Monthly Archives: August 2014

Comments -“War and Peace” on the subway: How your iPhone is saving literature. Salon

Interesting article on how e-book market is changing. Posted comments discussing some entrepreneurship and strategy insights here

check out Salon article at

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/war_and_peace_on_the_

subway_how_your_iphone_is_saving_literature/

Here is a copy of my posted comments…

Interesting article. From an entrepreneurial perspective, maybe we are seeing a new opportunity emerging here. Authors and publishers think “chapters”. Why? Because we always did it that way. Write a book, say 40,000 words. Maybe 2,000 words for front and back copy so we have about 38,000 words book content. Assume you plan to have 15 chapters, each chapter will have 2,533 words. Assuming about 250 words/page, each chapter will be about 10 pages and total page count will be about 160 pages- a reasonable book structure.

But the market may be sending us a message. Forget “chapters” which are ” product driven” and arbitrary based on the above calculation.

Maybe we should consider a “market driven” strategy to address the growing market for “snippet of information readers” who are using Smartphones. Suppose we define a new book structure whereby books are divided into ” bite size” information packets- maybe call each of these “brevis”, Latin for tiny. And we set the length of each brevis at what a reader can read in say 4 minutes, maybe 1,000 words, and that is standardized. We create a new class of books structured in brevis, not chapters, which meets market needs.

I am not sure I will see a “brevis” book soon, but I shared the above to make several points. First, recognize the difference between product or technology driven strategy vs. market driven. When markets send messages on issue and opportunities, smart players listen and respond quickly. E-books changed the book industry- Barnes and Noble responded; Borders became a business school case study.

Secondly, thinking “counterintuitively” is an important skill to develop. Thinking Intuitively, you would expect readers would use e-readers not smartphones- larger, easier to read screens, and other features provide advantages. So what we are seeing here is counterintuitive, not what we would expect. Identifying and analyzing the “How’s and Whys” here is a powerful skill worth honing. Finally, be prepared to fail. I am not sure the “brevis” book will be a success but going through the planning process, understanding the market nuances, understanding what are user needs today and how are they changing- these are the real benefits. At the time of the D-Day invasion, a turning point in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower commented that ” The Planning Process is Everything; The Plan is Nothing”. I use this philosophy often and firmly agree- great things can be accomplished through detailed planning, exploring “what-ifs”, and postulating market driven business strategies that oftentimes can shake up markets or create new ones. There will be failures but many benefits will also be realized.

So I will continue to think about the Brevis book, get feedback and criticism ( probably lots of it) from colleagues and friends, which will reshape my thinking I am sure. That is how we make progress.

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

 

 

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Data Marketing 101: New Directions. Infographics +Predictive Analytics

Excellent article by Shannon Byrne on how startups can use Infographics – good insights here. Check out http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/08/18/data-marketing-101-startups-can-put-data-work/

Coupling Infographics with predictive analytics pushes the boundary here and I shared some thoughts – here is copy of my posted comments

Shannon. Excellent post. Thanks for sharing. Infographics is an exciting area and I see predictive analytics pushing the boundary further and opening new possibilities. For example as you say need to ‘mine data that’s helpful to your audience’ and you suggest several questions to address.
But suppose we mine data and use PA tools to identify drivers that are not known – predicting the ‘unknown-unknowns’ and showing these in Infographics provides exciting and powerful capabilities. For example, suppose you are showing attributes of your customers and show typical data, e.g., sales by region, sector, customer size and so on. But suppose you can also identify and show that the highest sales are driven by sales staff with certain backgrounds who sell to certain sectors. Or you identify and show how sales rank based on variations in the sales process; I.e., response to RFP, sales call center query, direct sales call, and so on.
Key point here- the relationships I suggested here and the questions to ask will be defined by the PA model not the Infographic data modeler- that is the real power of predictive analytics ‘technology and a concept still not fully understood by many.

In the healthcare sector for example, we use PA tools to optimize clinical treatments based on data going well beyond a patient’s condition and symptoms. Mining data using PA defines ‘ inferences’ and the rules between business metrics. Fast forward here and we can envision many exciting Infographic applications that will push the boundary enabling us to improve clarity and communications of complex and insightful business metrics

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

 

 

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SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters- Post By David Skok

Excellent post by David Skok at http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/on using a using analytics to manage a SaaS business. I posted comments also emphasizing need to use analytics to assess changing markets/external factors for #entrepreneurial ventures. Also strongly recommend the site – http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/- excellent resource for entrepreneurs

Below is a copy of my posted comments – you can review the original post at http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/

Here is a copy of my posted comments..

David

Excellent article- thanks.

Several months ago I was invited to do a guest blog post and serve as an Advisor for Funding Profiles, a Santa Clara-based company offering a powerful suite of financial analytic tools that “integrates with existing business applications to continuously translate traditional financial metrics into the language of business strategy”. For companies with thousands of products, infrastructure, and processes spanning the globe, the ability to ‘drill down’, examine ‘what-ifs’, and assess how and if global LOBs meet KPIs and support the strategic plan, is a powerful planning tool. Your post reinforces this point.

But markets and technology are moving quickly, consumer power is increasing, and external global factors will impact all global businesses which creates risk and uncertainty. In fact, one study shows macro-environment, competitive and corporate positioning factors account for about 80 percent of ROA variation among LOBs. So optimizing the company’s internal resources, processes, and KPI’s really address only 20 percent of the planning challenge based on these findings. My post “How Analytics is “Raising the Bar” for Corporate Strategy: Understanding the External Environment” talks about how new analytic tools can provide a competitive edge, creating what Tom Davenport (Author- Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning) defines as “analytic competitors”.

Bottom line- while emphasis of the above is larger corporations, my view is entrepreneurs that also understand how to analyze markets, external opportunities and threats, and how to use analytics with Porter’s Five Forces Model, STEEP, and competitive benchmarking tools can achieve a competitive edge. Properly used, external market analytics provide a competitive edge for evaluating, strategy positioning, and managing entrepreneurial ventures. During the past six months, I have looked at ventures in areas of wearable healthcare monitoring devices, clinical analytics, analytics for fraud detection, legal analytics, and solar energy among others. To accurately gauge outlook and opportunity for these and others, venture evaluation must go well beyond the typical “size of market, expected market share” and ‘drill-down’ to understand external market threats and opportunities. We have a way to go yet in educating the entrepreneurial community but I believe today’s “hyper competitive” dynamic global markets will help accelerate the adoption of these new analytics capabilities.

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

 

 

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PR/Advertising Lessons for Entrepreneurs from P.T. Barnum

Here is wisdom from circus showman P.T. Barnum I have often shared with early stage #entrepreneurs to reinforce the last point- end game here is to create short and long term sales-  the rest is ‘showmanship’ and important not to confuse this point. Also note the need to emphasize benefits to build on adv/promotion and actually close the sale (i.e.,”explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions…”). Good counsel and insights here for early stage entrepreneurs.

“ If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Fairground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks thru the mayor’s flower bed, that’s publicity. And if you can get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales.

                                                                                                                                                                                P.T.Barnum

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Healthcare Monitoring – Fast Company Market Perspectives

Healthcare Monitoring – Fast Company -“Why We Don’t Talk About “Wearable Software”

Revolution is coming in the wearable healthcare monitoring arena as we move from devices to software/ ecosystems and new predictive analytics are fully embraced. Excellent Fast Company Labs article by Tina Amirtha summarizing directions. I see significant opportunity here not covered in the article  – why pharmas will play a key role, role of wearables in telemonitoring/Telehealth, tracking medication compliance,adverse drug reactions. And wearable healthcare monitoring coupled with analytics is spawning many exciting entrepreneurial ventures

Check out the Fast Company article at http://tinyurl.com/klzncnl. My comments shown are shortened due to space – here is a complete copy:

Tina- great article. As former CEO of a public predictive analytics company pleased to share comments. First, analytics is indeed the “Holy Grail” but my view is the real opportunity drivers here are not individuals but pharmas who have the incentive to establish and grow ongoing patient relationships. Healthcare monitoring/analytics is ideal strategy to help pharmas achieve this objective. Last time I looked the 3 to 4 major pharma chains represent about $200 billion or 75 percent of the market and about 24,000 locations- independent pharmas account for the rest of the locations and market. Secondly, health monitoring devices can make a substantive contribution to Telehealth/ telemedicine – I have done work in this area and telemonitoring proponents have not fully embraced these technologies- in my view and they are missing a real opportunity. We are seeing new entrepreneurial ventures addressing this market- my experience is creating sustainable business models addressing hardware, software, analytics dimensions is a real challenge for some of the reasons you noted.

Finally, in a late 2012 blog post “Buy Health Monitoring Devices Off The Clothing Rack      http://tinyurl.com/nhyp9uy 
I suggested we may be buying health care monitors in Lands End, and discussed how this will impact traditional retailer strategies. Sales staff questions may move from “What size and color jacket would you like to see?” to “Can I show you our blood pressure-only monitoring jacket or our top of the line full featured model tracking glucose, oxygenation and includes a USB port?”And what about health care coverage. Expect to see some interesting issues emerge here- are you buying a jacket or a medical device; where do you draw the line? Clothing may also be an external driver to grow this market

Bottom line here- the real opportunity, which translates into hard dollar cost savings and improved healthcare quality, is using wearables and the software ecosystem to track medication compliance, adverse drug reactions, drug efficacies, and similar data. My vision is coupling wearable healthcare monitors with predictive analytics will dramatically reshape today’s healthcare system- refocusing the emphasis of today ‘ s wearable discussion and educating industry players on the possibilities here are the challenges and next steps needed to make this happen

Paul B. Silverman

 

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

 

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Annie Oakley Wisdom for Entrepreneurs…

Annie Oakley Wisdom for Entrepreneurs

Annie Oakley lived in the late 1800’s, was a sharpshooter and exhibition shooter, and had a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

But Annie Oakley faced many obstacles- the fifth of seven children, mother widowed twice, poverty, raised in the county poor farm, and sent to an adoptive family for several years. Suffered more mental and physical abuse, often locked outside when snowing. After she returned to the county poor farm, reunited with her family and her mother had married a third time and had more children.

Annie Oakley succeeded despite a most challenging childhood. That is why her quotation is even more powerful when you understand her path to success and the many obstacles she had to overcome:

 “Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success.”

 Good counsel here for entrepreneurs and worth sharing …

                                                                     Paul B. Silverman

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

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The 7 Biggest Founder Mistakes

Good counsel here for all entrepreneurs … Mistakes to avoid when starting new entrepreneurial ventures

http://www.inc.com/dana-severson/the-7-biggest-founder-mistakes-that-you-can-learn-from.html?cid=sf01001

Paul B. Silverman

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

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How to Create a Killer Business Plan- Martha Stewart Perspective

Good counsel on creating a ‘killer’ business plan from Martha Stewart who many may not know offers excellent resources for entrepreneurs.

Note the recommendations to “… be concise, compelling, complete” – the “3 C’s”. While good points here, the article missed one critical point- the need to emphasize and show a winning management team. I shared the following comments:

Good counsel here and I like the ” 3 C’s ” recommendations. Article emphasizes business plan essentials but we know investors often invest in management more than plans. Reinforcing the depth of management experience in the venture; creating a strong Management Advisory Board; structuring a Product Advisory Council- these are low cost, smart steps that add great value to business plans based on my experience .

Check out article at

 http://www.marthastewart.com/266952/how-to-create-a-killer-business-plan

Paul B Silverman

 

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

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