Professional Services: What To Pay For

If you are one of the lucky ones with a hiring budget, don't get bogged down in all the skill-set talk. Whether you are hiring an independent contractor or permanent professional in accounting, architecture, banking, design, engineering, health care, law, technology, marketing or other profession, full or part-time, you're still building the team.

You've got to think how would it be to have that person around? Can they get you where you want to go faster? Where could their network take you? In Good to Great, Jim Collins talked about how companies that routinely outperform indexes focus on “getting the right people on the bus”, then determine where to go and seating arrangements.

My analogy is sort of a new, green sport, at lease for those who enjoy it -THE SWAP. Today even the most fashionable are frugal in what fashionistas call dressing “high/low”. One green way to freshen the wardrobe is to swap. The way it works, everyone brings stuff they are ready to donate and then trades. What gets left, goes to Haiti. In my case, it was a huge suitcase. To my surprise, I went home with another one!

Helping Haiti is essential. I like free, it's great. But what really made this game rock was what happened when the most experienced swapper entered the room. To be honest, until she arrived, we didn't do anything, even though we just had to dig in. Then she arrived, organized everything and dug for pearls. She didn't do something someone else couldn't. But unlike the rest of us, she happens to know great things can be found for everyone because she's seen it repeatedly. She shares this vision, cares about fair play and loves to see people get what they like. Pretty soon all the guests, male and female, were in the same room peppering her with styling questions. She's never even worked in retail! Like a magic genie, she made the SWAP happen.

Got a project? Get a genie, get it going, create some magic....

NYCGenies on twitter

Bradley Jobling @bradleyjobling –

Catherine Ventura @catherinventura –

Chris Kieff @ckieff

Brad Wilson @ibradwilson

Gilbert B. Hammer @iptvevangelist

Joe Mulligan - @joemull

John Lee - @johnleemedia.com

John Mathews - @johnrmathews

Vidar Brekke - @social_vidar

Marshall Sponder -@webmetricsguru -

Jeff Keni Pulver- @jeffpulver

Damien Basile - @db

Katie Morse @misskatiemo

Jessica Levin -@jessicalevin –

Christine Coster @mizcity

Sophia Negron @sophnegron

NJIT Computing Students Doing the Work

“We are a true learning organization that adapts to change and responds rapidly to stakeholders' feedback. When we give our students the driver’s seats, we become mission impossible. The sky is not even our limit!”
Osama Elijabiri Director of Capstone Program

Budget-strapped departments, entrepreneurs and not-for-profits need to know New Jersey's Science & Technology University (NJIT) has the Capstone Real World University where students in the College of Computer Sciences can, with your best direction, do the job.

Students are supported by other students who have gone through the program and now function in an advisory capacity to the program that develops social intelligence and a sense of ownership for the student workers.

"I only discovered my passion because of that internship"
Jason Pearson, Advocacy Development CCS Capstone Program

With a donation of just $1000 and participation in this week's showcase, your business or organization could have 3 students for 12 weeks to work on that tech project. Projects are open to all industry sectors. To get an idea of what they can do for you, see what they did last term:

Project: Notebook, MS Surface, Cell phone Health Outreach, Image Processing, Multi-media Self-Discovery Programming for the Elderly and Game DevMasters Website Enhancements. Sectors: Web Development, Health Care, Aging

Project: Engineering requirements for Newark community-based organizations in collaboration with Business Access Sectors: Newark Business Community, Engineering

Project: Working with Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in a major project to deploy a new digital alert system and train hospital employees on using it. Sectors: Newark Medical Centers, Digital Alert Systems, Hospital Training

Project: Developing a simulation for the moving helical solar system and working with the president of NJ Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)and management systems for the betterment of healthcare to take their website to the next level. Sectors: Healthcare, IT

To inspire your own team get your own group of NJIT students. Contact:
Osama Eljabiri
Sr. University Lecturer &
Director of Capstone Program
College of Computer Sciences
University Heights, Newark-NJ 07102
Work: 973-642-7123
Mobile: 973-981-1049
Fax: 866-605-9416
Email: oe2@njit.edu or elijabiri@gmail.com

Jan 11-15 NJIT's Venture Acceleration Bootcamp

When Gilbert Hammer, Editor ipTV, suggested checking out NJIT's Enterprise Development Center at the weekly meeting of Open Coffee*, I was curious. Located in Big Pharma's back yard, NJIT has one of the country's most active technology incubators in the country. Though it regularly spawns new medical device and pharmaceutical ventures, it is by no means limited to Life Sciences. NJIT's School of Architecture and Engineering keeps green tech design and discovery flowing though while the Capstone computer lab keeps students rolling out more apps for the insatiably social.

From the first session, the bootcamp was interactive. Unlike those offered by celebrity entrepreneurs or Ivy league corporate off-sites, NJIT's incubator goes well beyond disseminating high level contacts and workshop highs to deliver organizational behavioral change. In just four days, business owners (and 4 team members) develop, streamline and present their offering to investors for less than the cost of a room at the Plaza! The State of New Jersey through the tireless efforts of Judith Sheft, AVP, Tech Dept, funds the difference.

Presented by Dr. Aron S. Spencer, Founder, InVenture, and professor with the School of Management, the incubator bootcamp delivers Supercoach® Entrepreneurial Training (SET). Professor Spencer is, as Brian Spencer from Vurtego stated “.... part of a rare breed that can communicate effectively with the CEO types AND the CTO types. ..” (http://bit.ly/Supercoach). This trait is key since start-ups need to use CEO, CTO and CFO “speak” to get funded today.

Out of the gate, in the first exercise, Dr. Spencer directs owners to focus on talking not writing. This is harder than you'd think for practiced speakers. SET begins by directing the entrepreneur to keep to the 30 sec “spot” of broadcast communications and then tightens message to a single tweet-ready, line. This rigor paid off in clarity on the 4^th day for a panel of investors.

Dr. Spencer teamed with Mary F. Howard, Principal of Design Technologies who's probing analysis across multiple industries reflected her experience in bio-tech, medical devices and design. Her own serial entrepreneurship brings seasoned mentoring to these young incubator companies.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage & Differentiation

There are a number of ways entrepreneurs can communicate opportunity to an investor, the most obvious is announcing some advantage that no one else has. Best is having something that no one else ever will ever have, the original formula. Less value, but still significant is to have a unique “method of use”. One of the incubator companies had defended a method-of-use patent. Having won when challenged, the company built credibility in the high risk high reward clinical trials marketplace.

“High-Risk High-Reward is attractive to Licensees.”

To bring income into a start-up early on, high risk intellectual property companies will often pursue licensing. In this way they enter faster, fuel growth and meet projections. Other effective strategies capitalize on synergies in the “value chain”- relationships the company has from concept to market. The best is to build value for all partners in the value chain. Building value for the whole chain builds a bigger pie to feed more sector growth.

“How are you going to make me rich?”

In watching the final presentations to the investors, the words of a friend in venture capital rang in my head, “entrepreneurs just want to do what they do best, whether its product development, real estate, science or technology, they don't want to have to worry about the numbers”. Here despite the coaching, some presenters seemed to assume that if the market opportunity is clearly stated the payday is obvious. Wrong. In one case, a company ignored the SET rigor, presented highly technical slides and left out the time-line of payouts.

Its not all about numbers, there are personal preferences too. Who doesn't like to laugh? All the judges liked the idea of a humorous dictionary. Whether it was because the development would be next to nothing, the health benefits of laughter or its universal appeal; it didn't hurt that the young presenter was natural, receptive and thoughtful in responding to questions.

Like anybody else, investors are not impressed with being talked down to. Calibrating this though can be a bit of a trick. One presenter left out a key feature he thought would be too technical. The coaches assured him the investors would know the term and to put it in. Another, couldn't resist putting in all the technical terms of his sector and the sustainable competitive advantage was lost on the panel.

NJIT Incubator participants also have access to NJIT's College of Computing lab where tech students develop new technology to support the ventures. I encourage you to look into this and the other wealth of information and services at the Enterprise Development Center. Its less than 30 minutes from Manhattan. Beyond the education and pitch opportunity, the incubator connects you with other entrepreneurs. On the surface, they may seem to have nothing to do with your business. That's the very reason you might want to cultivate them...they can point out the obvious that your supportive choir isn't hearing. Successful entrepreneurs reach far and wide to form their circle of support. The NJIT's Enterprise Development Center's Venture Acceleration Bootcamp creates an intense transformation experience to share and build trust. And today trust is paramount.

For more information about NJIT's Economic Development Center's Venture Acceleration Bootcamp and College of Computing Sciences' Capstone Program visit : http://bit.ly/njitboot or email: Judith.Sheft@NJIT.EDU

* Open Coffee NY, organized by Vidar Brekke founder of Social Intent, is an open agenda weekly meeting started in London to discuss current issues in technology, marketing and venture capital ecosystem. http://www.meetup.com/NYOpenCoffee

Venture Accelerator Participant Companies

Donnella's Closet – donnella@shopdonnella.com;

Disaster Relief Kit – (not available at posting);

International Voyager – mcquire@cruisedirector.com

Turbine – M. Ala Saadeghvaziri, PhD, PE, F.ASCE, ala@njit.edu

VidTherapyPro – Gilbert B. Hammer – gilbertbhammer@gmail.com

SetSee – Timothy Gill – Tim@setsee.us

Rinox – Ira Sanders, MD – irasanders@optonline.net

Mark Funston – mark.funston@gmail.com

Investor Panelists

Wayne Fox

John Ason

Carl Georgeson

Yaniv Sneor

Lou Wagman

Michael Erlich

Steve Royster

2009's Irresistible Promise

Social Spot December 31^st 2009

“Love is the most durable power in the world” Dr. Martin Luther King

At the time of my first and last posting, from the Digiday awards, I have been, well, socializing. After all, social media is that...social and I've been enjoying it. Whatever else that can be said about it, it is fun. I had promised myself to give you an update, other than my twittering and then woke to the most marvelous blanket of snow. Nature is miraculous in her ways. Silly me, this is the day of remembrance and as I am living where I began my career I'm sharing something different than originally planned with you...

Since, before “back in the day” I was in media. Then, it was said “you are born and you die in newspapers” and so I was born representing middle market newspapers across the country, big fish in small ponds from the national advertisers' view at the time.

My start took me into many functions and industries: sales, promotion, copy writing, marketing, art direction, strategic planning, business development in both public and private sectors in multiple industries ( museum education, publishing, sports marketing, health care, consumer products, fashion & beauty, software, financial services, investment banking, accounting and real estate).

I used to think this breadth of experience had given me judgment, that I read people well, had hired and mentored well and all these contributed to my success. The events post 9/11 tested that self image. And like so many of us, the more recent macro-economic collapse shook it to its very core. What was, is not anymore. The gurus that haven't fled seem suspect. More than ever, management and workers toil away with blinders on or “go wherever the universe may take them”. So this year of 2009 demanded grounding. It demanded recognizing what we knew for sure and marching bravely one foot in front of the other.

Early on in my career, an ad agency principal of a classy agency at the time told me that despite my National Sales Manager title, I was not a sales person. Instead I had the “skin of a principal” and was a believer. I knew this was meant to be a compliment but as I was not the principal, it made me nervous . If a survey of my subsequent employers was taken today, I suspect they'd agree. I was lucky to hear that early on. It led me to professional services where I could develop business on behalf of high quality service providers and talent where I derive great satisfaction. It drove me to seek collaboration with different colleagues with other strengths.

Today we believers are referred to as “evangelists”. The ugly ducklings found their entrepreneurial flocks. With that acceptance we find a need to be more alert. It's easier to be blinded by that agreed upon light and potentially lead others astray.

And so it is that I ask myself at the close of this remarkably tumultuous year of hope; what is it really that makes this social media irresistible to me and what within that might be of interest to you?

Is it the bright light of possibility? Possibility created by the rapidly increasing numbers of voices participating in the conversation; where is the ground here? What I know, is that we have a window of opportunity, a crack in the space of time to bring in more people from different sectors into to the conversation and further connect ourselves to get it better. It looks like a burst sometimes, but to those who've been developing technology it is the natural outgrowth of their intention to increase adoption. With ease of adoption, we have more people to come into the conversation and as I said to an acclaimed artist last night not yet participating; its where the party is now. More accurately, lots of parties. You don't have to risk security and be a crasher at the White House. And if you participate you can find interaction, not just broadcasters.

Whatever our station, whatever our sector, we have an opportunity to listen and participate with more segments of the world population. Voices who haven't been heard before have entered. What shall we do with this? Will we dismiss them because of their status or numbers, quantifying by the same financial models? Will the data it all be monetized the same way?

Learning about others, understanding and connecting with our neighbors to make things better with the increased ideas, inspiration and sharing of culture. this I find irresistible. What are we going to do with the contributions from the big and little fish from so many ponds around the world? What do all people really need and want?

Thank you all, the people in social media and Architecture for Humanity that I have had the pleasure to meet this year.