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BusinessWest Exclusive On Click

Our thanks to George O'Brien of BusinessWest for his wonderful article on Click!

Excerpt:

“There are collisions — and lots of them,” said Silva, adding quickly that these developments take many forms, such as individuals collaborating on an idea that becomes a business concept. Or an entrepreneur finding an angel investor that can provide the capital to get an idea off the ground. Or a writer making the acquaintance of a social-media expert who has some suggestions on how she can better communicate with her readers.

All these scenarios and countless others have played out at a unique facility in Northampton called Click Workspace, or simply ‘Click,’ as most members call it. It is one of the more recent manifestations of a trend toward coworking, a style of work that involves a shared environment, said Silva, the nonprofit facility’s president, noting that it was inspired by much larger projects such as the Cambridge Innovation Center and the Innovation Pavilion in Colorado, which was founded by serial entrepreneur Ali Usman, who would later help start Click..."

Read full article here.

When Things Go Wrong, How To Respond

When something goes wrong, we often mistake symptoms for root causes and think the only solutions we can make are all-or-nothing... which means we often do nothing.

Eric Ries, author of the Lean Startup, adapted Toyota's 5 Why's technique to help correctly identify the root course of a problem and the find an agile way to respond to root causes that fits into our budgets and ensures we apply the appropriate  level of response to each problem.  It also takes the emphasis away from blame and onto creating solutions.

See a 3-minute video explaining the process here.

Or read it here. 

Learn how to conduct a 5-Why root cause analysis meeting.

 

Creative Destruction, Disruption, and Opportunism

Rising from the ashes

One concept from economics is "Creative Destruction".  A recent blog post by Dr Jeff Cornwall explains the concept and applies it to entrepreneurship directly.

A highlight... 

Economists tell us that the primary role of entrepreneurs in the economy is to engage in a process they call “creative destruction.”  Through their innovations, entrepreneurs help create new industries that transform or even replace old and declining industries...
While there are still many opportunities for entrepreneurs in these industries, other industries have emerged as being on the cusp of fundamental change.  Here are a few that have recently caught my attention:
  • Advertising:  While mass media advertising worked well with the Baby Boomer Generation of consumers, the Millennials do not trust traditional advertising.  They get information on what products to buy based on the opinions of their friends transmitted through social media, not from ads developed on Madison Avenue.
  • Senior care:  We all know that the wave of Baby Boomers, also known now as the “grey tsunami,” will create significant opportunities in senior care.  However, Boomers have fundamentally different expectations than their parents, so they most likely will not accept many of the business models for senior care that are common today.
  • Education:  Technology and unsustainable cost increases will be the likely sources of significant disruption in the education industry over the next decade.

Full post here.