OmanEntrepreneur's Blog

Introducing The Lean Business Model

History Behind the Emergence of "Lean Business Model"

Although there are instances of rigorous process thinking in manufacturing all the way back to the Arsenal in Venice in the 1450s, the first person to truly integrate an entire production process was Henry Ford. At Highland Park, MI, in 1913 he married consistently interchangeable parts with standard work and moving conveyance to create what he called flow production. The public grasped this in the dramatic form of the moving assembly line, but from the standpoint of the  manufacturing engineer the breakthroughs actually went much further.

 

Ford lined up fabrication steps in process sequence wherever possible using special-purpose machines and go/no-go gauges to fabricate and assemble the components going into the vehicle within a few minutes, and deliver perfectly fitting components directly to line-side. This was a truly revolutionary break from the shop practices of the American System that consisted of general-purpose machines grouped by process, which made parts that eventually found their way into finished products after a good bit of tinkering (fitting) in subassembly and final assembly.

The problem with Ford’s system was not the flow: He was able to turn the inventories of the entire company every few days. Rather it was his inability to provide variety. The Model T was not just limited to one color. It was also limited to one specification so that all Model T chassis were essentially identical up through the end of production in 1926. (The customer did have a choice of four or five body styles, a drop-on feature from outside suppliers added at the very end of the production line.) Indeed, it appears that practically every machine in the Ford Motor Company worked on a single part number, and there were essentially no changeovers.

When the world wanted variety, including model cycles shorter than the 19 years for the Model T, Ford seemed to lose his way. Other automakers responded to the need for many models, each with many options, but with production systems whose design and fabrication steps regressed toward process areas with much longer throughput times. Over time they populated their fabrication shops with larger and larger machines that ran faster and faster, apparently lowering costs per process step, but continually increasing throughput times and inventories except in the rare case—like engine machining lines—where all of the process steps could be linked and automated. Even worse, the time lags between process steps and the complex part routings required ever more sophisticated information management systems culminating in computerized Materials Requirements Planning(MRP) systems .

As Kiichiro Toyoda, Taiichi Ohno, and others at Toyota looked at this situation in the 1930s, and more intensely just after World War II, it occurred to them that a series of simple innovations might make it more possible to provide both continuity in process flow and a wide variety in product offerings. They therefore revisited Ford’s original thinking, and invented the Toyota Production System.

This system in essence shifted the focus of the manufacturing engineer from individual machines and their utilization, to the flow of the product through the total process. Toyota concluded that by right-sizing machines for the actual volume needed, introducing self-monitoring machines to ensure quality, lining the machines up in process sequence, pioneering quick setups so each machine could make small volumes of many part numbers, and having each process step notify the previous step of its current needs for materials, it would be possible to obtain low cost, high variety, high quality, and very rapid throughput times to respond to changing customer desires. Also, information management could be made much simpler and more accurate.

The thought process of lean was thoroughly described in the book The Machine That Changed the World (1990) by James P. Womack, Daniel Roos, and Daniel T. Jones. In a subsequent volume, Lean Thinking (1996), James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones distilled these lean principles even further to five:
1. Specify the value desired by the customer
2. Identify the value stream for each product providing that value and challenge all of the wasted steps (generally nine out of ten) currently necessary to provide it
3. Make the product flow continuously through the remaining value-added steps
4. Introduce pull between all steps where continuous flow is possible
5. Manage toward perfection so that the number of steps and the amount of time and information needed to serve the customer continually falls

Lean Today
As these words are written, Toyota, the leading lean exemplar in the world, stands poised to become the largest automaker in the world in terms of overall sales. Its dominant success in everything from rising sales and market shares in every global market, not to mention a clear lead in hybrid technology, stands as the strongest proof of the power of lean enterprise.

This continued success has over the past two decades created an enormous demand for greater knowledge about lean thinking. There are literally hundreds of books and papers, not to mention thousands of media articles exploring the subject, and numerous other resources available to this growing audience.
As lean thinking continues to spread to every country in the world, leaders are also adapting the tools and principles beyond manufacturing, to logistics and distribution, services, retail, healthcare, construction, maintenance, and even government. Indeed, lean consciousness and methods are only beginning to take root among senior managers and leaders in all sectors today.

The Lean Methodology is coming to Oman too. In a series of workshops and discussion sessions for entrepreneurs through the BizHub Coworking space, find out more on their website. I will continue to talk Lean through this blog.

3 most successful ways to capture your creative spirit

Written by Leo Widrich

From all the research I have read, this is the most important thing to take away I found: Every day, everyone of us is extremely creative. The trick is not to optimize for how to spark your creative spirit. The trick is to make sure you capture it, whenever it happens.

Instead of looking for better ways to brainstorm or otherwise come up with ideas, the key is to not let go of the tiny, fragile ones, once they enter our heads.

Here are some of the best ways that some of the most successful people manage to capture their ideas:

Keep a notebook with you at all times, even in the shower
This is by far, the most successful technique to capture more of your creativity every day: a simple notepad. What is extremely difficult, is to keep a notepad with you at all times. If even Richard Branson forgets ideas as quickly as they enter his head, how can we expect to be any different. For that exact reason writing everything down, even if doesn’t seem that important at the time is absolutely crucial says Drew Hansen:

“Don’t judge [your ideas] at this stage, either. There’s a reason they occurred to you this way.”

With that, the emphasis really lies on “all times”. It is easy to bring a notepad to the office or have it lying on our desk. Yet, that’s not when our most creative moments happen. Here are some of the areas where we typically forget to keep a notepad:

In your car
In the gym
Whilst Running
While grocery shopping
In the shower
These are some of the most typical activities where our creative moments happen, capturing them then and there is absolutely crucial. As for the shower, don’t worry, I recently discovered Acqua notes as a great way to capture your ideas:

Plan disengagement and distraction: The outer – inner technique
Similar to what Shelly Carson from Harvard called “the incubation” period, I’m using a technique that has greatly helped me to capture this. I call it the “outer-inner” technique.

I generally start my day with the most important task for Buffer. Say this is a blogpost:

I will do all the research, jot down notes into my word editor and not worry at all about the actual blogpost. That is the first outer task. Then I have a few inner task follow. I will respond to emails, might have a brief chat with the team and do other tasks. Then, towards the end of my day, I get back to the second half of the outer task. I would sit down and then actually write the article, edit pieces and put into publishable form.

The amazing thing that happens is that even I don’t work on the blogpost during my inner tasks, my subconscious brain does. It will do all the work, and then gradually present the solutions to me when I get back to working on it later on.

Overwhelm your brain: Make the task really hard
Another very well researched technique is to overwhelm your brain. Have you ever started to work on a task, where you quickly realised was insanely hard and you will most likely fail solving it? Keep working on it says Robert Epstein.

If you are a programmer, try to solve something you’ve never attempted before and always thought you can only do a lot later in your career, as a writer, write a piece longer then you think you can write. Your brain will be put in a shock situation and naturally engage more of your creative area then it normally would. And although you might not succeed at the task at first, you will find that other tasks will come a lot easier through your increased brain activity then.

Quick last fact: “The left side of our brain manages creativity” myth
Ever since I went to elementary school, I was taught that “For creativity, use your left side of the brain!” Fortunately, that is not at all true:

“In the 1970s, based on studies of split-brain patients, the idea that the right hemisphere “controlled” creativity became very popular, especially in the public’s imagination. This model is now considered overly simplistic and outdated.”

Instead, creativity happens in multiple areas all across our brain, best aligned with the 3D model you can see above.

I tried to bust as many of the common myths around creativity above as possible and I’m sure there is lots more that you’ve discovered in the past! What are your best tips for working creatively? I’d love your thoughts in the comments.

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Why we have our best ideas in the shower: The science of creativity

Posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Written by Leo Widrich

“I’m not really a creative person”, always struck me as an odd sentence. Could it really be that some of us are born to be more creatively gifted than others?
If so, I thought at first, that’s definitely a downer. In school, what was considered “being creative”, like writing or drawing nice pictures was never my strength.

It bugged me for a while I have to say. For today, I finally decided to research and read up on the latest studies of creativity and the science behind it. The truth, which I was very happy to discover, is that any and everybody is creative. In fact, we are all extremely creative.

And the following science will hopefully prove it, in case you ever had any doubts about your own creativity. After all, creativity, at its very core, boils down to this:

“A creative idea will be defined simply as one that is both novel and useful (or influential) in a particular social setting.” – Alice Flaherty

This applies to every field Flaherty explains, including programming, business, mathematics together with the more traditional “creative” fields, such as music or drawing. And yet, there is still a very distinct process behind it:

Our brain on creativity: The example of free-style rap
So, what is actually active in our brain when we are doing something creatively? That’s always been extremely hard to track as creativity has always been considered a very vague activity. Until recently researchers Allen Braun and Siyuan Liu had a genius idea: Track the brain activity of rappers doing freestyle and turn it into a research study.

Free-style rap is a great example of a creative process that is both relatively easy to track and can be translated into lots of other areas. What they found was fascinating. When we are being creative, some of the everyday brain areas are completely deactivated, whilst others we don’t use in every day lives light up:

“Artists showed lower activity in part of their frontal lobes called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during improvisation, and increased activity in another area, called the medial prefrontal cortex. The areas that were found to be ‘deactivated’ are associated with regulating other brain functions.”

To make it a bit more understandable:

“We think what we see is a relaxation of ‘executive functions’ to allow more natural de-focused attention and uncensored processes to occur that might be the hallmark of creativity,” says Braun.

So, the areas in our brain, that we use to make decisions is largely inactive. The “medial prefrontal cortex” area, which is responsible to learn association, context, events and emotional responses however was extremely active on the other hand. This graphic of brain activity probably describes it best:

The reason the above is so fascinating, is that for the first time, there was an activity, that was deeply creative and also fairly straightforward to measure. When I read through some other studies measuring brain activity, it never felt that the people were performing something actually creative.

So it makes a lot of sense to substitute free-style rapping for writing, drawing, solving programming problems and more mentions Braun. That’s why this example is so great. It is also similar to our brain activity whilst we sleep.

Why do we have great ideas in the shower then?
The fact that free-style rapping shows us a high level of creativity, still doesn’t explain why great ideas happen in the shower.

Alice Flaherty, one of the most renowned neuroscientists researching creativity has an answer for us. Another ingredient, that’s very important for us to be creative is dopamine: The more dopamine that is released, the more creative we are, she says:

“People vary in terms of their level of creative drive according to the activity of the dopamine pathways of the limbic system.”

This graphic shows beautifully how dopamine gets taken up by certain brain areas which then get increasingly active and trigger more creative wanderings:

Typical triggers for events, that make us feel great and relaxed and therefore give us an increased dopamine flow are taking a warm shower, exercising, driving home, etc. The chances of having great ideas then are a lot higher.

Still, that’s not all there is to it. Dopamine alone, which gets triggered in hundreds of events, where we aren’t very creative, can’t be the only reason. Another crucial factor is a distraction, says Harvard researcher Carson:

“In other words, a distraction may provide the break you need to disengage from a fixation on the ineffective solution.’’

Especially if you have thought long and hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can turn into what scientist call the “incubation period” for your ideas. The subconscious mind has been working extremely hard to solve the problems you face and now that you let your mind wander, it can surface and plant those ideas into your conscious mind.

Lastly, after you have received an influx in dopamine, can be easily distracted by an extremely habitual task like showering or cooking, a relaxed state of mind is absolutely important to be creative, says Jonah Lehrer:

“Why is a relaxed state of mind so important for creative insights? When our minds are at ease–when those alpha waves are rippling through the brain–we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere. In contrast, when we are diligently focused, our attention tends to be directed outward, toward the details of the problems we’re trying to solve. While this pattern of attention is necessary when solving problems analytically, it actually prevents us from detecting the connections that lead to insights. ‘That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers,’ Bhattacharya says. ‘For many people, it’s the most relaxing part of the day.’ It’s not until we’re being massaged by warm water, unable to check our e-mail, that we’re finally able to hear the quiet voices in the backs of our heads telling us about the insight. The answers have been their all along–we just weren’t listening.”

So this seems to be the magic combination: If you are in a relaxed state of mind, easy to distract and full of dopamine, your brain is most likely to give you your best, most creative ideas.

رسائل فورية للجهات الداعمة لريادة الأعمال

 

بقلم: أ. طلال الجديبي

خمس رسائل أوجهها للجهات الداعمة لريادة الأعمال والمنشآت الصغيرة والمتوسطة (وللمستفيدين كذلك). التطور - السريع جداً - في أعداد وأنواع البرامج الداعمة يعتبر تطورا رائعا، لكنه لا يعني وجود فاعلية وكفاءة عالية، بل على العكس، التطور المبالغ فيه قد يكون على حساب الفعالية والكفاءة. تحاول هذه الرسائل تأكيد الاستفادة الكاملة من الجهود التي تبذل حالياً وعدم تبعثرها أو تلاشيها لسبب أو لآخر. عموماً، تفعيل الجهود وتنسيقها وإدارتها من الأدوار المتوقعة من هيئة المنشآت الصغيرة والمتوسطة المنتظرة.

أبدأ أولاً بمسألة توفير الدعم المادي الذي يقدم الآن للمستفيدين بأكثر من نموذج تمويلي واستثماري. تحرص بعض الجهات الداعمة - حسب تصريحاتها بالصحف مثلاً - على تقييم برامجها عن طريق توضيح عدد وقيمة ما يُدعم من المشاريع. يظهر الدعم المالي وكأنه الهدف أو الجائزة التي يود المستفيد الفوز بها ويود الداعم تقديمها. يَحضُر المستفيد عددا معينا من الدورات التدريبية ويعبئ الاستمارات ليكمل المتطلبات ويحصل على موافقة بالتمويل. وهذا يعني أن أهداف هذه الجهات تنحصر في استخدام المخصصات للتمويل وليس تمويل مشاريع تحقق نسبة إيجابية معينة من العوائد مثلاً. ما الفائدة من تمويل ألف مشروع إذا كانت 30 أو 40 في المائة منها (أو أكثر) خاسرة؟! الدعم المالي ليس متطلب النجاح الأهم، بل هو مجرد خطوة، تسبقها وتتبعها الكثير من الخطوات والجهود. إذا تصوّر المستفيد أن كل العقبات تنحصر في عدم حيازته لرأسمال كاف واستجابت برامج الدعم لهذه التصورات، النتيجة لن تكون ذات قيمة حقيقية لا للمؤسسة الداعمة ولا للمستفيد ولا للمجتمع.

المسألة الثانية تخص دراسات الجدوى والمتطلبات التقريرية التي يفترض أن يقدمها المستفيد إلى برنامج الدعم حتى يفوز به. ما يحصل هو أن بعض الجهات تطلب من المستفيدين تقديم دراسات الجدوى بطريقة تُحفّز هؤلاء المستفيدين على الاستعانة بالمكاتب الاستشارية (بغض النظر عن مدى احترافية هذه المكاتب وجودة مخرجاتهم) التي تأخذ أتعابا مقابل إعداد دراسات الجدوى، سواء كانت جاهزة أو جديدة بالكامل.

ترسم خطط المشاريع ودراسات الجدوى مستقبل المشروع بطريقة واقعية، تبدأ من نموذج الفكرة التي ترتبط برغبة المستفيد وبشغفه واهتماماته أو بمعرفته الجيدة. وتنتهي بما يتبع هذا النموذج من تصورات مختلفة (بأساليب وأدوات معروفة) تغطي الجوانب التسويقية والمالية وغيرها. في ريادة الأعمال والمشاريع الصغيرة يُدير المستفيد من الدعم مشروعه بالكامل، وهو من يستفيد من نجاحه وهو من يتحمل خسارته، وإذا لم يكن هو من خطط له بالكامل سيسقط تلقائياً في بحر من العشوائية والمخاطر. تشجيع الشاب على إحضار دراسة جدوى جاهزة للحصول على التمويل هو تشجيع مباشر على خوض هذه المخاطر غير المحسوبة. الحلول تكمن في إيجاد إجراءات تضمن علم ومعرفة المستفيد بكل حيثيات دراسة الجدوى أو خطة العمل المطلوبة. بالتأكيد لا يجب عليه إعدادها بالكامل، لكن يجب على الأقل أن يجيد قراءتها وأن توافق ما ينوي فعلياً القيام به، وأن يكون المشروع مجدياً له بهذه الشروط.

المسألة الثالثة: نماذج المشاريع. تفرّق جهات الدعم بين المجالات العامة للمشاريع كالصناعة أو التقنية أو الخدمات. كل هذه المجالات قابلة لأن تكون في نماذج مختلفة سواء كانت نماذج مبتكرة غير معروفة مسبقاً أو نماذج تقليدية كالامتيازات التجارية والوكالات وغيرها. بعض هذه النماذج المبتكرة تصنع علاقات إيجابية تذلل للمستفيد الكثير من العقبات وتحقق أهداف برامج الدعم والأهداف الاقتصادية الأخرى.

على سبيل المثال، تقوم شركات الألبان برحلات يومية تستخدم فيها الطرق البرية لنقل منتجاتها. قد تقوم إحدى جهات الدعم بتصميم نماذج لمشاريع نقل بناءً على معايير شركات الألبان يقوم بتشغيلها وتمَلُّكها مستفيدون مباشرون بعقود طويلة الأجل. وبذلك تصبح الجهة الداعمة هنا عامل مؤثر ينقل منظومة واقعية كاملة يقوم موظفوها بالتحويل لبلدانهم في آخر الشهر إلى سلسلة مكررة من المشاريع الصغيرة الناجحة في كل مناطق الدولة. من الأمثلة الأخرى ما تقوم به لجنة المؤسسات الصغيرة في بريطانيا بالتنسيق مع متاجر التجزئة الضخمة، حيث تحصر مجموعة من فرص توريد المواد الغذائية ثم تمكن المستفيدين من الحصول على هذه الفرص بعقود إيرادية لفترات طويلة نسبياً وتمولهم تبعاً لذلك.

المسألة الرابعة: تعاطي – البعض – مع ريادة الأعمال وأنشطة المنشآت الصغيرة وكأنها أندية للنُخَب فقط. يتم الاحتفاء بمن نال الدعم من أصحاب المشاريع الناجحة (وهذا مطلوب إلى حد ما كقدوة حسنة ومثال محفز) لكن في المقابل لا تتم دعوة إلا أصحاب المشاريع الأخرى. كذلك مثلاً يتم توجيه أنشطة الدعم والمؤتمرات والمناسبات إلى المدن الكبرى فقط حيث يتكرر التواصل والتفاعل. زيارة المستفيدين وجهات الدعم لمدن أخرى يفتح آفاقا جديدة من استكشاف الفرص والعلاقات. أو مثلاً، انتقاد إساءة فهم البعض - ممن هم في حاجة إلى التحفيز - للعديد من المفاهيم، وهذا طبيعي ومتوقع لأسباب عديدة. أفضل ردة فعل هي بالتأكيد محاولة تصحيح الفهم، وليس انتقاده.

المسألة الخامسة: استغلال المصادر غير المستغلة. فالكثير من العصاميين وكبار التجار والخبراء في الإدارة والتنفيذيين المتقاعدين لا يزالون خارج المشهد، وعلى الرغم من تواجد بعضهم لإلقاء المحاضرات (في الغرف التجارية مثلاً) وهناك من يقوم منهم بالدعم المباشر، إلا أن هذا لا يكفي. أرى خطوتين مهمتين هنا: يجب أولاً تحفيز هؤلاء الأفراد (وهم بيوت خبرة شخصية) لمزيد من التحرك والتفاعل عن طريق دعوتهم المباشرة وتثقيفهم حول تجديد طرق العطاء والنصح حسب احتياجات ورغبات الجيل الشاب الجديد. والثاني، وجود برامج فاعلة تنظم مناسبات مُعدة، خصيصاً لكسر المزيد من الحواجز بين هؤلاء الخبراء وبين المستفيدين الجدد، سواء كان هذا بلقاءات دورية أو بإعادة برمجة الفعاليات لتتضمن أنشطة من هذا النوع.

 

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The Arab World Competitiveness Report 2011 - 2012

This fourth edition of the Arab World Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 is published at a critical time. The important changes taking place in North Africa and the Middle East have brought to light a number of socio- economic challenges—such as youth unemployment, regional inequalities, corruption, weak institutions, limited entrepreneurship, and the need to advance the role of women in the economy — that must be addressed if the aspirations of the region's citizens are to be met.

This joint Report, which continues the successful collaboration of our two organizations, is a contribution to understanding the key factors determining future prosperity and economic growth in the Arab world at this critical juncture. It offers policymakers and business leaders an important tool in formulating improved economic policies and institutional reforms.

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Failing Smart

I recently read an article about innovation, comparing the startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley with that of other ecosystems.

This got me to delve deeper into the ecosystem setup of Silicon Valley and the holy grail of success that it currently boasts, and the one thing that repetitively kept coming up, was the ecosystems encouragement of failure. Where failing is not a stigma but a credential.

The more your business model is proven wrong during the startup phase, the more innovative you will get at creating a market for it rather than just entering one.

Now don't get me wrong, although Silicon Valley supports startups that fail, however the trick is to fail fast and get back in the game, with better product and/or service.

I loved that notion, especially for us in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. Where we literally are paralyzed by the notion and fear of failure.

What we desperately need, in order to encourage innovation and cultivate entrepreneurship, are safe havens that allow entrepreneurs to "Fail Fast & Fail Smart".

Welcome to the We Economy

5 Business Conversations to Have Today

By Joey Faucette|May 25, 2012

Americans for decades have talked about, "Me, me, me." And look at where it got us economically.

The Ego Economy is dead. Welcome to the We Economy.

It's time to check your ego at the door and stop thinking about who or what you can control and manipulate with your business. The We Economy is instead about asking how you can navigate change and create a positive work environment where everyone works as a team to achieve goals.

The U.S. companies emerging as post-recession superstars are the ones that embrace the We Economy versus the old Gordon Gekko-type ways.

Facebook, which recently undertook a historic IPO, continually uses "we" in the description of its company culture: 

"We encourage people to be bold. The phrase ‘this journey is 1% finished' is posted on our walls, reminding us that we've only begun to fulfill our mission to make the world more open and connected."

Related: The Power of Business Imagination

As business owners, we all have a choice. We can get on board the We Economy and embrace this way of thinking as our companies are lifted on waves of profits. Or we can capsize by trying to go it all on our own.

How do you navigate the change and succeed at work? Here are five ways to change the way you think and talk when it comes to doing business:

1. "I did it" becomes "We did it." This is about creating partner relationships with everyone who touches the business: employees, customers/clients, vendors/suppliers and others. It means you ask an employee on the front lines, "How would you build a better business?" And then you listen deeply, tap their wisdom, and quickly implement. You ask customers or clients, "How could we serve you better?" You listen deeply, find themes in what they are saying, and act immediately. Same goes with vendors and suppliers. Ask about best practices they see out there, consult with employees, and then act on what makes sense.

2. "I already know that" becomes "Please show me how." Back when information trickled in through conversations, printed materials and television, business owners were usually right when they said, "I already know that." But now that the Internet and social media have opened up a fire hose of information, we all need to get used to saying, "Please show me how." Be teachable, and have the confidence to hire people who are smarter than you in certain areas -- and tap their brains. In doing so, you can turn your enterprise into your one where you can learn with your employees, finding out those things that are going to make your business more profitable.

3. "I'm a failure" becomes "Let us try again." The recent multibillion-dollar investment loss at J.P. Morgan shows that reputation lacks the ability to insulate one from spectacular setbacks. "I'm a failure," becomes a phrase heard all too often. It used to be a business could build a mystique around itself and go it alone as though it was the Lone Ranger. If your original horse Dusty was killed, who would ever know? But the masks are off in the We Economy. Transparency is the new game with information flowing flat across most industries. Since the masks are off, we see other business leaders and owners for who they are -- people just like us who are finding ways to make a profit in this different economy. Stop worrying about failure, and find some Tontos to help you out. It's time to say, "Let's try again."

Related: How to Hire Positive Employees for Your Business

4. "My business will be better when…" becomes "Let's do what we can today." In the Ego Economy, when business is down, you push responsibility onto outside factors. You say, "Business will better when…I get some new employees" or "…I move to a new location" or "…I renegotiate my supplier contracts" or "…I cut out my distributor and sell direct." In the We Economy, rather than pushing responsible action to a perfect tomorrow, we pursue the practical right now and say, "Let's do what we can today." The We Economy is short on tomorrows. We do what we can right now to grow our business.

5. "I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps" becomes "We wear loafers." In the Ego Economy, we all wore boots and bragged about pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. As self-made men and women, we created it all. In the We Economy, we wear loafers. Loafers are actually innovative -- more comfortable, easier to pull on and off, with no socks. In the We Economy, you're comfortable in responding to the changing demands of your partners and learning as you go. You pull your workers onto and off of teams according to project needs, and avoid leaving them in siloed departments. And who needs socks anyway?

Relating with everyone who interacts with your business and creating new learning generates creative innovation. It takes everyone in your company to greater profits and higher margins.

So welcome to the We Economy -- and remember to wear loafers.

http://m.entrepreneur.com/article/223629

 

[email protected] "The New Arab Startup Spring"

 

 

 

 

 

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (Published originally in the NY Times)

Published: May 8, 2012 Amman, Jordan

 

Fortunately, there is another Arab Spring going on alongside the drama in the streets of Cairo and Damascus. It is an explosion of start-ups by young Arab techies. Ground zero is a complex of buildings here in the heart of Amman. The site was built to be the headquarters of the Jordanian Army, but, at the last minute, King Abdullah ordered the army elsewhere, renamed the complex “The Business Park,” and declared it a special economic zone. The multistory army buildings now carry big signs that say “Microsoft,” “H.P.,” “Samsung” and “Cisco.” But it’s the building labeled “Oasis500” that really got my attention.

It’s where Lawrence of Arabia meets Mark Zuckerberg.

Oasis500 is an Arab-owned high-tech accelerator, looking to nurture 500 new start-ups in Jordan. It has dangled seed money for any Jordanian or Arab who wants to create a new company here, and, like a flash rainstorm in the desert, Oasis500 has already helped dozens of Arabic-content Internet start-ups to blossom practically overnight. Only 1 percent of global Web content is in Arabic today, but 75 percent of it is produced in Jordan. The Arab world needs to create millions of nongovernment jobs to satisfy its youth bulge. Alas, though, there are no employees without employers — high-I.Q. risk-takers ready to start companies — and that is what Oasis500 is trying to multiply, fast. Without this Arab Spring, the other Arab Spring will never last. There will be no middle class to sustain it.

“We are big believers in creating companies rather than jobs,” says Usama Fayyad, the former chief data officer at Yahoo, who came home convinced that the raw material was here to create an Arab “Silicon Wadi.”

“A job is a job, but a company is a growth story,” adds Fayyad. It not only spawns jobs, but also ex-employees, who get trained and go off and start more companies and new industries. The average tech-sector job in Jordan pays about six times an average government job. Jordan has no oil, so “its people are the oil,” says Fayyad, and he is tapping them.

There is no tradition of venture capital in the Arab world, so Oasis500 is a pioneer. It invites any Jordanian or Arab to come with a start-up plan. Any plan that is accepted receives $15,000 in seed capital. Then the starter-uppers have to go through Oasis500 boot camp, an intense five-week course in how to build a company. The survivors are given office space at The Business Park for three to six months. For those who manage to grow after their first stage of incubation, there is more angel funding, legal advice, mentoring and networking opportunities with local business leaders. Oasis500 invests in each company that makes it that far. Fayyad said that since Oasis500 started in 2010, it has received 2,000 applications and has invested in 49 companies. Of those, they have harvested one profitable exit, 45 are still active and only three have failed. They are now getting hundreds of applicants a month for boot camp.

During my visit, Fayyad introduced me to 30 of his latest start-ups, including:Doseyeh.com, an Arabic portal that provides course packets for undergraduate college classes; Firstbazaar.com, an online market for local artisans; Littlethinkingminds.com, which makes Arabic Internet content for kids; Ekeif.com, which makes Arabic how-to videos on parenting, beauty and health; Gateexpress.com, a money-transfer platform;Tawajod.com, an Arabic Motley Fool; Fakker, which enables young Arabs — who constitute some 40 percent of worldwide gamers — to develop work skills while gaming online; Gweet.com, an Arabic couch-surfing site; and I3zif.com, an online Arabic music school.

In addition to Oasis500, I also visited Kharabeesh.com, a popular new site that is helping young Arabs produce their own cartoons and content for YouTube and for its own platform — some of it highly politically incorrect. “We consider ourselves not only entrepreneurs but also change makers,” said Wael Attili, a co-founder. “Education is the long-term way to change the mind-set of the people, but media for us is the short-term way.”

With all the young people looking for work, “the only way to handle unemployment is to invent your own job,” said Majed Jarrar, founder of VitalTronix, which is developing heart-monitoring technology. That attitude is Jordan’s oil.

The government here has real problems with corruption and political reform, but it has also created the best Arab platform combining education, high-speed bandwidth, uncensored Internet and laws that protect intellectual property and incentivize investment.

This is a new Arab growth model — based on entrepreneurship, not government contracts. “Entrepreneurship is about empowerment,” said Fadi Ghandour, an investor in Oasis500 and a founder of the first Arab-based company listed on the Nasdaq: Aramex. “Taking ownership of your future, and giving the skills and tools to these young aspiring entrepreneurs, means they are less dependent on the state and become job creators rather than only job seekers, creating value for themselves, their employees and the community at large.”

That is why I am rooting for this Arab Spring as much as the other one.

Clarity Launches Mobile Mentorship Service To Connect Startup Founders With Good Advice | TechCrunch

Clarity Launches Mobile Mentorship Service To Connect Startup Founders With Good Advice

Colleen Taylor

I often hear people say they moved to San Francisco and Silicon Valley to be in the thick of things — to open themselves up to running into a new mentor at the local coffee shop, or pitch a top venture capitalist during a chance elevator encounter. Advice websites and how-to books are great, Q&A sites such as Quora are helpful, but there’s still nothing like one-on-one conversation from someone who has been there before when you’re trying to build a new company.

A new company called Clarity wants to help provide that service to startup founders no matter where they are. Launching to the public today, Clarity provides a marketplace that hooks up phone calls between entrepreneurs and mentors such as successful businesspeople and venture capitalists. The advice givers can either talk for free or set a price for their time, and Clarity lets them either keep that money or donate it to a charity of their choice. If the money is not given to charity, Clarity takes a 15 percent commission.

How It Works

Martell has assembled a star-studded collection of 1000 advisors who are on board for Clarity’s launch, including noted investor and 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, Greylock Partners principal and Twitter and Facebook alum Josh Elman, Startup Weekend CEO Marc Nager, Color and Science labs co-founderPeter Pham, Rypple co-founder Daniel Debow, and lean startup guru Eric Ries.

The key thing about Clarity is that it arranges a double-blind phone calling process — neither party knows the other’s actual phone number. The site also requires that users connect through Facebook, so there is a layer of identity verification in place there already. Founders can browse the Clarity directory through curated topic pages that show each adviser’s expertise, or plug a few sample questions into Clarity to get suggestions on who they should speak to. Clarity works for phone numbers throughout the world — in its five month beta testing phase, it has brokered 4000+ calls from people in more than 60 countries.

Why It Matters

Clarity was founded by Dan Martell, a young tech industry veteran of sorts who has built and sold two successful companies — and been on both the giving and receiving end of good advice. “For the first years of my working career, I was still living in my native Canada and I was desperate for advice. I emailed the minister of my province there, he respected that I was a young entrepreneur, and he introduced me to three guys that had built hundred million dollar companies. That was the reason that I moved to San Francisco in the first place,” Martell said. “I know that getting the right advice at the right time can dramatically change an entrepreneur’s life.”

Martell says it’s a positive experience for both founders and mentors. “I’ve done about 400 calls myself during the beta, and what people don’t realize is that it’s hard to give someone advice without taking something away from it yourself. I’ll say, ‘Hey, I’m driving on the 101 Highway for 45 minutes, call me if you want to talk about product or marketing.’ You queue the calls, and you get in this rhythm, and it’s actually really energizing. I’ve talked to some entrepreneurs I’d absolutely invest in.”

Phone Calls: Back To The Future?

Clarity, which has been self-funded by Martell, is based in San Francisco and has four full-time employees. By the end of 2012 the company expects to triple in staff size to about 12. Right now, the service is focused on technology and business, but Martell said in the future it could expand to any number of topics, from the restaurant business, to athletics, to general life coaching.

A lot of people are kind of proud of not using the voice communication function on their smartphones anymore, and call me old-fashioned — but I still think it’s an important skill to actually talk to other people (or as an old boss of mine used to say, “Give good phone.”) In fact, most of the really successful people I’ve met still prefer to talk on the phone over email or texting. It’ll be cool to see how Clarity takes off in the future.

via techcrunch.com