service, of knowledge, and always of innovative ideas of something better and bigger.
The Zen of Innovative Success
Published October 28, 2011 | So what is it that makes us innovatively creative?
Are you innovative and creative?
Let’s face it, that if you know anyone known for being quite creative, then they are most likely also seen in addition to being very creative, having more fun, able to create more buzz, and with more laughter in their life.
Looking at the trait from a physiological viewpoint, scientists define creative innovation as the regions of the brain communicating that under normal traits conditions, are not ordinarily connected. A crucial component or ingredient in the recipe of creativity and innovativeness is the essential ability to consider and develop alternative solutions, and this skill is known as ‘divergent thinking,’ which typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner, such that many ideas are generated and can be explored in a relatively short amount of time.
So, naturally the next question is just how does this type of thinking work? Let’s examine at how the idea of this post about creativity and innovation first suggested itself to me.
I was visiting with a client at their martial arts business and watching some sparring practice and forms being executed with power and grace.
The client has proven quite successful at combining innovation, martial arts and business. During our conversation the client told me that they enjoy reading my blog and how multi-faceted business and the success it enjoys can be. Of course, the idea of a post about innovation and creativity instantly made itself known in my brain. You can see in this example how my brain connected different facts and actions: ‘martial artist’, ‘a great topic for a post’, ‘innovation and creativity,’ and business.
Innovation and creativity is a natural state of mind
Innovation and creativity isn’t something that either you have it or you don’t, but having it can greatly enhance your chances of being successful. Children don’t realize it but they are being creative when they ‘play.’ And most will agree that all children are pretty good at doing that! The next time you have a chance to observe children playing, whether your own kids or someone you know, notice how they make and change rules as the game or fantasy role playing progresses. It becomes a challenge to keep up with the level of creativity and innovation that flows during such activities.
As a result, we can say that being creative then is not something far, far away and difficult to achieve. It is in reality something natural that we need to re-discover within ourselves.
Suspend your judgment to be most innovative
Most people tend to suppress their creativity as they get older, because they don’t understand how to shut up or silence their thought-chatter. That is what the voice in your head tells when you attempt creativity and innovation, including things like, “That’s stupid!” or “This really is bad!” or “You’re just wasting your time!”
You’ve heard that voice before, right?
Stimulate your creativity
One of the easiest, and yet most powerful creativity strategies you can make use of in the comfort of your home or in the office is simply this – Look for the second right answer.
When most people have a problem, they unknowingly stop with the first right answer they discover. Now understand that approach is sufficient and acceptable for certain problems types of problems including mathematical ones that first comes to mind. But as is the case for the majority of problems, they have a range of answers, and if you stop searching after you find the first answer, then of course, all the great alternative answers will go completely undiscovered. So remember, if you look for the second, third, and even fifth right answer, you are more than likely to come across some really good creative choices for the answer.
Finally, here’s an example to help you understand: Pick up a pen and ask yourself, “What is it?” The first right answer might be a writing device. But now ask yourself, “What are the other right answers?” Don’t stop at the second one: It’s a pointer, a coffee stirrer, a telephone dialer, a weapon, a hole-punch, an emergency tracheotomy tool, and an advertising medium.
Now it’s your turn!
Video Business Success! Who Needs an Office?
Published October 15, 2011 | 
Okay, so sharing work and space has just been taken to a whole new level, and identified as one of the hottest trends in sharing. The development of “Common workspaces” appears to be potentially fertile ground for spurring innovation and providing start-ups with the collaborative atmosphere one might find in academic settings, but even more importantly, increased opportunity for venture capital exposure and funding. Check out this interesting video about New York’s “General Assembly”.
No Office? Really No Problem
Video! Scooba: Mopping the Floors So You Don’t Have To
Published April 13, 2011 | 
Okay, all you Entrepreneurs, it’s time to check out this new product from iRobot called the Scooba 230 that seems to adapt to the new life style of families or individuals with hard surface floors that either don’t have or won’t take the time for the necessary household chores called drudge work. In this case, mopping dirty floors is the drudgery, and with hard surface floors currently extremely popular, this innovation just may be a success. But the real question is, “how big of a success?”
The $299 device may not be best for tough-cleaning jobs, but it can definitely help with maintenance.
iRobot Scooba 230: Mopping the Floors So You Don’t Have To!
The Next Great Entrepreneurs – Think Green Think Small
Published April 12, 2011 | 
Okay, so the green market niche is starting to grow. Not because the U.S. federal government is trying to create the market by force of endless regulations, but because the market is naturally being created through natural global market forces. Let me repeat that in case some readers skipped over the importance of “the market is naturally being created through naturally occurring global market forces.”
When you’re thinking “reusable” you’re thinking green. If you’re not thinking about ways for you to go green, you might be getting behind. Of course, clean-technology has been the darling of some in the venture capital community for a few years now, as the sector walk off with $424 billion in 2009 and to follow that up, received 17 percent of all angel investment last year, an increase from the 8 percent received in 2008 (seems so long ago). So what’s happening in the market now that seems far more relevant?
That is to say what’s far more relevant the other kind of green? Yes, “sustainable profitability” is the slogan these days. Great Entrepreneurs understand that the climate piece of business is secondary, and the bottom line is always the business decision driver. Upon closer examination, the recent rise of green businesses to meet growing market demand is a natural market occurrence illustrating the phenomenon, which is extremely important to understand, and yet quite simple. Remember that “simplicity is the greatest complexity.”
Innovative Entrepreneurs have also developed technology to the point they are trying to make money by saving other businesses money, some by creating savings of 20 percent off energy bills. Others have created and developed powered energy systems that can be of benefit to smaller commercial 
enterprises (many in the hotel accommodations industry) and lowered utility costs by a significant 25 percent.
Even large corporations and governments are in the process of making green changes to save money. In America, Chili’s restaurants, are for example, installing LED lighting hoping to save an estimated $3.7 million annually, while federal agencies in the U.S. plans on spending approximately $20 billion over the next four years on technologies like cloud computing and green computing hardware to reduce energy consumption.
Finally, Great Entrepreneurs in the global economy understand with a clear vision that whenever things change, modify, transform, and revolutionize there are always great opportunities and investments, out of which both jobs and wealth are created.