Click Suite is looking for a senior .Net developer to take a leading role in an online marketplace project.  Very exciting.  Pass it on if you know someone very good.

I was an early investor in Surveylab, which makes the ikeGPS range of professional hand-held data-capture devices.  Their point of difference is that they capture the image and location of an object from a distance, unlike most GPS devices which only tell you where you are.  Applications are manifold, in network industries like electricity and telecommunications, in environmental agencies like the US Parks Services, and in military applications such as UN post-war reconstruction. Sales are primarily B2B, either direct or via their major distribution partner in the US. Founder Leon Toorenburg is looking for someone to take on the global marketing role, with a particular emphasis on internet-enabled sales. The business is VC-funded, with another funding round being completed as I write. So if you or someone you know is interested in the job, take at look at the ad on Seek or TradeMe.

Know anyone who wants to play a big role in a new web business in Wellington, NZ? Get them to look at this.  Some people I know are planning to build an international business-to-business on-line marketplace for clients and providers of a specialist business service. I’ve had a look at what they’re planning and it’s very promising; probably the best web business idea I’ve seen recently (locally). The market is truly international in scale and scope. However, while these guys really know their services market, they freely admit they know little about building and operating an on-line marketplace.  They’re looking for 3 key people to join them in the start-up team:

• The CEO: someone who knows how to build a web business, build and lead the team and operational processes, drive the strategy and international marketing push. Excellent English language written and spoken communication skills. Proficiency in another major European or Asian language would be useful, but not essential.
• Head of development: Leadership experience in Agile web-business application development. Knowledge of on-line payments, cloud-based infrastructure, etc.. Good understanding of customer-centred product management and design.
• The business could also use the occasional services of someone who understands (at a business level) cross-border payments; maybe consult, maybe part-time, maybe advisory board.

So if you, or someone you know, want to put yourself on the line with all the challenges and potential rewards of a start-up business, please email me with a short pitch on what you have to offer.  Those wanting a big salary, fancy offices, hordes of staff, regular hours and business class travel should not apply!

PS: Thanks in advance for any links from bloggers and twitterers.

Seth Godin has a knack for capturing a complex idea in a few words.  With his permission, here’s what he has to say on those banes of progress, the trolls:

Lots of things about work are hard. Dealing with trolls is one of them. Trolls are critics who gain perverse pleasure in relentlessly tearing you and your ideas down. Here’s the thing(s):
1. trolls will always be trolling
2. critics rarely create
3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls
4. professionals (that’s you) get paid to ignore them. It’s part of your job.

“Can’t please everyone,” isn’t just an aphorism, it’s the secret of being remarkable.

That last point is critical.  I’ve said many times that good strategy requires making choices and meaning it.  That includes deciding who you want to please and who not.   As my Vista pal Mark Di Somma says, “make enemies.”  Sure, you want to listen to others - that’s one way to improve - but it’s very easy to get distracted by naysayers, white ants, and stick-in-the-muds who offer little constructive criticism. If you believe in yourself and what you’re doing,  stop being so polite, stop listening to the trolls, stop giving them credence. Do it your way.

Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer, visiting professors at IE Business School in Madrid and associates at London Business School’s Management Innovation Lab, have published “The Thinkers 50 - 2009“, their biennial ranking of the world’s top business thinkers. Sponsored by The Times and other organisations, their criteria included:

• Are the ideas and examples used by the thinker original?
• Have the ideas promoted by the thinker been implemented in organizations? And, has the implementation been successful?
• How proficient is the thinker at presenting his/her ideas orally?
• How proficient is the thinker at presenting his/her ideas in writing?
• How committed are the thinker’s disciples to spreading the message and putting it to work?
• Do they practice what they preach in their own business?
• How international are they in outlook and thinking?
• How well researched are their books and presentations?
• Have their ideas had an impact on the way people manage or think about management?
• The clincher: are they, for better or worse, guru material by your definition and expectation?

Professor CK Prahalad is #1 for the second time in a row, followed by a mix of academics, economists, business writers and business leaders.   I must admit that I’ve never heard of some of them before (and I think I’m reasonably well-read) so I’ll leave it for you to decide if everyone’s inclusion (or omission) and ranking are justified.

1.  CK PRAHALAD (1)
2.  Malcolm GLADWELL (18)
3.  Paul KRUGMAN (-)
4.  Steve JOBS (29)
5.  Chan KIM & Renée MAUBORGNE (6)
6.  Muhammad YUNUS (-)
7.  Bill GATES (2)
8.  Richard BRANSON (9)
9.  Philip KOTLER (11)
10.  Gary HAMEL (5)
11.  Michael PORTER (4)
12.  Ratan TATA (-)
13.  Ram CHARAN (22)
14.  Marshall GOLDSMITH (34)
15.  S. (Kris) GOPALAKRISHNAN (-)
16.  Howard GARDNER (39)<
17.  Jim COLLINS (10)
18.  Lynda GRATTON (19)
19.  Tom PETERS (7)
20.  Jack WELCH (8)
21.  Eric SCHMIDT (-)
22.  Joseph STIGLITZ (-)
23.  Kjell NORDSTRÖM & Jonas RIDDERSTRÅLE (13)
24.  Vijay GOVINDARAJAN (23)
25.  Marcus BUCKINGHAM (38)
26.  Richard D’AVENI (46)
27.  Rosabeth MOSS KANTER (28)
28.  Clayton CHRISTENSEN (25)
29.  Stephen COVEY (15)
30.  Thomas FRIEDMAN (26)
31.  David ULRICH (42)
32.  Roger MARTIN (-)
33.  Henry MINTZBERG (16)
34.  Daniel GOLEMAN (37)
35.  Chris ANDERSON (-)
36.  Warren BENNIS (24)
37.  Robert KAPLAN & David NORTON (12)
38.  Jeff IMMELT (31)
39.  Don TAPSCOTT (-)
40.  Nassim Nicholas TALEB (-)
41.  John KOTTER (30)
42.  Niall FERGUSON (-)
43.  Charles HANDY (14)
44.  Rakesh KHURANA (45)
45.  Manfred KETS DE VRIES (-)
46.  Tammy ERICKSON (-)
47.  Costas MARKIDES (44)
48.  Barbara KELLERMAN (-)
49.  Rob GOFFEE & Gareth JONES (32)
50.  Jimmy WALES (-)

Here’s a curious thing for you to discuss in the pub after work tonight. Has the Internet shrunk our horizons rather than expanded them?

Last year, in “The Myth of the Telecommuter“, I noted that, despite electronic communication supposedly turning the world into a village, most interactions are between people within walking distance, followed by people within the same city. Prompted by similar findings, a new study of US birth data has looked at the spread of baby names over time.

The Economist reports:

… Dr Goldenberg and Dr Levy speculated that when parents chose a name for a child, they were influenced by their interactions with other new parents, so the spread of the names the babies were given was a proxy for the pattern of those interactions.

… What Dr Goldenberg and Dr Levy found was that the proportion of babies given a certain name in a state where that name was already popular or in a neighbouring state was 20% higher than would otherwise have been expected. This was true from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

From 1995 to 2005, however, the effect became even more pronounced. The proportion of newborns with common names in any given state and its immediate neighbours became 30% higher than would have been expected if there were no geographic effect. Dr Goldenberg and Dr Levy ascribe this rise to the internet. It certainly correlates with the emergence of the web, though whether the correlation reflects causation is unproven. But whatever the reason, it is a curious result.

Yes, you read that right.  According to The Sun, that eminent journal of scientific research, a survey of 2000 British men and women shows that IT people “were found to be the most selfless in the sack, the most adventurous and more likely to use love gadgets“. Of course, we computer scientists always knew this, but we’re modest, too. Unfortunately, the same survey ranks business owners poorly, which everyone who knows us will surely find hard to believe!

I love working with  a good design team - when they’re on a roll, the buzz spreads out to infect everyone around them.  Their chosen field doesn’t seem to matter; information systems, electronics, automotive, office furniture, graphics - good designers all seem to have this ability to excite.  But how do you assemble a great design team? US designer Michael Roller describes the essential personality traits needed.

• The Evangelist - “… The Evangelist focuses on design at the highest level, developing strategies and processes that push the limits of design and business as a whole. Contextual thinking helps him understand how design fits into a larger business plan… he loves to push the boundaries and question assumptions of the products and categories he leads. The Evangelist … may even lead activities that feel counterproductive to more analytical thinkers…“
• The Conductor - “… The Conductor’s analytical mind helps her to ensure that no detail goes unconsidered. Like directing an orchestra, she brings together all the little details into harmony, making sure everything has been figured out and nothing taken for granted. She probably has the highest standards of any designer in the office and ensures that every project is top quality. Often the team doing the first 95% of the work is exhausted or checked out by the end, and the Conductor plays a key role in making the final push to finish the project right. In more corporate roles, she shepherds projects through to production and defends key design details that might otherwise be lost…”
• The Dreamer - “When analytical minds struggle with paradoxical design constraints, the Dreamer cuts through it all to offer a surprisingly fresh attitude. He avoids the technical boundaries of a project in favor of contextual experimentation. A great design team deploys Dreamers to brainstorms where blue sky thinking is necessary, and keeps them involved when the end product must push category boundaries or create brand new ones. The Dreamer becomes easily frustrated when not allowed to exercise fantasies, so don’t expect him to handle detail-oriented work or anything that is heavily constrained by technical requirements. The wild ideas he contributes won’t always become part of the final product, but the Dreamer is essential in setting the stage for innovation as well as offering an entertainment value to novelty-seeking design managers”.
• The Surgeon - “Whether it comes down to aesthetic or ergonomic excellence, so many great pieces of design rely on details… the Surgeon – an analytical thinker who cuts up and dissects design problems to find the best solutions. By definition, she breaks down a product into its components, considering the pieces of design and then reuniting them into a cohesive whole. The Surgeon isn’t always the best decision maker, because she can end up thinking in circles or frustrated by a project’s lack of clarity. When it comes to making sense of complex design problems, a Surgeon is your best bet to make sure nothing falls through the cracks“.
• The Jack of All Trades (Master of None?) - “… the Jack of All Trades might be the most talented person in your office because he can truly do everything. He leads a range of projects, solves tricky problems, and dreams up big ideas. Recent graduates make great ‘Junior Jacks’, because they can contribute on a variety of levels while they gain experience and become more aware of their greatest strengths. Don’t confuse a real Jack with someone whose strengths are not prevalent or ambiguous. In reality, the rare Jack of All Trades might not be essential to have, but will feel essential to any team that has one“.

Roller’s team profiles might easily apply to any team doing new things.  They remind me of the Myers-Briggs profiling I’ve frequently applied in recruitment and executive team assessments. I use profiling to help me and the other person(s) gain insights into their personality.  Profiling should never give you a reason to hire someone, but, along with tests of numeracy, literacy and reasoning, it may give you a reason to not hire them. (I am an ENTJ, which is just as well, given my chosen career path - or is that the other way round).
PS: Michael Roller’s website is well worth a visit, especially if you’re interested in design.

Some Swedish researchers [.pdf] have apparently shown that American women were significantly influenced by price when judging the quality of red wine in comparative tastings, whereas American men were not.  Economics writer Chris Dillow has bravely extrapolated this to suggest it may explain why women buy cosmetics at outrageous prices. Mind you, I’ve heard the ladies make similar comments about blokes and cars, which of course is quite ridiculous, isn’t it, chaps?

I’d always understood it to be accepted folklore in the wine industry (makers and sellers), at least here in NZ, that price is a key influence on perceived quality.  I hadn’t seen the gender slant with wine before, but I don’t really believe that men are much more objective.  My gut feel is that more extensive study would show that men also can be significantly influenced by price vis-a-vis value in wine. I volunteer to be a guinea pig.

People (and organisations) talk a lot about innovation, but often do so in very narrow terms such as product innovation. This is very limiting.  In reality there are many dimensions for innovation, eg:

• Product
• Service
• Market
• Promotion
• Process
• Information
• People
• Business

Most innovative thinking only explores one or two dimensions, while assuming the others are fixed. There are enormous opportunities when you start innovating in multiple dimensions at once.  Unfortunately, responsibility for innovation in these separate dimensions is usually fragmented between functional silos, with little joined-up thinking.  What new opportunities could open up for you, if you brought these dimensions together?

 ‘We do not take Isambard Kingdom Brunel for either a rogue or a fool but an enthusiast, blinded by the light of his own genius, an engineering knight-errant, always on the lookout for magic caves to be penetrated and enchanted rivers to be crossed, never so happy as when engaged … in conquering some, to ordinary mortals, impossibility.’
–The Railway Times

It is Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 203rd birthday, and to mark it, I thought I’d look at one of my hero’s failures.  Oh yes, he had them.  Contrary to what commentators with perfect hindsight might have you believe, you need to take risks to be a successful entrepreneur and innovator, and sometimes those risks go wrong.

By 1844, Brunel was highly respected and admired for his Great Western Railway, his steamships Great Western and Great Britain, and his wonderful bridges and tunnels.  He began work on his next project, a new railway in South Devon, England.  Because of the rugged terrain - always challenging for railway route design and motive power - he decided to adopt a radical technology developed by Clegg and Samuda. Instead of self-propelled steam-engines to move rail wagons, they used air pressure from a pipe laid along the track. A fixed air pumping station at either end of a short railway track in Ireland created a vacuum in the pipe ahead of the train. One wagon was attached to a piston inside the pipe, and the air pressure difference moved the piston and the train forward.  The system was very powerful, meaning steeper gradients could be climbed, and the trains were very quiet and clean.

Unfortunately, Victorian materials were not up to the task.  The connection between the piston and the train passed through a slot which ran the length of the pipe. To maintain vacuum, the slot was covered by a greased leather flap which the connector pushed put of the way as it moved forward.  Unlike in Ireland, the flap quickly deteriorated in Devon’s warm coastal air, needing frequent repair and disrupting train schedules.  Also unlike the short Irish track, the much longer South Devon railway needed multiple pumping stations. Because of vacuum loss through the flap and not knowing when the next train would enter its section of track (a telegraph was not initially installed), each pumping station ran far longer than planned, consuming more fuel and requiring more maintenance.  Instead of being competitive with conventional rail operations, Brunel’s Atmospheric Railway cost 3 times as much to run, and switched to conventional self-propelled steam-engine traction.  Of course, the newspapers of the time lambasted Brunel for this failure.  Brunel shrugged, and moved on to his next venture.

Air-powered public transport is an idea whose time may yet still come.  MDI in France has developed a range of vehicles driven by compressed air, including a road train. Ahead of your time as usual, Isambard. Happy 203rd birthday.

How many companies employ less than 10 people, less than 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000, etc? Look at most countries’ industry statistics and you’ll see a common pattern.  There’s a pyramid - lots of micro-businesses, tapering up through mid-sized businesses to a few large businesses.

Putting aside companies used for administrative purposes and the myriad of small businesses which won’t ever grow, why don’t more companies with good market offers grow larger?

• Some market offers have limited appeal.
• Some business models simply won’t scale.
• Sometimes the business is too risky or unpredictable, so funding growth is difficult (especially now that we’ve seen the downside of risky investment!)
• Some owners and managers reach a point where they have achieved what they want - a good income and a solid business.  I can’t criticise them for wanting an easier life enjoying the fruits of their earlier risk-taking and hard-work.

But assuming none of those are a factor, what holds growing companies back?  In two words - executive skills. Many small and mid-size companies can’t grow because their owners/managers don’t have the skills to build and operate a bigger business. There’s a naiveté in business thinking and an unfortunate tendency to under- or over-bureaucratize. I’ve seen many promising businesses plateau for those reasons, plus one other factor. I have a pet theory - the biggest problem is that many previously-successful small and mid-size business leaders simply don’t know how to manage managers.

• 10 people = 1 layer of management = you. You call the shots, you know everything, you direct everything.
• 10-50 people = 2 layers of management = you plus team leaders (say development, sales, fulfilment, business support). You still drive the ship and your team leaders take care of operational detail within your control. The first plateau point - can you manage through team leaders?
• 50-100 = 3 layers of management = you plus a team of specialist and regional managers plus their team leaders.  You’re still the hands-on leader, but you’re likely to be constrained by the skills of your managers and the unsophistication of your business processes.
• 100 -200 people = still 3 layers of management, but with more highly skilled managers and more complex processes. This is often an inescapable plateau point, maybe with several stops as you re-design your business and your team to handle growth.  And you have to achieve unity of purpose and action through intermediaries who have initiative, brains and minds of their own (that’s why they’re in the role).
• 200-500 people =  4 layers of management, with your executive team capable of developing and driving their divisions strategically and operationally, and indeed of doing your job.  Yout businesses model is working, but the business is much more complex and the challenge of achieving unity of purpose and action has gone up another order of magnitude,
• After that it starts to get easier - the issues are the same, but you’ve learnt how to deal with them.  You’ll continue to be challenged by competitive and economic pressures, multiple lines of business, multinational operations and so on, but you’ll know how to manage managers.

That 200 person barrier seems to be especially challenging.  Many companies do well until they reach that scale, but then seem to bounce around at 150-250, never quite breaking out, falling back in tough times, then growing again only to repeat the cycle. Given all the complexity, risk and frustrations of running a bigger business, it’s no wonder many businesses owners decide to stay where they are.