by Shane Lashley on November 22, 2008
Ever drive through a small town and notice that, just beyond the Dairy Queen sign, there is a sign pointing you to the birthplace of one of our American Presidents? Follow that sign and you eventually arrive at a humble home - small, plain, average or even below average in many ways. It consistently occurs to me, “Wow, at the moment that person was born in this little humble home, no one realized he would be president someday.”
Ideas are like that too. The context we recognize them in when they are fully grown is not the context in which they first began. I have had the privilege of going behind the scenes for some really great innovations that led to millions, hundreds of millions and in a few cases, billions of dollars.
Usually, somewhere off the beaten paths of the offices there is some sort of scrapbook or memorabilia, preserving remnants of the moment when the original idea was scribbled down as it was being born in a moment of spontaneous creative combustion. No fan fare, no investors waiting with checks in hand, no certainty of anything beyond the belief of those in the room at the moment.
There was however a pizza delivery box with enough white space left for the inventor to draw it out before he forgot it. [click to continue...]
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by Shane Lashley on November 20, 2008
The camera panned the audience and you got the feeling it was the Academy Awards for the Internet. The mega stars and their significant others were all in place, just like Oscar night. You could recognize the faces. With their eyes glued on the stage, Godin, Rowse, Starak, Clark, Kern, Fallen and everyone else, all representing their genre of the Net just like actors have their genre, waited intently for the host to appear.
From behind the curtain he emerged, baseball great Willie Keeler. Keeler, who actually died in 1923 at age 50, made a second appearance courtesy of, well, call it the Twilight Zone Online.
His speech? Keeler got right to the first point: “Keep your eyes clear and hit’em where they ain’t.”
When Keeler was alive and one of the greatest batters of his time, his strategy was to hit the ball where the outfielders were not standing, hence the phrase. This time, Willie wasn’t talking about baseball or the next Internet secret sauce. His phrase was not a clever reference to SEO, blog traffic, PPC or even tribes. When he used words like “monster”, “stomper”, “crusher”, “killer” or “annihilator”, the references had nothing to do with the latest strategy for making money on the Internet.
Willie wanted to talk about water. [click to continue...]
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by Michelle Monroe on November 17, 2008
This is the inaugural post in a new InnovativeEconomy.com series, RiskCamp, in which we will look at many different components of risk and risk mitigation, with an eye especially toward the current economic crisis. Join us twice weekly here at InnovativeEconomy.com as we discuss a new topic within RiskCamp.
Today, let’s begin with an innovative, tribal way to reduce risk…
We have entered the age of the Tribal Innovative Economy. Seth Godin illuminates the tribal phenomenon in his new and already best-selling book, “Tribes.” He talks about relationships, leadership, and how people are coming together to form powerful groups. If a tribe represents the new alignment of people, relationships and resources, it also represents a realignment of how ideas are processed and turned into products.
Taken a step further, in today’s credit-crunched and cash-starved business environment, it represents a new way of accessing things you don’t have but desperately need. Perhaps you could think of it as an extended stay at a resort where you don’t pay for things in cash, but in beads. Beads are not real money, but you can pay for stuff you need while you are there - as long as you can back it up with money before you check out.
The tribal innovative economy is one that focuses on the exchange of resources that, when combined, can create cash for those involved. It is a work around to the lack of cash and credit, a way to advance your business when others are retreating in fear and financial hunger. In this resort, however, there are no beads, but there are ideas, intellectual properties, intangible assets and physical resources that collectively create economic heat to keep the tribe warm in an otherwise cold economic winter. The Tribal Innovative Economy uses Tribal Trade to compensate for scarce resources. [click to continue...]
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by Shane Lashley on November 18, 2008
We have two big additions to announce at InnovativeEconomy.com. Both are opportunities for you to interact, participate and effectively raise your hand to have your specific needs met.
1. Tribal Market: Member IP & Resource Exchange - Located within the member forum on “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers,” this interactive platform allows members to present offers and needs to each other, then follow up with each other privately.
If you have some great intellectual property but lack the resources to bring it to market, this is where you can ask for those resources. If you have some great resources, but you wish to attract innovation you don’t currently have so that you can advance your business, this is where you look to find it. It is about building your tribe and using unconventional currency to “purchase” what you need. Call it bartering, call it trading, call it joint-venturing. It’s about getting things you need without being limited to cash as your only method of purchasing.
We don’t take fees for offering this. There are no brokerage fees or registration fees for posting. The feature is for members only, so you have to be a member of the eCourse to participate.
2. RiskCamp, a “must have” new series on risk by Michelle Monroe. This will appear twice weekly. Unlike our other posts, the discussion and back-and-forth on this topic is held in a private forum. The RiskCamp Forum membership is $9.95/month, much less than the consulting fees you’d usually have to pay for this information.
Members of “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers” automatically receive RiskCamp Forum access for FREE when they enroll.
Finally, as promised to members of “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers”, we have uploaded new content to respond to inputs we received from the questionnaires and direct feedback from the members. We are now planning the next additions, and it is exciting to be able to direct the eCourse content towards the specific needs/goals of the members.
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