Being My Boss – Nandini Mukherjee

December 21st, 2006 • 6 comments To be filed

 Nandini Mukherjee started the Indian Bread Company, a warm fusion cafe in East Village, in Nov 2003. Much has already been written about her food and restaurant. I don’t think it is possible to go wrong with Indian fast-food, especially when you have an innovative menu that includes naaninis and naanwichs! (a play on paninis and sandwiches)

I haven’t met many women restauranteurs so I thought it would be fun talking to Nandini and getting her perspective on being her own boss. She also is a winner of Make Mine a Million contest and I’d like to follow her success here on Being My Boss. Nandini touches on two very important aspects that haven’t been given as much face-time on Being My Boss yet.

1) The importance of joining associations and clubs that support entrepreneurs. "The resources that become available to you are phenomenal."

2) Taking time off from your business is just as important as staying foccused and putting in 16-hour days.

Read on!

Nandini, you are an architect, right? How did you end up as a restauranteur? 

Haha, yes. An architect. I was born and raised in India. After finishing my bachelors in architecture in India I applied to a lighting program at Parsons that caught my interest. As a student, the best thing about New York was to go out and try different kinds of food. I loved eating out.. often craved Indian food but apart from shanty restaurants that sold two day old curries for cheap, I didn’t find a good enough option. How could it be possible? How can there not be fresh and flavorful food at affordable prices in New York!?

So that’s how the idea for Indian Bread company materialized? 

Yes. Well, I do come from a business background. It sounds cliche, but I knew I always wanted to be my own boss. I’ve enjoyed doing creative stuff. I was doing handling my own projects in India. But when I got here I realized that if I wanted to have my own architectural firm, I would need atleast 10 years experience of working for someone else. I wasn’t going to wait that long! No way. Everything was opportune -I met Rupila, who was my room-mate at Parsons and who later became my bussiness partner in the company. And my best friend, (who then became my husband!) got involved, so the team sorta just built itself.

Ok. So you identified a need and found a great idea, the easy part was done. What happened between then and starting your restaurant? 

Haha yes, The story is not so glamorous anymore! 90% of restaurants fail within the three years alone. Neither of us had any background in the industry. We studied the industry and the market for the next 6-8 months. I would go upto restaurants and just ask them if they’d let me sit in their kitchen and just watch. I must have watched atleast 5 kitchens — it didn’t come naturally to me. I also took classes at the culinary school.

One sec, you mentioned you watched kitchens? Did they allow you? What did you say to them?

Yes. I said that I wanted to start my restaurant at some point but I wanted to learn more about the industry and asked if they’d let me watch their kitchen. I was very unobstrusive…almost invisible. And people are nice you know. What did I have to lose?! Yea, some restaurants said no. Said that they don’t allow anyone in their kitchens, but 5 said yes and I got what I wanted. What’s the worse anyone could have done!? Said no. This was very important. All this education that I sought out about the industry, without that we couldn’t have made our projections or worked out our costings, the equipment… we were learning all this first-hand.

I also spent a lot of time looking for a location. I’d learnt enough to know that location was prime in starting a restaurant. One day I was walking in East  Village and saw a sign; this guy was selling his store..It was serendipity. I got in touch with his landlord and it worked out smoothly. We had seen a ton of places with the brokers but this.. just happened!

My readers wonder if all entrepreneurs have a business plan. Did you have one?

Well, we didn’t have one but we needed one because we were looking for investors. We had no idea how to put one together. So we went to the Small Business Center and they helped us put together our plan. And then one day before we were going to sign our lease for the restaurant space, our investor told us that he wanted a higher stake in the company and wanted to change the agreement. That was so last-minute, it took us by shock. It just didn’t seem right to keep such a person on board then and we made a decision to start this restaurant without his backing. We had to take the plunge: I dipped into my savings, my husband invested his savings and Rupila got the money from her friend. We put together about $120K out of which $40K we kept aside as working capital, which included money for the rent.

But ofcourse, losing the investment we had based our business plan on also meant major changes in how we initially wanted to do everything. We had to slash down our budget. We could only hire one cook and two sandwich makers. And Rupila and me decided to work full-time.

How did you market your restaurant?

We didn’t have the budget to hire a PR firm or even a budget for marketing. While our restaurant was under construction, this woman would stop by and ask us about our concept and the idea. Turns out, she was the food editor at NYmag. We were so unprepreared for what came next: you know, when you are opening, you have a certain idea in mind. We were in a prime location in Soho, Yes. But you don’t expect it to be like through the roof. But right before the opening, we got a review in the NYmag and that day, we were sold by out evening. It was crazy, it was fun. It was unbelievable. Press makes such a huge impact. We still keep receiving random press mentions here and there.

Absolutely. People get to know about you. And luckily for us, it hasn’t been necessary. We’ve been getting this attention very consistently since 2003 when we opened. There is no point in wasting money in advertisements: if you put an ad yourself, it just doesn’t get the kind of attention a press endorsement of word-of-mouth does.

I agree. Also, I think that you cannot market a bad idea or a bad concept, no matter how huge your budget is then. I think a lot of entrepreneurs get mired down in thinking that everything requires money.

Yes. We are probably guilt of that as well. When we decided to do without the investor, we cut costs where we thought it wasn’t possible. Rupila and me are both creative and we are both architects. So we designed the interiors of our restaurant ourselves and it was a great lesson. Because we lost that backing, we had to trim the edges everywhere and had that not happened to us, we could have never thought we could have done it.

Did you ever feel like giving up, like it wasn’t worth it? 

No. When we started, we had no idea what we were getting into. And then after the investor backed out, Rupila and me had to work full-time for the restaurant. We end up working 16 hour days and we were doing that for one full-year. At the end of the year, she wanted to move on. It was very tough at that point. I was faced with two options. 1) to either sell the business and take our share or 2) to buy out my partner’s share in the company.

We had worked so hard for this restaurant, I wasn’t ready to give it up yet. So I had to buy out her share. It was mutual, there wasn’t a falling apart as such. I took out a home equity loan and paid her. But then it really hit me. That this business was now mine. I was aware that the business was going to need more time to succeed and I just had to stick it out.

Was that a good decision then?

It was. Infact, we recently won "Make Mine a Million." American Express is the founding sponsor of this program. 40 women business owners are chosen nationwide. And at this major event, each business owner delivers a 3 minute business speech that is voted live by the audience and judges. This year, Hilary Clinton, Suze Orman, Dani Levy of Daily Candy were judges among others. The event is televised so even viewers can send in their votes. And out of the 40, 20 are chosen are winners. It was a fantastic experience. You meet so many entrepreneurs from all over, it really opens you up.

The winners recieve help to build a million dollar enterprise. There are a couple areas I’m being helped in – American Express gave me an unsecured line of credit. And about 180 mentors who are specialists in their areas are available to you. Count me In, an organization that supports women’s financial independence also made a loan available.

Cisco had another contest for the 20 winners out of which 5 were chosen to recieve a complete technology package. I won that contest as well and they are in the process of setting up our tech plan and providing us with equipment and support.

I would strongly recommend  entrepreneurs to participate in such events. Especially women, since we tend to bond well and work together. Being an entrepreneur at most times is a very solitary affair and to find other women that share your sentiment is good. You learn so much from each other and you meet so many people.

Some other organizations for women entrepreneurs are, Women’s Venture Fund and the National Association for Women Business Owners.

Did you ever feel at a disadvantage because you were a woman entrepreneur?

I’ve always totally enjoyed being a woman. I don’t think I’ve been side-lined or faced anything like that yet. Infact, when people see that I am a woman, they want to talk to me. Also, when I meet other women entrepreneurs, it is an instant connection. I think an entrepreneur as an entrepreneur. You know it. They know it. We all go through the same things. It can be a little easier or a little more difficult for someone else, but essentially, it is all the same.

How has your business changed since you first started it?

For one, I don’t put in 16 hour workdays anymore! It actually stopped at the end of the second year. I’ve been phasing myself out. If I want the business to grow, it is not feasible for me to be there all the time. Now I concentrate more on the vision, networking, looking for new areas to expand into.

We do a lot of office and corporate catering and that’s been picking up. We were the only South Asian fare at the Republican convention. The event planner for the event had to come to the restaurant and tried our food and she loved it. She asked me if I’d like to be in the event and that w would be catering for 1000 people. We pulled it off and it recieved a lot of media attention. It made other events possible.

Right now we have a couple things we are planning. We want to expand into a multi-unit enterprise. In New York itself for now, in certain areas taht are major hubs. Maybe after that we want to hit other cosmopolitan cities like Boston, Philadelphia, DC…

As I always ask – what’s your advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

1. Be active in organizations that support entrepreneurs. And especially if you are a woman. It is a very good support system.
2. Break down your goal into small deliverables. To achieve one big goal can be very daunting. If you break it down, into things-to-do list, it is more encouraging. It’s hard to get people to believe in you when you first start, which is why setting smaller milestones helps. You know you are going somewhere and you know you are on track.
3. It is very important to take time for yourself. I cannot stress that enough. I was working with my Make Mine a Million mentor and we talked about this. I admitted that I actually feel guilty about taking time off. My business is always on my mind but I’ve learnt that taking some time off actually helps me focus better on my business.
4. I couldn’t have done this without my the support of my family. It is so important to surround yourself with people who encourage you. Just that positive attitude can do wonders for your own psyche and your business. Build your support system and keep yourself surrounded by it at all times.

I’m glad you mentioned about taking time off. I am hardly an entrepreneur but my friends are very successful business owners and I see them agonize over their business even when they are on vacation. It must be hard to step away but it is important.

It is so important to step away from it. You burn out if you don’t realize it. It is very difficult to delegate. I had big problems delgating and allowing others to handle my business but you know what, you can’t do every tiny thing. I love traveling and am an amateur photographer, so I now take time off consciously from my work to puruse my hobbies. And I return renewed and fresh.

What’s the best thing about being your own boss? The flexibility to plan my schedule and the direction I want my business and life to take. That’s what makes it worth it.

Being My Boss – A reflection

December 11th, 2006 • 2 comments To be filed

I’ve recieved many emails from you about the Being My Boss series. My original intent was to publish 101 interviews with entrepreneurs and stop there but after 10 amazing interviews, I don’t think I ever want to stop. Speaking with these people, has been incredibly uplifting and gives me a strong sense of purpose as I continue hunting for stronger stories and entrepreneurs.

The idea of working for oneself, and being happy doing it is incredibly enchanting. Just this morning on my way to work my cab-driver stuck up a conversation with me. It was early and I was still slightly groggy from staying up late last night to finish Season 4 of 24 (my newest addiction) But when someone so willingly opens themselves to you, your only choice is to sit up and listen. My driver was 47 years old and had just quit his job as a leaking specialist with a manufacturer or large vaccum furances. A job he lucked into because even though he had a full scholarship to an esteemed college in Philadelphia, he dropped out after 6 months because he just wasn’t comfortable in teh company of rich, privileged kids.

I asked him if he was in-between jobs and he hesitated a little before admitting that he’s never been happier and quitting that job has allowed him to pick up on educating himself. He doesn’t know how to use a computer and ‘I’m too poor to own one," but "I know how to use the catalog computers at the library," he said. His voice lilted with pride when he said he was learning everything he could about cognitive sciences and brushing him his literature. As we turned onto the curb, he quietly mentioned that he wants to be a writer and now he has the time. So heartfelt. I could only give him a fat tip but if I was a millionaire, I’d have bought him a computer. It is stories like these… I don’t know if he’ll grow to become the next Gladwell. But I do know that some of us spend a lifetime not realizing that quitting someone else’s dream to follow your own is what it takes to find contentment and happy-ness.

This guy, was happy. So happy that he felt the need to spread the gospel about his new life to random strangers who perhaps wouldn’t judge him and would share his pride.

I looked at all our Linkedin profiles and realize that it’s not who we are that defines us, it’s what we do. Our profession, our affiliations, those ivy league schools, THE job…..and if what we do will define us, why not do something we believe in?

I think there’s an entrepreneur within each of us, only a matter of bringing him/her out. One of you asked if it’s easy to approach these entrepreneurs and have them agree to do an interview. My answer – you’ll be surprised.

It never is easy, from what I hear. From managing personal relationships to the business, weighing choices between spending more time with the kids or flying cross-country to seal the deal, being your own boss is perhaps the most difficult job. So far, I end my interviews by asking "What’s the best thing about being your own boss,?" Begining today, I’ve added one more question, "What’s the worst thing about being your own boss?" I didn’t want to protray the grit of it initially but with almost 10 stories down, we are well-aware being your own boss has some wonderful merits. The time now, is right for the second side of the coin to be rightfully displayed.

Being My Boss- Sharelle Klaus

December 7th, 2006 • 2 comments To be filed

The food blogsosphere has been buzzing lately about DRY Soda. I’ve picked up random posts about this ‘great new drink in original flavors’ thats only ‘50 to 70 calories.’ Intrigued, I googled the company and browsed through their site. With any new business, two things excite me the most. 1) The idea – is it new? has it been done before? what’s so hot about it? and 2) The execution – even a boilerplate idea, if executed well can mint in the millions. With DRY Soda, everything just seemed so..right and well-done. I immediately got in touch with Sharelle to hear her story and let’s just say, Being My Boss has not featured a business with such a quick turn-around before. I only wish Sharelle included her story on their company website.

A few things that I’d like to highlight about DRY Soda:

1. When a high-end culinary soda started gaining traction in the night-club scene, DRY Soda the embraced change, even when it wasn’t a part of the plan. It’s important to allow your business to morph into what it’s customers want it to be. You can have a certain image and a vision for your business but your customers can create a completely different one. Do you embrace it or resist it? In this case, emrbacing it AND assisting it was a wise decision.
2. Sharelle shares a very useful tip towards the end of the interview- — You don’t just get one chance. I haven’t featured someone who’s failed once before and then started a new business and this is a much needed perspective. A dot.com failure didn’t stop Sharelle from plunging into entrepreneurship the second time around.
3. I cannot stress more the importance of networking and building relationships. Every entrepreneur’s story has showcased the importance of maintaing contacts and meeting people. In this case, when Sharelle didn’t know anyone in teh food industry, she hired a PR firm that had great connections in the industry. IE -  When she didn’t have the connections, she found a way to create them.

So let’s get started with the idea? How and when did it come to you?

I’m just one of million people that loves pairing wine with food. I think Food and Wine magazine is probably my favorite magazine. Anyways, I have four children. They are now 2, 4, 8 and 9 so yes, I’ve been pregnant a lot and I was never able to drink wine. So we’d go to these fancy restaurants and my husband would have fifty thousand wines to pick from and my drink otpions were next to none. By my fourth pregnancy, I thought this was crazy. I figured there had to be a solution or some sort of drink for non-wine drinkers or even pregnant women. Thats when I realized there is a gaping hole in the beverage market for this kind of market. There should be something for everyone… So I came up with this idea of a non-alcoholic beverage that could be paired with foods. I looked around, read up everything I could about the beverage industry and once I was clear that the niche was unfulfilled, I decided to take the plunge.

My husband had, at one point, worked for a food company. He put me in touch with the company’s food scientist who taught me the basics of the industry and gave me a one hour primer course on making soda. Through him, I went through all levels of the company to learn about the industry. From the sales point of view to the scientists. He then put me in touch with flavor houses in the area and I created the first flavors. It took us about a thousand taste tests to get the flavors right…I had the vision and I knew exactly what it would be like but getting there was challenging. I wanted the flavors to sort of replace wine and champagne for non-drinkers so I had to think about what kind of foods would go with the flavors.

That, in a nutshell was the begining.

How did you get the initial money to fund your business? Creating a consumer product is a huge undertaking…

Hah- Yes. We took out a home equity loan and I managed to get a small $50K loan from the local Small Business Association chapter. I have a business and high-tech background. I worked for PWC for a number of years.. and also served as the President of Forum in Women Entrepreneurs. I met a lot of investors through my connections there. You know, all my life I knew I would be an entrepreneyr. I even had my own internet business in the dot.com days before the bust. It was called planetsquid.com, a website for 10-13 year olds. Ofcourse, after the dot.com bust, the business failed but I knew at some point I’d go back to doing my own thing. And in hindsight, I realize now that I wasn’t so passionate about the dot.com nor am I passionate about 10-13 year olds!! My favorite thing to do is go out to dinner and so this business jsut made sense. I’d go back to it in a hearbeat, even if it went bust but internet, I wouldn’t return to it.

So in a way, every step I took was leading me to this. The woman who had hired me as the President of Forum for Women Entrepreneurs was incredible. She put me in touch with vineyards owners and winery owners who were interested in investing in my business. And once we hired our PR firm and had secured ourselves in a few high-end grocery stories and restaurants, it became easier to find funding. All in all, we recieved 1.5 million in funding. And we are looking to go on a second round of funding sooon.

What were the next steps?

Next step was to hire a design firm. I wanted to have a modern, unique bottle that looked great with a champagne flute on white-tablecloth. I hired a fantastic design firm and they designed the bottle, the logo– everything. Infact, we’ve won several awards for the design of the bottle.

It’s funny, but even before the produt was ready I went to a local PR firm that had great connections in the restaurant industry and sold my idea to them. So I had been thinking along the lines of building a brand from the very begining. We launched in August 2005…

Within a year? That’s quick and in most cases impossible.

Yes. I tend to work quickly… I know it sounds crazy. It was. I was at home taking care of the kids, that was my full time job! But my husband works as a consultant so his flexibility afforded me to move along quicky. .

You mentioned earlier that you hired a PR firm and a design firm. How were you able to afford these costs?

Yes. I had hired the PR firm even before the soda was developed. I sat with him and talked with him about my strategy. Every CEO has what they are good at and taht’s important to them. My passion in this company is this brand and building it right. Everything I do is about this brand and that’s where the press and marketing comes it. It was integral for me to meet my vision for this company. And when it is a consumer product, brand is number one. That’s why I spent so much time, energy and money on it. I foccused on every detail of the brand. I started this company with very little money. But I knew what I needed for this company to succeed. When you don’t have the resources, you have to get creative. So I found creative ways to pay my design firm and my PR firm. With my design firm, I paid them a small fee and said that I woul pay them over the next 2 years as the cases sold. It was a risky proposition, but it paid off.

With the PR firm, I found Richmond PR because they handled PR for this chef in the town who always managed to get an insane amount of press. I knew for my business to succeed, I’d haev to hire his publicist. I’m a huge proponent of educating yourself and I read books on PR and tried to do it myself but I realized that one thing I lacked and a PR firm had was connections. Esp. in the food and restaurant industry. That was one thing I learnt – Utilize other’s connections when you can. Connections are the number one thing you can get from anyone. I had to also find a creative way of paying them. If you get somebody to believe in you, they see the future. And they see that you will be a very good client to them in the future. Every place I went into, I wanted them to trust me. So I sat down with my PR firm and negotiated a good deal with them. And now to tell you the truth, I couldn’t have done it without them. They got me initial meetings at every white-tablecloth restaurant in the city. Within weeks, I had confirmations from high-end restaurants that would carry my product.

So what have you learnt about owning a little-over-a-year old business? How are you managing the growth?

Our growth strategy has been to keep strong focus on our target market, that is high-end grocery stores and white-tablecloth restaurants. But we’ve noticed an interesting phenomena that we didn’t quite expect when we launched DRY Soda. It’s becoming pretty big in nightclubs and bars and is becoming very popular as a mixer. It’s a cool looking bottle, and the flavors are also intersting without being overly sweet, so I guess it hit a chord with there. We didn’t try for this to happen nor was it a part of oru plan. Infact, 70% of our restaurants are also using it as a mixer in drinks. So it was interesting and although we were not prepared for this interpretation of our product, we haev embraced it. Now we work with mixologists and bar-tenders and come up with special cocktail recipies that use DRY Soda. Other non-traditional markets we are exploring are spas and maternity places.

We are a very nimble company, we can change swiftly and can be very laser-foccused at the same time. There isn’t any other culinary soda as such but after we launched we noticed another brand trying to go after the market we were targetting. But because we are small, we can quickly adopt to the situation.

So are you still doing this alone?

No! I’ve learnt to delgate, it was the hardest thing to do. But I hired a bunch of extremely smart women. I have about 11 employees now and it’s an all-women team. My COO, CMO and CFO bring the skills that I lack. I was doing it all by myself and it was very challenging. Operations are not my strong suit, I’d rather concentrate on the larger goal and the brand and moving things along. And I’m very fortunate to have found these people. You need a whole array of skills to be a successful entrepreneur and if you don’t have them all, you hire someone to fill in the gaps. I’m more confident with this team as we go for our second round of funding…

What’s the feedback you’ve recieved for DRY Soda?

Jinal, it’s just amazing to create something and then have people tell you that they love it. It wasn’t our plan to enter retail but we recieved so many emails from people who wanted to buy DRY Soda for events that we had to get into retail. We can now process orders on teh phone and online. When your customers want something, you’ve gotta give it to them!

I’ve got emails from about 60 countries that want DRY Soda in their stores and restaurants. That’s gratifying. So many readers write in to say thanks! In my company, whenever I hire a new employee, I have them do live demos and attend events. It’s a very positive experience to hear live feedback from your customers. Ofcourse, there are people that don’t like it, but 99 times out of 100, you will get people telling you how much they love it.

How do you balance work and family?

I have to leave in 45 minutes to watch my son’s Christmas play at his school. It is very hard. I travel a lot for work but I’m learning to delgate and travel less. But sometimes, people just want to meet the CEO.. .My husband is very supportive, he stays with the kids when I’m not around. I spent every spare moment with them but sometimes it’s hard. Just this morning, my son wanted me to snuggle with him in bed a little longer and I couldn’t. It gets very exhausting. Every minute counts. I don’t have a single minute I can waste. My two girls are home-schooled so I get to see them often. I’ll take them with me to the office and they help out around the office. It’s a very child-friendly office. For our holidays package, all the kids came in and helped us stuff the boxes and gift bags. It’s all about finding unique ways.. not always easy but not impossible.

I know. A lot of women entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed echo that sentiment.

What are your top 3 pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

• Encourage relationships and connections. Value them and nurture them. You will never know when you’ll need them.
• Find people smarter than you and get them on your side.
• For businesses that need funding, I highly recommend finding angel investors that are well connected in your industry. I cannot tell you how valuable they are. My investor helped me get almost every employee and distributor. They are also an incredible source of wisdom and experience.
• Also, don’t be afraid of failing. I failed in my first endeavor – and I learnt so much that I wouldnt’ change that experience for anything. You can try again and again – you don’t just get one chance. Really, don’t be afraid of failure.

And finally, what’s the best thing about being your own boss?

Umm. I guess the best part for me is that I’m learning so much from people on my team. It just so cool that they believe so deeply and care so much for this business.

Plans for the future?

Haha- plenty. For now, we expect our revenues to reach 1.5 million by end of 2007. That’s a good plan for now!

Fortune Innovation Forum Part 5

December 6th, 2006 • 1 comment Culture Briefings, Social Media

Note: This is PART 5 of a multi-series on the Fortune Innovation Forum I was lucky to attend last week.

I actually wanted to mention this earlier –  Lexus, one of the sponsors gave each attendee a tiny USB drive and Adobe provided typed notes of the concurrent sessions that were going on all day. It was an extremely utilitarian sponsor gift. Attendees saved the Adobe PDFed notes of the sessions they weren’t able to attend on their USB drives. At events such as this, sponsors often overwhelm the audience with useless gifts like keychains and mugs and bags and whatnot. The USB drives were a refreshing change.

Another highlight of the conference was the Innovator’s Studio I mentioned earlier. I spent a few hours here -it was worth missing the main conference to stay a little longer at the studio! The studio was meant to overwhelm and bombard our stimuli. Andy Stefanovich of Play urged attendees to be disruptive and allow for confusion to reveal their identities at the studio. The focus of the studio was larger than enabling you to think innovatively for your company and organization – the studio first wanted you to express your individual identity and then that of your company’s.

Executives in crisp business suits picked up brushes dripping with paints and painted, they played games, looked into apartments across the street via powerful binoculars and even checked out live human beings from a libary to chat with. What struck me most about the studio was that every PLAY employee was smiling and genuinely happy. I loved it that it was so easy to chat with them and have a conversation. It was also much easier to strike up conversations with other attendees in this environment — a relaxing, easy atmosphere is perhaps a solution to innovation!?

I’m trying to interview Andy for Being My Boss – trust me, you’d want to spend a day just talking with him. His introductory speech, although brief, was the most uplifting speech I heard at the conference. I will try to conduct a podcast with him – he deserves to he heard, not just read.

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Fortune Innovation Forum – Part 4

December 6th, 2006 • Comments Off Culture Briefings, Social Media

Note: This is PART 4 of a multi-series on the Fortune Innovation Forum I was lucky to attend last week. Click here for Part 1 , PART 2 and PART 3.

Stanely Bing, Fortune magazine’s technology columnist had a light-hearted, almost comedic presentation on the downfalls of innovation. His 15-minute speech sparkled with humor and one-liners that were hard to forget.

The Big idea according to Bing was that Innovation has both merits and demerits. And often the demerits are underplayed. Innovation can induce strong liabilities like dysfunction, idiocy and change for the sake of it. He touched upon the importance of a slow, gradual change touched with a hint of practicality.

• Innovation is nice but so is knowing where your desk is located.
• Only people with bad expense accounts are in favor of constant innovation
• Innovation has it’s place -somewhere around  San Fransisco
• Innovations lead to organizations run by children and idotic crazies.
• Innovation organizatons are over-run by consultants, but consultants always come with body-bags.

Agreed?

Fortune Innovation Forum – Part 3

December 6th, 2006 • Comments Off Culture Briefings, Social Media

Note: This is PART 3 of a multi-series on the Fortune Innovation Forum I was lucky at attend last week. Click here for Part 1 and PART 2

One of the highlights of the conference was the panel discussion on Bringing the Next Net to Mass Market. The panel was an eclectic mix of old and new media: Steve Berkowitz, Online Services Group, Microsoft, Bradley Horowitz, Product Strategy of Yahoo! Inc, Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com and Om Malik of GigaOm

The next net, according to Malik is Mobile technology and Broadband. He couldn’t have said it any clearly. Mobile tech has picked up in Asia and is slowly gaining more precedence in Europe. We’ve been a tad bit slow but serious innovations in the mobile arena will dictate the next few years in the communication industry. Mobile companies should not have the kind of monopoly over phones and plans as they currently exert in America. My hope is that will change as competition stifens and new entrants level the field.

Horowitz of Yahoo! made an interesting point (which hadn’t occured to be before) about how Yahoo! Groups were essentially a less-glamourous form of social networking and how Yahoo! acquiered companies del.ici.ous and Flickr are in a way an extension of the Yahoo! Groups. He spoke briefly about the new tool Yahoo! Answers and made a point how Yahoo! still attracts abt 100M visitors a day as oppossed to 80M/day by Myspace.

Kevin of Digg.com touched upon how his success with digg.com was mostly serendipitious. Word-of-mouth and blogs played a big role in spreading the word and making digg.com popular in the circles. I was a little disappointed with Kevin, I hoped he would share more from the perspective of a young, new media agent.

Berkowitz of Microsoft said something that I can’t remember now because most of it sounded like a press release and a press plug for Microsoft. Also, I am not a fan of the company so I might not have paid enough attention.

Burning Question of the Day:

For Horowitz of Yahoo! – How is that with all these excellent ideas for the future of internet and amazing acquisitions and other innovations you still charge $20/year for 2GB of Yahoo! Email when Gmail offers it for free?

Lesson of the day:

Innovation happens at Ground Zero and does not have to be groundbreaking. Often, true innovation lies in simplifying things.

Fortune Innovation Conference – Part 2

December 6th, 2006 • Comments Off Culture Briefings, Social Media

This is PART 2 of a multi-series on the Fortune Innovation Forum I attended last week in New York. Click here for PART 1.

I was looking forward to attending “Customer Created Content Companies” workshop to be led by Om Malik of GigaOm. Several workshops were held concurrently and they were booked to capacity. I managed to squeeze in and find some standing room but I realized within the first 15 minutes that I shouldn’t have bothered. About half the attendees left the room within the first 10 minutes and I stayed put for another 5 before exiting.

Om Malik severely underestimated the intelligence of his audiences. He began the workshop by asking his audiences if they had heard of companies like Threadless (Yes) JPEG (Yes) Slim Devices (Yes) About two people in the room had heard about these companies which have successfully harnessed the creativity of their customers. Malik’s big idea for the workshop was that you should compensate your audiences and share the profits. He gave many examples on how other companies were involving their customers but he failed to highlight the most important aspect of consumer created content. That just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean your company should join the bandwagon. It may just not make sense for you to do it!

I think if busy managers and executives are taking time off from and paying $2K for a conference, they aren’t looking for examples on how other people have achieved the next big idea. They are looking for construtive feedback on how they can achieve the same in their industries, withstanding the limitations and parameters the industry offers.

Also Malik reiterated the importance of paying your customers and sharing profits. I’d encourage everyone to think of it more as rewarding and appreciating your customers. Design Sponge, a popular design blogger has built a community of readers with her blog that now routinely meet in various cities once a month to discuss their businesses. This is an amazing example of involving your customers (in this case) readers creatively. Design Sponge isn’t paying these women to do that! It’s not about paying and sharing your profits, usually when you create a company or a website that resonates with your readers, they will WANT to be involved. And this doesn’t happen artificially. I was put off by how easy Malik made it sound.

Later that day in a panel however, Malik’s inputs about the future of innovation were eloquent and hit the bullseye. I wondered why his brilliance didn’t shine through in his workshop.

Fortune Innovation Forum 2006- Part 1 (Gary Hamel)

December 6th, 2006 • 3 comments Culture Briefings, Social Media

Note: This is Part 1 of series of posts on the Fortune Innovation Forum I was lucky to attend last week in New York. I attended the conference with hopes of gleaning more insight about innovation and how it can be applied to entrepreneurship.

The primary focus of the conference was sustaining innovation within management. Gary Hamel, who is known for coining the word/concept core competence (?!) opened the first day with a 90 or so minute presentation on continous management innovation. His presentation failed to impress me – while is was most certainly provocative, it lacked a certain element of realism. It was one of those ideas that looks great on paper but incredibly difficult to translate in real-life. His assumption that every employee within a company thinks of his/her job as a career threw me off. His presentation was peppered with examples of how other companies (Google, Grameen Bank, Toyota, Whole Foods, Visa) have successfully managed to instill innovation in their company culture but it lacked solidity. Haven’t we read enough articles about Google and Whole Foods in Fast Company and Fortune?

In all fairness to Hamel, he did inspire the staid, white-collar, internet-illiterate executives that crowded the auditorium. He is a powerful orator and often hearing someone convincingly tell you what you might have already read, is more effective. Perhaps it’s why people pay such obscene amounts to attend such conferences?

I’m not a big fan of concepts and fancy words and diagrams and processes that these consultants come up with and invariably become famous for. That’s the problem with academics and consultants I think. Hamel reminds me of that saying, Those who can, do it. Those you can’t, teach.

The Big IDEA according to Hamel:

• Dynamic shifts come from management innovation
• He presented examples of companies that have no hierarchy and companies (Google, W.L Gore) that allow their companies a percentage of time to work on their pet projcets. He pushed the idea that these innovative management practices should be adopted by other companies as well.
• Leadership has to be about how people can serve their goals while simultaneously serving the company goals. (This makes sense, I wouldn’t want to work for a company where I was a mere pawn of the machine)
• A survey he conducted showed at LSE showed that people in general believe that it takes a crisis to change the company. He encouraged companies to change that paradigm and think differently. Work against the grail.
• I loved the analogy he drew between innovations and cities. Cities are factories for social innovation, he said. They are diverse and there’s something new everyday. The chance for serendipity doesn’t diminish.
• Future starts at the fringe (Remember what Joshua Onysko of Pangea Organics said about the future and the fringe?)

Your thoughts?

Good holiday shopping

December 5th, 2006 • 1 comment To be filed

Shift magazine has launched Shift your Gift ,a special holiday project, that features it’s favorite sustainable gift items for the season. Not only are the options varied (From a Pangea Organics Spa Kit to Ego Cycle), 5% of your total purchase is directed to one of it’s 35 listed non-profits. A cool idea for the holidays!

Blog-books

December 5th, 2006 • 1 comment Social Media

A few months back the kind folks at Blurb offered me to be a part of the beta-test program that would allow me to create and publish a free book out of my blog-posts. Unfortunately, my indecisiveness (over what my blog-book should consist of) got the better of me and I missed the deadline for the free book but with their wallet-friendly prices ($19 for a 40 page full-color, soft cover book) I’m thinking of giving it another try. Just for posterity.

These blog-books can make a great holiday gift. For small-businesses, get your story with your products published on one of these. Abundant possibilities…