Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Entrepreneurship

Three words terrorism hates: Let’s do business.

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Since World War II, human behavior has manifested in a classic example of a human paradox. One side of this puzzle is that we possess the intellectual and technical ability to create nuclear weapons capable of global human annihilation. The other side is that, after four generations of nuclear-armed nations aiming those weapons at each other, the value of life ultimately proved more compelling than the potential for political or strategic conquest. What became known as MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – prevailed. So far.

But eighteen years ago this week, the belief that preservation of life as the highest human value would deter unprovoked, murderous attacks on thousands of innocent people turned into an illusion. On September 11, 2001, civilization was blindsided by an ironic form of barbarism. Without respect for any international convention or moral standard, 19 evil humans took the lives of almost 3,000 innocents and declared war on the rest of us.

This barbarism was ironic because these followers of a radical form of Islam employed to their murderous advantage one of the icons of the very society they claimed to hate – technology. Indeed, the same humans who would take 21st-century civilization back to the Stone Age, adopted some of our most advanced innovations to coordinate and conduct their evil deeds. And then the rest of their coward co-conspirators claimed those crimes with more modern technology as they communicated their demented, Dark Ages worldview.

But just as technology became the ironic lever of those who place no value on innocent life, it’s still a powerful lever for those who do. When tolerant, civilized humans use technologies like the Internet and associated applications, they do three very important things: communicate, conduct business and share values.

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Why not an official day for small business owners?

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Labor Day began as an idea in the mind of a 19th-century labor leader – some say Matthew Maguire, others say Peter McGuire – who cared greatly for a very important segment of the marketplace, its workers. 

Regardless of paternity, such a day was first celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, when members of the CLU took an unpaid day off to demonstrate solidarity and, of course, have picnics. And ever since 1884, when President Grover Cleveland’s signature designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day, it’s been an official federal holiday.

In 1898, Samuel Gompers, then head of the American Federation of Labor, called Labor Day, “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed…that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”

Alas, entrepreneurs aren’t organized like our union brethren – probably because we’re too busy making payroll. There is no single Small Business Day officially decreed by the U.S. Government. No Entrepreneur’s Day set aside to honor the few who do so much for so many; a day to picnic and party down in honor of the real heroes of the marketplace, small business owners.

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OHIP – The Small Business Owner’s Acronym

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The military has spawned many acronyms that are used as short references for official and strategic purposes. But life as a member of the five services (don’t forget the Coast Guard) has also inspired other syntax shortcuts that are less than official. Some of these cultural coinages are straight forward and handy, some are sweetly sarcastic (and some can’t be explained in polite company).

One prominent example of such a military culture acronym that’s always handy and sometimes used sarcastically is RHIP, which stands for, “Rank Has Its Privileges.” RHIP is the unofficial contraction for the accrual of a benefits hierarchy based on a person’s rank and applies to sergeants and generals alike. In his comedy “History of the World,” Mel Brooks’ character said it another way with, “It’s good to be the king.”

In that spirit, here’s an acronym I’ve coined for small business owners: OHIP, which stands for “Ownership Has Its Privileges.” Like RHIP, OHIP can be sarcastic and/or handy. Let’s look at a few business-ownership privileges, beginning with sarcastic applications and winding up with the handy.

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How to starve your business’s alligators

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Small business owners know all about that metaphorical business reptile – the ubiquitous alligator. They slither in from everywhere, continuously chomping holes in your business, tearing apart projects, taking a bite out of performance and eating away at momentum.

As the CEO of your business, if your enterprise is to survive, let alone flourish, you have to deal with each alligator that pops up.

To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, your business’s sustainability and organizational effectiveness depends on the ability to keep your head when all around alligators are trying to take it off.

We know three things about these caustic crocodilians: 1) every small business has them; 2) they don’t go away on their own; 3) besides the operational intrusion, they take an emotional toll. And as good as we may get at dealing with the damage they can cause, we’re not usually as good at dealing with that emotional thing.

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All hail the Quantum Leap Generation!

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It’s been more than a half-century since the advent of three legendary Digital Age markers: the printed circuit board, the first IBM mainframe, and Moore’s Law. So, by now it would be reasonable to presume that we analog humans would have our digital adoption corn flakes together.
Alas, 21st-century reality doesn’t bear out that reasonable assumption, as the dynamism of digital leverage has matched almost every sweet opportunity with a distasteful disruption, creating a lot of anxiety in the process.

Indeed, when the Fraternal Twins of Innovation – Disruption and Opportunity – set up shop in the Digital Age, they imposed transformation on every market participant. And since Disruption is the Twin that typically shows up first, those adjustments were likely brutal until Opportunity arrived, often fashionably late. Of course, we all know stories where the rude cousin of the Twins, Irrelevance, wrote too many tragic, final chapters.

Thankfully, on the Opportunity side of the Twins’ balance sheet is a list of unprecedented sweetness: awesome communication options; digital leverage at lightspeed; amassed information about everything from local to global to galactic, and all literally at our fingertips. And entrepreneurs benefited further from lower barriers to entry and competitive advantage from the incrementalization of digital leverage at prices we can afford. But the Twins only convert to sugar on the bottom line when we transform them into something customers will pay for today and tomorrow. There’s still much consternation over yesterday’s analog model being tomorrow’s digital fish wrapper.

Today, when I talk with business audiences about their level of anxiety from the urgency created by 21st-century innovation – these are all technology high-adopters, mind you – most admit to still being anxious about the awesome implications of the Digital Twins. Even balanced against the amazing benefits, humans continue to be unsettled about the unabating digital disturbances coming at them from all quadrants.

But, it must now be revealed that what’s causing all this anxiety isn’t technology: The Internet is just a new way to harness fire, and a computer is merely a fancy wheel. In truth, change itself has been an abiding part of the human experience since Adam and Eve. What’s really causing all this unsettledness, intimidation and anxiety is what I call the Sudden Increased Velocity of Change. No previous generation has ever experienced this level of innovation compression, and it’s doubtful any future generation’s innovation ramp will be as steep as ours has been.

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Success will come from relationships you build with people

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Dave was the fifth of twelve children raised during the Great Depression. His father worked at a sawmill and was a part-time basket weaver.

Dave had some problems:  He was a stutterer, he had epilepsy, plus a learning disorder, all of which prevented him from graduating high school until he was 21. How do you like Dave’s chances in life so far?

But Dave was a good employee: first, a Fuller Brush salesman and next, a route man for two bakeries. Then, with all of his personal challenges, he purchased and successfully ran a restaurant and a grocery store.

Remember Dave’s father’s part-time basket weaving? Well, he started selling baskets: first from his father’s hands, and later from Dave’s factory. Oh, that’s right. You didn’t know Dave had a basket factory. Well, it was the basket factory Dave sold his two very successful businesses to buy. Turns out Dave had serious entrepreneurial sap rising in his bark.

Dave’s friends, family, and bankers were incredulous. Why leave a successful and sure thing to make baskets? By the way, they knew Dave didn’t know anything about how to make baskets himself. Would you have invested in Dave?

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