Some of my favorite highlights were:

• The Honorable Maxime Bernier saying:  Entrepreneurship is an outlook on life that there is always something to improve.
• Christina Jennings  discussing how she decided that in order to control her life, she needed to control her job and that failure is one of the most important things that can happen to you.
• Tara Hunt’s 5 core traits of success:  being completely delusional so you can find the gaps in the world, fearlessness, audacity, adaptability, and tenacity.
• Several comments about the importance of having good people to work with and trusted advisors you rely on – what LOGiQ3 is all about
• How to tell your story…. Everyone responds to passion;  use your influencers; anecdotes rule.

Being able to attend this summit was especially meaningful to me as a recent “comer” to the Small Business world.    You do not fully appreciate or realize what being in small business means until you actually live and breathe it.    You need a certain mindset to survive and accept the highs and lows.   And, it definitely stretches your creativity and talent to the max.    If you had told me 5 years ago that I would be not only living in Canada but also working at a company of less than 20 people after 25+ years of employment with large employers, I would have laughed.   But, the rewards and personal satisfaction far outnumber the worry and the pains.   So, if you are at one of those large employers and ever have the opportunity to make a leap and join a small but growing entrepreneurial business, you’ll be welcomed by millions of us that are already in that boat.     After all, how many people do you know that leave small business to join a big company?    There must be a reason that the tide goes the other way.    For those of you that are already along for the ride, take a minute to pause and appreciate what joy you’ve received from being in a company  that is growing and where you are helping shape its future.   I’m sure it will outweigh any pain.

- Laura

We should, but we’re not.

I am eternally grateful for what my mother’s father, and hundreds of thousands like him did in the great wars.  My grandfather, Robert Macjanet died alone in Belgium, thousands of miles from his family and young children, whom he never had the luxury to get to know.

When we talk today about work/life balance, not enough time, too busy and generally being stressed with it all, I wonder if we have all lost a little perspective.  Are things that tough, really?  My mother never knew her father, that’s tough. I’m sure there are thousands like her, that’s sad.   

Today, when we all take that moment to pause, please really think about how lucky you are.  Life needs perspective, otherwise it’s just hard work. 

-Chris

First, the athletes.  It is incredible to see the diversity in people running in this marathon.  People of all shapes and sizes from all around the world sharing one goal, to run 26.2 miles that day.  It’s an incredible reminder of the strength and conviction of the human spirit.  Yes, there are some remarkable Kenyans that run the course (a time of 2:05 winning it) and seem to do so effortlessly.  However of the approximate 47,000 runners the majority is finishing in 4+ hours and this was a “life changing event” for them.  It’s a pleasant reminder of what people are capable of doing once they put their mind to something.  47,000 individual stories of why they were doing what they were doing, each deeply meaningful to them. Congratulations to all of them!

Second, the city.  It is an incredible sight to see an entire city rally behind one event and get into the celebration.  On every one of the 26 miles there are crowds of people cheering on friends, family and runners in general.  I spoke to other onlookers who were cheering and supporting just for the sake of cheering and supporting.  They didn’t know anyone running but just wanted to be involved and support those that were out. 

It was inspiring to see how a city can create an environment which allows people from around the world to change their lives.  I only wish my home town of Toronto could be as supportive of similar events.

- Chris

As of October 1^st we’re working with MIB, the North American underwriting information and analysis provider.  We will be performing all the MIB underwriting reviews for MIB’s Canadian clients, which accounts for around 80 different entities in Canada.  This is a great example of a respected organization, like MIB, taking advantage of our expertise in a long-term, outsourced contract.  We will be looking to ensure that all Canadian users of the MIB service are getting the most from the service and are using it correctly.

So if you’re in a Canadian organization in world of underwriting you may well hear from Carmela Tedesco or one of her team over the coming months to arrange a review for you.

We’re really excited about this project as we think it further enhances our risk management credentials and will deliver real value to MIB and its clients.

In 2012 we are going to be updating our website, a task which is long overdue. 

As part of the revamp we’re going to be asking all our recent clients to allow us to have just their logo on our website, no other details about what we’ve done or when. 

The main driver for having this on the website is that potential new clients always ask who we’ve done work for in the past.  Few people want to be the ‘guinea pig’ who we try out something new on! Fortunately we’ve found some guinea pigs over the years and we’re extremely grateful to them for taking leaps of faith in years gone by.  Thankfully we’re beyond the need for guinea pigs these days.

So there you are, we’ve a new client, MIB, and we’re going to have a new website in 2012. 

If you do have any suggestions for what you’d like us to include on the website please do get in touch through info@logiq3.com. We know that you’ll likely have better ideas than we have!!

Cheers

Simon

Several common factors emerged from organizations which suffered the failure of success. Firstly a ‘blinkered’ view on the fundamental metrics of an organizations, the example of the electronics giant Phillips was used, where despite multiple comparative measures between themselves and the competition showing that they were losing ground they managed to justify that these weren’t really competing with them and so could ignore the data. As a result Phillips ran close to bankruptcy.

A second theme was that of arrogance toward a new entrant, using Harley Davidson’s response to Honda in the 1960s, when they perceived them as an inferior product but when they started to gain momentum they were then ‘lucky’ when their Honda 50cc sales took off. A final theme was complacency which leads an organization to believe that due to their successful history, and potentially deep pockets as a result of the past successes,  there is no need to change what they’re doing, a recent example being Blockbuster being blindsided by start-ups such as Netflix who reinvented the movie rental business using DVD’s through the mail, right under the noses of the mighty Blockbuster, who is now desperately trying to catch-up and compete in the emerging digital streaming market.

So what does this mean to our, or your, business? Professor Birkinshaw had a few suggestions for ‘red flags’ which indicate that trouble could be coming. These covered a range of areas including: sales, customers, staff, products, financial and leadership. We’ll look briefly at each of them.  The concerns in sales could be that your volumes are dropping or that your product ‘mix’ is changing and you could find yourself being dependent upon just a couple of key products.

With customers, you can look at your ratio of new to existing customers. Are you winning new customers or just relying on existing ones, in  which case are you losing out to a competitor? Every organization will have a core of loyal customers which drive much of the revenue but the ability to attract new customers is a clear sign that what you’re offering is still relevant to the market.

On the employees side, how is your staff turnover? Are you seeing key people leaving the organization? If so why are they leaving and where are they going? If key people are leaving but your annual staff survey keeps coming back that everything is fine, are there hidden issues which are not being captured by existing measures?

For products, what is your proportion of new products? Do you even have any new products? If not then what is happening within the business to innovate and create new products? 

As many consumers and technologists alike mourn the sad passing of Steve Jobs, it will be interesting to see if Apple can continue to rapidly innovate and create the new hit products which their founder made them famous for.

The financial red flags are the usual measures of cash-flow and working capital, is the business generating cash or having to survive on former glory.

Finally we come to leadership for which Professor Birkinshaw had two indicators, the first being the ‘shiny’ new office which tells the world ‘we’ve made it!’ but could in reality be the sign that the peak has been reached.

The other test is the having the CEO on the cover of every business magazine telling anyone who cares to listen about the secret to the company’s (read his or her)success. There have been several examples of this being the beginning of the end, with the worst cases being the companies hitting hard times while the magazines are still on the shelves!

Anyway, just thought I’d share with you the highlights of an interesting lecture.  I hope that you found this interesting or useful or both. If not, please accept my apologies and I hope that you’ll find the next blog entry to be more enlightening. 

We would be interested if you’ve any thoughts on, or examples of , organizations in the insurance industry which you think are doing well to avoid the ‘failure of success’ or manage to see the red flags and make changes before it is too late.

Cheers

Simon

 When we were approached to do the article we thought long and hard about the best topic to cover, lord knows that we always have plenty of ‘wicked problems’ to deal with; wicked problem being a term used by Roger Martin in Design Thinking  [http://rogerlmartin.com/devotions/design-thinking].  He has written a great book “The Design of Business”  on the subject which we use internally as a framework for how we operate as an organization. 

We decided to go with the ‘long term versus short term planning’ as this is one that we’ve been discussing internally a lot recently and we thought would be interesting to get feedback on from experts in the outside world.

The balance between long term and short term, the separation of the important from the urgent, is an extremely difficult balance to strike. You can spend an infinite amount of time pondering the ifs, buts and maybes of where you need to be three years down then suddenly that can seem like wasted effort when the world changes, as happened with the financial crisis, and you have to start again with the new world as your context. 

Over the years we’ve tended to see a pendulum effect where we go from being long term focused to being short term focused, we’re trying to keep the swings shorter but they still happen.

The advice we received was all good advice, some of which we already have in place, the experts suggested an advisory board  We’ve had an advisory board from the beginning and this was essential to us in the early days, although we don’t leverage it enough these days (too busy? but still not good).

We have annual offsite meetings, usually around October, and have external facilitation and trusted business advisors involved, although ironically the last one focused on short term issues. 

We have successfully outsourced a range of functions, although HR outsourcing is one that we’ve never got to grips with (not enough time?).

So I guess that we’re on the right track overall, there’s always more we can do but we seen to have many of the fundamentals in place.

Just want to thank the folks at the Globe and Mail for asking us to be involved, the experts who gave their opinions and the ‘friends of LOGiQ³’ who have been very supportive and sent some nice emails to us since they saw the article.

Last thing we do want to put straight from the article is the line ‘…But they’re doing most of the consulting work themselves’….this is not strictly true, and we’ve taken some abuse for this one .  

We do rely very heavily on the team around us and it would be completely impossible to do the work on our own. 

Enjoy the long weekend, and hope that Summer 2011 was good for you.

 Cheers,

Simon

Typically, when companies start to delve into the scary world of social media, there is one champion spearheading the initiative, centralized within one department. However, Owyang suggests that, to see the successes of social media, organizations should move into a “hub and spoke” model. Hub and spoke?! What is that?

As companies get more experienced with social media efforts, social organizations evolve. Owyang lists the different types of social organizational types:

1. Decentralized. Anyone can do anything in the company in social, with no organization.

2. Centralized. Typically run by corporate communications; most companies start here.

3. Hub and spoke. Majority of companies using social media tend to fall within this category. There is a hub in the organization that sets guidelines and gives direction, but actual participation takes place across the organization. This is the most common type of successful social organization today.

4. Multiple hub and spoke or dandelion. Large, usually tech, socially-advanced brands reach this organization level. Owyang recommends this model for most brands.

5. Holistic or honeycomb. Only 1.5% of companies are here, where the entire organization uses social media in an organized way. This is the model with the highest level of maturity, and it’s difficult to achieve. A few brands that exemplify this include Best Buy, Dell and Zappos.

What type of social organization category does your company fall into? At LOGiQ3 we are actively striving to implement the hub and spoke model. If you’re interested in sharing your thoughts with me (I’d love to hear from you), feel free to comment or send me an email at natalie.ho@logiq3.com.

Thanks for stopping in!

~Natalie

 In it he discusses how you can create growth and innovate as an organization by embracing the generational differences across your workforce.  He writes “Unleashing this innovative mindset is about creating a culture that empowers inquisitive minds to imagine the future, and to think beyond the legacy of the past.”  By creating these places of possibility you are creating quite a different looking organization.  “Both lean and nimble, they embrace risks, partner with spectacularly different competencies than the obvious, and prototype fast, fail fast and fail cheap.  These are places where everyone feels empowered to explore and share ideas, with no fear of consequences.”

Until I read this piece I used to believe all the conversation around how you had to engage Millennials (generation born after 1980) differently to keep them focused and interested gave that group too much power and masked a bigger entitlement-issue with them.  However, I believe Manu spells out how that cohort truly is different and some of the things that happened in their life and growing up that made them what they are.   

 Success is how you pair that cohort up with the Baby Boomers and create a ‘Futures Group’ to make sure you get the best from both.  “On one hand you have the wisdom, knowledge and life experience of the Boomer, and on the other you have the urgency, the imagination and the free spirit of the Millennial.” 

 Read the entire piece.  It allowed me to think differently about how you can build organizations going forward and the things you can do to spur innovation and create a ‘Place of Possibility’.  Like it or not, the workforce is different and new employees coming into all our organizations are going to challenge how we have functioned traditionally – which is a good thing.

 Thanks for your time – Chris

David then went to show marketing pictures of leadership pairs which always showed the ‘insider’ on the left and the ‘outsider’ on the right (I think it was that way around) but the point is that this photographic approach is not being done by accident.

Furthermore, David suggested you should look internally within your organizations and look to build your succession plan using inside-outside partnerships, which again had us thinking about LOGiQ³ and how this might apply.

So there you have it, the ‘Inside-Outside’ leadership approach.  Now all this may mean nothing if you’re leading an organization/department/team on your own but when we discussed it we thought that even when the org chart points to an individual, often there is a right-hand man (or woman) who that leader uses in a similar way.

I know that we always ask for feedback but we would be interested in your ‘Inside-Outside’ examples, either well known companies or your own company (which may also be well known).

Cheers

Simon

There are many well known and mind blowing statistics about this Internet giant and pretty much every adjective has been used to describe it but I came across this statistic I was quite impressed; $3Bn per month in revenue is incredible and this article http://tinyurl.com/4xlnr3b  published in Wired Magazine provides an attempt to breakdown what makes up this revenue and I was surprised to see that the keyword ‘Insurance’ as the most valuable with calculations showing that it costs $54 per click through.

For those unfamiliar with how Google works, the main revenue generator is Adwords (for more background click here http://tinyurl.com/p2xs8p) where potential advertisers effectively bid for the keywords that they want to ‘own’ when someone does a search. A very simple concept with some hugely complex implementation. I particularly liked the comment made by Larry Page and Sergey Brin - didn’t really see advertising at the main revenue driver, they thought it would be selling search technology… good to see that every leader can miss a trick.

Now… “Reinsurance Outsourcing”… is that the next big word? What do you think?

- Simon