Archive for July, 2006
Just Give Me the Address, Will Ya!
Staff Writer Derek Jensen penned an interesting item for this morning’s The Salt Lake Tribune. In an article titled “SL County launches ‘Up Grade’â€, Jensen reports on Up Grade” — Salt Lake County, Utah’s, new online resource for business owners and entrepreneurs, inspired by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon. From today’s online edition of the Tribune
On Thursday, Corroon unveiled a new business-development program described as a “one-stop shopping” resource for small businesses. Called “Up Grade,” Corroon’s brainchild consists of a new Web site that pools federal, state, county and private resources for prospective – or existing – businesses to navigate. “The resources? A lot of them exist,” explained Dale Carpenter, Corroon’s director of business and economic development. “We’re in
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Meeting and Networking With Other CEOs
Last week I received an e-mail message from Paul Hutchinson, a managing member of Bridge Loan Capital Fund, inviting me to a networking dinner with other CEOs and company founders from around my area. Paul found me because of an award Doba recently received from the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF), and he wrote to encourage me to attend the dinner because of the possibility of being invited to participate in what he called an ‘exclusive executive retreat’ in the spring of 2007 with other world-class CEOs.
My idea of an executive retreat is a little different than most CEOs. As I wrote back on the 5th of June, when Doba takes its Management Team out for retreats, nary a word
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Risks verses Rewards
I did something last Thursday I never thought I would do. After conducting a lot of research and talking it over with my family and friends, I underwent Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis, otherwise known as LASIK eye surgery. If you’re not familiar with LASIK, it’s a surgical procedure that permanently changes the shape of your cornea and is intended to reduce your dependency on glasses or contact lenses. One week removed from the procedure and my vision is as sharp as a Bald Eagle’s swooping down on unsuspecting prey.
To say that I was nervous about the surgery would be an understatement. While almost everyone I spoke with [who had already undergone the procedure] raved about it and encouraged me to
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Feld On Focus
The day after I wrote about doing chicken and doing chicken right, Brad Feld over at FeldThoughts.com wrote about something very similar. In a post titled Lack of Focus, Feld—a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital—makes a compelling case for entrepreneurs like myself to focus and not deviate too far from our initial plan. Feld writes:
When we started Martingale Software in 1984, our original vision was “to write software for the new Apple Macintosh.†That was pretty broad, so as we sat around in a classroom somewhere at MIT (because it had a nice big blackboard that we could scribble on, plus it made us feel grown up), we decided to narrow our focus. After many hours (or was it
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Doing Chicken and Doing Chicken Right
Visit KFC’s web site and you’ll see the following statement right on the front page:
In 1939, Colonel Harland Sanders first gave the world a taste of his most famous creation, Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken, featuring that secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. Since that time, millions of people the world over have come to love his one of a kind chicken, homestyle side dishes and hot and fresh biscuits.
Said differently, Colonel Sanders “did chicken, and he did chicken rightâ€, making him in my opinion the poster boy for specialization.
The notion of specialization recently surfaced in my own life. Just over a year ago, after running out of living space, my wife and daughter and I moved
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Audience Awareness
I have a confession to make. I absolutely love Backpacker Magazine. It’s my outdoor adventure Bible. I read the magazine cover to cover each month when it arrives. For the past many years, Backpacker has sponsored an annual tour that they call Get Out More. From the Get Out More website:
BACKPACKER’s Get Out More tour provides the information and inspiration you need to get out and enjoy the outdoors. The team travels the United States for 6-months encouraging readers to pack their bags and get behind the wheel to find close-to-home outdoor adventures.
Each time they announce their tour schedule in the Spring, I look to see whether they are coming to Utah. This year, to my excitement, they had
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Personal Time
Tonight, I went on a 6 mile hike with Brandon Delgrosso, Doba’s VP of Marketing, in the Timpanogos Wilderness Area that is about 20 minutes from where I live. It was a great hike, and while I could chalk it up to the Doba Fitness Challenge as it was quite a workout, the real reason that I jumped at the chance to go when Brandon asked me was because I’ve realized that most weeks, I spend very little of my time for myself.
Now I do get out on a week-long trip here and there, and those are great times for me to do a major recharge of my batteries. I typically am able to put work and business out
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