tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63995432008-09-25T23:50:17.822-04:00Light and clarity for young entrepreneursRonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comBlogger329125This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-53304180906101077892008-09-25T23:44:00.003-04:002008-09-25T23:47:32.329-04:00

I was asked if I had any ideas for icebreakers for a gathering of accountants and finance people. Geez, I've never even been allowed to enter such a gathering before! (At least, not unattended.) But these were the ideas I came up with. The Panel Introduction. If you had a smaller group, you would have attendees pair up and interview one another, and introduce each other to the rest of the

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-1016115180915948632008-09-25T23:03:00.002-04:002008-09-25T23:50:17.835-04:00

Embrace change -- because he loves you so very, very much. :-) :-) :-)

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-62476600484776866002008-08-06T23:32:00.002-04:002008-08-06T23:35:39.655-04:00

I'm an engineer myself, by background and training, so I value logic and organization, and see those as being important tools for anyone, much less the founder of a start-up. BUT... I've worked in this area before, and have advised young entrepreneurs, and I can see weaknesses that engineers have. Not all engineers, of course, but I have them, and that's why I'm not a founder now myself, much

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-61528513856555081482008-07-26T17:04:00.002-04:002008-07-26T17:08:39.115-04:00

Steven McGahey, who contributed to some of the subjects in Rhetoric for Engineers, wrote me this week to say......I'd say your running of the Rhetoric for Engineers list was a great thing, which I always really enjoyed. Especially now, as I go back over the entry for "Jargon" (Hey, I was googling myself over lunchtime), and see your comment "excessive jargon can lead to bullsh*t", which made me

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-36161411385066163542008-07-26T00:45:00.004-04:002008-07-26T01:06:01.407-04:00

I'm Dr. Ron Graham, and this is start me up! with light and clarity for young entrepreneurs, volume 1, number 4. I'm often asked how to go about writing a business plan. No real surprise there, as I've taught on the subject for several years and written or co-written a few myself. I have to point out that there is no one true format for a business plan. Some may think there is a single format

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-6334610867381785682008-07-21T19:25:00.004-04:002008-07-21T19:40:07.521-04:00

The LinkedIn Philly/Central NJ Networking Event will be held on Friday, 08.22, starting at 6:30 PM, at Concerto Fusion, a fine sushi/Chinese restaurant at 2 South Delmorr Ave. in Morrisville, PA, just across the "Makes Bridge" from Trenton, and jazz and top-40 music will be provided by DJ Fatha Ramzee. There will be door prizes, and (maybe) a round or two of "speed-friending." The cost will be

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-48865082196003377272008-07-18T18:37:00.003-04:002008-07-18T18:53:29.251-04:00

A lover of movies like me (some rightly say I am addicted) will be naturally attracted to New Jersey's only remaining drive-in, in Delsea. So about five weeks ago, my daughter and I made the hour's drive to the place for a triple-feature of Iron Man, Indiana Jones 4, and Penelope. Last time I saw a drive-in movie, they might well still have been showing trailers for a Russ Meyer exploitation

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-74666658767422533512008-07-18T18:25:00.003-04:002008-07-18T18:35:36.892-04:00

The very slick Web-based FTP service YouSendIt allowed me the chance to enter a raffle for $150 if I recommended it to a friend. In the attempt, my "referral" was said to contain "special characters." (Asterisks?) In four attempts, I could not isolate these special characters and create a referral to YouSendIt's liking, as the image below illustrates (my friend's e-mail address has been mostly

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-30109375699828225892008-07-16T22:38:00.003-04:002008-07-20T02:22:20.406-04:00

Yesterday I went to the local Fantastic Sam's for a haircut. I made sure to check the open hours before making the drive, because I'm kinda sensitive about wasting gas these days. And sure enough, they had a sign on the door that said they were open until 9 PM on Tuesday and Friday, while they close at 8 on other nights. So I get there at 8 and I find them closing as I arrive. I hold up my

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-32612826460132198452008-07-16T00:53:00.006-04:002008-07-20T02:24:08.559-04:00

I'm Dr. Ron Graham, and this is start me up! volume 1, number 3. Social networking cannot be ignored as a tool for your small business. So I've got a few words to say about three of the major social networking Web sites: MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. MySpace gets a bad rap from many business owners because its profiles may resemble - according to one user I interviewed - bad Geocities pages

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-57522415705381982132008-07-08T22:54:00.004-04:002008-07-20T02:13:50.483-04:00

[The second podcast is easier than the first. I don't care about sounding like Rice Krispies any more. LOL] I'm Dr. Ron Graham, and this is start me up! volume 1, number 2. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? You don't have to look very far to find some guy who will tell you he became an entrepreneur so he could "be his own boss." And yeah, women do it too. Nobody's immune! I'm here

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-38264368092571435422008-07-07T21:28:00.007-04:002008-07-20T02:17:04.522-04:00

[The following is the script for my first podcast. It should be available on iTunes soon -- if anyone will want it. LOL] I'm Dr. Ron Graham, and this is start me up! volume 1, number 1. Seven seconds. That's all the time you get. Just seven seconds. In that time, you have to convince someone who could change your life that you have something to say that's worth listening to just a bit

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-55569261276404177592008-06-23T20:46:00.003-04:002008-06-23T20:53:33.779-04:00

Here's my idea: you use a face-to-face LinkedIn gathering to do "speed-befriending." Just like in "speed-dating," you go from table to table and talk to someone for a few minutes and determine whether there is a match, based on stuff like location, interests, activities and all that. There would have to be a series of rules in place to help keep us from, you know, using the event for dating or

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-79841372417931665062008-06-12T23:18:00.001-04:002008-06-12T23:19:39.695-04:00

I have for some time been planning to take up podcasting. Now I have several scripts ready to go, more ideas to follow, the recording software, and I'm ready to record -- except no music. Maybe someone in the group can offer suggestions. Here is what I am looking for:Local artists -- meaning local to the Philly/Central NJ region.Willing to share original music with a guy too poor to pay, but

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-18314563030312467872008-05-19T14:16:00.002-04:002008-05-19T14:33:03.731-04:00

The book is called "RenGen," by Patricia Martin. Her thesis is that we are in general, and the USA in particular, on the edge of a new Renaissance. That many of the social signs marking the onset of the first Renaissance are in place today. One of the highlights of a Renaissance is the emergence of droves of creative people. Creative people demand collaboration rather than top-down management

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-37374952613593748892008-05-17T13:29:00.004-04:002008-05-19T13:57:23.725-04:00

I once knew someone who referred to the IT staff in my workplace as being "experts on computers." Now, the qualifications of someone who is "expert on computers" include knowledge of the contents of enough books to fill my living room. LOL For the person I mention here when one of us doesn't know instantly how to solve a (normally poorly-phrased) problem, we hear something like "and you're

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-90736530825005017822008-05-15T22:52:00.003-04:002008-05-19T12:28:43.435-04:00

Most people haven't thought about this, because we've asked questions all our lives. It's how we learn. But the fact is that we aren't very good at it, and because we're not very good at it, we don't usually get the answers we're really looking for. So now here we are in the age of blogging and social networking, and in these environments we ask questions the same way we ask our best friend

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-49487313476372503052008-04-21T15:10:00.004-04:002008-04-21T15:24:40.400-04:00

To the best of my knowledge, systems analysis is what was practiced by Richard Riehle in Office Space. I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people? But we have to make sure we don't get the wrong idea about systems analysis from this movie. LOL Enter

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-4590154442119057112008-04-21T13:45:00.002-04:002008-04-21T13:56:03.060-04:00

My current employer has students very interested in learning podcasting and coming to have their own voices on the Internet. I have long wanted this for myself, so we are all learning podcasting together. I hope within the next couple weeks we will finally start putting some stuff up there. We're fortunate to have a guy like Jason van Orden out there, putting up loads of podcast smarts --

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-9485721998879771352008-04-19T16:00:00.003-04:002008-04-19T16:15:07.239-04:00

I'm out to get a personal brand. This is the result of my reading of Casnocha's My Start-Up Life -- see what happens? But I've got a gig coming up -- I wrote a paper for the Trenton Computer Festival and have to present it a week from today -- and I want to have a brand more-or-less in place by then. Turns out people have heard about this paper, a comparison of MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-65020140356544990422008-04-19T15:40:00.003-04:002008-04-19T16:08:56.916-04:00

I finally finished off this book. (It's hard to get through a book while school is in, but I'm making a commitment not to stop reading any more.) I think it's brilliant. Before I go into the details, let me give the caveat: I think it's a shame that, regardless of how hard Ben Casnocha had to work to find funding, support, and customers for his start-up, he still found those things more easily

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-12655027636854541682008-03-11T23:10:00.003-04:002008-03-12T00:07:27.567-04:00

Patricia Martin has coined (or at any rate, likes to use) the term "RenGen," a condensation of "Renaissance Generation." It is her belief that humankind, or US society at any rate, is on the edge of a cultural renaissance rivaling the original, that it has been on the edge for some time now, and that our marketing, production, and business values should reflect this phenomenon. (I am not sure I

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-75442596921314381652008-03-03T22:46:00.001-05:002008-03-03T22:46:31.179-05:00

Let's face it: many companies TALK like "our people are our most valuable resource," but they ACT like money is more important than people or things. It therefore should come as no surprise to any engineer that those who bring the money in (the marketers) and those who parcel out the money (the finance guys) are more highly paid and valued than those who deal with people (like human resources)

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-31766422424599336172008-03-01T23:47:00.003-05:002008-03-02T00:17:54.604-05:00

I've had a chance to pitch in with getting the new coaching organization Sky Scrapers Academy get off the ground in India. I don't know much about executive coaching -- yet -- because the field appears to be fairly young. But it's growing in a hurry, and Shalini Verma has positioned herself to get a piece of this growth. Let's take a look at coaching, compared to other types of advice:

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399543.post-44813228103632343272008-02-26T23:13:00.003-05:002008-02-26T23:23:00.255-05:00

I used LinkedIn to seek out further information about PowerPoint above and beyond what is in the Rhetoric for Engineers lecture notes. Christopher Huntley I use PowerPoint all the time for documenting items like administrative tasks which require screen shots and some bullet points for step by step performance. I like it because it flows easily through many processes. When using it for a

Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368690379737420048noreply@blogger.com