Business Lessons from sucessful entrepreneurs and business leaders: LunchLearning.com

Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 28 minutes 19 seconds

Business is receptive to people of all specialties, educations and paths. While many people choose to focus themselves early on, there are just as many people who a long, meandering route and find that business was the proper fit for them all along. The long way around is rarely a detriment, however. Skills are built up, people are met and perspectives altered from going a different way. Ann Moore, the CEO of Time Inc. and named one of the most powerful women in America by Fortune Magazine, is one of those people.

Growing up in a family with strong teaching and medical leanings, she betrayed her family’s expectations by briefly studying math before moving to political science with the intention of going into law. However, it wasn’t until she graduated and found her first job after graduation did she find her true passion lay in business.

Even after joining Time, the variety of experiences and learning opportunities didn’t narrow. She found herself working in the finance department and, after a year, took a path that few trod and chose to work with magazines rather than its rapidly growing cable TV department. From there, she further developed her skills and expanded her abilities. This process made her a powerful asset no matter where she worked.

This interview outlines her growth in a compelling fashion. Learning is something that should be constantly happening. But even more importantly, working outside of your desired field, or even before you know what you want to do, can build critical skills. People from different places bring different skills that can offer highly unique synergies that could actually be core competencies once they are properly applied. A lack of focus can drive things just as strongly as a tight focus.

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Total Video Time: 53 minutes 36 seconds

The last few days, we’ve been looking at technological changes that can change the playing field that are just arriving or are on the distant horizon. Today, we’re stepping in a different direction and looking at something a little less physical and more conceptual: the transformation from push-based mass production to pull-based mass customization. Or, simply put, selling customers exactly what they want, not just whatever’s available.

Robert Brunner (@rdbrunner on Twitter), the former Director of Industrial Design at Apple and founder of ammunition, best known for designing the PowerBook, hiring his successor, Jonathan Ive, and winning 23 awards from the Industrial Designers Society of America speaks on the importance of the brand and how, more than ever, it’s defining your company. In this lecture piece, Brunner strives to drive home the impact of the brand. However, it’s a subtle, complex element. The brand is not a product, though it draws from it, and the brand is not advertising, though it’s often used in it. Brand is each individual’s emotions towards the company. Or, more generally and purposefully applied, the collective mood of the people. This becomes ever more important when increased customization increases the diversity in product style and thus diluting product recognition.

This power of the idea of the brand is especially important in today’s environment where the emphasis is not on mass production anymore, but mass customization. Businesses in all sorts of industries have adopted this position, whether exposing it openly or as one of their core elements. Burger King’s slogan, “Have it your way” and Dell’s built-to-order flexibility are two prominent adoptions of this concept.

Customization is a powerful element and people have already shown that they are willing to pay a premium to design things to their specifications. Whether it’s food, computers or even refrigerators or garage doors, if there’s an after-market customization available, it’s fully possible to modify it first. Why should somebody else benefit?

Think of the past, envision the future!

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Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 24 minutes 55 seconds

Hello, my name is Alan Chang and if you’ve followed us before, you’ll know that we here at LunchLearning explore a different theme every week and if you haven’t—we do. This week, we’ll be looking at paradigm shifts that have transformed entire industries as well as newborn technologies and platforms that have the potential to bring about change yet haven’t quite matured and reached their full potential yet.

Nikesh Arora (@nikesharora on Twitter), one of the presidents of Google and responsible for strengthening their core business, discusses the gap in technology usage between generations. In addition to giving Google the focus they had lost when they grew, he was a critical piece of the puzzle for a number of other businesses, such as T-Mobile, whose industries had changed dramatically through the years.

Changes in the market are obvious in hindsight, but the secret to their importance, and success in their utilization, is to understand what is a revolutionary product and what isn’t. Mobile phones were once considered an elite product, with only the richest and most important people owning them. Similarly, until recently, as Brandon Shook explored last week, games were considered best for targeting children. Things have changed.

Social networks are rapidly increasing in prominence, visibility as well as importance. However, knowing that something is going to become the standard is not enough. Being able to determine exactly who the winner will be even a few years in advance can make a tremendous difference. Just as the landscape of the internet was different ten years ago, it will be something entirely different in ten more years. Taking steps to capitalize on these changes will strengthen your position.

Within this video, Nikesh Arora briefly considers a variety of areas ranging from viral marketing and interacting with customers to company reach and market research. All of these things, and more, have changed throughout the years and will continue to. Equally important, each of these can be directly attributed to the success of failure of a company. Somebody has to succeed, so why not you?

Think of the past, envision the future!

Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 1 hour 7 minutes 45 seconds****Q&A begins at 41:53****

I absolutely love what John Chambers and his team at Cisco are doing with regard to involving the whole of Cisco in its communications and collaboration strategy. And what I really like is that they’re a “big” company doing things that are often perceived as possible only for SMBs. Cisco has tossed that bias out the window and is reaping the massive rewards of a highly collaborative environment. They’re even early adopters of Twitter and blogging in-house! AND, if you haven’t seen Cisco’s Digital Cribs. . .then, wow. .you should check it out.

This talk might seem long at the outset, but he spends a considerable amount of time addressing questions (this was a talk at MIT. . .the beauty of any talk like this. . .so, enjoy. John hits on our economy (before it hit the fan), education, collaboration and communications at Cisco. He’s an engaging speaker, and it’s no wonder he, along with the team at Cisco has taken the company from 70 million to 40 billion in just over a decade. Not bad…perhaps he’s worth a listen?!