Sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

sqwawqs business life

written by entrepreneurs, for everyone

Startup

Strategy

Fight Your #FOFO How to Build Leaders Grow Up, Before You Get Big

Is ROI Getting In The Way of Profit?

What This Top CEO Knows That You Don’t Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Company

Everything you need to know about

Bitcoin Crypto & Blockchain

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Social Media Marketing Technology 1 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

James Altucher and the lowdown on Bitcoin Bursting The Bubble of Blockchain Why Your ICO Investment Will Lose Money Can Small Businesses Leverage Blockchain?

sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Contents Everything You Need To Know About Bitcoin

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A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & The Cryptocurrency Market 18 Why Your ICO Investment Will Lose Money in 2018

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Bursting the Bubble of BLOCKCHAIN!

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Can small businesses leverage blockchain too?

33

The Future of the ICO Market 37

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18

58

41

Hey startup: Grow up before you grow big!

41

Year 9 of lessons, losses and learning: the 30 most valuable lessons learned over nine years of entrepreneurship 48 Lessons in Composing Music for Start-ups, Innovators and Entrepreneurs 53 How to Build Leaders- Frank Feedback & Empathy 55 Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

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58

Contents Learning at the Speed of Change

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Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Company and What You Can do to Change This 69 Is your Personal Brand helping or hindering you?

72

What Do Brands and Countries Have in Common?

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What this top CEO knows that you don’t: How to have a great fight 81

64

77

101

106

Fight Your #FOFO 86 This Guy Left Google. So What? 91 Welcome to Deezer...or, how I found my dream job.

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The Web Browser urns 25! 98 QR Codes Are Back And Better Than Ever — Seriously

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China’s QR-Revolution: How Asia is Pioneering the Future of Interactive Cities 106 How the Next 5 Minutes Might Make All the Difference 3 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

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from the editor

Welcome to Issue 3 The new year period is traditionally a quiet time for business, but the transitional period into 2018 has proved to be rather more eventful than usual.

The cryptocurrency market has exploded and somewhat imploded in little more than a month, putting Bitcoin and altcoins and cryptocurrency as a whole well and truly into the public spotlight.A number of our articles in this issue discuss elements of Bitcoin, crytpocurrency, altcoins, ICOs, as well as the blockchain technology behind it. I have also scribed my personal perspective on the market.

Everyone has a viewpoint on the crypto market, but one view that we can all agree on, is that these are interesting times. Whether they prove to be groundbreaking in terms of our future, we are yet to see.

Another interesting tech related topic that we look at this issue is the rise in QR codes. A little like a lot of things, QR codes never actually went away, but have quietly been gathering 4 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

pace of use in various applications. China, as always the alternative market where things thrive within their own confined ecosystem, have long been trumpeting the usage of QR codes, being a central part of the Wechat payments platform, in the west Snapchat brought them to Snapcodes.

The key to their potential isn’t just the opportunity for them to be used as a platform element, rather the vast opportunity to form a bridge to link different platforms.

Our business content in Issue 3 is as wide and varied as usual, a mixture of topical and serious, interspersed with one or two tongue in cheek articles. One I particularly reading is David Schulhof’s ‘Is ROI Getting in the Way of Business’, a relatively self expanatory title, but a great in depth look at how sometimes we can become too focused on the wrong numbers, rather than fulfilling our overall strategy and objectives.

I hope that you have a good February, and that if you are invested in the crypo market, that your coin recovers!

Best Regards Dean O’Grady Managing Editor

PUBLISHER

Onside Partners www.onsidepartners.com

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor: Dean O’Grady Phone: +1 646 593 8887 Email: cs@sqwawqs.com

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

Ahmed El-Najjar, Amanda Mitchell, David Sable, David Schulhof, Erwen Zhu, Gerwald van den Oetalaar, James Altucher, Kidhadoritya Chaudhari, Mark Stouse, Matt Rizzetta, Morten Hansen, Naveen Joshi, Patrick Leddin, Paul Spencer, Pramod Jajoo, Ralph de la Vega, Roberta Chinsky Matuson, Sabina D’Silva, Tim Romero, Yoav Rimon, Yoshito Hori.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING Phone: +1 646 593 8887 Email: cs@sqwawqs.com

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CREATIVE & DESIGN Onside Partners

COPYRIGHT

All material appearing in Sqwawqs Magazine is copyright unless otherwise stated or it may rest with the provider of the supplied material. Sqwawqs Magazine takes all care to ensure information is correct at time of publishing, but the publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of any information contained in either text or advertisements. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher.

EVERYTHING

YOU NEED

TO KNOW

ABOUT

BITCOIN 5 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

Here’s the problem: most people who know a lot about Bitcoin can only speak “tech”.

I

was at a conference recently. I was the keynote speaker but had zero talk prepared (as usual). It was a crowdfunding conference so I “crowdsourced” my talk.

I asked the audience: I can talk about entrepreneurship or I can take fifteen minutes to explain Bitcoin without using any technical jargon. Clap for which one you want.

Almost 100% of the people wanted to learn about Bitcoin without the technical jargon.

People are hungry for this. They don’t want to hear about “crypto” or “blockchain.” They just want to know

what all this Bitcoin stuff is about.

Back in 2013, I thought Bitcoin was a scam. I was wrong.

First, some credentials.

In early 2013 I had my doubts. I started reading everything I could. Then I got my hands dirty.

I’ve been a coder/programmer since 1985. I decided to code up a Bitcoinonly store (maybe the first ever) and sell my book, “Choose Yourself” on it before it was released on Amazon.

It was very hard. I had to develop the store from scratch since there were no easy tools to help me. There still isn’t (hint: business opportunity).

Once I launched it, quite a few people bought my book. I sold a PDF of my book for 0.1 Bitcoin. Bitcoin was then $60, so I sold it for about $6 per PDF. Right now, it’s as if I sold each PDF for $1600. I sold many copies.

I went on CNBC when they heard I was doing this. The anchor asked me, “Did you just do this for publicity?

I said, “Well, I’m on national TV so I guess it worked.”

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cont >

Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

Another thing worth noting: Most of my customers came from one domain name (they had to submit their email addresses for me to process the sale): Amazon.com.

Make of that what you will.

what they are. Nobody needs to learn complicated cryptography or blockchain.

Just understand why now. Why this is important for us a society.

A few months ago I started writing about cryptocurrencies again. I saw so many people getting involved in scams; I wanted to help.

TWO CRITICAL REASONS BITCOIN IS HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT AND HERE TO STAY

The other day I had an Uber driver who thanked me during the car ride for helping him “get it.”

Just understand these two reasons. Then you will know the potential for Bitcoin. And you will be popular at cocktail parties.

And last night at a restaurant, the waiter at the end of the meal shook my hand and thanked me for helping him “finally” begin to understand what Bitcoin was about.

A) THE HISTORY OF MONEY Every new style of money solves the major problems of the last style of money.

In order for cryptocurrencies to succeed, people need to understand at a basic level

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

1. BARTER If I have a bag of rice and I need shoes, what if you make shoes but you only need 1/2 bag of rice. Do I get 1/2 a pair of shoes?

as a store of wealth/savings to make transactions

Barter has a lot of problems. In the above, coming up with the rice to shoes exchange rate is difficult.

There’s a third, which Ray Dalio, the head of the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater, told me the other day. But we’ll get to that later.

Then coming up with 1000s of exchange rates just to go out and buy groceries is almost impossible.

Barter is horrible as a store of wealth. And for transactions, best case it’s very difficult.

PLUS, what if you have to move (your kingdom is attacked). How are you going to carry all that rice? All of those shoes?

But problems lead to opportunities. Which leads to…

Money has two purposes:

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cont >

Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

2. PRECIOUS METALS / COINS Gold and silver are scarce. It’s hard to mine attacking countries: (this did not work out so well for the Aztecs). them.

But it’s hard to forge them because you can measure by weight.

So the scarcity combined with the lack of forgery makes them good choices for money. I can convert my rice into gold coins, you can convert your shoes into gold coins, and now we can buy whatever we want.

As a store of wealth, it’s not great but not horrible.

Two: What if you wanted to buy a house right now: are you really going to bring a truck of gold bars to the closing? Or if you have to move to another country and you have a lifetime worth of savings: are you going to ship all of your gold bars to your new home?

People say that gold is “real” as opposed to (later) paper money and cryptocurrencies.

BUT, two problems.

This is not really true. Gold is a rock. But it does have industrial uses (silver is better for this because of price but still…). Gold and silver are great electric conductors, can be used as SILVERware. Can be used as antibiotics (hence great for fillings on teeth).

One: what if you live in a country that doesn’t have any gold mines. Now you either have to trade for gold or start

So we can say that gold money is “backed” by something that has real use with value associated with it.

If my kingdom is attacked and I have to move, gold and silver are easily stored and carried as designed jewelry.

But we still have to solve the problems above.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

3. PAPER MONEY BACKED BY GOLD AND…PAPER MONEY

C

Countries made paper money that was like a contract with the government that all of that money can be converted into gold.

This was great for transactions (easy to carry paper money).

The US went off of gold in the early 70s in order to fund the financial needs of both the Vietnam War and the social improvement programs of Lyndon Johnson.

This was great for store of wealth (put the money in a bank and you can go anywhere).

The first banks for paper money backed by gold helped fund every war in Europe in the 1800s. Good job!

This created inflation.

When paper money is backed by gold, it also puts a clamp on inflation. You only have as much paper money in a country as there is gold in that country.

Again, might be good or bad. There’s a lot of debate. Did money printing save the US in 2008 and 2009? Maybe. Or will there be future problems caused by this? Maybe.

So you can trust the government not to go crazy printing money that is not backed by gold (like German in the 1920s when trillions of Marks were printed, and Germany went into an inflationary death spiral that was at least one cause for World War II).

Nevertheless, there are other problems with paper money that need to be solved:

Paper money will often lead to this situation.

Someone will say: why do we need the gold part?

BUT, why benefit the countries where gold is easy to mine and punish the countries where gold is hard to mine.

Also, the world is expanding in every way: more people, more technology, more innovation, more THINGS. I’m not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing (see: Germany above), but sometimes countries need to balance debt with money printing to manage their fiscal policy.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin d. Human error. This is a CRITICAL problem.

There are so many opportunities for human error. When you transfer money, they can send to the wrong account. Or a bank’s software can be hacked, and you lose all of your money.

Or, most importantly, the Federal Reserve in the US can decide to print another trillion (Like 2009) and, without your permission, the value of your dollar has gone down.

a. No privacy.

If I’m making a sizable (greater than $1000) transaction I’m usually not using cash but either a credit card or a money wire.

In the US we’ve been lucky. But all of South America hasn’t been so lucky (all of their currencies crashed in the 80s. Most of Asia wasn’t so lucky in the 90s (their currencies wiped them out). Russia in 1997 was wiped out.

So that means your bank knows. Other banks know (the bank you are sending money to, the Federal Reserve, the local Reserve bank, etc).

Many countries have relied on humans to print (or not print) money, and the slightest human error can wipe out an entire country’s economy.

Government agencies know (the IRS, the NSA, etc, etc).

The United States has been lucky. For now. But this is a HUGE error we risk every day.

Potentially sites like Google and Amazon know depending on what payment services you use and what you are buying.

These are the basic problems. There are more (theft, for instance).

So you have no privacy on your transactions with paper money. b. Fees.

If I send a friend in Korea money, I go through my bank (fee), local reserve bank (fee), Federal Reserve (fee), International wiring system (fee), their central bank (fee), their local reserve bank (fee), their local bank (fee).

That’s a lot of fees. Those fees help create inflation because every transaction needs to have a profit on top of those fees. c. Forgery. Something like $200 billion in forged money is circulating right now.

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e. What is backing paper money?

Only our trust. I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist. But the reality is: a dollar is a piece of paper. Just like gold is just a rock.

How do they make us trust that the money has value?

They put “In God We Trust” on it. They put George Washington. They put the signature of the Secretary of Treasury (pretending it’s a contract.).

And, for the weirdos, they even put a pyramid with an eye on it.

And that’s supposed to be why we trust it. I don’t trust it.

cont >

Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

4. BITCOIN (AND, BTW, BITCOIN IS NOT THE END. THERE WILL BE A “5”).

Bitcoin solves the problems above. a. Human error: there is no printing of money. There is a fixed supply of 21,000,000 coins.

How do I know this? I’m a skeptic. So I read the software behind Bitcoin. I read it over and over until I could figure it out.

In one part of the code they clearly define how many coins can be “mined” / printed (printed is the wrong word but I’m using it here to make the connection with paper money). And there’s another part of the code which “enforces” the first part.

c. Forgery.

The software guarantees that Bitcoins can’t be forged. d. Privacy. I can send you a Bitcoin, and nobody knows who is sending it, who is receiving it, and no government institutions are aware of it. e. Fees.

Some bitcoin transactions have small fees. But it’s nothing like the fees of going through six banks in the transaction described above.

b. Theft.

Like with every other form of currency, an exchange (like a bank) that stores your Bitcoin can be hacked and money stolen.

BUT, I only keep a small amount of money in an exchange. You can get a storage drive, store your money, and put it in a safety deposit box. So even if the exchange is attacked, you still have your money.

ALL theft can be prevented this way with Bitcoin. You can’t do this with paper dollars because if you have too many dollars, how will you store it? Ditto for gold.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

What’s backing it?

EVOLUTION OF EVERY INDUSTRY

There’s about 1000 man-years of science backing Bitcoin.

Everything in life evolves. Not only species but ideas.

The underlying technology of Bitcoin which involves heavy amounts of cryptography, financial know-how, and basics of contract law, plus the “blockchain” have 100s of usecases that we have only just begun to play with.

Let’s look at some industries.

EVEN IF Bitcoin is never used as a coin (although note: it’s being used every day as money), there are 100s or 1000s of other uses for Bitcoin that have nothing to do with the basic money use.

I won’t get into the weeds here: but suffice to say that ALL of contract law can be (and will be) eventually replaced by Bitcoin.

And ALL of logistics will be replaced by Bitcoin (e.g. UPS is replacing all of their internal logistics (tracking millions of packages every day going from millions of locations to millions of other locations) by Bitcoin technology.

MEDICINE Theism: 500 years ago if you got sick, you’d either pray to a god to get better, go to a shaman, make a sacrifice, or assume you committed a sin that made you sick and would try to undo the sin.

Humanism: Post-renaissance, we had human “experts” called doctors who would either leech us to death, perform horrible surgeries that would kill us, or would pat us on the back, hammer our knee and say, “take two aspirin.”

Doctors aren’t bad. They’ve saved many many lives. But Humanism has its limits. A known fact is that, on average, the moment when a doctor is most effective is his or her first year out of medical school. After that, statistically downhill.

There’s nothing behind paper money or gold like this.

Now…Bitcoin has problems also.

Hence the need for other cryptocurrencies.

But that’s ok and not the topic for here.

Suffice to say; Bitcoin solves all the basic problems of paper money, which solves the problems of gold, which solves the problems of barter.

HOWEVER, there is another reason why Bitcoin is here to stay, and it’s so compelling.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

Data-ism:

Now when if you go to a doctor, you get tests.

You get blood work, you get an MRI, an EEG, an X-Ray, the X-Ray might go into a database, and an AI algorithm matches it against other X-rays (does it match a tumor X-ray or a nontumor X-ray?). We even get genetic testing to see if our illness is in our chromosomes.

Then, armed with data, often a computer will tell us the correct solution (and even a computer can do the robotic surgery needed), or a human will help interpret the data (but there’s room for human error here).

So Medicine has evolved from Theism → Humanism → Dataism Let’s pick another industry:

WAR Theism: 3000 years ago if two countries went to war, the kings would perform massive sacrifices to their gods the day before.

In the Bible, whosever God was stronger (Baal versus Yahweh being a notable Hebrew battle), that group would win the war.

Fragments of this exist right now: May the Force Be With You, said to Luke before he flies out to fight the Death Star.

Humanism: For the past 500 years, whoever had the most humans on the ground, the most bullets, then the most planes, then the most bombs, would win the war.

Data-ism: War is being fought every day now. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Every day, some country tries to bring down the electric grid of Poland.

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Every day, every Fortune 500 company is attacked by “bot armies” coming from… nobody knows.

I’ve been involved in the cyber security space for 25 years or more.

I once was talking to a company who helps Fortune 500 companies fight “bot armies.” All of the employees were top PhDs who were the experts in their fields.

One guy told me, “No matter how smart we are, they are smarter.”

Who are “they?” The people making the bot armies. Where do they come from? We don’t know. They come from everywhere. They are just smarter than us.

Elections are rigged. Companies are attacked.

Information is stolen.

We have been in World War III for at least 20 years, and it will never end. Dataism has taken over war.

Ok…

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

MONEY Theism: “In God We Trust” Humanism: “George Washington.” A picture of Independence Hall. Or the White House. Anything. Anything at all so that we trust humans with what we are given in exchange for the hard labor we do every single day.

Do we trust humans? I tend to trust humans. But that is maybe not so smart all of the time. Humans make a lot of mistakes, and that’s been the downfall of so many companies, so many families, and so many…everything.

Data-ism. Bitcoin and now other cryptocurrencies.

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1000s of man-years of science. 100,000s of lines of code that has been checked by 10,000s of the best programmers.

Data-ism prevents forgery, keeps privacy, re-creates all contract law, avoids fees, avoids theft. And this is just a small sample of what data does for money.

“In Data We Trust” for better or worse. But it works.

The natural evolution of money has arrived. And it’s not only Bitcoin but other cryptocurrencies.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

FAQ: Why do we need other Cryptocurrencies?

Why do we need more than one currency at all? Why is there a US dollar and a Canadian dollar?

FOR NO REASON. Just an artificial border created in 1770 and we have two different currencies.

Cryptocurrencies have what I call are “problem borders.”

One coin is better than Bitcoin for making contracts (Ethereum).

Another coin is better for privacy ((Zcash. A problem with Bitcoin is that although there are no names on a transaction, I can see the size and the time. So privacy is still a slight problem).

Another coin might be better for solving a problem of decentralized storage (as opposed to storing all of your photos on one centralizes spot that can be hacked like Google Drive). Bitcoin doesn’t address this problem.

Problem Borders create new currencies.

Is it too late to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?

Right now, this reminds me of the Internet in 1995–6. There’s a bit of irrational exuberance in new coins. Prices are going crazy.

There will be a massive pullback. BUT, the legitimate coins are here to stay and will keep going.

Amazon, of course, pulled back, when the 16 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Internet pulled back. Now it will eventually be a trillion dollar company. Many companies that started in the 90s have survived and thrived and were great long-term investments that have paid off.

Cryptocurrencies are the “internet of money.”

The internet is here to stay and so is the internet of money.

We are only in inning one of the cryptocurrency shift in our money.

That said, I was wrong in early 2013.

I’ve been a software guy for 25+ years. I’m able to do my research. Which I did.

By May 2013 I had already done enough research to build my own bitcoin store, go on CNBC and discuss Bitcoin, and be an advocate when it was just $60. This is all public info.

But, for me, focusing on my physical health, emotional health, creative health, and spiritual health, will always be the most valuable “Currency” I can develop and trade in.

Could Bitcoin be just a fad?

No. Paper money DOES have the problems described above. Someone has to solve those problems. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies solve them.

And every industry evolves. Cryptocurrencies are the “In Data We Trust” way in which money is evolving.

And $750 BILLION believes in me on this.

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Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin

Who is Satoshi?

Satoshi is the secretive founder of Bitcoin.

Here are some books not about Bitcoin that He is worth many many billions in Bitcoin are worth reading: right now. He is anonymous, and reporters, governments, etc, have never figured out who Sapiens by Yuval Hurari he is.

The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley That said, a number of people know who he is. I read his blog every day, He is a secretive The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. person, and nobody wants to blow his cover.

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb Well, what should I do now?

There’s a lot of discussion of Don’t listen to me. cryptocurrencies on Reddit and Twitter. DO NOT read those. Most of those discussions are filled with trolls although there are some a. Get an account on Coinbase (or wherever). Buy $10 worth of Bitcoin just decent sources there.

to taste and feel it.

b. Then read. Read a lot.

Blogs / Sites: start with Coindesk and CoinTelegraph. You’ll find the rest as you read more.

James Altucher Editor at The Altucher Report, New York, US. James is a prolific writer, successful entrepreneur, chess master, and venture capitalist. He has started and sold several companies and is actively invested in, or advises, over 30 different companies in areas ranging from tech to energy to healthcare to biotech. He is the author of the Wall Street Journal Best Selling books: ‘Choose Yourself’, and The Power of No (co-author), as well as “The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth” (most recent book), “The Choose Yourself Stories”, SuperCash, Trade Like Warren Buffett, Trade Like A Hedge Fund, The Forever Portfolio, 40 Alternatives To College, and I Was Blind But Now I See.

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Because of the popularity of the book “Choose Yourself”, Choose Yourself Meetups, helping people network, come up with ideas, and actively contribute to each other’s success, have sprung up all over the world. USA Today ranked James: “Choose Yourself” second among the 12 Best Business Books of All Time.

James is the Co-founder of 20 companies, including some that have sold for large exits. Previously he was a hedge fund manager. He is currently on the board of a public company with a billion dollars in revenue and advises several others. James’ writing has been featured in The Financial Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post.

A Personal Viewpoint of

Bitcoin & The Cryptocurrency Market 18 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & Crypto

Like most people on the street, the first time the word ‘Bitcoin’ ever registered on my radar, it was likely to be something to do with either the dark web, silk road, terrorism, or some other shady sector of transactional business. Instinctively, I was intrigued, but with such a lack of information available, it passed me by, and I largely ignored Bitcoin, in complete blissful ignorance.

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Fast forward to December 2016; I attended the first Crowd Funding Conference in Los Angeles. The highlight of the event was hearing and seeing a person I’d never heard of before. He spoke with absolute humility, but everything he said made sense. James Altucher appeared on my radar for the first time.

When Robert Harjevec ridiculed Bitcoin in a panel conversation that included James, Altucher politely and eloquently made Hajevec’s argument one of a person completely uneducated to the potential of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and Blockchain as a transactional method.

My skepticism of the dark web, silk road, death planet(!?!) previous PR that had been implanted in my memory over the previous three years was reduced enough to go and buy some Bitcoin. If the price fell significantly, it was one of those things that I was just prepared to write off as a mistake, but I considered it as a small, medium term, high-risk investment.

Fast forward to December 2017. I’d watched but largely ignored the continual rise of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market. But now things were getting serious. Market capitalization was over five hundred billion dollars, and certain cryptocurrencies were riding a bull market faster than even the tech share frenzy of the late nineties could match. For the first time, people I knew were talking about Bitcoin.

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H

aving been in the market for a year, I was already concerned about potential problems for Bitcoin. The power requirements for mining transactions are currently (apparently as I’m no expert) huge. One transaction reportedly uses more electricity than is required to power your house for a week. The overall daily power requirements for all Bitcoin transactions exceed the requirements of Nigeria (don’t ask me why Nigeria was used as the example, but I assume that using a country with a large population of nearly 200 million, but with overall relatively low power usage per person would be more dramatic than using an example of say Ireland, with a far sparser populous).

Whatever country you want to use in your comparison, this was clearly a ‘Houston we have a problem’ moment.

While hearing about ways in which power requirements would ‘inevitably’ be reduced via some technology or other plans, my skepticism was rising about the short-term

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A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & Crypto future of Bitcoin. As a result of this huge power requirement, as well as a massive daily increase in transactions, Bitcoin transactions were seeing delays and becoming more expensive.

Which led me to look more at alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins). Such as Ethereum, the little brother (or sister, I’m not fussy) to Bitcoin, which looked a lot more scaleable and as equally tradable, without the apparent transactional power usage that was blighting Bitcoin.

The Christmas and New Year period, which I expected to be a quiet time in the market, proved to be the biggest and bullish weeks of cryptocurrency history. Market capitalization reached $800 billion, and everything cryptocurrency and altcoin went up. Ripple overtook Ethereum to be the second largest coin by capitalization, in a meteoric rise which took it from around 60 cents in mid-December, to over $3 in the first week of January. Some other altcoins 8 or even 10x’d in value over the same period (Tron, TRX for example).

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A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & Crypto

T

The new year hangover to come was late, by a week or so, but when it came, it hit hard. Really hard. News came out of South Korea (one of the largest current markets for Crypto), that they were to either restrict anonymous trading of cryptocurrencies, or ban trading all together. Generally, the market slipped 20-30%, but some coins – particularly Ripple and Tron, which were heavily traded in South Korea, were hit harder. It seemed that the media had a big appetite for bad news related to Cryptocurrency, and there on followed a plethora of generally speculative bad news stories, which continued to depress the market.

Reports of a hack at Coincheck, Japan’s largest crypto exchange, surfaced on January 29th. $532.6 million of NEM, at the time the tenth most valuable cryptocurrency, was taken, reducing faith in the security of crypto exchanges and the market as a whole.

On Wednesday 31st January, Facebook announced that advertisements for Cryptocurrencies were to become prohibited content, as they are ‘frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.’

On the same day, stories were circulated that Bitfinex, the popular US crypto exchange, had been subpoenaed by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, scrutinizing both the business and it’s coin Tether, which has a peg to the US dollar. The fact that the subpoenas were issued to Bitfinex on December 6th was either largely ignored or deliberately withheld.

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B

A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & Crypto

y the 1st of February, Bitcoin was only just over $10k (from an $18k+ high). Ripple was around $1.20.

Then just as I was about to write this article, before we wrapped up the February issue of Sqwawqs, came news that the Indian finance minister had stated in parliament that India ‘does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin, and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system’.

groups are dedicated to this. Rumours of market manipulation up to and including some of the crypto exchanges, does little to appease the street investor looking for returns from his hard earned cash. Many coins and ICOs are little more than long cons, with nothing more behind them than a sketchy white paper and a bunch of suitable looking tech and marketing faces to front it. Robert Harjevec wasn’t 100% wrong in his opinion - crypto’s and ICO’s have a lot of growing up to do and much legislation is required to regulate the industry.

An already fragile market turned immediately red everywhere. At the time of writing (around 1am time Saturday, February 3rd), Bitcoin stands at around $8560, after hitting a low of just $8010 a few hours earlier.

Ethereum is just below $900, and Ripple is at $0.83, after touching $0.70.

All this aside, for me, the key things that have happened in the last month is the widespread attention that has been drawn to other cryptocurrencies and altcoins. I don’t think that Bitcoin itself will be the future.

Currently, Bitcoin is produced by anyone that wants to mine it - that role has been taken by entrepreneurial spirits in warehouses, chicken sheds, basements, and garages all over the world - with China being reported to have the largest miners.

The mining process is too expensive to be sustainable, and the currency itself has to achieve massive scale if it is to get to a level where daily price fluctuations can level out.

The market has been battered, well and truly. Will it recover? How long will it take to recover? Just like any financial market, it will depend on confidence and news.

Despite all the bad news that has surrounded the Crypto market in the last month, I don’t believe there is any particular media vendetta against Crypto – the media generally loves bad news, as ultimately it sells better than good news.

But the Crypto market is unregulated. Coins are pumped and dumped on a daily basis, with a plethora of Reddit forums and telegram

22 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

W

A Personal Viewpoint of Bitcoin & Crypto

W

ith the growth of other coins, Bitcoins dominance of market share is being steadily reduced. At the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin WAS the crypto market, with an 80% market cap. By the start of January 2018 that had been reduced to 36%, though it had reached a previous low of 37.8% in June 2017. At the end of January, Bitcoin’s dominance had reduced further to around 35%. In my opinion, this gradual erosion will result in a gradual shift to market dominance of another coin.

Other cryptocurrencies have already been produced that could easily take Bitcoin’s place as the largest crypto, without the issues that Bitcoin have. If cryptocurrency is to change the world, we are only at the very start. Like the car industry a hundred years ago, there are many players, but many won’t survive. In startup/business terms, Bitcoin was v1.0 of crypto and is now nine years old. We are probably at V1.2 at present, and there are likely to be many changes in the crypto market before a long-term winner emerges.

23 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Whilst many coins have other purposes – some are not strictly forms of currency for public use, but means of contracts or services payments in various industry sectors, the future of whether cryptocurrency can take over from fiat currency (real money as it is now, be it dollars, euro, or pounds) probably won’t lie in the hands of the people. As much as crypto is about giving the power of payments away from the existing financial services sector and directly to the people, ultimately the existing financial system must be accessed to access the crypto market. If you want to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, or whatever, first you have to pay in real money.

Just that can be a challenge at present, and it is a key hurdle that will have to be overcome, if the crypto and altcoin market is stand alone - independent of barriers and restrictions from governments, banks and other institutions that have a vested interest in the continuation of the financial markets as they are at present.

Grab the pocorn and the supersize soda, the ride has only just begun.

Dean O’Grady Managing Editor www.sqwawqs.com

Why Your ICO Investment Will Lose Money in 2018 24 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Why Your ICO Investment will lose in 2018

Cryptocurrency and ICOs are as different as dollars and donuts — literally, one is a medium of exchange, and the other is something you purchase with that medium.

Cryptocurrencies are already becoming, and an important part of the economic landscape, but ICOs will prove to be a short-lived fad with most ICO tokens worthless.

This is not a radical prediction. Blockchain

technology does not change fundamental economics, and all tokens are not created equal. Tokens with intrinsic utility will increase in value, while those whose purpose is to extract value from a business will lose their value. Almost all ICOs are of the later type.

The Importance of Intrinsic Utility The two best known, and most valuable, tokens are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Both of these have novel, intrinsic utility. Bitcoin enabled rapid, pseudo-anonymous transfer of value without a controlling middleman and Ethereum’s smart contracts enable simple payment agreements to be documented in and enforced by software, not under the control of either party.

In both cases, since few practical alternatives exist, the price and demand for the tokens grew as their ecosystems grew.

Both of these tokens represented significant advances to the state of the art and introduced utility that was not practical without them. Furthermore, this utility was enabled solely by the tokens themselves and not tied to the fortunes of any particular company or group of companies.

Business ranging from electricity retailing to crowdfunding, to credit cards, to venture capital funds are using ICOs to raise funds.

The CEOs I’ve spoken to seem to sincerely believe in their vision, and that their token holders will see substantial returns.

Bitcoin’s ecosystem expanded as both illicit and legitimate transactions were attracted to the system. And while Ethereum’s smart contracts show a lot potential, demand and ecosystem growth has been primarily fueled by the fact that Ethereum enables ICOs. 25 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Most ICO startups, however, are not creating new utility, but grafting cryptocurrency onto an existing business model, and the value of these tokens are tied directly to the success of these firms.

But they are wrong.

The future value of these tokens comes not from enabling a new utility with few practical alternatives, but by siphoning cash from operations.

cont >

Why Your ICO Investment will lose in 2018

The Accounting Error ICO Startups Are Making ICO startups usually structure their business so that tokens must be purchased in order to do business with the startup. The theory being that the demand for tokens will expand as their business grows, and 1% to 5% of corporate cash flow will be diverted to token holders. With the founders usually holding between 20% and 30% of those tokens.

Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum however, ICO startups are not creating new utility, but entering existing markets with established competition, and they will be at a significant competitive disadvantage to firms that do not have to pay out 5% of their total sales.

Although ICO startups often tout blockchain as a competitive advantage, these tokens will be a millstone around their necks once they begin operations.

The more generous the token payments,

26 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

the larger the operational handicap.

Since the tokens themselves do not offer intrinsic utility, their value comes directly from operating margins.

Even in those cases where the blockchain improves operational efficiency, ICO companies will be at a disadvantage to startups paying out less or nothing at all and will be driven out of business.

Once that happens, the tokens will be worthless.

In reality, ICO tokens are similar to dividends and should be valued as such.

However, valuing these tokens using something like discounted cash flow is a horrifying exercise. Valuations often imply billions of dollars in annual sales.

That’s pretty ambitious for companies that, for the most part, do not have a functional product or significant industry experience.

Perhaps the most egregious use of ICOs are the firms using them to raise funds for venture investment. As is typical with most ICOs, the founders retain up to 30% of the tokens and tend to have little domain experience. While blockchain has the potential to both streamline dividend payments and help shareholders assert their rights, that’s not what’s happening here. ICO investors are simply blinded by blockchain and paying a 30% load for a fund run by an unproven team.

cont >

Why Your ICO Investment will lose in 2018

It's Even Worse Than You Think Technical handwaving does not change economics, and most ICOs are simply terrible investments.

But it’s even worse than that.

Corporate equity and debt come with specific and enforceable legal rights.

Tokens do not. While most whitepapers explain what the startup “plans” to do, the firm is under no legal obligation to follow those plans, and the pseudo-anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies will probably make legal claims difficult to enforce in practice.

The ultimate investor outrage, however, will occur when everything goes right. If against all odds, an ICO startup succeeds and begins generating the billions in sales required to make their tokens worth millions, nothing will prevent the firm from keeping those millions for itself.

Unlike Bitcoin or Etherium, which have intrinsic utility, most ICO tokens are simply a mechanism the startup uses to transact business, and they are free to change that mechanism. There are few

legal or technical hurdles that would prevent the startup, or more likely an acquiring company, from creating a new wholly-owned token, seamlessly migrating their customers to it, and leaving existing token-holders with worthless tokens.

In the long term, I think we will see thousands of successful, domain-specific cryptocurrencies, but the ones that win out will be those that provide the lowestcost infrastructure, not those that promise the highest returns.

There are clearly speculative profits to be made in buying tokens at or before ICO and selling them before the company begins operations, and real-world economics take effect, but in the long run, the value of almost all of these tokens will be driven to zero.

This is a based on an article Tim originally published in Forbes. If you want to know more about Tim, or innovation in Asia, particularly Japan, check out the Disrupting Japan podcast.

Tim Romero Four-time Founder, Investor, Podcaster Tokyo, Japan Tim Romero is a Tokyo-based podcaster, author, educator, and entrepreneur who finds speaking of one’s self in the third person to be insufferably pompous and pretentious. So I’m going to stop.

I've started several companies since 27 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

coming to Japan more than 20 years ago, and I'm deeply involved in Japan's startup community as an investor, founder, and mentor. There is a new wave of both home-grown entrepreneurship and an increased openness to Western technology companies that are already beginning to fundamentally change Japan for the better. I also host the Disrupting Japan podcast that covers Japanese startups and Japan and market entry.

BURSTING THE BUBBLE OF

BLOCKCHAIN! 28 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Bursting the Bubble of Blockchain echnology nowadays is a lot to take in. It is the hype of artificial intelligence, deep mind, neural networks, IOT, quantum computing and what not. But blockchain is also a word buzzing around us for a while now. All of us sure have read about it now or at least heard people admiring and criticizing this advancement in the technology. Well why not people will praise it, if the pieces fall straight we are going to be a part of one of the greatest revolution of human era. The technology will change everything around us. It will show humankind to the beginning of a new era of trading and building relationships. And maybe this change is what it is causing people to rethink on this technology.

The technology here we are talking about is not based on super fast and highly intelligent computers or any other technology than blockchain. This technology today is promising us a well-defined system of trade which cannot be tampered with, an irreversible data storage facility. But even a coin has two sides unless blockchain is that magician’s coin, it will stay like a storm. But what if it really is?

29 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

The blockchain is basically a digitized, decentralized, public ledger, i.e., there is no single entity in the system which regulates the processes like we have banks for transactions or a single point of storage, etc. Constantly increasing as blocks like the most recent transactions or data are added to it in chronological order, it allows all participants to keep track of their own transactions instead of central recordkeeping. Its a transparent system regulating everything.

Blockchain is a vast thing, the problem about the big systems is that it needs an extraordinary insight to state the perks or flaws of such system. The use of blockchain is increasing on a large scale, maybe on trial. But these trials are the ones are going to show what the system is really capable of. For now, defects are minor glitches based in its programming or problems that can be caused with computers with a very high computing speed or is it a very need of storing this amount of data with every user etc. It surely will improve with time and also new ones will be found. But the system irrespective of these flaws will have an impact.

Near to every other industry is going to be affected.

cont >

Bursting the Bubble of Blockchain

THE FINANCE SECTOR: IDENTITY:

T

he finance sector, blockchain is going to change the way it works.

Its very base, the currency, they say it is going to change. Yes! the cryptocurrency, it is being seen as a major application of the system, maybe because the system was introduced with one of its application of this type, the bitcoin. But a currency that we own in the form of bits? It will take a while to sync in this knowledge to a major population of the world. It has the ability to eradicate corruption and malpractices of black money once implemented. It is far away thing, it also showed us a way to trade between machines, to check their authenticity, to share all their details with everyone. The third party, middleman, agents, etc the people who take their shares to few percent, who earn from commissions won’t longer be earning this way. It is not only these people which will be affected but there are organizations institutions that rely on this kind of service.

You may start paying the exact amount it was made, maintained and delivered. Though the cryptocurrency may be far away in the future, the thing with authenticity and details can be and will be made realized.

DATA:

Now one may think, what will it affect our personal identities? Well, it does. Now imagine that every single person in the world has been registered on a blockchain. Since it cannot be altered, the human trafficking can be reduced. Or when you show up at a bar or someplace where age is a limit, why should you share your date of birth or your documents with an unknown group of individuals. But since your personal details are all filled up in a blockchain, you may get in using your thumb impression or swiping some kind of a card so that everyone knows you are eligible for the place plus you don’t have to expose any of your personal things.

THE FAMOUS INDUSTRY OF THE ARTISTS: The industry of artists, well it can be considered as a hypothetical place where all the employees are owners and create their own different art. It would allow the artist to share his original art with everyone and getting an appropriate amount of price for it.

It will also be a blow to the pirated kingdom online.

Data, no matter it exists on an online platform or not. Its security, authenticity, quality etc. are the things people look for.

They all come in a combined package of the blockchain. Though it may be in different blocks since they are connected to each other, it is a perk to the data analytics sections and data scientists around the world.

Storing data in bits and pieces in different blockchain is one of the ways security is being explored around the world.

30 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

Bursting the Bubble of Blockchain

REGISTRIES AND OWNERSHIP: Registries and ownership details are most tampered with, which is the reason there are a number of fraud cases are registered each day. Now you know authenticity and blockchain and all. Why am I telling this again? To give you a bigger picture, to ownership, sure, but in case of lands and properties, it can take a new look when the disputes of income from land holdings will be solved between the nations. Yes! To make world peace, there are cold wars between countries about the costly items like oil, jewels, endangered species from the border area belongs to whom. And also, geographical disputes between every defined class of people.

SMART CONTRACT: Smart contracts, it can be considered as the apex of the applications of blockchain that has been imagined until now. It is the world

31 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

where machines will trade. They will have their own currency. Consider living there; now there is no point imagining yourself poor, at least for now, so you are rich and you bought a driverless car for yourself. Now the car considers you as your owner, according to your wallet (money) and assets, it will have its own wallet filled. Whenever now you wish to refill its fuel or pay its maintenance charge or some other stuff with it, you won’t have to do it! The car will do it for herself. Well, you can say that you are just imagining, why not imagine that yourself as having both time and money to do this kind of stuff. Then move a step forward, now you have to sell your car, so you change the ownership to the buyer’s name, the car considers it and goes to its new destination without you both ever meeting.

And now in today’s world, if you sell the car, the buyer will have to come to your place and take the ownership of a car, which in a way would exploit the basic fact of a driverless car.

With smart contracts, everything you own can have its own history from where and when it came to existence and everything that has changed it to the way it is today.

cont >

Bursting the Bubble of Blockchain

I

It is a way to create a black box for everything you own from your house to the banana in the refrigerator.

So, blockchain is everything from giving yourself a different kind identity to giving identity to a most trivial thing you can think of. It is a whole different world where the currency can be different; machines, in a way are smarter, where equality is taken to a new level, and moreover humankind learns to trust every human without even knowing him, just like a baby trusts everything around it, or whatever he is being told is

morally good and best for him. The defects it contains comes with twice the perks.

Blockchain has the potential to penetrate its roots in each field. With the increasing technology of artificial intelligence there sure will be a whole new world when combined with blockchain technology. Well, there are faults in it somewhere waiting to be found, but humankind has always accepted such big things or else seeing fire causes a sort of pollution would keep us today hunting animals and enjoy eating them raw.

Kishoraditya Chaudhari Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Mumbai, India.

32 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Currently pursuing a bachelor of technology degree in electronics and telecommunication. I am a learning enthusiast; there always has been something or another that has made me curious to explore different avenues in various fields. Due to this my problem solving, analytical and technical skills have improved considerably.

Can Small Businesses Leverage

Blockchain Too?

33 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Can Small Business Leverage Blockchain Too

Businesses are leveraging various technologies in their work processes.

Blockchain is one of those technologies that have brought transformation across several industries; but can blockchain in small businesses reap the same benefits?

With newer technological innovations surrounding us, their applications are what matters to us the most. While large businesses have already using blockchain and its unique features, the myth that blockchain can only be used at an enterprise level is also gradually bursting, making way for blockchain in small businesses.

34 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

Can Small Business Leverage Blockchain Too

Putting small businesses on a global pedestal Blockchain’s feature of eliminating centralized trust authorities is making transactions become much easier for people and organizations. The traditional method of trusting a centralized regulatory authority for enabling a transaction and paying them for the same gets eliminated with the introduction of blockchain technology in financial transactions.

By introducing cryptocurrency in financial transactions, blockchain has increased the security levels tremendously. As cryptocurrencies have never been stolen till date, the security is something that small businesses needn’t worry about anymore. Blockchain helps small organizations reach a global level as transactions on it can be executed from any corner of the world. Besides, the speed at which these transactions take place also make blockchain a great asset to small businesses that need to replenish their stocks frequently and need their cash flow to be fast for that.

35 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

Can Small Business Leverage Blockchain Too

Blockchain in small businesses using Smart Contracts Smart Contracts is an application of blockchain technology and stands out because it removes the need for middlemen and directly assists in creating a contract between organizations and individuals.

These electronically created contracts remove the need for physical contracts and can be stored on public ledgers to increase the transparency of a deal. This feature of bringing the details of the contract on open ledgers allows people to track contract status and ensure that no hidden costs are added once the deal has been made. If there is an unauthorized change in the deal mid-way, the same can be notified to everyone on the ledger, and the deal can also be called off.

36 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

Can Small Business Leverage Blockchain Too

Digital identities with Blockchain in small businesses According to an article published by the UK Finance, people across the globe have already lost around ÂŁ73.8 million in the first half of 2017 because of remote banking frauds. These frauds aim to steal our money by tapping into the innate vulnerabilities of traditional banking systems. Small businesses can avoid such a situation by creating digital identities of their customers and partners with the help of blockchain.

When a person wants to create her digital identity on a blockchain ledger, she has to enter her credentials on the block that has been created. The details entered by her are to be verified by other users on the blockchain so as to increase her authenticity levels. People who authenticate her credential maybe authorities from several departments who already have her credentials stored in their database. This helps the business owners to ensure that their customers are authenticated.

By creating a digital identity on blockchain, the process of making a financial transaction becomes easy, as details of the private key provided by her needs to be checked and rest of the credentials are already validated.

As blockchain technology has experienced exponential growth in the last decade, smaller businesses are finding ways to apply this technology and stay competitive.

37 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Naveen Joshi Founder and CEO of Allerin Tech Pvt Ltd. Mumbai, India A seasoned professional with more than 20 years of experience, with extensive experience in customizing open source products for cost optimizations of large-scale IT deployment. Currently working on IoT solutions with Big Data Analytics. Specialties: Solution Design and consultancy, Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning Enterprise Application Planning, Cost Optimization.

The Future of the ICO MARKET 38 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

The Future of the ICO Market

By now more than 1,700 startups have raised about $4 billion by doing an ICO (Initial Coin Offering). Here are my thoughts on the future of the ICO market.

T

he current wave of ICOs (the sale of utility tokens) will be over in 6 to 12 months. The biggest issue with ICOs is that there are too many scammers, too many half-baked business models, too many greedy founders and too many unscrupulous advisors (“crypto enthusiasts”) in the market riding the “let’sget-rich wave” by ripping off inexperienced investors.

The second biggest issue with ICOs is the misalignment of investors interests,’ and founders’ interests as buying utility tokens doesn’t grant any shareholder rights in the startup. So, the value of the utility token is decoupled from the success of the startup (and ultimately the performance of the founders).

product or service. Possible exceptions: business models based on decentralized protocols or networks.

There will be blood and tears among many token investors. Think dotcom bubble March 2000, and this time it’s NOT different! The inevitable token crash could be the beginning of a token economy. After the dotcom bubble shake-out, we have seen the rise of the attention economy (social networks) and the app economy (mobile internet). But nobody knows.

The second wave of ICOs (starting 2019) will by the sale of equity tokens (or tokenized equity) granting investors shareholder rights like exit and dividend participation, liquidation preferences, pro-rata follow-on rights, The value of many utility tokens will eventually reporting rights, voting rights, etc. go to ZERO. It’s best to think of a utility token as a pre-paid voucher for a non-existing

39 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

O

The Future of the ICO Market

O

nce there’s a stable technical, and regulatory framework for tokenized equity (and a liquid secondary market) we will see the disruption of the Venture Capital industry as LPs (limited partners) won’t tolerate ten years of illiquidity once liquid options exist.

In the long run, the World of Venture Capital and the World of Blockchain will reconcile combining the best of two worlds.

From the World of Venture Capital: deal selection, deal structuring and due diligence by an experienced lead investor, a proven legal framework for balancing investors’ and founders’ interests and active portfolio management Form the World of Blockchain: transparency, security, scalability, fast and easy transactions of shares, increased liquidity and more inclusivity (i.e., an opening to new investor groups).

This will not be the end of the ICO. ICOs are here to the stay!

But the ICO of the future will be different in many ways to all the utility token sales we are seeing today.

Exciting times!

Florian Huber Florian Huber Ventures, Berlin, Germany.

Florian Huber is a founder, entrepreneur and angel investor based in Berlin and Munich. He’s the founder of United-Domains (sold to 1&1 group), Neubau Kompass (Germany’s leading real estate marketplace for new residential constructions) and an active angle investor, including seed investments in Foodora, Asana Rebel, Building Radar and Finiata. Florian is also a limited partner of two venture capital funds.

40 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Hey

startup Grow up before you grow big!

41 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Reflections of a startup coach In my exciting years as a member of the international startup scene, I have met quite a few (co-) founders. The majority of them being very proud of their game-changing company and their “startup culture.” More than once, they surprised me when I heard them talk about their cool culture as if it were a justification to do business any way they’d please. After all, why would you blame a starting company with “no money,” at the verge of changing the world for trying to bend the rules a little bit? As a seasoned professional and startup founder myself, I couldn't believe that building a healthy company culture, creating a professional working environment and promoting ethical business conduct were hardly ever a top priority for startups or even scale-ups for that matter.

42 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

As a startup coach, I understand the challenges founders face and would never judge their (sometimes) “unconventional” response to stressful situations. I consider it my mission though to show startups the flip side of this behavior. I have them reflect on their way of doing business and how it could possibly hurt their company in the future. After all, when the euphoria of the early stage hype is over, you are being judged just like any other company. By then you better make sure you have always made building a healthy company culture, nurturing your network and building a trustworthy reputation a key priority.

With the above-mentioned in mind, I advise founders to take the following contemplations into consideration:

1

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Grow strong before you grow up Avoid premature scaling and focus on the unscalable features of your business first. If premature scaling for your startup means focusing on one dimension of your business (Sales) and advancing this dimension out of sync with Customer Success Management & Product Development, then you're setting yourself up for failure. You should rather focus on something that’s unscalable, such as spending time with your customers, listening to them and listening to their complaints and advice. These are all unscalable features, but key to a sustainable and successful business.

Focus is good, provided you’re focused on the right thing. Scaling has become the nr. 1 buzz word for startups, but it's not necessarily the right thing to focus on. Focusing on your customers, by contrast, is always healthy and essential. Be aware that this might not always feel “smart” though. Hanging out on the phone all day listening to customers complain doesn't sound very sexy, and feels quite opposing to growth. But, are you wasting your time? Absolutely not. You’re focusing on the only things that matter most: Your customers (being present) and your product (being awesome).

43 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

2

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Hire people that get the job done A ‘cool company culture’ is something that many startups strive for, and it is often presented as a major selling point in job interviews. But has it become too much of a phenomenon? Have startups placed creating a cool and desirable culture above the basic necessities of having experienced and qualified employees that can actually get the job done?

You have to realize that finding the right people is not only a matter of “cultural fit.” Maybe you in fact, by cultural fit, mean that he or she is someone you’d like to drink a beer with and party. In that case, you need to realize that this has nothing to do with being the best person for the job. People with all sorts of personalities can be great at the job you need to be done. The misguided hiring strategy of "hiring for cultural fit" can easily contribute to a startup’s lack of diversity. Very often the people we enjoy hanging out with have backgrounds

44 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

much like our own and will hardly ever challenge us or call us out on our bull shit..

Hiring with company culture in mind could, therefore, be holding your startup back, which is why the concept of “organizational fit” is a much smarter barometer for assessing new candidates.

By focusing on organizational fit, employees are likely to stay longer, have better relationships with their peers, and will be more productive. Furthermore, employees who have shared a purpose, identity and strategy can work together in the same direction.

Remember your startup’s mission and what you collectively, as a team, are working to achieve. If you stick to your purpose and identity, then you’ll find that the desired culture falls naturally into place.

cont >

3

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Be honest about your success Some startup founders are proud to be a cool and hip cult leader of a successful business or "movement" even.

When quotes from "The Wolf of Wall Street" start to become part of your in- & external communication strategy and both Jordan Belfort and Donald Trump are considered great inspiring leaders, you should consider hiring a business coach or maybe even a therapist!

truth will almost always come to light.

Honesty, as long as it's wellintentioned, is the only thing that makes people trust you.

And accurately assessing the actual situation, your mistakes and learning from them, is also a major contributor to the ultimate success of your startup.

Founders that meet the requirements above, actually tend to exaggerate on growth rate, valuation & funding and a number of customers & staff. All to make things look bigger and better than they really are. They tend to lie to reporters during media interviews, to their VC’s in monthly update meetings, to their prospects in sales pitches and even to potential employees in job interviews.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind if you bluff your way into a new opportunity. You have to realize though that massaging the truth is very different from making it up. And "NO" there's no such thing as alternate facts and being called out on your lies isn't "Fake News." There's just no excuse for outright lies, and the

45 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

cont >

4

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Think twice before spending your VC's money Very often when a startup raised money, their attitude towards spending dramatically changes. Suddenly, the good times have arrived.

If there's anything to fear when a startup has money, it's the partying. It can definitely be a good time for people who attend, but it's also a sign that a startup has lost its focus by spending money on something that is fleeting and offers little benefits for growth.

46 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

There are conferences that start-ups should attend to make connections, attract business and gain insight into how to do business better, but they need to be strategic. Too many conferences are treated as parties or social events rather than places where business gets done.

Another interesting post-financing phenomenon is the apparent need to hire VP's, often with attractive compensation packages. Before financing, a start-up didn't need a VP, marketing or VP, sales. But with money, there's the sudden need to build an executive team. While it is important to have good talent, a startup doesn't need to have a collection of highly-paid VPs.

cont >

5

Hey startup Grow up before you grow big!

Acknowledge sun king behavior when you see it In the extension of the foregoing, be very aware of sun king behavior of your fellow founder(s). If you recognize sun king behavior with your co-founder, run away!!!! No seriously, the only real solution is having the supervisory board take proper action. Please realize however, that a true Sun King will see this coming miles away, and will do anything he or she can to prevent the whistle being blown on him or her.

I can't warn you enough for sun king behavior of your co-founder. Signs you are looking for, are: extreme demands of secrecy and loyalty; hiring a court

of ‘own staff members’ (yes-men); a pattern of exorbitant expenditures; creating privileges for themselves and for selected staff members; denying the existence of risks and consequently taking increasingly greater risks; a lack of ability to self-reflect and a qualitatively weak staff.

Sun King behavior can be prevented, but you’ll have to be willing to acknowledge that it exists first and provide your co-founder with proper feedback when it’s about to hit the surface. Once it surfaces, well.... I need more than one post for that.

Gerwald van den Oetelaar Improving employee experiences through technology Performance Solutions, Utrecht, Netherlands.

In both my personal and professional life i strive to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. I'd like to think of myself as a creative and innovative thinker with an infinite interest in new technology and new generations. Although new technology has inspired me to improve personal and organisational development, I also trust upon proven concepts and solutions and like to combine the "old" and "new" into ground breaking engaging people development experiences.

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Year 9 of lessons, losses and learning:

the 30 most valuable lessons learned over nine years of

entrepreneurship

48 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

Year 9 of Losses, Lessons and Learning

Another year in the books. Another year on the horizon.

Today is the 9th annual N6A Day. A time to reflect.

Here's a collection of the most valuable lessons learned and perspectives over the years:

1 If someone tells you winners don’t complain they’re lying. Winners complain with solutions.

Losers complain without them.

2

Celebrate winning moments. Learn from losing moments.

4

3

5 Develop championship habits.

6 7

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Understand that careers and companies are nothing more than bets you’re making on each other. Ask yourself if you’re betting on a winner. Companies will ask the same question about you.

Skin care products should become less important as you progress in your career. Your skin should get thicker with the lessons you've learned.

Consistency and longevity are perhaps the most overlooked qualities in today’s workforce. Be loyal and place premiums on those who display this.

Recruit for age agnostic qualities. Accountability, work ethic, common sense, and positive energy are usually good places to start.

cont >

Year 9 of Losses, Lessons and Learning

8 You don’t need a Wharton degree to understand the golden rule of management. Avoid surprises.

9 10

Impact and improvement is the most valuable currency any leader can transact in. Puts cash to shame.

Give customers a glimpse into your world internally.

Give employees a glimpse into the customer’s world externally. It will make the relationship more pure and authentic. Just a glimpse, not a tour.

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Culture boils down to three things: consistency, authenticity and differentiation.

11 12

Do at least one thing every year that nobody in your industry is doing.

Most experiments will fail, but the winning ones will be worth it in the end.

Career cancers are toxic not because of the immediate impact they have, but because of the generational impact they have on others who follow.

The longer you wait to treat the cancers the more generations are at risk.

13 14

Collect data. Analyze it.

Collect more data. Study patterns. Collect more data.

Act on it. Let your instincts guide you at every step of the way. Data without discretion is destruction.

Fall in love with the process of building your career or business. It will make the journey more enjoyable.

15

cont >

Year 9 of Losses, Lessons and Learning

The notion of under promising and over delivering is inherently dishonest. Don’t under promise. Don’t overpromise. Promise.

Deliver. Rinse and repeat.

16 17

Listen closely to lawyers, accountants and consultants who are smarter than you.

But don't forget, the few breakthroughs in your career will likely be defined by the times you went against their advice.

18

You are an unproven commodity at the next level.

Let that be your greatest source of motivation, not fear. Remember we are all unproven at the next level, no matter where we are on our career journey and no matter where we fit on the org chart.

20

Point as high as you can on the org chart and ask yourself if that person is someone you trust to get you out of a foxhole today.

Point as low as you can on the org chart and ask yourself if that person is someone you trust to get you out of a foxhole tomorrow. If the answer to both is yes then you're in a special place.

22

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19

21

23

The Jimmy V test is one you should bring to the workplace. A complete work day should consist of surrounding yourself with people who make you laugh, cry and think.

Competition is the best fuel you can have on the way to improvement.

Beat the competition with intelligence, innovation, and authenticity. Paranoia and reactiveness will only throw you off your game.

When you hire someone ask them to name someone who they want to make proud and someone who they want to prove wrong.

Write the names down and keep them in your desk.

You are now invested in that person's mission to accomplish both.

If you're not experimenting as a manager you're not doing something right.

cont >

Year 9 of Losses, Lessons and Learning

24 When winning doesn't become fun anymore it's time to rethink your career choice.

25 26

Humility and sense of humor are qualities that should guide you through periods of immense success and epic failure.

29 30

Matt Rizzetta CEO, North 6th Agency, Inc. (N6A) North 6th Agency, New York, US. 52 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

There's no magic formula, but old school work ethic and new school empathy is usually a safe bet.

27 28

Execute for the now. Plan for the future.

As you scale it becomes harder and harder to find unifying goals that everyone can buy into.

Keep it simple. The best goals that apply to large groups are usually the most simple to define.

Remember the lessons and the emotions from the early days when you were in survival mode.

You should take them with you at every step of your journey. Complacency will kill you. You are always in survival mode.

Build an inner circle that is impenetrable. It will be the most difficult part of the process, but the most important part by far.

Matt Rizzetta is the President and CEO of North 6th Agency, Inc. (N6A), a leading brand communications agency based in New York City and Toronto. Under Rizzetta's leadership, N6A has been ranked as the #1 fastest-growing agency in the United States in its revenue category by O'Dwyers, as well one of the 50 most powerful agencies in the United States and the "coolest spaces at the hottest PR firms" by the Observer.

Lessons in Composing Music for

Start-ups, Innovators and Entrepreneurs Inspired by Zayne Dalal of the Symphony Orchestra of India who was speaking about music, composing music and what that means. I was transliterating it in another language, that of innovation, entrepreneurship and what that means.

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Start-ups, Innovators and Entrepreneurs - An innovator-entrepreneur needs to be 100 % an artist and 100% a structural engineer. You need both melody (design & communication of product/service) to move the emotions and a strong structural base (values/systems/processes) to hold the melody.

- Innovation-Entrepreneurship should have this transporting energy, what it creates should exude a gut reaction to emotions. The person experiencing the product-service should not even be conscious of how they got transported from point A to point B of emotional experiencing, but it must happen subconsciously.

- The skill of an Innovator-Entrepreneur lies in getting a crew together and balancing their freedom with her/his direction. Every crew member needs to own and feel the total freedom to play the score to her/his best potential, in her/his own unique way, with her/his full emotions and yet come together as one crew. The entrepreneur only needs to be present, to be on beat and to lead......the crew will check in from time to time to see if what they have played is right, what they are playing is right and if what they will play will be right.

Sabina D'Silva Creativity, DesignThinking, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Arts/Culture, Meditation, Human-Enterprise Reimagination Politecnico di Milano Mumbai, Maharashtra, India 54 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

- Making mistakes for an innovatorentrepreneur is a must and making many of them. But she/he also needs to take time for concentrated practice...so that you practice till you can play with no mistakes.

- The ideas always existed in the silence, were always there....it takes silence and an innovators-entrepreneur's skill to give shape and form to these ideas, in a way that it touches human emotions.

- Innovation-Entrepreneurship is sacred like transubstantiation.....People must trust in it and feel a real difference after experiencing your product or service. The art of innovation-entrepreneurship is a sacred one just like all art forms, so be true to it.

- An innovator-entrepreneur has to be perfectly comfortable with herself/himself and fully authentic at all times...to unlock the keys to something fantastic.

- You will never be an innovatorentrepreneur because you are fantastic but only because you have got hold of the keys to unlocking something fantastic. And to be successful, it is important that you are always aware of that difference.

I work as a creativity, design thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship consultant on corporate and social innovation projects, including new product-service concepts and innovation culture for online startups, Indian business houses, MNC’s and NGO’s. My responsibilities include fostering entrepreneurial mindsets, creative thinking, facilitating ethnography, trend mapping, design thinking and co-creation workshops. I have also worked on an international social entrepreneurship project, spanning Europe, Brasil, India and China for the Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles project (CCSL), sponsored by the European Commission and UNEP.

How to Build Leaders

Frank Feedback & Empathy

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How to Build Leaders Frank Feedback & Empathy

Running my company on a day-to-day basis, I apply these principles to my interactions with my staff. For instance, when something’s gone wrong, I don’t blame the person and give them a hard time for screwing things up. My starting point is to think about how they must be feeling and to make an effort to empathize and encourage.

I also never order anyone to do anything. I try to take a Socratic approach, asking my employees what they think we should do, sharing my own experiences, and volunteering the occasional indirect suggestion of the “Well, if it were me, I’d probably do this” kind. Via this combination of questions and suggestions, I try to find a balance between what the individual wants to do and the overall vector of the company.

I actually use the same method at home with my five sons—being sensitive to their personalities, discussing things with them in complete confidence and using questions and suggestions to get them to reach their own conclusions, so that whatever they end up deciding to do, they are acting very much on their own volition.

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cont >

How to Build Leaders Frank Feedback & Empathy

I

Building Young Leaders

n fact, I believe so strongly in the forum method, that I apply it at GLOBIS, the business school I set up. Every year we assemble the whole graduating class of MBAs and talk them through the forum’s four principles. I then encourage the students to divide themselves up into diverse groups and to meet once a quarter once they’re out in the real world. (Obviously not all of them do it, but around 30 percent do.)

This is not therapy; it’s an extremely effective approach to building empathetic leaders.

The forum method is at once a safety net and a network that leverages the trust students have for one another to foster self-motivation and objective empowerment and make them passionate about their work.

There’s no great benefit in freshly minted graduates getting together just to socialize over a meal or drinks. In normal social situations, people tend to skirt around difficult or uncomfortable topics.

I guarantee that they’ll make you a more effective leader and a nicer person, while also bringing out the best in everyone you work with.

Why not try applying these four principles to your work life?

But when you apply the forum principles, the environment changes radically. The graduates know that they are in a safe space. That means they’re happy to share their experiences and accept helpful pointers from their friends.

Yoshito Hori Founder and President of GLOBIS. GLOBIS Corporation, Tokyo, Japan Yoshito Hori is founder and president of Japan’s largest business school and one of the country’s most prominent entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Through his prime startup venture GLOBIS, Hori has provided business education to over 70,000 people, invested billions of yen in 57 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

over 100 ventures and disseminated management expertise to over 1.3 million people through the GLOBIS MBA book series. Hori is a leading driver of change in the Japanese and international community. He is a regular speaker at such forums as the World Economic Forum and World Knowledge Forum, has acted as Japan's representative on the board of the World Economic Forum’s New Asian Leaders and sits on the board of Keizai Doyukai (the Japan Association of Corporate Executives). He founded the Japan Chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) in 1995 and became the first board member of EO Int’l in charge of the Asia Pacific region in 1996. He also served on the Harvard Business

Is ROI Getting In the

Way of Profit?

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Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

At a Google Paid Search session, a question was asked about the relative importance of Profit, Return on Investment, and several other Key Performance Indicators such as Conversion Rate and Click-Through-Rate.

The question was simple – “To a business, which is the most important?”. They did a show of hands, and more people raised their hand for ROI than they did profit.

When you think that the point of running a business is to make profit, any other answer than profit seems ridiculous. Yet more people raised their hand for ROI than they did profit before being collectively corrected.

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As marketers, we so often focus on ROI which is anchored as the main priority and we lose sight of the end goal…profit.

It’s not an obvious problem because, more often than not, ROI and profit correlate pretty well. You are not going to do much wrong in terms of efficiency if you focus solely on ROI. However, the strongest ROI does not mean the most profit, and that is key here. ROI is relative to the level you are spending.

Only when spend remains the same can a stronger ROI always mean more profit.

As soon as the level of spend changes, the value of ROI loses context.

Compare the two Paid Search/ Search Engine Marketing campaigns below.

Which one would you rather have?

In this example, the cost represents ALL costs (and not just media spend, which would be ROAS instead). At a glance and without any reporting on profit it’s quite easy to favour Kev and his Door Co. due to the stronger ROI. As soon as you include profit in the reporting, the value of the ROI comes into question.

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W

Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

hich would you rather have as your Paid Search/SEM campaign? Roy’s Plant Pot Ltd. of course. Simply put, Roy and his Plant Pot business has made approximately a quarter of a million more than Kev and his Door endeavour. The key thing to remember is that ROI is only relative to your costs, and comparing ROI between two campaigns of vastly varying levels of spend will not provide you with the whole story. The more you spend, the lower the ROI required to retain the same level of profit. In the same breath, keeping ROI consistent will bring more profit at higher levels of spend.

Which would you rather have as your Paid Search/SEM campaign? Roy’s Plant Pot Ltd. of course. Simply put, Roy and his Plant Pot business has made approximately a quarter of a million more than Kev and his Door endeavour.

The key thing to remember is that ROI is only relative to your costs, and comparing ROI between two campaigns of vastly varying levels of spend will not provide you with the whole story. The more you spend, the lower the ROI required to retain the same level of profit. In the same breath, keeping ROI consistent will bring more profit at higher levels of spend.

Profit is elusive.

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cont >

SS

Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

So why do we prioritise ROI as a Key Performance Indicator?

The problem is not due to a lack of understanding of how profit works, but rather the lack of key information being readily available to calculate the profit and overall costs. The problem is down to Habit, Reporting and Communication.

Habit – We are in the habit of focusing on ROI (or CPA*, CPR** etc). It’s centralised to the point where it can seem like the only thing that matters. We have ROI thresholds we want to stick to, particularly if we are using open budgets – where we can spend any amount, provided the ROI is achieved and maintained. We are so used to focusing our performance and strategy around ROI, we can without realising it lose sight of what really matters. It’s very easy to forget that top level ROI can decrease as your profit increases, because we do not often find ourselves in situations where we suddenly spend a lot more and see it in action. So there is a lack of experience contributing to the oversight.

Reporting – When we focus on ROI it naturally takes centre stage in our reporting.

The example above shows how the inclusion of Profit really changes the impression of value of ROI. Without the right information in our reporting, it’s no wonder that ROI is so central to our priorities. That said, it leads on to the next point, which is the real source of the problem.

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Communication – The reality is that it’s very difficult to calculate overall costs and your true profit. There’s media spend, product costs and margins, office space, staff salaries and even coffee machines to consider. Often people do not know the true cost of their own business, or at least many Marketing Managers who have the relationships with Agencies do not know this information. So, it becomes difficult for an Agency to factor profit into the reporting. This breakdown in communication then limits reporting to only focus on the information we can know, like ROI, and as a result we miss opportunities to grow and gain more profit. It’s not a surprise really, the proposition of “let’s spend more and reduce your ROI” is not very appealing if it doesn’t include the caveat of “and make you a quarter of a million more in profit” as well.

In short, the more information on costs, margins and profit that is shared, the more empowered we are to make better decisions that allow our campaigns to grow and increase profit. When we only consider the first set of costs and return (media spend and revenue) then it is no wonder that we miss opportunity. If all we have is ROI, then ROI takes centre stage.

cont >

I

t might not always be possible to include every single cost all the way to the office coffee machine. The time it may take to get that figure would add to your overall cost itself anyway, as time is money after all. However, we should aim to include as much information as we possibly can within reason and apply an Overall Margin in our reporting. The more

The closer you can get to including ALL costs in your reporting and performance analysis the better. If marketers have minimal information available, the only KPI’s that can be measured are Return on Ad Spend ****/Return on Investment***.

(ROI is often used as a KPI when really it should be called ROAS, which only takes into account media spend. True ROI takes all costs into account technically speaking). If we factor in profit margin then that’s a big chunk of information that changes how performance looks and we can see Gross Profit.

In short, we need to find the most accurate margin to use in our reporting that is representative of all our costs. We can then use our Revenue figure with this margin to compile our total costs. This at least gets us to stage three, the “better still” status. Then we can see profit, and identify when ROI is not telling us the full story.

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cost that we cater for in our reporting, the more we can see the context of ROI and Profit, and the more we take advantage of opportunities to grow. The ideal is to cater for every level of cost so we can see true ROI and Profit. If that is not possible, then as much information as possible is the best approach. See below for different levels of information that could be provided.

£ € € £ $ £ € £ € $

Compromise

Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

$ $

cont >

Is ROI Getting In the Way of Profit?

Summary

W

hether it was the room full of junior agency execs or the many other marketing professionals, both agency and client side, that have made the ROI/profit oversight, it all stems from the habits we have developed and the lack of transparency in costs beyond media spend.

If we only talk about ROI, we only think about ROI. Taking the time, though awkward at first, to best estimate our total costs and applying an Overall Margin to our revenue in our reporting can really shed light on our potential and which biddable media campaigns are worthy of more investment and stop us missing opportunities to grow.

Glossary of Terms * CPA = Cost Per Acquisition – A value related to the cost required to acquire each customer. ** CPR = Cost Per Revenue – Refers to the ratio of advertising cost to the associated revenue received. *** ROI = Return On Investment – A figure that shows the earning of profit vs. overall costs of marketing and represented as a multiple, i.e. 5X. **** ROAS = Return On Advertised Spend – A figure that shows the earning per spend on advertising. Represented in the same way as ROI as a multiple, i.e. 5X.

David Schulhof Digital Marketing Geek | Focus on eTail, Retail & Ecommerce Marketing Strategies | Director & Co-Owner at Red Hot Penny, Reading, UK. Hi, I'm David Schulhof, the Sales & Marketing Director at search marketing agency, Red Hot Penny.

I am fortunate that I get to work with some amazing brands & retailers to help drive growth through digital marketing. But it is still surprising how many still operate with a siloed mentality towards different channels. If I had a penny for every Marketing Director that still operates a last click model...

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Learning at the

Speed of Change

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Learning at the Speed of Change

When you look at all that’s happening with artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), connected cars, robots, drones, quantum computing, just to name a few, you know things are about to change in a big way.

The enormity of this sea change was evident at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. But even if you did not attend the show you probably realize, just by looking at the headlines, that these technologies are accelerating at incredible speed.

individuals, need to change the way we learn just as fast if we’re to keep up with it.

You may be wondering, of all these, which ones are going to impact my business?

More specifically: How do I prepare to take advantage of that technology before it disrupts my business and my career?

But first, in order to understand where things are going, you have to be able to connect the dots. Draw the line from where change began to where we are now, and then project where it may be heading.

I’m convinced that it boils down to this: Not only is technology changing fast; we, as

Let me walk you through an example.

65 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

It’s learning at the speed of change, and I will tell you more about it later in this post.

Begin by connecting the dots

cont >

T

Learning at the Speed of Change

The smartphone revolution was triggered by a huge increase in processing power in the device you held in your hand, by a fast mobile network, and by an explosion of applications that were very easy and fun to use.

Electric and autonomous vehicles don’t have to be based on the ground. They can easily take to the air. Intel demonstrated that at CES with the Volocopter (see video), an autonomous helicopter designed for ridesharing.

Those three advancements, together with innovative business models paved the way for companies like Uber and Lyft to totally disrupt the taxi cab business.

And, if this concept takes off, it will change everything.

Let’s project further.

Want to guess what’s next?

Here’s another example of connecting the dots:

IBM and Maersk just Now let’s project the dots from announced a joint venture to here. promote the use of blockchain technology to track shipping Disruption in the taxicab containers. This would not business has accelerated the have been possible without development of electric cars the IoT, which can connect and autonomous vehicles. all sorts of things, including Once you can get highly shipping containers, to reliable and cost-efficient mobile networks. The IoT, in transportation in your city, you turn, would not be possible may come to the conclusion without pervasive mobile data that you don’t need to own a networks. car. In fact, you can see that phenomenon happening If you can use blockchain already with millennials in technology to track shipping major cities around the world containers, what is next and where such reliable and how does that impact the affordable transportation is complete supply chain for available. industries.

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cont >

TAKEAWAYS

Learning at the Speed of Change

As I said earlier, I have a few takeaways to help you sort out through this sea change and take advantage from it.

1

What big problem does it solve?

The first step in sorting through the enormity change is to focus on one thing: What big problem does this technology solve?

It’s easy to get distracted by the cool and glitzy things that undoubtedly grab the headlines. Be careful: you may miss the big picture.

Instead, ask yourself: Of all that is going on, which technology is going to really solve a big problem for consumers, for industries, for society in general. Look for the underlying technologies that are going to dramatically change the way people live and work. Then consider how they might disrupt you – or give you an opportunity to compete better.

Learn at the speed of change Technology is changing too fast for you to rely solely on traditional learning methods.

By the time a book is published on the subject or a course is offered, two things will have happened. One, the information will be out of date and, two, the opportunity for you may have diminished, as others may have jumped on board while you were thinking about it.

That’s why I believe learning needs to happen at what I call the speed of change. You must be constantly curious, staying on top of trends,

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learning all the time and largely on your own, analyzing and connecting the dots as announcements are made.

This type of learning is the basis of the “self-efficacy” concept, which is commonly defined as the belief in one's capabilities to achieve a goal and, in the process, build skills and resources to overcome future challenges.

It’s self-driven learning on steroids.

It’s the belief that, yes, things are complex out there, but I can sort through it all and succeed.

2

cont >

3

Learning at the Speed of Change

Embrace change The final frontier is your own resistance to change.

We all fear change, so we tend to stick to what we know, even when if it’s no longer true.

That can be deadly. Not long ago some very smart people believed that consumers would not want to type on a smartphone unless it had a physical keyboard. That was not true, and they are no longer in the smartphone manufacturing business.

Now that you’ve taken the time to

sort out which technologies are going to bring big change, the next challenge is to convince yourself to act.

By that I mean being a part of the change, whether it’s by bringing the technology to your business, getting a job in that industry, or maybe even investing in that space.

Remember that the future belongs to those who see the opportunity where others don’t— and are able to seize it.

Are you one of them?

Ralph de la Vega Chairman at De La Vega Group Boca Raton, Florida, US. Life is a journey. It doesn't matter where you start. The only thing that matters is where you end up and what you accomplish along the way. My journey as an immigrant who reached the shores of this great country without his family, without speaking the language and without any money is chronicled in the book Obstacles Welcome. It is a story of inspiration for all and proof that the American Dream is still alive. My grandmother (my abuela) served as an inspiration for me when she told me "Ralph don't let anyone put limitations on what you can achieve". It is a quote that I use in almost every speech to inspire people to reach their dreams despites the many obstacles that we often face.

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Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Company and What You Can do to Change This

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Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Company

If you’re the kind of boss who focuses in on details, prefers to be copied on emails, and is rarely satisfied with your team’s work, then—there’s no nice way to say this—you’re a micromanager.

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Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

Micromanagement is about lack of trust. You don’t believe that anyone can do things as well as you can. Therefore, you need to keep a close eye on everything that is going on with your subordinates.

The impact micromanagers have on teams is significant. You are preventing your employees from learning and developing.

You are also taking away any opportunities they may have to be creative. In a nutshell. You’re sucking the life out of your people.

To make matters worse, you are damaging your own career as well. You are spending way too much time on the details, when instead you should be focusing on the big picture. This means you no longer have time to devote to higher profile projects or work that may be more interesting.

There is no magic pill for micromanagers. If there were, pharmaceutical companies around the globe would be working day and night to keep up with demand.

The only effective treatment I know for micromanagement requires acknowledgment, restraint, and plenty of practice. In my experience, micromanagers can be reformed, but only if they want to be.

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cont >

Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Company

I

had an executive coaching client we’ll call Jeff. When I first met Jeff, he had a revolt on his hands. His entire team went to the CEO and told her that if Jeff didn’t go, they would depart. She asked for time to try to work things out, which they agreed to.

When I met Jeff, he was fairly certain that his workers were the problem. I quickly pointed out several situations which indicated there might be the possibility of shared responsibility here. By doing so, I got Jeff to see that he had an opportunity to create something special—a team that respected him. Here’s what we worked on.

Letting go. Jeff had to learn that sometimes you are better off letting things go. In the end, if you’ve trained them well, your people will do the right things.

Communicating the what—not

the how. There are probably a dozen ways to get to the same end result. I’ll admit, this one was a toughie for Jeff, but eventually he gave out assignments without telling people how to complete each task. And you know what? They got the work done on time and in most cases, exactly how he would have instructed them to do it.

Acknowledging success. The more Jeff acknowledged people’s successes, the more he realized how much he enjoyed seeing his people grow. Anytime he was tempted to revert back to his old ways; I reminded him of this.

Just like no one likes to be micromanaged, no one wants to be the detested micromanager.

Commit to focusing on the big picture and leave the micro details to someone else and it won’t be long before others are coming to you for advice on how to effortlessly lead.

Roberta Chinsky Matuson President, Matuson Consulting, Boston, US Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer® and President of Matuson Consulting (www. matusonconsulting.com), helps world-class organizations like General Motors, New Balance, and Microsoft achieve dramatic growth and market leadership through the maximization of talent. She’s the author of four books, including her most recent, Suddenly in Charge and The Magnetic Leader: How Irresistible Leaders Attract Employees, Customers, and Profits. Follow her on Twitter@matuson.

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Is your

Personal Brand

helping or hindering you?

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Personal Brand helping or hindering

Have you ever sat back and wondered why Frank got that promotion and you didn’t, or why Daisy seems to always do a little better at work, even though your skills and performance are as close to the same as possible? (Insert the names that suit you!)

Well some of it, not all of it will be down to their personal brand verses yours. There are loads of books out there which are mainly full of crap on this topic, so I’ve tried to demystify it.

It’s a truth in today’s world (maybe it’s always been like this) that personal brand actually counts more than performance. You remember the that old analogy that you have a few seconds to make a first impression, yes that’s true to a degree, but if you really get that wrong you can always work around it, Personal Brand is the extreme version of that. It’s how you are externally perceived with everything from who you surround yourself by, your style, social presence, network…. Basically, the whole nine yards.

Think of yourself as your own personal marketing team, you have a great product, great packaging (hopefully, if not you can work on that, go for a run, hire a stylist) and great experience.

So how do you get this to Market?

The reason that Frank and Daisy are doing better than you is because while your performance is equal (and in some cases, theirs is a little worse, honestly) it’s because they have a better internal marketing team than you. Their internal PR machine is firing on all cylinders.

Time to level the playing field. Let’s fix this.

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cont >

Personal Brand helping or hindering

So the biggest question I get asked is how do you start to develop a personal brand? The good news / bad news here for you is that you already have one like it or not. So the question is more about how do you understand what your personal brand is saying about you and equally how to get a grip of it.

that I successfully have managed both, although hangovers in meetings are seriously shit. However there came a time when I needed to focus more on what I wanted tomorrow than what I fancied tonight.

It might not be ‘fun time Frankie’ it might be that you always hang with the ‘Career complainers’, you know these soul sucking assholes. They have worked in the business before we started to evolve from chimps and are always ‘leaving’ they hate their work and always moan about it, yet never do anything about it, trust me they will still be working there long after you leave!

So who you hang with means people start to bolt that to who you are, it becomes an extension of your personal brand. This is something Let’s start with the company you keep. very much in your control. Take some time to really think about who you are Everyone has personal traits that connected to, who you hang with and makes you gravitate towards like what that is saying about you. minded people. Both in your work life and personal life. Just a fact of life.

Social Presence and Network (on and So if you are the ‘fun time Frankie’ off line) I cannot stress enough that of your social circle chances are getting your face in front of the right that in work you will carve out that people is really important. Make a reputation by hanging with this crew, reason to see senior leadership, get having a great time, laughing a lot and yourself in front of them! When I was potentially partying a lot. I know what a GM I used to always visit head office your thinking…. This sounds great, on a monthly basis just to network and let’s go and grab a beer! build by work profile, ask questions to get involved and build that fan base.

Is that how you want senior leadership to see you? Is that how you want to be Don’t shy away from doing this, perceived? the very best of us also take other managers at times to, helping them I am from the work hard play harder raise their profile (the most rewarding generation (I’m sure a few of you have part of any job is helping others grow). experienced this), I’m happy to say

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cont >

Personal Brand helping or hindering

N

ow on line social presence is just as real and important. I overheard two people talking at the airport about how they have been interviewing for positions and part of that process was to review the candidates Facebook page. Now I didn’t want to point out that Facebook is a pretty shit way of doing this and they should use Instagram, but they obviously haven’t read my other articles.

There is a strong chance people from work follow you. You know how it is they start as colleagues and over time become work friends and start to ebb into your social circle, it’s a crazy small world.

So do you think that posting that picture of you with your pants on your head drinking tequila in the middle of Slough high street is helping build your personal brand then crack on. I suppose it depends if you want a job working for a tequila brand or not!

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The last thing you want is something posted socially coming back and biting you in the ass, or even worse you might never find out the opportunities you’ve lost because of it. That would be real sad.

Go and have a quick flick through now, and review who can see what.

Style is a huge topic, and massively subjective.

It is however an important part of your personal brand. I mentioned it earlier the old saying of dress for the job you want. Now while to some you might see this as fickle, it actually forms a huge part of the perception of your personal brand. Remember the senior leadership of your company might not know you and the amazing person you are. They do know that you are the person who is always dressed impeccability or has great style… the list goes on. Rather than being known as the person who doesn’t know how to operate an iron!

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T

he more senior you grow through a business the more important this is, think of your style as a suit of armour. It’s there to give you confidence, to protect you and most of all to be an external representation of you and your aspirations.

Look up at the roles you are striving for and what is the style of the people at that level? Take that as a guide, and add your twists to it. Don’t get yourself ruled out of a job because you don’t have the image that they ‘believe’ is required (even if you think it’s all bollocks), even if you have the skills (remember Frank and Daisy).

Personal Brand helping or hindering people. So many times you see people progress through the business by stepping on people (I can actually think of a good handful now).

If someone talks badly about someone to you, chances are they are talking about you to someone else. Don't build a personal image and brand on hate, build one of mutual respect and love. It will last a lot longer than being an asshole.

Do you put that much effort into your personal brand?

Frank and Daisy do.

Time for you to.

What do you really want next. Jezzzzzz that’s a pretty big question. I’m sure some of you have an idea of where you see yourself. Paint that picture in your mind, what that job looks like, how it feels to have it, what you need to learn to get it. Don’t forget that ‘next’ may also come with an image change.

If the next step means you have to develop a new skill, you would focus on that as part of your growth it seems logical. Don't forget to focus time on aspects that might not seem so binary. Personal branding.

Oh, if you wanted one last bit from me.... Don't make your personal brand about belittling

Paul Spencer Head of Boutique Operations, Europe at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG®), Edinburgh, United Kingdom Passionate about creatively evolving how we deliver hospitality, and always looking for opportunities to positively influence business performance. Been very privileged to been able to deliver some innovative key note talks regarding an industry I love.

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WHAT DO

BRANDS AND COUNTRIES HAVE IN COMMON?

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What Do Brands and Countries Have in Common?

B

ack in the day, when the Viking longships with their fearsome prows were seen on a coastline, local residents ran and hid. They knew what was coming. Typically, carnage and pillage.

When a delegation arrived in your country sporting a standard with S.P.Q.R., boldly displayed, you knew you were about to be conquered and subsumed.

In the last century, the Swastika heralded death and destruction…and in this millennium, the flag of the Islamic State inspires pure terror.

These complex relationships are simpler than you might think. You see, all of that symbology took the complex and made it simple--almost visceral--because they were symbols of powerful brands.

Although the brands themselves might have been complex, the shorthand was clear and to the point. In fact, those brands are so enduring that while they no longer exist, they still live in popular culture and thought… good or bad.

Still, even today, a shorthand of sorts gives us an immediate feeling and understanding of what to expect from said country. Or, more to the point, it creates an expectation of experience. After all, it’s all perception.

For the past 25 years, my company Young and Rubicam has been studying Brands through the lens of the world’s most prestigious brand study: BAV, Brand Asset Valuator. And for the last three, we have developed a specially focused practice on countries and politicians.

Countries, like goods and services, (and yes, even people) are brands. No more no less. Their names, their leaders and representatives, their flags, their airlines, their food, their sports teams, their entertainers and their policies, all evoke perceptions around the world…good, bad and indifferent. Their brand power is the sum total of the lot.

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What Do Brands and Countries Have in Common?

B

est Countries is a partnership between U.S. News & World Report, Y&R’s BAV Consulting and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

As described in U.S. News, these rankings now evaluate 80 countries across a range of criteria. Over the next few weeks, I will have a lot to say about the study: the various rankings and the key learnings that will impact global issues over the next few years.

And with that, a few key points: From time immemorial, a country measured its power in Banks and Tanks. Raw Power.

The bigger you swung, the more power you seemed to have. And you stayed on top until the next guy swung harder.

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Soft Power, on the other hand, is a measure for a good place to do business; entrepreneurial spirit and openness, a good democratic environment, etc. Nice to have, but not important to how you were really viewed‌ and thus, not critical when it came to making an impact as you wanted.

Three years ago, we revealed that the measures had, in fact, flipped. What was once seen as Soft Power is now perceived as Authentic Power and the combination of Entrepreneurship, Quality of Life, Citizenship, and Open for Business actually makes up 70% while Banks and Tanks has been relegated to 8% of total Brand Power.

And you can see this important perceptual swing in the overall rankings.

cont >

What Do Brands and Countries Have in Common?

Why is this important to all marketers, and why do I think it’s critical?

We all hear about the need for purposeful brands…the notion that if your brand doesn’t have something behind the curtains beyond some product benefit or shallow, contrived experience you will fail…and the ground is littered with failure.

Purpose must be based on authenticity-Authentic Power, if you will. Ask yourself: Does the whole picture add up to the consumer?

Are you associated with doing good that is relevant, or have you hitched your wagon to the latest fad?

Are you consumed with providing the best products and service, or are you consumed with going viral?

Are you marketing…that is, listening to consumers? Or are you digitaling…listening to the Digibabblers?

We are all perceived by the total summation of what we do and who we are. And again, the short hand is called “brand.”

Listen: “Countries and places have a history, a story and a culture” - Moshe Safdie In fact, we all do.

So while those longships once scared the hell out of us, where are they now?

Don’t get lost in Banks and Tanks and other one-dimensional measures.

What do you think?

David Sable Global CEO at Young & Rubicam, New York, US. Global CEO of Y&R, one of the world’s leading global marketing communications companies, with 187 offices in 91 countries. An early digital entrepreneur, tapped for marketing and digital expertise around the world, with an active presence in the blogosphere. World traveler. Gamer.

Die-hard Doors fan. Grandfather. Hippie at heart.

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What this top CEO knows that you don’t:

How to have a great fight

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A

How to have a great fight

A few years ago, my colleagues Herminia Ibarra, Urs Peyer, and I created a performance ranking of 2,000 CEOs and companies from across the world based on stock market performance. The work, which drew on reams of data across numerous spreadsheets, was painstaking.

When I received the final spreadsheet one morning sitting at my desk, I opened it, rubbed my hands in anticipation, and began scanning it.

The top performing CEO was no surprise: Steve Jobs of Apple. The next few names on the list were familiar, too—leaders like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and others from fastgrowing high-tech companies.

Numbers five, six, seven, and eight were all pretty interesting, but not surprising. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—I yawned and looked out the window.

When I reached number sixteen, I put down my coffee mug and leaned in closer. What was this? A CEO named Bart Becht, who ran a company called Reckitt Benckiser in England. I’d never heard of them. I looked them up on the Internet, assuming they

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must be some cool high-tech company or an energy firm exploiting a growing market. As the company’s page loaded, I almost fell off my chair. They sell soap. For dishwashers.

The dishwasher soap industry isn’t exactly a high growth business. So how could you sell soap and rank among the top one percent among 2,000 companies? Okay, Reckitt Benckiser sells more than just soap, but still.

I had to find out, so I contacted Becht and arranged to visit the company’s headquarters in Slough, a town near London. After spending days interviewing him and eight other executives, I discovered that much of Reckitt Benckiser’s extraordinary success owed to a “secret ingredient” inside the company: the way that teams ran meetings.

cont >

A

At most organizations, meetings are bland and not especially productive. Team members refrain from posing tough questions or articulating dissenting views. They sit quietly or spout happy talk, retreating afterward to their own echo chambers to vent.

Meetings at Reckitt Benckiser were different.

Employees and managers openly challenged one another’s thinking. They scrutinized assumptions and dissected ideas, refusing to decide on a course of action until they had turned over the options, exploring the pros and cons. Discussions sometimes grew heated.

When executive Freddy Caspers first walked into a meeting upon joining the company in 2001, he was stunned to find a room full of people jumping up and down and arguing.

“It’s not like a physical fight,” he said, “but you could say it’s a mental fight.”

How to have a great fight conflict as fueling performance. When people fight inside many organizations, it’s often ugly, devolving into sniping and character assassination. In politics, partisan rancor has led to widespread dysfunction in our governing institutions. Many people today understandably yearn for less fighting, not more. But as I discovered, Reckitt Benckiser’s achievement wasn’t simply to fight. It was to fight well.

During my interviews, I tried to discern the unspoken rules—social scientists call them “implicit norms”—for having a good fight at Reckitt Benckiser. I arrived at the following: Show up to every meeting 100 percent prepared.

Craft an opinion and deliver it with conviction (and data).

Stay open to others’ ideas, not just your own.

Let the best argument win, even if it isn’t yours (and often it isn’t).

Feel free to stand up and shout, but never make the argument personal.

Always listen—really listen—to minority views.

Never pursue consensus for its own sake.

Unlike much of the fighting we see around According to everyone I interviewed, this us today, the conflict at Reckitt Benckiser rough-and-tumble way of interacting was sharply focused on ideas, not people. produced better, more considered decisions Data, sound logic, and refined thinking that ultimately led to superior performance. prevailed, not the person who shouted the Executives recalled a time when a mid-level loudest. Leaders fervently protected minority marketer fought for a product called Air Wick Freshmatic, a battery-operated dispenser that viewpoints, urging participants to remain open to new ideas as they debated—to listen, sprays air freshener at regular intervals. Over not merely persuade. Leaders also demanded the previous five years, the company had only sold this product for use in South Korean office that participants show a basic respect for one another at all times. As Becht explained in a spaces. This marketer thought the company 2010 blog, “We actually encourage ‘constructive should sell it in other countries—not just in conflict!’ When there is a group of people who offices, but in homes as well. His colleagues feel passionately about a set of ideas, I want considered this idea "completely nuts,” and to ensure those ideas are allowed to flourish. said so. That would have ended it in most They should not be silenced by the majority companies. But, after a strenuous debate, his consensus. And if they come armed with minority view prevailed. Air Wick Freshmatic facts and are prepared to argue their point of launched in sixty-nine countries. view, they will be encouraged to keep working In some ways, it might seem strange to think of away…Of course, this can lead to some lively meetings.”

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T

How to have a great fight

o further support “constructive conflict” and discourage group-think, Reckitt Benckiser organized teams to include participants with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The more difference, the better. As Becht told me, “It doesn’t matter whether I have a Pakistani, a Chinese person, a Brit or a Turk, man or woman, sitting in the same room, whether I have people who have done sales or something else—so long as I have people with different experiences. Because the chance for new ideas is much greater when you have people with different backgrounds.”

The twin principles of fighting and uniting suggest a schema for classifying how teams in any context might hash out issues together.

In the 2x2 chart below, the horizontal axis represents how much fighting is present, while the vertical axis tracks how much unity.

A group in the “fight and undermine” area excels at debating, but has trouble forging unity around the final decision, leading to difficulties with implementation. The U.S. Congress in recent years has resided in this quadrant, with legislators in the opposition party continuing to fight and possibly reverse legislation after it has been passed. A team in the groupthink domain affords a very nice environment for meetings (everyone is going As important as fighting was to Reckitt along to get along), yet people don’t challenge Benckiser’s success, the company also one another enough to produce the best recognized the necessity of achieving closure. decisions. Chances are, your organization has If debate didn’t come to an end at some point, ample experience with that scenario. A team paralysis would ensue. Reckitt Benckiser in the anarchy area is full of people who never avoided this danger by complementing the offer constructive solutions to problems, but principle of fighting with a second principle: who at the same time never support solutions fostering unity. Leaders expected managers that others generate. This is quite common in a meeting to decide quickly and commit to in stagnant, dysfunctional organizations. The a decision. If a team couldn’t decide within a best place to be in this chart is in the “fight and reasonable period of time, the senior person unite” quadrant. A study I conducted of 5,000 in the room, usually the chair, made the final managers and employees confirmed what call. Everyone also committed to implementing Reckitt Benckiser’s executives intuitively knew: the decision. No second-guessing or political that people who master both fighting and maneuvering would transpire in the hallways uniting in their teams perform better overall to undermine a path already chosen. “I think than those who don’t fight and unite. politics is poison,” Becht said about the tendency to undermine decisions.

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T

How to have a great fight

Teams that find themselves in the other quadrants need to take action to move themselves into the fight and unite area. Organizations need many more managers capable of generating and moderating good fights, and many more employees capable of participating in these encounters. Society at large desperately needs more constructive conflict as well. Let’s challenge business leaders, elected officials, experts, celebrities, and others in the public eye to embrace “good” fighting—to ask more sharp, probing questions and argue passionately for their views, but to limit their critiques to ideas, not people. Let’s assure that minority views get heard, and include the most diverse array of voices possible in our debates. Above all, let’s strive for more open-mindedness, resolving to let the best idea win. More fighting and better fighting will lead to stronger decisions, more productive organizations, and better functioning government. That’s the ultimate lesson from this extraordinarily successful soap company CEO.

Morten Hansen Management Professor, University of California, Berkeley San Francisco, US. Morten T. Hansen is a management professor at University of California, Berkeley. He is the coauthor (with Jim Collins) of the New York Times bestseller Great by Choice and the author of the highly acclaimed Collaboration and Great at Work. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School and INSEAD (France), professor Hansen holds a PhD from Stanford Business School, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His academic research has won several prestigious awards, and he is ranked one of the world’s most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50. Morten Hansen was also a manager at the Boston Consulting Group, where he advised corporate clients worldwide.

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Fight Your #FOFO

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Fight Your #FOFO

The C-suite is pressing you to prove -- and improve -- your value.

In making that happen, the only thing you have to fear is Fear itself.

P

roof is one year old today! Thanks to our customers and our critics, we have learned a ton, and our biggest lessons had nothing to do with our product. They were all about how to help people deal with FOFO.

FOFO is the Fear of Finding Out. If you've never heard of FOFO, it's a close cousin to Imposter Syndrome and all the other negative self-talk we all struggle with.

Unfortunately, the fear that many people feel is rooted in personal experience. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff offered an explosive critique in January from the main stage at the World Economic Forum. One of his main points was that many tech companies have prioritized hyper-growth and valuation to such an extent that they’ve lost the trust of customers, employees, and investors. At Proof, we agree with Marc 1000%. Growth is good, but not if you have to lie to people to get it.

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If you talk to as many customers as I have this past year, they’ll tell you story after story about companies who knowingly over-promised and under-delivered just to get the sale. If you talk to investors, you’ll hear stories of strong early growth followed by massive churn as customers figured out that the original sales pitch was less than honest. If you talk to founders, you’ll hear stories about investors who pushed so hard for the hockey stick that corners were cut and trust was destroyed across the board.

cont >

Fight Your #FOFO

A

At Proof, we faced many of the same “Year 1” challenges in 2017 that any start-up has to grapple with. 2018 is likely to have a lot more of the same and some new ones besides. But our team decided a long time ago that we would build a principled software business that delivered what we promised, in the right way and for the right reasons, or we would all go home. While we have sought the best way forward, we have not sought to “hack” growth. We have not engineered our cap table with all kinds of preferences.

Every claim we make about Proof, our technology, and our value is a claim we can defend and deliver. We tell customers that Proof will deliver significant value if everyone does their part, or they get their money back. After the shock wears off, they start to smile.

We made these decisions because we realized very early in our company that everything was going to hinge on doing our best to meet people where they are -- in the midst of their needs, their concerns, their fears, their desires.

I know it sounds like “no duh,” but remember that when you're birthing a startup, you've got your own needs, concerns, fears, and desires. Being human ourselves, it can be really hard some days to set those needs aside and listen to the other people on the call or at the table. But as we learned to listen more and talk less, we saw that there were three really helpful questions we should ask, and then we should listen to the answers. In the end, these three questions help everyone see whether we should work together, and if the answer is yes, to set everyone up for maximum success.

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Fight Your #FOFO

Question #1:

Do you want to know ______________?

M

any people see analytics as a terrifying combination of judge, jury, and executioner.

This perception has done more to harm the cause of analytics adoption than any other I can think of. But the truth is that analytics is none of those things. Analytics is a coach, a helper, even a therapist of sorts. In the words of the U.S. Marine Corps, analytics wants you to "be all that you can be" and then some.

To make that point, let's imagine that you had a chance to sit with Venus Williams, Elton John or Sir Richard Branson and learn what they know? Would you do it, or would you see them as a threat to your own self-image? What if s/he told you that you were doing absolutely awesome there, there and there, but that you were really falling short here, here and here? Would you stand up and walk out, or would you suppress your natural defensive response and listen so that you could learn and be even better?

Question #2:

Do you believe in what you do?

W

hen it comes to buying and implementing an analytics solution, it's crucial to already have confidence in the value you're already creating, and the desire to both prove it and improve it.

Saying “Yes” means that you have the will to see it through, to get it done, to be better today than yesterday.

This is why “Do you believe…?” is such an important question, despite being very hard to ask without sounding rude. Fear of Finding Out is the biggest challenge facing

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any analytics purchase decision. Feelings of FOFO are so strong in some marketing and PR teams that it overpowers their highly developed FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

With respect to marketing, PR, and other functions, the irony is that analytics often support the “conventional wisdom."

Teams that use Proof are often surprised and elated to learn that many of their investments are already delivering strong incremental returns. But they had to step through their fear – their sense of risk – to get there.

cont >

Fight Your #FOFO

Question #3:

Are you willing to change what you're doing?

This is all about the willingness to learn and then move in a different direction if you need to. In software startups, this is called the Pivot, and pivots come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of significance. No person, no team, no company ever succeeded without pivoting because pivoting is all about learning.

That's true for everyone, no exceptions.

It's time to call BS on FOFO. The odds are high that you're already creating a lot of value for your company. It’s time for everyone to know it!

Mark Stouse CMO turned Analytics Software CEO, Innovator of the Year, U.S. State Department Speaker, Author, Lecturer Proof Analytics, Scottsdale, Arizona, US. Mark is CEO of Proof Analytics, a powerful new business impact analytics platform that helps you and your organization prove and improve your business impact. www.proofanalytics.ai 90 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

This Guy Left

So What?

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This Guy Left Google. So What?

I’ve seen quite a few of those “Why I left Google” posts in recent years, and they always struck me as another self-appraisal type of document people felt they needed to vent out to the world.

As if leaving Google is such a courageous, noteworthy event in the history of humanity.

“Look mom, this guy is leaving Google - he’s crazy!”. Give me a break, will ya.

But this dude really topped everyone out. I wouldn't consider it as such a big deal, but his medium post made waves and hit big on the digisphere. Because what's cooler than writing about how Google is no longer cool?

He started by saying he’s leaving Google after 13 years. Yes, you read it right - 13 years. Why does anyone need to highlight leaving a workplace after having spent more than a decade of their career working there? Hello, this is 2018, Millennial much?

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In fact, it's hard to find a profile with higher chances of landing any job they desire, than a senior Google engineer. A better headline to this post could have been: "Why I stayed at Google for 13 years where I could have left earlier to pretty much any cool startup or large innovative company in the US".

cont >

H

This Guy Left Google. So What?

He then trashes Google’s incompetence and writes “Google can no longer innovate.” That is just utter nonsense. Sure, Google has failed epically with multiple sad releases, most likely for keeping its nature of trying and failing fast. Bad decisions and copying competitors are not signs of lack of innovation, and Google has become such a behemoth that it's impossible to generalize it for one trait over the other. Some of its organizations aren't innovative relatively to competitors, and some are cutting-edge and leading the world into the future.

Also, “innovation” is largely misconceived as something that needs to happen frequently, like every two years. But in reality - Google only exists 20 years - in which it has been able to be a dominant force in everything digital - search, online marketing, mobile, video, maps and the list can go on forever. And let’s not even mention the futuristic products it’s now investing in, from IOT, autonomous cars, etc.

A hundred years from now, if a historian will call Google's first 20 years as non-innovative, they will better have their CV ready the next day.

Anyways, if someone wants to leave Google, great. I don’t see why it should make headlines anywhere, unless there’s something uniquely interesting behind it. If they do it after being there 13 years (to join Grab, the Uber of Southeast Asia), that’s just plain non-news to me.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be funny if Google buys Grab? :)

Yoav Rimon Co-Founder & CEO at Chat Leap, Israel.

Marketing and Sales Entrepreneur with a passion for disruptive products. Ex-Googler.

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Welcome to

...or,

how I found my dream job.

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Welcome to DEEZER

My first experience with Deezer’s streaming music service was nine years ago, a little over a year after Deezer had emerged on the French start-up scene. I was living in Paris at the time working on my Masters. Living abroad and following coursework in French was difficult enough, and many were the days when I searched for a little escape with my first true love: music.

San Francisco to work in government.

From communications and project management with the City and County of San Francisco, I later made my way to NYC and joined a startup to work on growth and product. Life takes you places though, and after a few years in NYC, my wife received a job offer to work in Paris. So, hell yes, we moved to Paris tout de suite!

I began by making dozens of playlists of my favorite tunes from obscure artists to guilty pleasures. For the next two I was happy at my startup job, but years of my stay in Paris, I always had a the move to Paris was intended to be beat in my step courtesy of Deezer. permanent. And, even though I was able to work remotely, I couldn’t help Unfortunately, Deezer and I had to feeling like I’d always have one foot in break up. I had returned to the States France and one foot in the States if I and much to my chagrin, Deezer wasn’t didn’t fully integrate into French life. available at the time in America (don’t I decided to start looking around and see what opportunities were out there. worry, it is now!).

I’ll be honest, I was broke, didn’t bring any of my records, and barely had 100 songs on my second-hand netbook.

One night while desperately searching for some streaming music, I came across Deezer in a search and thought, huh, this might work. Even better, Deezer fit my budget: free.

After Paris, I’d moved to Seattle to write my thesis and afterward, took a job in

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cont >

T T

he stars must have aligned because within the first week, there it was, the Deezer job listing for a Product Manager. Of course, I applied immediately. While waiting for a response from Deezer (which ended up taking less than a week), I started in on my research of the current Deezer product. First thing I did was try logging in with my old account from eight years ago. Lo’ and behold, my account was still alive and more importantly...so were all my playlists! After reliving the sounds of my youth for two days straight, I got to work on exploring the many changes that had transpired over the years. Needless to say, I was very impressed.

A few days after applying, I got a call from Talal, a superstar from Deezer’s HR team. We spoke for a while about the role and my professional goals and ended the call with Talal promising a follow-up within the week with either the next steps, or a thank you for your time.

True to his word, within the week, I was invited to a second round of interviews with a cross-section of the

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Welcome to DEEZER

product, marketing, and engineering teams. Again, directly after the interview, Talal committed to a followup within the week. And, again he delivered. I was invited to my last round of interviews with the VP of Product and told I’d have the final word within the week.

When the news came, right on time I might add, it was great news. I’d been offered the position at a competitive salary and a benefits package to rival the cushiest government job.

My first weeks at Deezer were a whirlwind which began with an incredible onboarding experience. My first day was spent alongside five other new hires and our fearless HR leader, Armony. Armony went through in detail all the various aspects of working at Deezer as well as within the French system. In addition to the crash course in French work life, our group also took part in an intensive company immersion where we learned all about the different teams here at Deezer. Beyond an amazing onboarding, Deezer’s legal team was on hand to support me throughout the visa process and helped me navigate the French bureaucracy.

cont >

R R

emember, Deezer is a multinational company with more than 500 employees operating in 85 countries with millions of users. From cutting edge R&D in audio technology to artist studio sessions and in-house performances, Deezer is a complex tech company with dozens of teams operating like stand-alone startups in an Agile environment. It’s this complex interlinked tech environment which allows all of us here at Deezer to move fast, strategically, and intelligently to give our users the best possible service in the streaming music industry.

More than just a cool and inspiring workplace, Deezer is a multinational and diverse

Welcome to DEEZER

company. English is Deezer’s working language but hey, our HQ is in France so I’ll admit I wasn’t surprised that I’d be relying a lot on some Franglish to get a point across. Thankfully, Deezer offers French classes to employees to help international hires better integrate in France.

More important thought, we here at Deezer are a team, and we respect the fact that it’s a big old melting pot. We respect that we all come from different backgrounds. And, we respect the fact that we’re in this together, alongside our users, to deliver a first-in-class music experience wherever you are in the world.

So, here I am today at Deezer where no matter your beat, we all share one rhythm.

Ahmad El-Najjar Product Manager at Deezer Paris, France San Francisco political campaign manager, turned bureaucrat, turned product manager at Deezer. com in the heart of Paris. Except for the tools, politics is a lot like tech; you need to serve your constituents (users in the latter case) to succeed. I’m a public servant at heart and whether it’s managing public infrastructure projects or delivering a new product feature, it’s always the end user that matters.

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THE WEB BROWSER TURNS

25!

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The Web Browser Turns 25!

Strictly speaking, it is not correct to say the web browser has turned 25. There were a few browsers prior to Mosaic, but Mosaic took the world by storm when it was beta-released on 23rd Jan 1993 (for Unix operating systems running X-Windows)!

Mosaic was the first popular web browser and what we know today as web browsers have their roots in it. Built by two graduate students, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Mosaic forever changed the trajectory of the technology industry.

I was at Sun Microsystems at that time, and quickly got hold of Mosaic and installed it on my SPARCstation. The web was really SMALL at that time - mostly universities, research organizations and few corporate sites were on it. But, the graphical way (including images on the same page!) of navigating the web, as provided by Mosaic, was just magical.

In the summer of 1993, I distinctly remember having animated discussions with a few friends of mine during a long hike in Sanborn Park in Saratoga. All of us were fascinated by the prospect of this technology, but most of us underestimated how quickly it would transform the world.

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The Web Browser Turns 25!

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hings changed fast! By early next year, silicon valley was abuzz with excitement about this new technology when Jim Clark, who was a legend in the valley, founded Netscape with Marc Andreessen. That was the catalyst - within a few months literally, hundreds of companies (including Amazon) were founded to take internet technology to masses. Initially, the internet was mostly limited to Unix based users, but that changed dramatically when Windows 95 included native support for TCP/IP, and AOL dial-up service provided the internet connectivity to masses.

There was no looking back! Hotmail came out in early 1996 and provided the first killer app for the web - email! I was in thick of things - I was part of the programming languages

and tools group at Sun, and most of the first generation companies ran their infra on Sun machines and powered by Sun compilers. Sun unleashed Java in 1995 and cemented its “We are the dot in dot com� pole position. Next five years (till Nasdaq crashed in Mar 2000) were super exciting and full of wild times. I do not think I have ever worked harder or have had more fun in my career outside of that period.

We were all making history and loving every minute of it!

Internet has changed the world... and We have Mosaic to thank for playing a big role in that transformation! Happy 25th birthday, Mosaic.

Pramod Jajoo Venture Partner at Kalaari Capital.

Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

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Currently a venture partner at Kalaari Capital.

Passionate about the start-up ecosystem in India. Helping build world-class techenabled products out of India. Product and Technology expert with experience in building market-leading software products from conceptualization to widespread industry adoption, in SaaS, mobile applications and consumer internet applications. Former CTO at bigbasket.

QR Codes Are Back And Better Than Ever — Seriously QR codes are on the brink of a major resurgence.

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QR Codes Are Back

In

In America, where the lameness factor has long left QR codes stuck somewhere between “useless technological novelty” and “classic example of an advertising gimmick gone awry,” it’s hard to imagine that today the technology is ready to re-debut, newly teeming with possibility.

Before we get into all that, let’s explore what QR codes are and why they get such a bad rep.

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QR Codes Are Back

QR Codes: A UX Nightmare

Q

R codes are the second coming of barcodes. They’re 2-dimensional, typically black and white, “quick response” symbols that can store far more information than their predecessor. Initially created for the Japanese automotive business, they have been used widely in many industries — marketing being the most ubiquitous.

So what made QR codes so insufferable?

First off, the barrier to entry was way too high. You had to have a smartphone, then that smartphone had to have a decent camera. Then you had to have access to the internet. Oh, and you also had to have previously downloaded one of the numerous QR-code-scanning apps. Today that might QR codes bridge the gap between the not seem like such a big deal, but in the physical and digital worlds, allowing heyday of the QR Code in 2010, smartphones manufacturers and marketers to hardlink objects for the first time ever. The technology were far from the standard. has historically enjoyed a steadily mediocre Let’s say you did have all of these things level of enthusiasm in the U.S. (with some back in 2010, and you’d been thoroughly exceptions). incentivized to scan the code. There was a good chance you’d be taken to a website with There was a time when you’d find QR no mobile optimization, full of run-of-thecodes almost anywhere, from tombstones mill marketing copy. Worst case scenario, to ketchup bottles. Magazines, product packaging, and subway stations were littered you’d be the victim of a QR code scam and with them. The oversaturation of these funny end up with a security-compromising virus or redirected to salacious material. looking symbols led to widespread backlash in the U.S., where there were entire blogs dedicated to ridiculing QR-code placement.

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QR Codes Are Back

QR Codes: A Resurgence Today, with nearly 80 percent of Americans owning a smartphone and the mobile web and app landscape being what it is, companies like Snapchat, Spotify, Facebook, and Apple are all betting on QR code’s future.

In the U.S. at least, the leader of the QR code renaissance is millennial-favorite Snapchat.

Legend has it that in 2014, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegal traveled to China and was so inspired by the widespread use of WeChat’s code-scanning camera, that he returned to the States determined to make use of the technology. After acquiring Utahbased Scan, Snapchat quickly developed Snapcodes in early 2015.

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It seems like the only thing you have to do to make QR codes cool again is to not call them QR codes. llowing users to create unique, customizable codes for other users to scan, Snapcodes made it easy to connect with friends and brands on the platform. Eventually Snapcodes evolved, letting users unlock special filters and lenses, open Discover channels and link to websites just by scanning the codes.

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QR Codes Are Back

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sing QR code technology, Snapchat has created an entire ecosystem in which users interplay with physical codes and its own digital app seamlessly. If you add up the daily scanning of up to 8 million Snapcodes, with the increasing potential of Snapchat’s Spectacles, you’re left with a company literally geared for the future of QR codes.

With the rollout of Spotify Codes in May, Spotify has also solidified itself as a top contender in the QR code game. The company revolutionized sharing music overnight by allowing music fans to easily share their latest obsession with a simple code reminiscent of a sound wave.

Spotify users can exchange song and artist information on their phones, or take it a step further and scan codes from posters, flyers or t-shirts. Merch is big business in the music industry, and with QR codes, Spotify

may have just discovered a brilliant way to tap into that market.

Never one to be left out of a party, Facebook has also recently adapted QR codes into its Messenger platform. Messenger Codes, which debuted in April, work similarly to Snapcodes. When a user scans a code, an interaction with a Messenger bot is initiated and can give users customer support, shopping assistance, etc.

It would be next to impossible to round up every company finding ways to innovate around QR codes these days. From payment apps like Venmo, bike sharing apps like LimeBike and even the produce at your local grocery store, there’s more reason now than ever to believe that QR codes are here to stay.

Amanda Mitchell Digital Marketing Manager, Lippert Components, Inc. South Bend, Indiana. US Experienced Digital Marketing Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the manufacturing industry.

Skilled in Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, CRM, AdWords, Mobile Marketing and ContentStrategy.

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China's QR-Revolution: How Asia is Pioneering the Future of Interactive Cities

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China’s QR-Revolution

During the past three years, China has been revolutionizing the way people live on a day-today basis.

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Companies such as Alibaba and Tencent have dramatically shifted the e-commerce landscape with apps that allow users to exchange currency with the simple scan of a QR code. With the explosion in popularity of services such as Alipay and WeChat Pay, the use of alternative payment methods has significantly changed the way people live in major cities, where the adaptation of the QR code system has become almost a necessity in order for a business to survive. How has a country, widely still considered an emerging market, being able to so drastically alter the way people live in less than a decade while many developed markets have been slow to adapt these new technologies and applications?

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China’s QR-Revolution

Universal Application

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pending a month in Shanghai this past winter break, I opened my wallet only once when eating at restaurants, buying groceries, and visiting local shops and stores. The adaptation of online payment platforms through the use of QR codes has all but eliminated the need for physical currency and has turned one’s cellphone into the primary driver behind everyday transactions and commerce.

Not only can people order food simply by scanning their phones at the register, but they can also use electronic devices to purchase gifts from both commercial stores and local shops.

Additionally, some restaurants and cafes even include QR codes in their tables, where guests can scan, order, and pay – reducing wait times and increasing efficiency.

Initially only used as an alternative payment method for a select few, the near universal application of QR codes has made digital transactions a widely adopted tool in major Chinese cities. From sending mail to buying tickets at a movie theater, the ease of QR codes has transformed the Chinese consumer lifestyle – a change that has yet to be matched by any other country on the planet.

Online Payment

Customers can order and pay for meals without interacting with waiters, increasing efficiency at many local restaurants (Source: Blockchain Entrepreneurs)

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China’s QR-Revolution

Need to Innovate

China has nine cities that contain urban populations north of 10 million, more than any other country in the world; among these are “megacities,” giant population and financial centers, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen, each boasting a population size greater than 20 million. With so many highly populated regions that are continuously growing and becoming increasingly crowded, new technologies are required to improve day-to-day operations and account for rapidly expanding cities and economies. The widespread adaptation of QR codes and digital payment methods has allowed many smaller companies to address the issue of efficiency – local food markets and small business are able to serve more customers and utilize the growing smartphone market and population size to their advantage.

C

While home to multiple financial hubs, one of the biggest challenges China faces is poor air quality due to huge population dense urban environments. All of China's megacities make the list of major Asian cities with PM 2.5 air pollution.

Cities such as Beijing, in particular, have seen pollution so bad that wearing a breathing mask throughout the day has become commonplace.

The issue of air quality and pollution has spurred many to try and reduce carbon emissions by developing a greener economy.

One of the most revolutionary developments, as a result, is China’s bike-share system, featuring a widespread network of rentable bikes at extremely low costs. In less than three years, major bike-share companies Ofo and Mobike have transformed that transportation landscape in Mainland China, with Mobike alone operating 109 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

more than 5 million bikes, boasting 100 million users that take north of 25 million trips per day at peak times. With trips costing only 1 yuan for 30 minutes, it has become not only an environmentally friendly, but also a costeffective way to travel.

As with most services in China, ofo and Mobike are reliant on a QR system. All users have to do is scan the code on the bike, which unlocks it until the rider reaches their destination and locks the bike anywhere they choose. As a simple and innovative process, it has not only allowed bike sharing to explode in popularity in China, but has also encourage investment north over $300 million for Mobike and $450 million for Ofo in 2017 with the goal of expanding to cities worldwide, such as Seattle, Sydney, Paris, and London. The desire to improve air quality and encourage a healthier lifestyle has led to the creation of a system of transportation that has revolutionized major urban cities in not just China, but soon across the world - and its all built upon the QR system.

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China’s QR-Revolution

Digital Future

A

s the future becomes increasingly digital, the development of new technologies and improvement of existing ones will be essential in broadening the consumer landscape as well as increasing business efficiency. The recent introduction of Amazon Go, Amazon’s new automated grocery store, demonstrates that companies are not only interested in reducing the complexity of performing everyday tasks such as shopping, but they are also interested in utilizing machine learning and customer tracking to enhance the user experience.

Beyond grocery shopping, the use of QR

codes has additional applications, such as for transportation and entertainment.

While stores such as Amazon Go will likely revolutionize the American shopping experience, the technology has not been widely applied to other industries yet.

While China’s QR system still requires users to actively transfer money from their phones, the process is widely applicable to functions beyond shopping. As urban centers around the world become increasingly populated, the use of technologies that increase efficiency and allow for a simplification of daily operations will allow for the creation of more sustainable and habitable cities in the long run.

Final Thoughts China, along with many other countries in Asia, has been able to adopt and improve an existing technological system to enhance the lives of millions. In part due to a necessity to address growing environmental and overpopulation concerns, the investment in the QR system has created a network of interactive cities where residents are capable of operating with a smartphone alone, improving both everyday efficiency and overall quality of life. As many businesses are increasingly investing in digital infrastructure, alternative payment methods and systems such as QR remain widely

Erwen Zhu Student at University of California, Berkeley San Francisco, US.

applicable and relatively untapped beyond Asia.

The continued expansion of urban areas will lead to the creation of more and more megacities in the future, in which case sustainability will ultimately be dependent upon the city itself.

So, the technologies that enhance user experience?

They will be the key to unlocking the cities of the future.

Erwen is currently a Junior at the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Economics. In an age of emerging technologies and rapid innovation, data has become increasingly important in the way any business or organization operates. As a believer in utilizing data to help analyze markets, understand financial structures, and predict industry trends, Erwen hopes to pursue a professional career focused on joining quantitative analysis with qualitative storytelling.

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How the Next 5 Minutes Might Make All the Difference 111 sqwawqs Issue 3 February 2018

5 Minutes Might Make

I invite you to pause, put down whatever you are holding, and invest 5 minutes in yourself.

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To do so, please cup your hands, as if they are a bowl, and look down at them. They may appear empty, but in reality, many items reside in your hands.

Unfortunately, just as fish discover water last, we too often fail to realize what we already have.

Think about the things you are holding in your hands.

These are the items you have to offer both at work and in your broader life.

These items include, but are by no means limited to, your: - Attitude - Capabilities - Reputation - History - Relationships - Skills Etc.

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5 Minutes Might Make

Now, take a moment to assess what you hold by asking (and answering) a few quick questions: How well are the things you currently hold serving you? Maybe they are helping you to achieve desired results, or holding you back…

Is there something you should put down? Perhaps this item helped you to get where you are, but won’t get you where you need to go next…

Is there something you should pick up? Conceivably there are some items that you’re lacking that you should invest time to put into your hands…

If there are some items you’d like to put down or pick up, I suggest you do four things: Pause: Before you put down/pick up anything, pause to assess. Ask others to help you with that decision.

Plan: For those items that pass step one, create a realistic plan to do it. Many of the items in your hands are habits, learned behaviors, or deeply entrenched beliefs. Putting them down and picking up new ones will be hard. It’s tough work. Don’t underestimate how wired your brain is to sustain inertia.

Perform: One item at a time, deliberately put down/ pick up an item. Don’t try to move too many things at once – you will likely let go of things you don’t intend to drop.

Partner: Find an accountability partner to work with as you perform your plans. Perhaps this person is one of the people you consulted with in step one. Meet frequently, check progress, and stay on track.

Consider taking a moment to share this article with two other people and challenge them to do the same.

It will only take a moment to do it, and it may very well make a difference to someone in your life.

I wish you all the best as you work to evaluate, empty, or enhance the items you hold in your hands.

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Patrick Leddin, Ph.D. Professor, Vanderbilt University Global Consultant Writer Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, US

I strive to bring energy and ideas to my partners with the hope of helping them win on their top goals.

For the most part, my work revolves around three key roles that overlap in many ways.

1. Educator - As an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, I teach corporate strategy and managerial studies courses. My interactions with students and faculty allow me to share my passion for leadership, learn from others, and study what makes great performers great.

2. Consultant - As a global management consultant, I have partnered with executives and teams throughout the United States, Canada, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Great Britain, Aruba, Iceland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Guam, and many more. I often draw from my experience as an entrepreneur, Big Five consultant, and United States Army officer to understand my client’s current challenges and help them improve performance.

3. Writer - As a business and management writer, I write articles and books designed to spur and share ideas. I strongly believe that we can learn amazing lessons from a variety of sources, so I often look to sports, entertainment, politics, and other businesses, as the source for my ideas and commentary.