Just learned about Udacity’s How to Build a Startup. Feel free to check it out.
Everyone should check out the story about Jose Aponte biking across the country to raise awareness and funds for the American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Scholarship. Be sure to consider making a donation on the website cited below!
See https://www.crowdrise.com/spectrumscholarship/fundraiser/joseaponte2
I am enclosing the text from the crowdrise website below.
“San Diego County Library Director José Aponte announced today that he will ride across America to raise awareness and funds for the Spectrum Scholarship Program of the American Library Association (ALA).
The Spectrum Scholarship Program’s major drive is to recruit applicants and award scholarships to American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino or Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students. Spectrum provides a one-year $5,000 scholarship and over $1,500 in professional development opportunities to eligible students planning to attend an ALA-accredited graduate program in library and information studies or school library media program.
The Mission of the American Library Association Spectrum Scholarship Program is: “Improving service at the local level through the development of a representative workforce that reflects the communities served by all libraries in the new millennium.”
“This is a journey celebrating America, libraries and the promise of future leaders,” said Aponte. “Our ride allows us to test physically the limits of our human potential. Professionally, the Masters in Library Sciences opened my life to the inherent promise we all possess. By supporting Spectrum Scholars we can insure institutional change and community empowerment with future leaders that can continue to transform communities insuring safer, healthier, and ultimately a more prosperous future.”
All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
José Aponte will ride with Cycle America from Seattle to Boston https://www.cycleamerica.com/ raising awareness, donate before September 1, 2016 to cheer his efforts! “
Adam Bornstein and Jordan Bornstein’s article, “What makes a Great Leader?”, in the March 2016 Entrepreneur Magazine cited these 22 qualities as paramount for leaders. Readers should read the entire Entrepreneur article as each quality is cited with a quote from an important business leader,
- Focus
- Confidence
- Transparency
- Integrity
- Inspiration
- Passion
- Innovation
- Patience
- Stoicism
- Wonkiness
- Authenticity
- Open-Mindedness
- Decisiveness
- Personableness
- Empowerment
- Positivity
- Generosity
- Persistence
- Insightfulness
- Communication
- Accountability
- Restlessness
My favorite quotes from Give and Take by Adam Grant
Page 50, “The dormant ties provided more novel information than the current contacts. Over the past few years, while they were out of touch, they had been exposed to new ideas and perspectives. The current contacts were more likely to share the knowledge base and viewpoint that the executives already possessed.”
Page 51, “Dormant ties offer the access to novel information that weak ties afford, but without the discomfort. Dormant ties are the neglected value in our networks, and givers have a distinctive edge over takers and matchers in unlocking this value.”
Page 52, “According to networking experts, reconnecting is a totally different experience for givers, especially in a wired world. Givers have a track record of generously sharing their knowledge, teaching us their skills, and helping us find jobs without worrying what’s in it for them, so we’re glad to help them when they get back in touch with us.”
Page 74, “This is a defining feature of how givers collaborate: they take on the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, not necessarily their own personal interests.”
Page 101, “Because they tend to be trusting and optimistic about other people’s intentions, in their roles as leaders, managers, and mentors, givers are inclined to see the potential in everyone.”
Page 105, “In roles as leaders and mentors, givers resist the temptation to search for talent first. By recognizing that anyone can be a bloomer, givers focus their attention on motivation.”
Page 106, “Of course, natural talent also matters, but once you have a pool of candidates above the threshold of necessary potential, grit is a major factor that predicts how close they get to achieving their potential. This is why givers focus on gritty people: it’s where givers have the greatest return on their investment, the most meaningful and lasting impact.”
Page 114, “Other studies show that people actually make more accurate and creative decisions when they’re choosing on behalf of others than themselves.”
Page 116, “Givers focus more on the interpersonal and organizational consequences of their decisions, accepting a blow to their pride and reputations in the short term in order to make better choices in the long term.”
Page 119, “In my own research, I’ve found that because of their dedication to others, givers are willing to work harder and longer than takers and matchers. Even when practice is no longer enjoyable, givers continue exerting effort out of a sense of responsibility to their team.”
Page 121, “Whereas takers often strive to be the smartest people in the room, givers are more receptive to expertise from others, even if it challenges their own beliefs.”
Page 131, “Because they value the perspectives and interests of others, givers are more inclined toward asking questions than offering answers, talking tentatively than boldly, admitting their weaknesses than displaying their strengths, and seeking advice than imposing their views on others.”
Page 133, “Takers tend to worry about revealing weaknesses will compromise their dominance and authority. Givers are much more comfortable expressing vulnerability: they’re interested in helping others, not gaining power over them, so they’re not afraid of exposing chinks in their armor. By making themselves vulnerable, givers can actually build prestige.”
Page 137, “It’s the givers, by virtue of their interest in getting to know us, who ask us the questions that enable us to experience the joy of learning from ourselves. And by giving us the floor, givers are actually learning about us and from us, which helps them figure out how to sell us things we already value.”
Page 140, “By asking questions and getting to know their customers, givers build trust and gain knowledge about their customers’ needs. Over time, this makes them better and better at selling.”
Page 144, “Fragale (Alison Fragale, University of North Carolina professor) shows that when people have to work closely together, such as in teams and service relationships, powerless speech is actually more influential than powerful speech.”
Page 146, “When givers use powerless speech, they show us that they have our best interests at heart.”
Page 147, “The paradox comes from people thinking an inclusive leader isn’t strong enough to lead a team, when in fact that leader is stronger, because he engenders the support of the team.”- Batron Hill managing director and global head of marketing at Citi Transaction Services
Page 150, “New research shows that advice seeking is a surprisingly effective strategy for exercising influence when we lack authority.”
Page 151-“Advice seeking is a form of powerless communication that combines expressing vulnerability, asking questions, and talking tentatively. Research shows that people who regularly seek advice and help from knowledgeable colleagues are actually rated more favorably by supervisors than those who never seek advice and help.”
Pages 152-153, “Seeking advice is a subtle way to invite someone to make a commitment to us. When we ask people for advice, we grant them prestige, showing that we respect and admire their insights and expertise. Since most people are matchers, they tend to respond favorably and feel motivated to support us in return.”
Page 153, “Regardless of their reciprocity styles, people love to be asked for advice. When persuading and negotiating, givers speak tentatively and seek advice because they truly value the ideas and viewpoints of others.”
Page 165, “Givers don’t burn out when they devote too much time and energy to giving. They burn out when they’re working with people in need but are unable to help effectively.”
Page 166, “In research with two colleagues, I’ve discovered that the perception of impact serves as a buffer against stress, enabling employees to avoid burnout and maintain their motivation and performance.”
Page 168, “When people know how their work makes a difference, they feel energized to contribute more.”
Page 177, “When they’re on the brink of burnout, otherish givers seek help, which enables them to marshal the advice, assistance, and resources necessary to maintain their motivation and energy. Three decades of research show that receiving support from colleagues is a robust anti-dote to burnout.”
Page 178, “Otherish givers build up a support network that they can access for help when they need it.”
Page 179, “Over time, giving may build willpower like weight lifting builds muscles.”
Page 182, “Surprising as it seems, people who give more go on to earn more.”
Page 183, “It seems that giving adds meaning to our lives, distracts us from our own problems, and helps us feel valued by others.”
Page 190, “Trust is one reason that givers are susceptible to the doormat effect: they tend to see the best in everyone, so they operate on the mistaken assumption that everyone is trustworthy.”
Page 193, “The ability to recognize agreeable takers as fakers is what protects givers against being exploited.”
Page 198, “Once successful givers see the value of sincerity screening and begin to spot agreeable takers as potential fakers, they protect themselves by adjusting their behavior accordingly. It’s wise to start out as a giver, since research shows that trust is hard to build but easy to destroy. But once a counterpart is clearly acting like a taker, it makes sense for givers to flex their reciprocity styles and shift to a matching strategy…”
Page 199, “Being otherish means that givers keep their own interests in the rearview mirror, taking care to trust but verify. When dealing with takers, shifting into matcher mode is a self-protective strategy. But one out of every three times, it may be wise to shift back into giver mode, granting so-called takers the opportunity to redeem themselves.”
Page 206, “And Vanderbilt professors Bruce Barry and Ray Friedman found that in short-term, single issue negotiations, givers do worse than takers, because they’re willing to give larger slices of the pie to their counterparts. But this disadvantage disappears entirely when the givers set high goals and stick to them- which is easier for givers to do when advocating for someone else.”
Page 238, “People often take because they don’t realize that they’re deviating from the norm. In these situations, showing them the norm is often enough to motivate them to give-especially if they have matcher instincts.”
Page 258, “This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them.”
Useful Websites to Explore
http://www.humaxnetworks.com/default.asp (Check out the Reciprocity Ring)
http://positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu/cpo-tools/job-crafting-exercise/
http://www.meetup.com/106miles/
http://jenniferkahnweiler.com/
http://thekindnessoffensive.com/
Just learned about the BizPeake Journal. It is the only business to business publication in the Chesapeake Bay Region.
Just learned about 1871
Definitely worth exploring especially if you are in the Chicago area or planning to be in the Chicago area! I wonder if the American Library Association (also based in Chicago) has any interaction with 1871.
According to is website, It is a “a community of designers, coders and entrepreneurs who learn from each other, encourage each other, and share a journey up the steep startup learning curve. Tenants and members of 1871 have priority access to hundreds of classes, lectures, seminars and other programs designed to educate and inspire. From classes specifically designed to empower entrepreneurs, to talks from leading business-builders, technologists and designers, to inspirational sessions from artists and others, 1871 offers a full range of content and programming. Three types of co-working memberships offer choices for entrepreneurs in different stages of building their businesses. Reserved co-working members have their own desks and storage; shared co-working members have round-the-clock access to the space; and night/weekend members have access in the evenings and on weekends.”
Readers may want to check out SBDCNet.
As stated in the About section of its website the SBDCNet is ” the official National Information Clearinghouse of the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBDCNet provides small business research services to the entire 1,100+ member SBDC Network of Small Business Development Centers located in all 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico. In partnership with your SBDC, we can produce a broad range of financial, market and demographic research reports customized to your client’s industry and geographic location. In addition to supporting small business entrepreneurs, SBDCNet now offers an array of products and services to support small to mid-size community development.”
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) SizeUp Tool is worth taking a look at. As, stated on the SBA website, “If you are a small business owner, you need to know how your business stacks up with the competition in order to succeed. SizeUp will help you manage and grow your business by benchmarking it against competitors, mapping your customers, competitors and suppliers, and locating the best places to advertise.”
Favorite Quotes from Vagabonding by Rolf Potts are listed below:
Page 13, “Rather, it’s (vagabonding) a personal act that demands only the realignment of self.”
Page 29, “This notion- that material investment is somehow more important to life than personal investment-is exactly what leads so many of us to believe we could never afford to go vagabonding. Indeed, the freedom to go vagabonding has never been determined by income level; it’s found through simplicity-the conscious decision of how to use what income you have.”
Page 30, “Rather, simplicity merely requires a bit of personal sacrifice: an adjustment of your habits and routine within consumer society itself.”
Page 33, “On a basic level, there are three general methods to simplifying your life: stopping expansion, reining in your routine, and reducing clutter.”
Page 38, “Ultimately, you may well discover that vagabonding on the cheap becomes your favorite way to travel, even if given more expensive options. Indeed, not only does simplicity save you money and buy you time; it also makes you more adventuresome, forces you into sincere contact with locals, and allows you the independence to follow you passions and curiosities down exciting new roads. In this way simplicity-both at home and on the road-affords you the time to seek renewed meaning in an oft-neglected commodity that can’t be bought at any price: life itself.”
Page 46- “Considering all material possessions beyond basic necessities to be an obstacle to true living, Henry David Thoreau espoused the idea that wealth is found not in what you own but in how you spend your time.”
Page 60, “Indeed, the surest way to miss out on the genuine experience of a foreign place-the psychic equivalent of trapping yourself back home-is to obsessively check your email as you travel from place to place.”
Page 63-64, “Vagabonding is not like bulk shopping: The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home-and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.”
Page 64-“Vagabonding is about setting your own pace and finding your own way, and you can rest assured that everything you see in a glossy brochure in Milwaukee will be just as available (and ten times cheaper) when you arrive independently at your destination.”
Page 89, “If there’s one key concept to remember amid the excitement of your first days on the road, it’s this: Slow down.”
Page 89, “Vagabonding is about not merely reallotting a portion of your life for travel but rediscovering the entire concept of time. At home, you’re conditioned to get to the point and get things done, to favor goals and efficiency over moment by moment distinction. On the road you learn to improvise your days, take a second look at everything you see, and not obsess over your schedule.”
Page 90, “In a certain sense, walking through new places with the instincts of a five-year old is liberating. No longer are you bound to your past. In living so far away from your home, you’ll suddenly find yourself holding a clean slate. There’s no better opportunity to break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality. Socially, you’ll find it easier to be gregarious and open-minded. Mentally, you’ll feel engaged and optimistic, newly ready to listen and learn. And as much as anything, you’ll find yourself abuzz with the peculiar feeling that you can choose to go in any direction (literally and figuratively) at any given moment.”
Page 96, “Rather the secret to staying intrigued on the road-the secret to truly being different from the frustrated masses is this: Don’t set limits. Don’t set limits on what you can or can’t do. Don’t set limits on what is or isn’t worthy of your time. Dare yourself to “play games” with your day: watch, wait, listen; allow things to happen.”
Page 161, “Interestingly, one of the initial impediments to open-mindedness is not ignorance but ideology.”
Page 174, “On a broader and more mythical level, however, walkabout acts as a kind of remedy when the duties and obligations of life cause one to lose track of his or her true self. To correct this, one merely leaves behind all possessions (except for survival essentials) and starts walking. What’s intriguing about walkabout is that there’s no physical goal: It simply continues until one becomes whole again.”
Page 187, “What we know as personal travel, after all, is the historical legacy not of exploration or commerce but of pilgrimage-the nonpolitical, non-material quest for private discovery and growth. Indeed, regardless of whether or not you consider your vagabonding journey to be “spiritual”, self-motivated travel has always been intertwined with the personal workings of the soul.”
Page 190, “Moreover, spirituality is an ongoing process that deepens with the seasons-and those who travel the world hoping to get “blinded by the light” are often blind to the light that’s all around them.”
Page 201, “If travel truly is in the journey and not the destination, if travel really is an attitude of awareness and openness to new things, then any moment can be considered travel.”
Page 202, “Explore your hometown as if it were a foreign land, and take an interest in your neighbors as if they were exotic tribesmen. Keep things real, and keep on learning. Be creative, and get into adventures. Keep things simple, and let your spirit grow. But most of all, keep living your life in such a way that allows your dreams room to breathe.”
Jeff Davis and Charlie Birney have a great podcast at https://soundcloud.com/launch-podcast where they are interviewing start-up entrepreneurs and learning more about their ideas and products. The start-ups are based in the Baltimore and DC areas.