According to Rosabeth Moss Kanter, when it comes to innovation the big mistakes are “generally not errors of commission”.  Put another way a former boss used to say “if you’re not failing you’re not trying”.   Ultimately they both mean that it’s actually the lack of innovation that is the most risky approach to doing business.  

At some point in the evolution of even the most successful companies, an interesting thing happens – growth stalls.  Even the brightest and most experienced Entrepreneurs and managers are perplexed as the things they did to create the initial growth in the company no longer drive new revenues.  In fact if they stick with old methods and ideas things go from bad to worse as revenues and profits start to fall.  I call this moment of change a ‘slipping point’, and no business is immune to them.

Sunday night I got started reading my first book in a while (it is hard to get as much reading done when you're not riding the train for two hours a day) and it is one that I've been looking forward to - Change by Design by Tim Brown (CEO of IDEO).  I had heard great things about the book and even though I am only half way through it as I write this tonight, I can heartily recommend it to anyone who struggles with the 'old way' of creating in a corporate environment.  To my way of thinking, design thinking is simply a better term for those of us who are entrepreneurial who need to pitch a new approach to a more traditional company without scaring them off... it also reminded me of a great story that I was told a couple of weeks ago that seems to epidomize the design thinking process - a story I'm going to call 'The Parable of the Fly Fisherman'.

There is a great article in this week's BusinessWeek magazine entitled 'Fertile Ground for Startups' that illustrates the opportunities that are at hand for truly innovative ideas in today's economy.  The article outlines that investment by angel investors and venture capitalists is up significantly over the first half of this year, and that as many as 50,000 new businesses will obtain some form of angel or venture investment in 2009 in the US.

One of my pet peeves (and one of the main reasons I haven't spent a lot of time in larger more bureaucratic organizations) is process for the sake of process, and I truly believe that management controls used poorly constitute exactly this problem.  One of the most innovation stifling innovations is the standard operating procedure, specifically if it implemented before there is a specific need for control or before an organization has grown to a size that would justify requiring that level of control.

As small business owners, one of the key sources of new business will be your network.  That means that the more effective you are at the art of networking, the more likely you are to generate quality leads and increase your business and professional footprint.  For those seeking new employment, the principles are the same but the target audience might differ.  I offer these tips not as someone who considers themselves as an expert in the art of networking, but as someone who is constantly learning and evolving - someone who is reaching for the stars and developing his networking skills to get there.

In Canada, 94.6% of businesses by number are 'small' meaning that they have less than 50 employees.  The actual number startled me a bit when I read it so I felt I had to dig deeper.  Looking across the provinces and territories, the numbers are fairly uniform - all within one percent or so - something that really surprised me.  I would have expected to find higher percentages in the prairie provinces where there is a higher percentage of agriculture or in Ontario and Quebec, the hotbeds of economic activity.  The report really gets interesting when you look at employment and GDP however.  These same small businesses that make up almost 95% of the business environment employ only 40% of the population (26.7% in goods producing sectors and 73.3% of service producing sectors) and create only 24% of the Nation's GDP.

We all know the 80/20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle.  We've heard it over and over and seen the power of the rule in our own businesses.  80% of our business comes from 20% of our customers.  80% of our problems are solved by 20% of our efforts.  The richest 20% of the people in our world own 80% of the resources.  It's powerful because it's true.  Unfortunately we don't take the principle into consideration enough when we are looking at our markets and deciding where to spend our time.

If you are like me, you book a lot of meetings and traditionally you might offer up several days and times to a client for a potential meeting.  The problem was always that if you offered Tuesday at 10am, Thursday at 1pm, and Friday at 9am to one client then you essentially had to block off all three times in your calendar so you didn't wind up double booking yourself.  Tungle solves this problem in a very unique (and powerful) way.

Putting together the compelling story that will sell your product or services can feel like either finding a needle in a haystack (if you are unsure of who your target market is) or limiting your potential (if you are guilty of platform thinking).  I have always been sure that my target market is the Entrepreneurs who run new and small businesses in Halton and Hamilton so I didn't have the problem of the haystack, but I come from a generalist background so colour me guilty of platform thinking.  I could not find the right way to package and wrap the compelling value proposition of Key Consulting to my target market.