Ideas in a vacuum

By Laura Haight

What turns an idea from the spark of fleeting inspiration to a tangible service or product?

Are you the kind of person who churns out a lot of ideas and then bounces them off others? What if an idea just lives in your head?

For many new entrepreneurs, work is done on the phone, on the road, in a home office. Single-person consultancies or one- and two-person businesses lack the whiteboards, projectors, conference tables, mind mapping and brainstorming infrastructure of the corporate world.

An idea is defined as "any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity." So what takes an idea from existing in the mind to an actionable plan, product or business?

In my experience, it's the process of having it kicked around by others. Throw it on the table and get feedback good and bad from others with experience, or even those who can bring a fresh perspective. In the newspaper business, often the best feedback came from those who looked at ideas from a reader's perspective, not a journalist's.

Ideas are like children. To thrive, they need nurturing and caring. But they also need discipline and critical appraisals. They need challenges to overcome and goals to attain.

For a small or one-person business, the ability to kick ideas around, to help shape them with others' ideas and experiences, to benefit from what-if scenarios proposed by people who have "been there, done that", leaves a big innovation void.

Don't let your ideas die for lack of water and sunlight. Here are some options:

• Create an advisory board for your business. This might be comprised of friends or associates, but it should be a group that will fairly and honestly evaluate your ideas and proposals and offer impartial and honest insights. You don't want a bunch of "yes-sers".
• Set up an informal focus group for an idea that has a specific target audience. Large businesses and marketing companies do this all the time - and often at considerable expense. But it doesn't have to be costly. If your idea is for a product that would appeal to families or parents, for example, you can post questions on parenting websites and ask for feedback. Or post an invite at your church or school PTA and invite four or five people to sit down and give you informal responses to your idea. People like to be asked their opinions. Your challenge is to weigh individual opinions against individual biases. Try to find people who don't know you - that way their opinions won't be influenced by their personal feelings. Remember, just because one person says an idea doesn't work, doesn't make it a bad idea. Look for the useful information and inform your decisions with it.
• Find a networking group of like-minded entrepreneurs and experts and use it as a sounding board/brainstorming group. Chances are there are many others in the same position you are.

Some things to beware of:

• In a corporate environment, you are all on the same team. In an entrepreneurial environment - to some extent it is everyone for themselves. Be wary of disclosing too much about your idea.
• If you set up a board of advisors, you may want to ask each board member to sign a non-disclosure agreement. There are many available online (here's one), but you should always make sure to have any legal documents vetted by your attorney. The version I've posted here is a sample of what's available, but has not been vetted.
• Our opinions are informed by our experiences and biases. So you must take them with a grain of salt. Remember, ultimately it's your business and it's your decision.

Ideas rattling around in the heads of people just like you were the start of every great movement, product, service or initiative that has every occurred. What made them great was that they were acted upon.

What's your great idea?

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Like the concept of an ideas group? I'd like to know if there's potential to start something locally in the Upstate of SC or potentially virtually to bring in people from around the region. Please comment and give me your ideas!

Commonsense on social media

In a way, it isn't surprising that the The Ford social media guidelines have been getting a lot of play this week on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. After all, they are concise, clear and do a good job of stating principles that seem like no-brainers.

And there's the surprise. Apparently, they aren't no-brainers. Honesty, clarity, respect, judgment and awareness.

Employee interactions in social media have been a major conundrum as businesses have tried to figure out and to articulate where the employee stops and the individual begins. Even in Ford's well- articulated policy the individual and the employee are centaur-like.

But the clarity of it's guidelines is something other businesses could benefit from in all communications with employees. Too often businesses wait until there's a problem and then try to create policies on the fly based on how they handled a single incident.

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but in dealing with employees it is essential nonetheless.

Policies are generally meant to address the vast majority - probably 80-95 percent of employees. There are always some exceptions,special circumstances and unique situations that require special handling. Manageers often overcomplicate issues; trying to create a bullet proof policy that will apply to every single situation. The result may be that it takes too long to get information out to employees, or that the policies become so long, detailed and obfuscated by legalese that they employee neither reads nor understands.

Policies also have to be adaptable to change, especially those that deal with technology, the Internet, and social media. Just a few years ago companies primarily concerned themlves with how much their employees were using their work computers for personal business like email, shopping and - of course - viewing adult sites. Those policies must now adapt to what an employee posts online on their own time,to what they view or read on their company smartphone and how their public statements impact the business.

So what can a small business learn from Ford's policy?

1. Clarity in dealing with employees is always best. Make the policies clear to all from the receptionist to the board room.

2. Create policies as changes in company business, social mores or technology warrant. Don't create policies to deal with one-off situations. And have the wisdom to know the difference.

3. Embrace new opportunities, don't run from them. Yes, occasionally you may have an employee who says or does something online that causes an issue or embarrassment for the company. If it's intentional, you have a management issue. If it's accidental, you have a testing moment. Either way, it's an issue between the company and one employee. Don't let that dictate your entire policy or approach. You will get far more from an army of positive ambassadors and representatives than you will lose with one problem.

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Portfolio can help small businesses develop and write concise and clear internal and external communications. Need help? Talk to us.

To print or not to print?

By Laura Haight

Media observers - including this one - have been predicting the end of printed newspapers for some time now.

It seemed obvious that all but the largest newspapers would eventually be moved to digital publications eventually. And that those who could not make the adjustment would not survive. But when NY Times publisher Arthur Sulzburger told a London audience this week that even the venerable New York Times will stop publishing a physical edition at some unnamed future point, it rumbled through the media universe like tectonic shift. If even the Times knows its future is digital, then the rest of the media world has to admit to the inevitable.

Although Sulzberger refused to reference any time frames, significance of his comments was not lost on observers.

Paywalls and other forms of monetizing journalism may need to be

identified and successfully implemented, but not to support a flagging print product that is doomed to go the way of buggy factories. But rather to support the business of journalism.

The debate over whether or not journalism could survive without newspapers has been raging for years. The question may better be: can journalism survive with newspapers? In the quest to support an expensive ink-on-paper product and labor/time intensive delivery method, newspapers have dramatically reduced resources supporting their core product. Information. Unique, compelling, well researched, balanced, and informative information.

Some of the better journalism you are seeing right now is happening online and - as hard as it is for an old newspaper-person with ink stains on everything - even cable.

Consumers of information need to be more discriminating - not all blogs are the same, not all websites are the same. There is a big difference between a trained journalist and someone capable of putting up a professional looking blog or website. Look for and promote good journalism and support the organizations that make that journalism possible.

That would be something worth paying for.

For a more forward looking view of the Times' announcement check out The Editors Weblog

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Portfolio provides assistance to companies trying to improve their communications - whether written or visual. We are a company of journalists, designers, technologists and trainers. Contact us for a free consultation on how we can help you succeed.

An iPad app to flip over

By Laura Haight

If you've every labored through lengthy lists of Twitter and Facebook posts looking for nuggets of interesting information. Or waded through retweeted link after retweeted link without ever clicking through. Then Flipboard is the app you may have been waiting for.

It's easy to say Flipboard is an aggregator of content, but it is so much more. Flipboard turns the often dry, 140-character post, links and retweets into a magazine style format.

Flipboard starts with 9 content channels on its main page - Facebook can be one, Twitter another - and there are a number of pre-packaged subject-matter channels (like tech or media) as well as individual publications like Slate, Fast Company or USA Today.

For posted links, Flipboard displays the actual headline, artwork and some content. The poster is listed in a byline-like format. If you want to view the entire post, you can expand it to see the entire web page but within the Flipboard app. Although the app could be improved by enabling posting to Twitter from Facebook and vice versa, right now it enables you to retweet or repost to the same channel from the app. You can also add comments or view existing comments, without every leaving the app or the screen its on.

Posts are displayed chronologically and, at least so far, I haven't seen anything from Farmville or Mafia Wars so I think it skips the Facebook game posts.

In the five days I've had this app, I have found some real gems in the links that pour over the transom each day. Many of these, I know I would never have gone to look at from the normal Twitter/Facebook interface.

Flipboard is free and, unfortunately, right now is only on the iPad.
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I recently did a presentation for a local business group on getting started with social media for small businesses. Are you using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other tools for your business? What tools do you use to aggregate the information? If you're an expert you can definitely help others; if you are not, Portfolio may be able to help you. Let's start the conversation.

5 Greenville firms in Inc's 5000

Five companies in Greenville have made Inc. magazine's list of the 5000 fastest growing companies in the US.

Each year, Inc. publishes a list of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. To be eligible, companies must be U.S.-based, privately held, independent organizations (not subsidiaries of larger companies). Rankings are based on revenue from 2006 (which must be at least $200,000) through 2009 (which must be at least $2 million).

This year's list contains three Greenville companies making their first appearance and two that moved up in ranking from their 2009 listing.

They are:
JH GLOBAL SERVICES (978).
JH Global Services imports and distributes STAR brand electric golf carts, golfing accessories, and industrial products to dealers nationwide. It also offers outsourcing services to U.S. companies that want to have parts or products made in China, especially engineered metal products. It's 2009 revenues of $28 million made it 15th in the manufacturing segment. The company employs 35 people and has seen more tha. 300 percent growth over the past three years. JH was on the Inc. list last year at #2095.

TGA SOLUTIONS (2356)
TGA SOLUTIONS, located in Inman, is an IT services company. IT Services had the second most companies on this year's list with 607, and TGA Solutions was ranked 284 in the industry. TGA Solutions is also one of the 25 South Carolina based companies represented on the list. TGA is the only IT Services company in the Upstate of South Carolina that made the list out of the 10 advanced technology companies that are based here.

TGA Solutions empowers clients with custom cost-effective solutions to increase efficiency and security via software, hardware, virtualization, storage and data protection and recovery. With 30 years of industry experience, highly-trained engineers, and a reputation for quality customer service TGA has earned prestigious partnerships with top software and hardware providers. These include premier certified partnerships with Cisco, Microsoft and Dell, and they remain the only Citrix provider in Upstate South Carolina.

FORTIS RIDERS (3096)
Fortis Riders provides chauffeur driven limousines for executives in 550 locations. Founded in 2000, the company had $3.1 million in revenue last year. In it's industry category of logistics and transportation it was 56th. The company has eight full time employees and has experienced a 66 percent growth over the past three years. Fortis Riders was on the list last year at #1907.

ADEX MACHINING TECHNOLOGIES (3434)
ADEX is a manufacturer of precision machined aerospace and energy components. Despite a slow economy, ADEX experienced more than 300 percent growth in revenue over a three year period, including expansion to a new facility, investment in new capital equipment, and adding over a dozen new employees. ADEX Machining Technologies is a one-stop supplier of high precision CNC and EDM machined prototypes and production components for the Aerospace, Defense, and Energy-Power Generation industries. ADEX’s niche is 5-axis machining of tough exotic materials such as Titanium and Inconel, while holding tight tolerances of .0002 inches on complex applications up to 40” in diameter. Examples of the company’s diverse applications include components and assemblies for military and commercial aircraft engines, rocket propulsion, helicopter hardware, and gas turbine combustion systems. ADEX is 148th in the manufacturing segment. The company had revenue of $4.6million - a 53 percent increase in three years. The company has 32 full time employees.

EDTS (4433)
EDTS is a full-service technology consulting firm, specializing in networking, security, and managed services support services for businesses throughout the Southeast. The firm with 35 employees is based in Greenville and Atlanta, GA. EDTS is ranked 549th in the IT Services industry with revenue of $2 million and a 20 percent growth over the past three years.