The Heart of Innovation: Leadership
Where does innovation take place? What drives innovation? Can an environment be created that fosters innovation? If so, can the opposite also be true? Do organizations hinder innovation by how they are structured and how they are managed? Where can the heart of...
The Grant Proposal Budget: Seven Things to Remember
The grant proposal budget is an often-overlooked opportunity to improve the proposal’s chances of winning. The budget is a communication tool to the reviewers, just like any other element of the proposal. What the budget does or doesn’t do is let the reviewers know...
The Façade
A façade can be an appearance—the surface image of care, interest, integrity—either projected by a person, group, or organization or attributed to them by others through observation or perception. Whether intentional or not, we all have a façade, an outer image that...
The Complexity of Business Compliance
For small businesses, and perhaps businesses of any size, compliance with the rules and regulations of being in business is becoming more and more complex. It’s getting to the point, it seems, that it is almost impossible to be 100% in compliance, mainly because you...
The Coffee Pot Syndrome
You may not recognize the phenomena by name, but many have experienced it. The coffee pot syndrome (CPS) is the first signal that a business has performance issues. CPS occurs when a business isn't achieving profitability objectives and starts looking for ways to cut...
The Business of Technology
As the pace of technology innovation increases and as more and more players are able to enter the markets and provide alternatives (to each other and existing solutions), differentiation and adoption is fostered by the ability to put sound business practices,...
The Accounting Cycle and Business Decisions
When we think of a business, we must think in terms of activities that produce resources and those that use resources. Everyone and everything in the organization is engaged in creating or consuming resources, or in some instances both. People who are paid for their...
The Accidental Business Structure: Start, Go and Revise
So many businesses are started by the seat of the pants, and with only the basics of knowledge about how to organize and run them. The businesses start spontaneously, with its founders’ limited exposure to various types of organizations and bits of information that...
A Target on Your Back – When the Competition is Out to Get You
There is something to be said about having the "competition" out to get you. It means that you are doing something right. It means that your competition view you as a serious threat. It also means that you need to take action so you can accomplish the following: Keep...
Sustainable Growth: A Formula for Success
For businesses of all sizes, the credit and banking industry issues of the last decade have raised questions of how to build and sustain organizations with less dependence on external sources of capital (debt and equity) and more from internal resources, such as funds...