Happy New Peer

Happy New Year.

Happy New Peer.

If you’ve never collaborated productively with anyone before, may this be the year you do.

May you pick a co-pilot (or maybe two co-pilots, or three, or even four) and make for the stars.

Without second guessing yourself.

While history is equally on the side of projects and companies with and without collaborators (here’s Ryan Carson of Treehouse on why you should go it alone)…

….there are plenty of people who think 2 heads, 2 hearts and 2 engines are much better than one.

Paul Graham of Y Combinator is one of them.

With the exception of Drop-box, Graham famously never funds start-ups that have just a single founder behind them.

Even in the case of Drop Box, Graham (as he explains in this Forbes magazine article) instructed founder Drew Houston to get a co-founder on board.

As to how to pick a co-founder, it’s great if you are friends with them already.

But if you are looking for a co-founder, or want some advice on how to pick one, you could try....

These 10 points by Michael Fertik in Harvard Business Review.

Or this advice from Brian Hamilton in Inc magazine.

Or Manu Kumar who tells you how to avoid the mistakes he made in this piece on Founder.Dating.com.

Once you have picked your co-passenger for your adventure, the top most question on your mind might be how to make things work.

How do you use each other’s ideas wisely?   

Divide responsibilities?

Make the best of what each one brings to the table? 

Not tread on each other’s toes or corns (ouch)?

Have no fear.

Bright Hub is here.

With The 9 Elements of Successful Collaboration - written by Jean Scheid.

Collaborating on a research project?

Here’s a guide to effective collaboration from NCBI (The National Center for Biotechnology Information).

You may also find some useful nuggets in this blog post about collaboration, which curiously enough, starts with a story about a penguin.

Meanwhile, while you take all this in, I thought you might enjoy a little quiz about collaborations.

Here goes -

Q1: Which of these well-known companies was not founded by college buddies?

Google

Yahoo

E-Harmony

Reddit

Proactiv

Answer: E-Harmony. E-Harmony was founded by Neil Clark Warren, a psychologist and author of relationship advice books, along with his son-in-law Greg Forgatch.  All the other companies on this list were founded by college classmates, and 3 out of 4 of them were, in fact, founded by Stanford classmates, Proactiv being among them.

Q2: Which of these co-founders of companies discovered that one of the things they had in common with each other was preferring Bob Dylan to the Beatles? Was it….

Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack of Cisco?

Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo?

Paul Allen and Bill Gates of Microsoft?

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple?

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s?

Answer: It was Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.  You may not have known that.  I didn’t either. I learned of it from this Los Gatos Patch interview with Steve Wozniak.

Q3: All these are celebrated collaborators.  How quickly can you fill in the blanks?

Rodgers and……….

Lewis and……….

Gilbert and ………..

Masters and………

Lords  and………

And the answers are:  Hammerstein, Sullivan, Clark, Johnson, Taylor

Q4: Next, do you know the fields of work of the people listed in the last question? Can you match them to the list provided below:

Sexology

Opera

Expeditions

Fine Clothing

Broadway Musicals

Answers: Masters & Johnson - Sexology, Rodgers & Hammerstein - Opera,  Lewis & Clark - Expeditions, Lords & Taylor - Fine Clothing, Gilbert & Sullivan - Broadway Musicals.

On to our next question about collaborators….

Q5: Which of these collaborators were not siblings?

Orville and Wilbur

Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia

Walt and Roy

Lucy and Desi

Jacob and Wilhelm

Richard and Maurice

Answer: Lucy and Desi …who were husband and wife. Bonus question 1: What are the last names associated with the names above? Bonus question 2: How fast can you associate the following with the correct pairs from the list above?... 1) It’s A Small World 2) The History of Flight  3) Ethel and Fred  4) The Golden Arches 5) The introduction of kindergarten education in America , and 6) Hansel and Gretel.

Q6: And finally, for all you lovebirds out there, the husband-and-wife teams listed below are behind some really cool and well-known companies.  Can you identify the companies from just their names:

Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum

Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake

Michael and Xochi Birch

Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai

Eugene and Natalya Kaspersky

Answers:  Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum (VM Ware); Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake (Flickr); Michael and Xochi Birch (Bebo); Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai (Marvell); Eugene and Natalya Kaspersky (Kaspersky Lab).

Another famous husband and wife partnership is Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown of the legendary architectural firm Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, and you can read about their dream team here.

I am also excited to note that one of my Incentive Compensation implementation assignments was at a wife and husband run company blazing a trail in the field of online video training. You can read about Linda.com and their fabulous offerings here.

I hope you enjoyed this post about collaboration and it inspires you to embark on a fulfilling and fruitful collaboration of your own – with a friend, a soul mate, a spouse, a sibling, a classmate, a workmate, or someone you run into that turns out to be a great fit. 

Happy New Year.

Happy New Peer.

As Henry Ford put it….. 

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success."

Thanks for reading and see you next week...M

Happy New Career

Happy New Year.

Happy New Career.

Whether it’s a new start, a new plan, a new enterprise, a new spin on an old idea, or you plan to go all out and make next year a game-changer….

May you be creative, inspired, motivated, productive, patient and brave in your quest.

May you be creative...

And find a clever way out of the status quo and onto a new playing field.

A book that was a game-changing read for me and got me thinking really creatively was Richard Nelson Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute?

You can learn more about this book from my post Can a Book about Job-Hunting Show You the Path Back to Yourself?

Give it a whirl. 

One of the things Richard Nelson Bolles’ book led to, for me, was the writing of the Dare to Share letter.  Which has been a powerful communications tool in dealing with new clients - you can read about it here.

May you be inspired...

And take a leaf out of other people’s books.

Famous work heroes...

Take your pick...

Leonardo Davinci.  Benjamin Franklin. George Washington Carver.  Marie Curie. Henry (Bula Matari) Morton Stanley. Albert Schweitzer. Steve Jobs.

I am throwing out a few names as food for thought.

Pick one or more heroes.

And study them.

What is inspiring about their story?

What can you learn from them?

Is there some small way in which you can emulate them?

Don’t stop at historical heroes.

Book and movie heroes can work just as well.

I channeled Howard Roark for several years early in my copywriting career.

You can try to walk in the shoes of your book or movie hero.

Norma Rae? Erin Brokovich?

Your favorite sports star?

Who will it be?

May you be motivated….

Are you suffering from inertia?

You can always find your mojo again.

By reminding yourself of how much you’ve accomplished.

Play this game.

Get a life coach.

Bounce off of the energy of a book, a movie, or a trusted friend.

And there are a ton of motivational resources out there.

Dan Pink; Seth Godin; Norman Vincent Peale.

The Secret, The Last Lecture, The Alchemist.

Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar.

TED talks like this one.

You can get out of that funk.

And get that fire in your belly back.

I know you can.

I did.

May you be productive...

What if you have all the ambition, all the accomplishments, all the skills, all the experience -  but you don’t know how to channel all of that? Correctly?

Could things go horribly wrong?

Could you flame out or burn out?

Who knows!

You want to insure yourself against that.

So find a way to become more productive.

You know that you are not being productive if your home life is being compromised in any way.

Start by prioritizing 3 top goals for next year (Any more is too much).

And use every trick to get those goals accomplished,

Time management tricks from Steven Covey and David Allen.

Strategy and leadership tricks from John C Maxwell.

Communication tricks from Toastmasters.

Technology tricks (I’ve covered a few in this post).

Be as specific as possible in your tactics and strategies to tackle these goals.

If your goal is to get through your work faster, for instance, a specific tactic would be “I will plan to spend the 2 hours a day I currently spend doing “………” (surfing, grooming, watching tv - fill in the blanks) doing this instead “……..” (reflecting on what I did today, organizing, working out, fill in the blanks).

If your goal is to free up time, a specific tactic is to make a list of the calls upon your time you will say “no” to.  Read Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life to learn all the things he said no to.  A brief introduction to the contents of his book can be accessed here. 

If you set yourself the task of replacing at least one sloppy work habit of yours every year, starting next year, and you achieve it, you will feel less distraught and more in control as your life goes along.

May you have patience…

And the ability to think long term.

Don’t be afraid to take a few risks.

Don’t second guess too much.

In Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman, actor Hector Elizondo agreed to play a bit role that would have him dressed as a woman almost the entire movie (a mobster on the lam disguised as a woman). Little did he know that by being such a sport about it, Marshall would show his gratitude by giving Elizondo a role in every movie he made after Pretty Women, ensuring the roles were all very dignified as well.

So just keep going, catching some crazy wild things that are thrown at you.

And having faith that they will pay off.

May you be brave...

Is coming out of your shell your greatest challenge?

Being brave enough to take the leap?

Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, when you fall down?

Or feeling hopeless in the face of a great limitation?

May you take inspiration from others who have gone before you.

Have faith.

And let other people’s stories inspire you.

Such as the story of Petals & Herbs - the story of one woman’s courage to give up entrenched professional status and a steady income to pursue an entrepreneurial dream.

Or the story of Chuck Colson – the story of a man who went to prison for the Watergate scandal and came out of prison a changed man and a man with a vision and a mission to change people's lives.

And because the right person on your side can make all the difference….

I hope you find your Anne Sullivan like Hellen Keller did.

I hope you find your Tenzing Norgay like Edmund Hillary did.

I hope you find your Sancho Panchez as Don Quixote did.

I hope you find your Rich Dad like Robert Kiyosaki did.

The secret in every circumstance….

is to focus not on what you don’t have.

But on what you do.

As the people in this post have done.

Have faith.

You can conquer any life challenge.

There are resources.  There are tools.  There are people just around the corner who can help you.

Finally, may you have perspective...

At the end of the day, a job, though a big part of life, is not the only game in life.

If every day in some way, you are being bigger than yourself…

Making tough sacrifices.

And passing tough tests (because sometimes even the easiest things become the toughest, and if you are handling these things the best you can)….

You are my hero.

Happy New Year

Happy New Career.

I end with a quote from Albert Einstein:

“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Thanks for reading and see you next week…Minoo