Laura's Winning Ideas

“In any market, no matter how strong the competition, the opportunity exists to attack competitor Lock-ins and introduce a new Success Formula which can grow. . .

“Now, in this soft economy, the tendency is to focus on what you always did.  But it is during this kind of economy that weaknesses in competitors become more apparent.  Opportunities to change competition can become clearer.  Customers are more willing to try alternative solutions, giving new competitors a better chance of success.  Suppliers are willing to take greater risks to develop new business, making new business launch easier.”
- Adam Hartung, The Phoenix Principle

Adam Hartung wrote an great piece this week about how FOX overtook CNN, in a market created by CNN, 24 hour news. And then, the story continues with how MSNBC rose as a competitor to them both.

The principles he exposes will work for your firm:

1. Look into the future and imagine / predict what your market will look like.

2. Obsessively study the competition. What are their weaknesses and what can you copy from them?

3. Be disruptive. What can you do differently to take advantage of gaps you see?

4. Use White Space to be creative and willing to try out new ideas and discard the ones that don’t work.

Read the entire article here to see how these firms succeeded. And then figure out how you can do this for your own firm. Do it now. There’s no better time!

New Book Offers Quick Start on Linked In

If you are responsible for Business Development at your firm, Linked In will expand your network of contacts and impress your boss someday.

IMHO everyone with a career should get a profile up on Linked In for these reasons:

• You never know when you’ll want to investigate new opportunities.
• Prospects, contacts of prospects and other important folks for you to meet likely have profiles on Linked In.
• Head hunters and Recruiters use Linked In to find candidates.
• Linked In offers search capability so a developer new to your community can search for a Civil Engineering firm.
• When you aren’t finding a match with Google, Linked In may lead you to a member of the industry willing to answer a few questions so you can find what you need. “Oh. They call it remediation instead of restoration. That’s why my search didn’t turn up the right kind of help.”
• You never know when you’ll need to investigate new opportunities.

Jason Alba wrote this quick read, and it offers exactly the advice I would give if I were sitting at your elbow helping you get your first profile up on Linked In. This book is perfect for folks new to Linked In.

Well, and I’ve been on Linked In for years now, and I learned several things I hadn’t known, got some good tips to improve my own profile, and generally improved my on line presence.

Besides, who wants to have just their Facebook and MySpace pages show up when someone Googles you?
(or if you’re too old for FaceBook)
Besides, who wants to be considered old because you don’t have any Web 2.0 cred?

Wisconsin. December 1. Four inches of snow fell last night and by morning the snow had drifted over all the sidewalks and driveways, with snow plows lumbering up and down the streets.

The guys all got to show off their snow blowers. Our next door neighbor is a first-time homeowner. He bought his first snow blower last week to be ready. My husband went out to play with it, and all over the neighborhood men did the manly thing and wrestled with heavy dangerous equipment to put the snow in it’s proper place.

My first few winters in Wisconsin were very mild. Practically no snow.

One morning I woke to the muffled quiet that means a blanket of snow has come and covered every tread, step and squeek. The quiet was broken when I heard two men outside.

“What did you do that for?”

“What! I was just helping out!”

“Well, I was going to do that. It’s my snow you know!”

Great. The snow had been so sparse the guys were fighting over who got to shovel it out of the way.

Well, last year was a doozy. They said it was a 100 year storm that lasted all season. I was sort of hoping this year would be another mild winter, but this seems sort of early for 4 inches on the ground.

Oh, well. The only yard work I hadn’t done yet was to empty a few pots on the porch, and put up the bird feeders. I brought out the boot tray for wet boots this afternoon and will try to find my snow boots and snow pants tomorrow.

Hope you had a warm Thanksgiving!