Alan Murray writing in the Wall St. Journal:
“The big companies Mr. Christensen studied failed, not necessarily because they didn’t see the coming innovations, but because they failed to adequately invest in those innovations. To avoid this problem, the people who control large pools of capital need to act more like venture capitalists, and less like corporate finance departments. They need to make lots of bets, not just a few big ones, and they need to be willing to cut their losses.”
My friend Chris Gulker has exactly the right idea – he’s moved his world HQ for the month of May to France – to Ameugny to be exact.
As I’m sitting this afternoon at SFO waiting for a weather-delayed flight (not exactly my idea fo a great office location!), I’m very envious. At least no one around me is wearing a mask – or exhibiting any flu-like symptoms! Trying to remain positive…!
Carol Coye Benson, one of my partners who manages our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp program, hired a local professional photographer (Damon Tarver) to come into our session two weeks ago in Santa Clara. Tonight, she sent along the photos – wow, Damon did a wonderful job!
One of his pictures captured me in a very typical pose – cranking away on my MacBook Pro, probably updating either Payments News or this blog in real-time! This particular photo came from his EOS-1D Mark II shot at f/2.8, 165mm focal length at 1/100 shutter speed.
As an aside, he was a Canon shooter like me – with Canon EOS 1’s – both an EOS-1D Mark II and an EOS-1D Mark III. I had fun talking to him at our wine and cheese reception (we do this at the end of the first day of the Boot Camp to unwind and let everyone get to know each other).
The Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens that he used to shoot me is truly an amazing lens – see my Rick Steves’ Iran photos for more examples.
Turns out we are both sort of lusting after the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Zoom
Ross Mayfield linked to Matt Mahoney’s blog yesterday – and I just loved this quote in Matt’s first post about launching his company’s new career search prep course:
“Have you ever wondered why is it some people truly thrive in their work life, while others do not? … The pattern we found isn’t a lack of talent (there is tons) or opportunity (there are more types of jobs today than ever before). We found most people never discover what they truly want to do. Too many people settle. That’s a problem — not only is there great cost to the individual (”wow, my job really sucks”), but also to their companies, colleagues and the economy.”
It seems in my life that it’s been all about being open to new experiences. Work isn’t a job, it’s a journey full of natural ups and downs – but the best times are the learning times. Pay attention to them when they come along, learning as much as you can along the way – and realize that it’s time to change gears if those times are too few and infrequent.
For the last almost seven years, I’ve been a partner in a professional services firm – Glenbrook Partners. We do strategy consulting for a wide range of clients involved in some aspect of electronic payments. We also teach – and learn a lot from our teaching!
Many years ago – when I was literally dreaming of working for my own firm – I bought David Maister
Sometime in the last few months, I became aware that Maister had a very active online presence – and that he would soon be publishing a new book titled “Strategy and the Fat Smoker
That title intrigued me – how could you walk by that book on a counter in a bookstore and not pick it up? As it turns out, Maister’s the “fat smoker” and the book is about, among other things, how you get from knowing you should take action (e.g., as an overweight, one pack a day smoker) to actually doing something about it.
For those of us who work in a professional services practice, Maister’s a great teacher who brings us back to what’s really important: relationships, relationships, and relationships! As contrasted to just doing projects.
Highly Recommended!
Microfinance for the rest of us!
I really enjoyed reading SF Gate columnist Mark Morford’s Friday column “Why Do You Work So Hard?“
There is always room. There are always choices we can begin to make, changes we can begin to invite, rules we can work to upset, angles of penetration we can try to explore.
As I mentioned here a few weeks back, last Thursday and Friday we held the first Glenbrook public “boot camp” on payments at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
Carol and I had a great time hosting it and thoroughly enjoyed our interaction with all of the participants — including my old friend and venture capitalist Tim Oren! We’re looking forward to hosting v2 sometime soon!
In the meantime, our colleagues Jay DeWitt and Allen Weinberg are preparing for their one day Glenbrook merchants’ boot camp — coming up this Thursday.
For the first time ever, my colleagues and I at Glenbrook will be holding a couple of payments “boot camps” during May.
We’ve done many of these as private sessions for clients — but this is the first time we’ve ever opened them up for anyone to attend. If you’re interested in learning more about the world of electronic payments and how to get paid as a merchant, these boot camps should be perfect for you.
For details, see this page on the Glenbrook site. For fun, we’re hosting the sessions at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
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