CEO Blogs

I was talking to myself today as I was writing something.  My 5 year old daughter was sitting right besides me.  At one point I said "so why did you make a bad choice at the last moment ........". Before I could respond to myself she said... "because you were not focusing".  

Most readers of this blog know that our company recently sold its Jupiterimages division.  We were in the image business for nearly 6 years.  I will not bore readers with the details of the history or the highs and lows.  However there are a few salient lessons that I learned from the experience.

I spend a lot of time talking publicly about the first two points, and very little talking about this last one - in part, because it's been a work in progress, and because the scale of our sales/services channel has been one of our biggest strategic challenges.  

I've been through eight recessions in my lifetime and, while this one feels deeper and less predictable, I've learned what companies like Marriott need to do to come out strong. Cost cutting is obviously the key to survival today. But the wrong kind of cuts will delay a comeback and erode our competitive position. We need to invest in people, product and service innovation that will reap benefits in the future.

OK, the economy is 'bad'. In spite of that, most of us still have to put food on the table, manage our business and produce a profit! One thing I've learned during my life is that even though the economy may go up and down, some things never change. One of the things that never changes is that even in tough times when most of us cut back on spending, nobody can completely stop spending. That means somebody is always buying and somebody is always selling. In tough economic times, you just need to make sure you are one of those doing some selling!

Sometimes, for a little shock value, I like to tell people I grew up in the back of a liquor store. And I did -- sort of. When I was born we lived down the block from the liquor store my grandfather and uncle owned in Brooklyn, and I spent a lot of time in the stock room building castles out of liquor boxes and packing materials. We moved from Brooklyn when my dad and his father opened a men's clothing store in Queens.

“Behind every great leader, at the base of every great tale of success, you will find an indispensable circle of trusted advisors, mentors, and colleagues. These groups come in all forms and sizes and can be found at every level and in nearly all spheres of both professional and personal life, but what they all have in common is a unique kind of connection with each other that I’ve come to call lifeline relationships. These relationships are, quite literally, why some people succeed far more than others.

GovLoop, an online community created for and by government employees, announced recently it has signed up its 10,000th member less than a year after launching. Dubbed by some as a “Facebook for Government,” GovLoop brings together government employees from federal, state, local, and international agencies to discuss ideas, share best practices and create a community dedicated to the betterment of government. GovLoop members have already:

A business model is the architecture of a business or project. It has four elements: What compelling reason exists for people to give you money? (or votes or donations) How do you acquire what you're selling for less than it costs to sell it? What structural insulation do you have from relentless commoditization and a price war? How will strangers find out about the business and decide to become customers?

There are lots of beauty pageants out there for companies looking to raise money, but in my experience, if you want to raise money, it’s probably best not to ask for it in public. Better, tell the world what you have accomplished, not what you need. That’s the idea behind “Launch: Silicon Valley,” which Garage developed in conjunction with our friends at SVASE several years ago.