Posts Tagged ‘entrepreneur’

Women Rock It!

Posted on: October 25th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 4 Comments

Women Rock It

This Thursday night is the Women Rock It event in San Francisco highlighting inspiring women and conversations about how they became successful. Speakers include Deborah Lindholm, whose foundation has helped over 300,000 women work their way out of poverty.

“The event is both inspirational and practical, and will be the first of many Women Rock It’s we will be producing around the country and beyond to encourage women to start businesses and pursue what they love to do,” said online marketing wizard Evan Bailyn, one of the co-producers of the event. “Eventually we will be getting even more deeply practical to complement the inspirational nature of the event by partnering with high-level mentoring programs and granting scholarships to women.”

In a revealing post, Evan discussed who he and co-producer Hyla Molander both shared how their failures and fears inspired their successess: “When you get into a room with people and one person admits it, suddenly all the walls come down. Suddenly it’s OK to admit that you’re scared.”

This event is spot on. In working with many people and supporting several women’s causes over the years (such as the NextGen Tech Women Fundraiser), fear, self valuation and failure are huge detractors. Working through those real issues — issues that every human being faces in business and life — are critical to success. Talking about how common these problems are, and how others have worked through them can make a huge difference.

There are so many brilliant women out there, and many have walked along the same path, from my grandmother and mother and their entrepreneurial successes to recent business partners Beth Kanter and Kami Huyse and current co-author, Gini Dietrich. It only seems natural to give this San Francisco and soon to be national movement a big thumbs up. Because women really do rock it!

Please support this valuable event and cause if you can.

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Cause Competitiveness: Keep Your Eye On The Prize

Posted on: March 29th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 24 Comments

Who's Getting Off First?

by Estrella Rosenberg & Geoff Livingston

If the last two marathon weeks of cause-related conferences are any indication, competition isn’t just something the for profit sector is thinking about – the cause community is too. How do we compete for market share? How do we compete for visibility? How do we compete for more money? Much has been said about competitiveness in the for profit sector, but what is the right role of competition in causes? Is there a right role?

Some would have full on competition, while others would have singular causes or coalitions within each sector. Are either of these right? They both are in a way. Competitive spirit definitely has its place: Finding the fastest, most efficient, most impactful way to resolve the problem the cause addresses.

Non-profits are not in business to make money. They are a business to be sure, but unlike a for-profit, which seeks to dominate markets and yield profits, a cause or social enterprise seeks to provide a solution. When a for-profit business is successful, it keeps its doors open for years and expands and keeps looking for more market share. When a non-profit is successful it should close its doors because its business – or mission – has been completed.

Are you competing just to raise the most money? Competing in the sense that a cause seeks to beat out its competition helps no one. It actually hurts the cause space by creating distractions and wasted resources.

Consider Komen for the Cure’s use of $1 million spent to legally enforce its rights to term “for the Cure.” How does that help anyone resolve health or larger issues? Worse, last year during The Cause Marketing Forum, Komen for the Cure proclaimed that it was their mission to reclaim the pink ribbon from other non-profits in the breast cancer space – organizations that they themselves support with grants! Imagine if that money and energy went towards finding the most innovative way to discover the most impactful solutions in breast cancer?

Competing to be the first to the finish line with the same approach as ten other organizations in your cause space isn’t the right kind of competition either. Wealthy founders and well meaning activists who think they can do it better without any unique theory of change are creating distractions too and just making more choices for donors, often paralyzing them. Yet another voice with nothing new to add creates a longer path to the answer.

The ability to see the problem and a unique answer to it (or a part of it) is at the heart of social entrepreneurship. Innovation means finding better faster ways to provide answers. In essence, this is the Ashoka model of social entrepreneurship where a changemaker seizes on a unique approach to a problem and deploys ambitious actions for wide-scale change.

For these social entrepreneurs, and for forward thinking non-profits, competition means cooperating with other organizations within the same space when they have to because they have their eye on the prize: an answer to whatever problem they’re trying to solve. That doesn’t necessarily mean sharing resources, but it does acknowledge that everyone is trying to reach the same end goal. Forming coalitions and cause verticals can have great impact if each organization is working on their own piece of the puzzle.

Ultimately, causes should want to end their business by resolving their problem. They shouldn’t want to be the organization who uses social media the most cleverly. They shouldn’t want to be the organization that raised the most money at their annual event. They should want to shutter their doors. Period.

What kind of cause are you? Are you competing to make change or just competing?

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Confessions of a Start-Up Junky

Posted on: January 7th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 22 Comments

Geoff Livingston in Palermo

Confession: Giddy joy pervades my fingertips these days. The reason? The challenge of starting anew.

See, I’m a start-up junky. And next week my two partners and I are launching our newco. I can’t wait!

I’ve been engaged in start-ups since 1996, when I joined CommunicationsNow as an editor to successfully launch several publications serving the wireless industry. Then I did a stint as media relations manager for a dot-bomb in Southern California called IPNet Solutions.

This past decade saw the successful launch of Widmeyer‘s Design & Advertising practice. After that I helped get Sage Communications‘ PR practice off the ground. And most recently, I started, built and sold Livingston Communications, a social media boutique.

The Next Venture

So with my sixth venture (second as owner), what have I learned? What five suggestions will I bring to the table that will benefit my partners and clients?

1) Do what you love! Most people hate their jobs, but if you own your own company, then that’s your fault. In fact, it’s all your fault. There’s no one to blame, so make it worth loving!

2) Love your critics/enemies, too. Plenty of naysayers out there will tell you that it will be hard, that most newcos fail, etc. This time, it’s “Well, the economy is not that great,” or “Your focus won’t yield the most cash.” These people should be seen as a) sources of information about possible weaknesses that you can address, and b) points of inspiration.

Listen to criticism even if it burns. They may be right about your offering, and don’t you want to address that?

Conversely, I always love winning when I’ve been told it’s unlikely or impossible. When I receive resistance from naysayers, it only fuels me. To me, success comes from personal commitment to achieving a goal as opposed to what other people tell me I should be or can achieve. Many times the reasons find basis in their own fears.

3) Play to your weaknesses. If you’re not good at something, own it. Then outsource it or hire people to fill that role. In this new entity, my partners’ strengths play to my weaknesses and vice versa. I am very grateful for that. Now I can focus on areas that I truly excel in.

4) Embrace failure. Most of the companies I’ve been involved with sustained themselves or were sold, so ultimate failure is not my experience. Failing is. Failure in ventures always happens, but serves as the experience necessary for improvement and excellence. The question isn’t whether you will fail or have disappointments. It’s how fast can you get up, and evolve.

5) Don’t get set on facts. Markets change, people change, situations change, everything changes. The only thing in life and business that you can be certain of is change. Be ready to handle the comings and goings of relationships and situations. Impermanence is the rule of thumb.

That’s my big five, the rest stay in my head for now. But if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, please read Pam Slim’s Escape from Cubicle Nation. It’s the best book I’ve read on the topic.

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