Marketing a Startup Business (1 of 3)

author's note: I was recently asked about this essay, first published in 2000, so I thought I'd trot it back out as a series of posts. Written near the end of the dot-com boom, it still has some resonance, even with internal IT projects ... jpm Congratulations! Getting that terrific startup idea that has real business potential can be the easiest and the hardest part of going entrepreneurial. It’s fun to bat about ideas, look into new and exciting technologies,…

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Wading into a Project In Progress

This week I had to wade into the depths of a Large Project; well, actually a component of a Large Project, that was struggling a bit to find a path through the forest. Not my first time, certainly not my last, and (believe it or not) usually a pretty good time! <aside> Ok, by "large" I mean "amazingly high profile, visible to Upper Management, involving Lots of Talented, Busy People" </aside> <aside> Ok, by "Talented" I mean "terrific at their…

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Finding shapes in the fog – How to frame a wispy, wandering conversation

An excellent discussion this afternoon, on a fairly complex topic we're trying to move forward. When dealing with broad system concepts that have been trivialized into TLAs - think CRM, PLM, BPM, TQM, yada - you need to help folks define some sort of framework to focus and steer the initiative in a general (hopefully correct) direction. Precision is not required in the early stages - like herding cats, we can start making progress when we can capture a generalized,…

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