A good risk manager doesn’t aim for zero risk. Zero risk is zero innovation, and zero innovation is high risk.
Archives For General
A general category for posts of no particular theme.
I was fortunate to be invited by Technology Alberta to attend the Singularity University Summit several weeks ago in Edmonton. SU is all about exponential tech and what’s, perhaps surprisingly, possible now – from AI and citizenship to cleantech and medical records. The full slate of talks are now available here, but start with SU Chair for Entrepreneurship Pascal Finette’s excellent closing keynote for a great overview.
It’s hard enough to build and grow a startup company, but it’s pretty much impossible when facing internal headwinds. Sheer will alone cannot overcome the dysfunction of absent, arrogant, and quarrelling founders. It’s called founder drama and it’s a more common fate for startups than one might think. There are warning signs to beware of:
I just spent the last couple days in beautiful Banff at the Banff Venture Forum, a prestigious annual gathering of venture capitalists and other investors. My company RallyEngine was selected to pitch to the whole room, which I did yesterday morning during their “Startup Spotlight”.
We paid for the opportunity and bent our international travel plans to make this event. While we’ve pitched at several events over the past year, this one was a bigger deal because we chose it as the venue for announcing our first-ever fund-raise – a belated Seed round. For a bootstrapped company with sales and momentum, no small thing.
Unfortunately, “Startup Spotlight” turned out to be pitch coaching in disguise – and in public. I delivered what I felt was one of my stronger pitches – five minutes on the dot and nobody in the room looking down at their phones… and then the panel of investors/judges/critics ripped it apart. The thing is they didn’t critique the substance of what I pitched so much as the style. “I felt you didn’t make the best use of the first 20 seconds.” “I didn’t like that photo you used on Slide X.” They criticized one presenter for bringing notes up to the podium and another for slowing down in the middle. Continue Reading…
At a RallyEngine team meeting the other day I was reminded of something I posted over 11 years ago at my Creative Generalist blog. It was a post about the essential ingredients of teamwork – true teamwork – called Rule 33. It seems to have endured the test of time, and I still subscribe to this particular rule. I post it again here:
Not only does “Alberta need a transportation solution,” for all of the reasons John Stewart pointed out in his excellent editorial (Red Deer Advocate – December 29, 2015), it also needs an energy solution (apply its O&G expertise more broadly), an economy solution (put its skilled people back to work), and a reputation solution (be seen as a real innovator).
So here’s an idea – maybe a bit out there but certainly less dumb than thinking adding highway lanes is a fix or hoping politicians will finally embrace the price tag and time horizon of high-speed rail.