Hispanic Entrepreneurs Are Beating Expectations and Bolstering the U.S. Economy
This point obviously seems to be missed in our current political debate. And the conclusions here are driven by numbers and data, not rhetoric. Hispanic entrepreneurship helps drive our economic growth. Read More
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I have received many requests for a copy of a one hour Inside Scoop Virginia syndicated public TV Interview I did on November 21, 2011 discussing entrepreneurship. I am pleased to advise the station posted the interview on YouTube over the weekend.
The interview focused on entrepreneurship and the recent publication of my entrepreneurial management book at that time Worm on a Chopstick : Understanding Today’s Entrepreneurial Age: Directions, Strategies, Management Perspectives
In the interview, I reviewed the challenges facing entrepreneurs, recommended strategies, and entrepreneurial management perspectives. I also made the point, comparing the U.S. to China and others, that we can be doing much more through creative policies leveraging entrepreneurship to create jobs and drive economic growth.
I also reviewed the following two proposed entrepreneurship programs I developed and shared my plans for these:
Entrepreneur Empowerment Program (“EEP”) – structured regional economic development program driving economic growth and job creation. The program targeted metropolitan areas with a highly structured and targeted entrepreneurship training, mentoring, and management control methodology to help early stage companies succeed and grow. Founded on two core pillars, entrepreneurship and empowerment, the EEP provides the incentive framework at the local and regional level. Empowerment ensures these are locally driven programs, but pursued under the aegis of standards and guidelines set at the national level.
AEGIS (Accelerated Entrepreneurial Global Investment System): A new program attracting overseas entrepreneurial firms to the United States to promote job creation, innovation, and economic growth. The program replaces today’s ad-hoc approach to identify, analyze, track and manage new ventures with a highly structured, well-defined program and builds a base of ‘showcase’ companies in targeted sectors (e.g., alternative energy, bio-tech, health care, others) that provides high upside, economic benefits. To support upcoming discussions, highlights of the AEGIS program are now posted on my blog at AEGIS_Summary 072115
I am now again exploring interest in both of the above programs at both the national and regional levels. When you consider that in the past 15 years, about two-thirds (64 percent) of all new jobs have been created by companies with less than 500 employees, you realize that helping entrepreneurial companies succeed and grow makes good economic sense and creates value as I discussed in the interview.
Many of the points discussed in the interview and the earlier book are also further developed in my recent book 8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.
If you are interested in seeing the interview, you can check it out at http://youtu.be/toV7VFNnFCs.
Comments welcomed. I expect to be doing similar interviews in coming months – stay tuned
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.
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) provide the foundation to improve healthcare quality and improve cost performance. And standardized EMRs open the door to telehealth and new analytics to improve clinical decision support systems and save lives. But the transition from paper records, as we learned in the e-commerce revolution, will take time and create disruption. I posted comments on a WSJ post to share my view on the benefits we can expect to see. WSJ post and my edited comments at http://tinyurl.com/ksnav8e
We need a standardized, full- featured EMR system- this is powerful building block to improve today’s healthcare system. The U.S. lags Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K., all of which have EMR adoption rates above 90 percent. No surprise these countries have healthcare systems that lead the U.S. based on all patient outcomes/cost performance metrics. Coupled with the ACA’s new core quality measure reporting (‘eCQM’s), we are taking the right steps. But EMR also enables predictive analytics which I see as the Holy Grail here. What lies ahead- new clinical decision support systems improving outcomes; new tools to minimize adverse drug events; improving patient selection for new drug trials; improving surgical outcomes examining chronic issues; and many more. The Social Progress Index report, created by Harvard Business School’s Professor Michael E. Porter’s team, ranked 132 countries using 50 indicators. In the Health and Wellness category the United States ranks poorly at 70th, behind Mali (69th), and Nepal (68th), but, small consolation, ahead of Kuwait (71st). Keep that in mind the next time you hear a pundit say “…our healthcare system works just fine and we don’t need to change it.” These studies are based on metrics/data analysis, not hype or talking points. There will be some disruption, but a standardized EMR system will benefit both the entire healthcare community and the public.
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.
Most entrepreneurs are familiar with the story of Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb. To outsiders, looks like a waste of time and effort- we see about 10,000 failures and one success. Thomas Edison saw it differently in his widely quoted views on success and failure: “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
I agree with Thomas Edison and always define failures as “Learning Experiences” — this works for me.
I recommend checking out “Failing Forward — 3 Tips for Failing Your Way to Success” – an excellent perspective on success and failure from Marshall Graham, Managing Partner at Indian River Advisor, LLC. Excellent insights here for all entrepreneurs.
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.
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.
I am reviewing materials for an upcoming entrepreneurship book and found an excellent interview on how to be a startup CEO with Bing Gordon, partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm. While posted in December 2011, Bing Gordon’s counsel for startup CEO’s is right on target today, particularly his points about the need to “Quantify Objectives with Trackable Milestones”. Gordon describes Intel’s ‘OKR’ or ‘Objectives and Key Results’ management approach – managers set objectives and identify and track 2 to 3 results, and managers are expected to achieve 70 percent of results. Very important discipline which helps companies grow and send messages to Boards and investors. Gordon also makes excellent points about “The CEO’s Need to Balance Management and Entrepreneurial Responsibilities”, emphasizing the need to nuture and balance entrepreneurial culture with clear focus on tightly managing results. Not an easy tightrope to walk as we all know, but a “build it and they will come” philosophy clearly doesn’t work in today’s rapidly changing global entrepreneurial market.
You can view Bing Gordon’s presentation at http://tinyurl.com/6vc5hy8 . The 28 minute video is well worth watching. At the time, I also posted comments on the video which you may find helpful- you can see these at http://tinyurl.com/l7nfuzo.
Paul B. Silverman July 2014
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.
BOOK SIGNING AND MEET THE AUTHOR AND EVENT AT EXPO EAST CONFERENCE ATLANTIC CITY : HOW BOOK MARKETING/PROMOTION DRIVES CLIENT BUSINESS AND SELLS PRINT BOOKS
I was invited to do a book signing and “Meet the Author” event June 5th at the Expo East promotions expo in Atlantic City, NJ. for my first book in the “Worm on a Chopstick” series, Understanding Today’s Entrepreneurial Age: Directions, Strategies, Management Perspectives, and discuss my second book planned for release in late 2012.
One of the largest promotions/marketing conferences, the trade-only event attracts major corporate buyers, sales reps, promotion/marketing companies, ad agencies, and others. Today we see explosive growth of e-books which is driving market demand, and also see the demise of traditional ‘brick and mortar’ bookstores.
However, before we writeoff the traditional print book market, it is clear to me based on discussions at this event and elsewhere, that print books are supporting many creative marketing and promotion initiatives to create new markets, promote major lines of business, and sell books in large quantities. While we may typically think about print books sold in bookstores, airport kiosks, via Amazon or other mail order channels, the following are some of the marketing and promotion channels I have discussed now being used to support business and sell books:
All of the above are driven by a basic need – companies want to attract, educate and strengthen relationships with customers. Traditionally, you may have received an imprinted calendar, pen or notepad from your favorite bank, and probably still will, but the above are some of the many new creative and exciting marketing/promotion activities we see emerging now. Given today’s intense global competition, I expect these initiatives to accelerate and others to emerge also linking social media, print books, and e books- we are seeing major new, exciting market opportunities developing here.
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.
I see the new ‘data intensity’ business model getting traction in new sectors and creative applications are emerging. Check out Stylitics, a new analytics platform to help manage your wardrobe.
http://mashable.com/2012/02/03/stylitics/
Note the reference to linking branding, couponing and so on. Most importantly, note the clear reference to Mint.com which I and many others view as a “flagship” data intensity business model.
Working with Sante Corporation, a new healthcare/analytics venture, it is clear to me providers can add high value to consumers through next generation analytics, carefully crafted to deliver insights to consumers and provide significant public benefit. The key points here – information aggregation and retrieval are yesterday’s business and commoditizing. Real opportunity now is going deeper, developing “data intensity” models, identifying the “unknown unknowns” providing real value, using powerful, creative predictive analytics to create sustainable value, and developing high value partnerships using electronic couponing, machine readable packaging and other new tools to deliver real value to consumers and create exponential shareholder value growth.
Given Mint.com’s successful business strategy, we can expect to see the data intensity business model trend accelerating. Very exciting developments are coming in this high potential market space.
Paul B. Silverman
Author: Worm on a Chopstick : Understanding Today’s Entrepreneurial Age: Directions, Strategies, Management Perspectives https://paulbsilverman.com/books/
Chief Executive Officer
Sante Corporation
Creating Next Generation Personalized, Simple Solutions to Improve Personal Health Management
Email: paul@paulbsilverman.com
Linked in: Paul Silverman
Twitter: globalbizmentor
Twitter and other microblogging platforms are obviously powerful social media tools. We have seen much discussion about security and privacy on Facebook and other social media but not much discussion on ownership of contacts and resources developed within these platforms.
We have seen similar discussions before, for example, related to who owns customer accounts when sales employees leave companies. However dissecting ownership rights of Twitter and social media accounts to determine who ‘owns’ which contacts and conversations looks like major challenge.
We are heading into new territory here – you can expect to see more discussion on this topic in coming months as more legal challenges like this emerge. Check out the following Guardian article http://tinyurl.com/6qeqyye
Understanding The ‘Unknown- Unknown’ Information Drivers Addresses ‘Sea of Data’ Issues and Creates Opportunities
I posted comments on Fast Company article discussing ‘Sea of Data’ issues Fast Company Article “Avoiding Short-Term Thinking In A World of Big Data” http://tinyurl.com/7gaepbl
I shared my vision that predictive analytics is ‘raising the bar’ in how we manage the ‘sea of data’, and offered comments on new directions I see in manufacturing and health care. Here is a copy of my comments posted on the Fast Company site:
The article makes the point that “…in a sea of data, how can we make sure that we’re not just reacting to the information in front of our face, but rather analyzing every possible input.”
One solution to the problem, not mentioned in the article, is the need to develop new analytics to identify key drivers which create the data ‘outcomes’. Predictive analytics enable us to identify these ‘unknown-unknown’ drivers that can only be found by analyzing data, looking for relationships and new rules that emerge developed by analyzing the data. Contrast this to today’s ‘deductive’ approach using expert opinion and well-defined rules.
This ‘data-driven’ analysis to create new rules is an inductive (rather than deductive ‘expert opinion’ based approach) and from my perspective holds great promise to radically change current business processes, improve productivity and improve our quality of life.
This may sound bold, but as the former CEO of an early stage predictive analytics company and also looking at new opportunities in analytics, I see exciting potential here.
Some possibilities:
Look at manufacturing. If a “supplier’s supplier” has a problem, supply chain management ensures quick notification, before it impacts the assembly line. Predictive analytics engines ‘raise the bar’ here by analyzing historical performance and risk data, often real time, defining future risk and performance drivers, and enabling management to optimize performance and mitigate risk.
Going beyond traditional data mining, these new predictive analytics tools analyze industry reports, government filings, trade press, and other sources to assess supplier “health,” pending regulations, and other “unstructured” data sources. Seamlessly integrating with other data, we can use these to more accurately gauge supplier and production line risk and improve performance.Driving new rules, providing real time early warning signs that impact future supplier and business performance are the new management tools to harness ‘the sea of data’.
Look at health care, my primary focus, where PA techniques hold great promise to help our current health care system. Consider the benefits of these new capabilities which are only a small sample of what lies ahead here:
• Tracking Medical Diagnoses, Treatments, Medications, Outcomes, Costs,Reimbursements, and Relationships
ICD or International Classification of Disease Codes , classifies diseases on health records.CPT or Current Procedural Terminology codes developed by the AMA describe services provided by medical practitioners. Medicare employs a similar system, using ‘HCPCS’. Tracking and examining relationships among these metrics, looking at patient data, identifying processes, and key cost and patient health drivers, you can develop ‘best practices’ to improve the health
care process.
• Identifying Adverse Drug Analyses – assessing underlying drivers to more effectively identify “at risk” patients
• Optimizing clinical trials (candidate selection and monitoring) – predicting higher risk clinical trial candidates and assessing the key risk drivers
• Developing directional indicators to predict the underlying drivers for treatment of chronic disease to understand how medication protocols impact treatment plans and patient outcomes
The new predictive analytic-based tools now emerging in all sectors are helping companies cope with the sea of data problem, and “raising the bar” in how leading firms optimize business performance in today’s dynamic global markets.
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.
Email: paul@paulbsilverman.com
blogs: https://paulbsilverman.com/blog/
Linked in: Paul Silverman
Twitter: globalbizmentor
