Entrepreneurship

Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email | RSS | More

Download The Audio Or Non-Flash Playback

When the ground doesn’t match the map, trust the ground. 

Career or business planning – mapping – is crucial to our success. Some people hate planning, claiming it slows down their action. Movement, motion – those are the activities they value most. Others love planning and spend many hours dotting i’s and crossing t’s.

RSA Animate has some terrific illustrations tethered to compelling speeches or presentations. Quite often they’re TED presentations. Here’s their YouTube channel. It’s one methodology of capturing ideas in a very engaging way. I think it can teach us some valuable things in creating our own career or business mapping.

Allstate calls this commercial, GPS Mayhem. Fitting. It’s what happens to many of us in our careers or businesses. We’re not thinking about where we’re going. We’re not trusting our senses, or even paying close enough attention to know where we’re going. GPS recalculates, shouts an instruction and we turn the wheel sharply. Not the best way to take advantage of mapping.

In a recent Mixery interview, Andrew Warner’s guest (and he wasn’t the first to confess this) admitted that he and his friends spent 2 years working on a software that nobody wanted. They were men of action. No map. No real plan. Just taking action. Unfortunately, nobody wanted what they were creating. In retrospect, they knew they’d have been far better off getting feedback – recalculating the GPS based on the reality of the ground.

Small changes in direction can make big differences. Small details often alter the course of our lives. A decision here. A different decision there. And our lives would be very different. It makes me think of those EPSN segments of sports science. A one degree change here. A one inch arm reach difference. They’re the margin of error, or victory.

Listen to the show, give me your feedback. Am I on the right road to help you?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email | RSS | More

Download The Podcast Or Non-Flash Playback

MySpace was founded in 2003. In July 2005 it was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million. For about 3 years Myspace was the most visited social networking site in the world. It surpassed Google as the most visited site in America in June 2006. That’s when the decline began. By the end of last year, 2011, the site ranked about 138th in most visited (that’s still impressive, but not as impressive).

On June 29, 2011, Myspace was sold to Justin Timberlake and Specific Media for approximately $35 million…a mere 6.03% of what News Corporation had paid some six years earlier. In terms of sheer purchase price, MySpace had managed to lose a value of $545 million. That’s about a $91 million a year decline in value over 6 consecutive years.

All those resources lost. Oh, and in a 2 year period, between June 2009 and June 2011, MySpace jettisoned 1400 people. More lost resources. New Corporation likely would love a “do-over.” $545 million, 6 years, and who knows what else – gone!  Suddenly, I feel better about my $50,900 loss.

Every quarter there are tremendous losses and wasted resources. We read about them constantly in the business press. Even the mainstream press.

Well, we don’t have millions of dollars. We’re not Justin Timberlake. How does any of this apply to our life?

Click play and find out. It’s a sober message that everybody needs to more seriously consider. Life is short. Resources are limited. We all need to allocate more wisely.

The Freakonomics podcast is mentioned in today’s show. In particular, this episode about doctors washing their hands and people learning the basics of financial responsibility.