Has the Free Market Gone Too Far?

Michael Sandel, author of What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, shares his thoughts about what should and shouldn't be for sale.

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These days, too many things come at a price, argues Michael Sandel, a political philosopher and Harvard professor. Market values have metastasized through our society, he says, distorting debate about issues as complex as health care and immigration and as seemingly simple as the question "What do we value?". In his recent book, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, Sandel accuses businesses and the U.S. government of sacrificing values such as justice and respect for human dignity in favor of utility. Leigh Buchanan asked Sandel about when such trade-offs cross the line and what he thinks politicians should be discussing.

What are market values? How are they intruding where they don't belong?
They're a way of valuing goods, based on use. When we're talking about televisions, toasters, and cars, market values are appropriate. But when we're talking about personal relations or family, market values may not be appropriate. For example, even if I wanted more friends, it wouldn't work to try to buy some. The money that would buy the friend dissolves the good that makes friendship valuable. We have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society. A market economy is a valuable and effective tool for organizing productive activity. A market society is a place where almost everything is up for sale.

Is there an argument to be made that the ceaseless pressure on companies to innovate propels them into morally questionable areas?
Yes. Advertising is a very good example of this. The intense pressure to capture human attention has pushed it into morally questionable areas. For example, many school districts now are allowing advertising on school buses, in the cafeterias, in classrooms. And the advertising companies promote this to potential clients, saying you can gain access to a captive market of teenagers without the usual distractions. And it's not just schools. The fans that people use in churches have ads on the back. They used to be from funeral homes, but now it's corporations. So the congregation sits fanning itself in one large wave of product placement. Churches, fire trucks, fire hydrants, police cruisers. There's advertising in jail cells. Talk about a captive audience.

The political parties generally frame economic debates around taxes and spending. What should they be talking about?
The values that underlie their views on taxing and spending. Beneath those arguments are questions: What is the relationship between individual rights and the common good? What do we owe one another as citizens? Those are big philosophical issues, and they aren't just abstract ideas for scholars.

What examples would you use to frame such a debate?
Increasingly, we have relied on the market to allocate military service. In Iraq and Afghanistan, there were more paid military contractors on the ground than there were U.S. troops. Yet we never had a public debate about whether we wanted to outsource the war to private companies.

What are the most extreme market solutions you've seen proposed by politicians?
One novel effort to raise funds for local government was put forward by a candidate in Nevada who proposed allowing people to buy permits to speed up to 90 miles an hour. The state highway patrol concluded that it would imperil public safety.

Did that candidate win?
No.

 

Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture. @LeighEBuchanan

Hate Networking? Try These 4 Tips

Not a fan of traditional networking? You're not alone: These experts are in your camp. Here are their new tips for making more authentic (and productive) connections.

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Humans are social creatures by nature, but yet many of us hate "networking."

Why is that? To anyone who has been on the receiving end of an obviously self-interested, sharky introduction, or who has had their inherently introverted nerves shredded by a day of conference small talk, well, the answer is obvious.

Connecting with interesting people can be fun, but combining that activity with an awareness of your business interests is, for many, a recipe for self-consciousness and awkwardness. But if you value authenticity and haven't been born with the gift of gab, fear not. There are plenty of suggestions on how you can get to know more fascinating people involved in entrepreneurship without enduring too many cringe-worthy encounters.

For ideas on how to rethink networking, look no further than the Young Entrepreneur Council and career columnist Alexandra Levit, both of whom have offered refreshing, out-of-the-box networking advice recently.

"Go au naturale (so to speak)."

The YEC recently tackled the nerve-wracking experience of attending a professional event where you don't know anyone, offering this simple but powerful advice: "Stumped for something to say? You're likely not the only one. Walk up and introduce yourself, and then tell people it's your first time there and you don't know anyone. People connect with authenticity."

It's good advice for any networking encounter--authenticity is a great foundation.

Invest in your network, literally.

"Create an 'intriguing people' fund," suggests Levit in a post that culls networking ideas from the book Start-Up of You. What does she mean?  "Funnel a certain percentage of your paycheck into a bucket that pays for coffees, lunches, and the occasional plane ticket to meet new people and shore up existing relationships," she advises.

With a little money set aside for enjoyable activities like travel or a happy hour catch up, you're more likely to invite someone to meet up and more likely to frame the encounter as pleasant rather than fraught.

Don't network, catalyze.

Another thoughtful YEC post on networking suggests those who are jittery about making connections should re-conceive of their role not as networking but as catalyzing, shifting the focus from yourself and your needs to the needs and interests of others.

"In business and beyond, I've found myself to be a 'catalyst' at creating collisions of smart people and bright ideas. I help co-create unique platforms to connect the select individuals who can help each other," writes Yanik Silver in the post, suggesting otherer entrepreneurs try fulfilling a similar role and offering ideas on how to put the idea into practice.

Spur yourself with 'the layoff test.'

This is another bit of advice via Levit. Having a hard time talking yourself into reaching out to people? She suggests you ask yourself this question: "If you got laid off from your job today, who are the 10 people you'd e-mail for advice on what to do next?  Reach out to them now, when you don't need anything specifically."

As an entrepreneur, you might not have a traditional gig to get laid off from, but the basic idea still holds. Who would you call if you were in a bind or your company was in crisis? Why not pick up the phone or bang out an email to them now?

Do you consciously think about networking or take a more organic approach to expanding your circle of connections? 

 

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist. @EntryLevelRebel

Your Website Is Down. Now What?

Last year, hackers took down music distribution site SoundCloud for 36 hours. Co-founder Alex Ljung explains how SoundCloud responded to millions of infuriated users.

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Why Working Remotely Really Pays Off

A software maker let its employees spend six weeks working remotely from Brazil. No surprise, everyone's a lot happier now.

Carter Powers

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems! Despite the relaxed dress code, productivity remained high for the Dimagi employees who left Cambridge to work in São Paulo.

It was an idea born of a cold New England winter and a few beers among co-workers at Dimagi, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that develops mobile apps designed to improve health care in developing countries. Next winter, why not move the whole company someplace warmer? Danny Roberts, a software engineer who had spent part of his childhood in Brazil, recommended it as a destination, and the idea started to gain traction.

It wasn't such a crazy notion. The company had just 15 employees in its home office (another 14 were working elsewhere, including company offices in India and South Africa). And given that Dimagi has projects in 25 countries, its workers--mostly programmers--were used to working remotely, connecting via email and Skype, and saving their work to a cloud server. "All we really need are our laptops and a power supply," says the chief technology officer, Cory Zue. What's more, Dimagi's work force consists mostly of twentysomethings, so leaving spouses and families behind wasn't a concern for most. Still, although it made sense to the employees, clearing it with the boss was another matter.

Roberts pleaded the case with Dimagi's CEO, Jonathan Jackson. An informal planning committee had already worked out several technical details of the proposed work-cation. The most important detail--a place to stay and work--was settled later, when Roberts's grandmother offered her apartment in São Paulo while she was away on vacation. A nearby hostel would provide additional beds.

"By the time the plan got to me, it was already pretty big," says Jackson. "The employees were driving this, and I wanted to support them. From a business-development perspective, getting a better understanding of South America and scouting potential partners there made sense. But I wanted people to know that this wasn't just a way to party down in Brazil. They needed to be able to communicate with the team at home, and remote clients as well." Given that there was only a one-hour time difference between Boston and São Paulo, and after a successful Internet speed test was performed by Roberts's grandmother, Jackson was reassured that long-distance collaboration was logistically feasible. He also trusted that his young team was mature enough to stay out of trouble abroad.

Even though everyone at the company was invited, one of Jackson's main concerns was that those who couldn't make the trip might feel left out. "I didn't want people here to feel that the people in Brazil were wasting time," he says. Because not everyone could go, Jackson insisted that employees who wanted to go would pay their own way. "Nobody argued with that at all," says Zue.

Team members deployed in two waves starting in late January 2012. Almost everyone made it for at least a week, with a core group staying on for a full six weeks. At the peak, 10 people were working out of the São Paulo apartment. The team gathered laptops around the kitchen table, sprawled on a couch, or vied for a prized spot on the small deck. By and large, the close quarters improved communication among co-workers, and bickering was rare. "There was a lot more casual asking questions across the table," says Zue. "And we tended to work later in the day than we would at home, since we were having dinner together almost every night." It also helped that there were no major technical glitches. "Our Internet service in São Paulo was actually better than we had in Cambridge at the time," says Zue.

After hours, the team frequented a local bar, and it made good use of vacation days for long weekends spent sightseeing in Rio. The staff celebrated Carnival in a small colonial town and hung out at a beach house on the island of Ilhabela. Though there were concerns about having half the company go offline all at once, it was never an issue. "If anything, we were much better about communicating when we were going to be on- and offline," says Carter Powers, Dimagi's chief operations officer.

When Jackson flew in for a week, he was impressed. "We'd done Skype chats, so I knew they were being productive, but the second I saw them, it was clear they had a really cool level of bonding," he says. "There was a ton of great energy. People really wanted to prove that the idea of an away month was feasible, and they were very productive."

Those who couldn't go lived vicariously via videoconference with colleagues who seemed to be wearing less clothing with each passing week. For Dan Myung, 32, a senior engineer with a then-pregnant wife and a major project set to deploy during the São Paulo trip, getting away wasn't viable, but he holds no grudge against his freewheeling co-workers. "I'm one of the older guys in the company, and I feel less pressure to have my social life and work life be related. They put the most hilarious stuff that happened on YouTube, anyway."

For both employees and management, the trip has had enduring benefits. "A lot of that friendship and energy is still there," says Jackson. "People are definitely walking tall, being able to tell their friends that they got to work in Brazil." And it's been good for hiring. "We recently gave an offer to a guy who, when he accepted, said, 'How can I not go to work for a company that goes to Brazil for no reason?' For the social-enterprise sector, we offer competitive pay, but we're not in the Google range. Doing this type of thing absolutely helps."

Jackson says companies contemplating a similar experiment don't necessarily need a trip to Brazil. Getting the group together anywhere away from the office will probably lead to a great bonding experience. He does suggest letting employees--not management--drive the planning process. And it's important to recognize that even if you're the world's coolest boss, you're still a boss. "I think they appreciated that I went there for part of it," says Jackson, "and also that I wasn't there for all of it."

Jackson doesn't expect an away month overseas to happen every year, but he's open to trying out variations on the theme. In fact, the company recently had a second trip, to a place closer to home but exotic in its own way--the New Jersey shore.

A former editor at Real Simple, Adam Bluestein writes frequently about innovation and new technology. He lives with his wife and two children in Burlington, Vermont. @AdamBluestein

7 Reasons Good Teams Become Dysfunctional

Here are the most common habits of a dysfunctional team and how to change them so you can get your group back on track.

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Have you ever been part of a team that just can't seem to get things done? Don't despair; it happens more than you think.

Here are the most common habits of a dysfunctional team and how to change them so you can get your group back on track.

1. Leadership

Dysfunctional teams lack a strong leader. A team needs a strong leader to identify the team's objective, maintain the group's focus on that end, and drive the team toward its established goal.

2. Team Members

Dysfunctional teams often have members more interested in individual glory and less interested in the team's objective. The goal of the team must always remain the team's focus. The quest for individual glory is contrary to the very concept of a team. As such, a true team needs members that are concerned only with how they can help the team achieve its goal and not what achieving the goal will be able to do for them individually.

3. Defined Goal

A dysfunctional team often fails to define its goal. A well-organized team defines its goal or goals from the outset and then sets out a road map as to how to get there.

4. Equitable Distribution

Dysfunctional teams disproportionately place too much of the team's work on a few of its members' shoulders. This is contrary to the entire concept of the team. If one person is going to do everything, why have a team to begin with? It is wasteful. A successful team combines individuals who come together to accomplish the defined goal and spread the work load evenly across team members. Each person is necessary to achieve the goal.

5. Focus

Dysfunctional teams lack focus. They may convene to discuss an issue but get caught up in seemingly endless debate surrounding a general topic while never moving toward an ultimate goal. A team needs to maintain its focus on achieving its defined goal.

6. Accountability

Dysfunctional teams lack accountability. They push back deadlines, or worse, they ponder theoretical questions without defined goals in mind. Moving back deadlines or simply gathering to endlessly pontificate without defined goals leads to a lack of accountability. Without accountability, it is easy to lose focus on the team's goal. A successful team maintains its accountability to achieving its ultimate end.

7. Decisiveness

Dysfunctional teams lack decisiveness. Often flowing from a strong team leader, a team needs to be decisive. Consider facts, draw conclusions on the basis of the best available information, and make a decision. A team's goal must always be to make a decision and then to act to accomplish its goal or make recommendations as required to do so.

Matthew Swyers is the founder of The Trademark Company, a Web-based law firm specializing in protecting the trademark rights of small to medium-size businesses. The company is ranked No. 138 on the 2011 Inc. 500. @TrademarkCo

Get Customers to Read Your Emails

If you want prospective customers to open your emails, you need to pique their interest. Here are seven techniques that will make your emails stand out.

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It's pointless to send emails to prospective customers if your emails never get opened. Here are seven techniques to ensure that your emails are read rather than deleted or ignored:

1. Send it through a referral.

If possible, get a person known to the prospect to forward your email to the prospect, copying you on the email. Prospects are much more likely to open emails from people they know rather than from people they don't know. This is the single best way to ensure that your email gets opened.

2. Cite a referral in the subject line.

If the above option is not possible, the next best thing is to cite, in the subject line, somebody whom the prospect knows.

Example: "Jane Smith suggested we connect."

Make certain you have the permission to use the person's name; otherwise this can backfire. The prospect might send an "Is this real?" email to Jane, and if she sends back a "WTF?," your credibility with the prospect (and with Jane) is gone forever.

3. Cite a current customer's experience.

If neither Option One nor Two is practical, the next best thing is to have a subject line that describes the experience of another customer, with any luck in a way that is meaningful to the prospect.

Example: "How we saved [customer] 20% of inventory costs."

Once again, you must get permission to use the current customer's name, or you risk irritating (or losing) the existing customer.

4. Cite the prospect's competitor.

If none of the above is practical, the next best thing is to have your subject line include the name of one of the prospect's competitors, along with some potentially game-changing factoid.

Example: "How [competitor] saved 20% in inventory costs."

If you do this, make sure to have your facts straight and that the factoid is interesting enough to pique the prospect's interest.

5. Cite a potential benefit.

If none of the above is practical, simply have your subject line include something that matters to the prospect.

Example: "3 ways to save 20% in inventory costs."

This is, in essense, a version of the subject line used in Options Two through Four but without the personalization. The more specific and quantitative the benefit, the more likely it is that the email will be opened.

In addition to the above, here are additional tricks that you should use with discretion and (in the case of Option Seven) only if you're absolutely desperate.

6. Leave the subject line blank.

Sometimes people will open an email with no subject line just out of curiosity. This doesn't work, though, if you've got a slummy email address.

Example: an email from JSmith@Acme.com is more likely to be opened than one from JSmith88745@hotmail.com.

Please note that this technique is a long shot, because a lot of people just delete subjectless emails because they figure they're spam.

7. Simulate a response email.

Busy people will sometimes open an email if it appears to be part of a dialogue in which they've already involved themselves.

Example: "RE: Inventory Costs."

The subject line should be generic enough so that it seems to the prospect like something he or she would be discussing. Use this technique only when you're desperate, because there's a good chance the prospect will figure out that you're being "tricky." And that's never a good thing.

BTW, some of the advice above (Options Two, Three and Six) comes from sales guru Keith Rosen. The rest is based on my own experience, either as a sender or recipient.

One last thing.

By default, the Apple mail client displays the first few words of the first line of the email. Because Apple devices are now very common in the business world, when it comes to getting emails opened, those first few words have become more important than in the past. So get to the point quickly:

RIGHT: "Jim, I hear you've got inventory control problems..."

WRONG: "Dear Mr. Smith, my company, Acme, is a leading vendor of..."

Like this post? If so, sign up for the free Sales Source newsletter.

Geoffrey James writes the Sales Source column on Inc.com, the world's most-visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World's Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source

The Rise of the Robotic Work Force

Famed roboticist Rodney Brooks is back with a breakthrough invention that could revitalize American manufacturing and automate millions of jobs.

Doron Gild

Beyond Vacuums: Rodney Brooks, the creator of the Roomba, is back with a new breakthrough invention--a robot for businesses.

Two years ago, Scott Eckert, while on vacation in the south of France, gathered his family around his laptop. The month before, he had accepted a job as CEO of a secretive start-up that was developing an industrial robot, and now he was about to see a video of the first demo of the machine.

He and his two children watched silently as the robot, which turned out to be no more than a small, cranelike arm, shakily grabbed and lifted a plastic disk. The video ended. His 6-year-old son broke the silence. "Dad, is that it?" he said. Eckert wondered the same.

Everything about the company Eckert would soon be running had been a bit mysterious. When the headhunter contacted him months before, he wouldn't tell Eckert much except that the company had been founded by famed scientist Rodney Brooks, who, until a few years earlier, had led MIT's computer-science and artificial-intelligence lab. Brooks, perhaps the most acclaimed roboticist alive, had co-founded iRobot, maker of the hugely successful Roomba vacuuming robot.

Eckert, a former Dell executive who co-founded Motion Computing, a tablet company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, met Brooks in a hotel lobby. At the meeting, Brooks continued to be sketchy on details, Eckert recalls, but he was enthusiastic. Brooks explained that he wanted to take robotics to the next stage by bringing out a game-changing robot for manufacturing companies. One that, compared with existing industrial robots, would be easier to deploy, more useful, and much, much cheaper--making it affordable even to small companies. Brooks said he was convinced his company could sell tens of thousands of them, even hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions. Brilliant young robotics engineers were already on his team and making great progress.

Eckert checked out Brooks every way he could and heard nothing but good things. He called many of his contacts in the manufacturing world. "They all told me, 'Hell, yes, we'd love to have a cheap, easy-to-set-up, capable robot; are you kidding?''" Eckert took the job, agreeing to start right after he whisked his family away for a long-planned vacation to France.

Now, having seen the video, he had to wonder: Had he made a mistake in putting his faith in Brooks?

But it turns out Brooks was just getting warmed up. That robot arm was merely the start. Brooks already had the team at his company, Rethink Robotics, hard at work building something much more ambitious. Called Baxter, it is a humanoid robot that has the potential to be everything Brooks was shooting for: a breeze to use, capable of handling any number of basic assembly-line jobs, and ridiculously cheap. Many experts would have said such a robot was a decade or more away.

In fact, Baxter is set to go on sale in October. But Brooks is the first to admit that the success of this product is no sure thing. For starters, it is at the absolute bleeding edge of one of the most daunting challenges facing scientists and engineers for centuries: how to endow machines with human capabilities. Getting Baxter to work has required innovating on multiple, complex fronts at once and then making it all work together seamlessly.

And even if Baxter works as hoped, there is no guarantee that companies will buy it in big numbers. "No one has ever done anything like this, so there's no way of knowing what companies will make of it," says Brooks. "Getting people to buy them is the one thing that we absolutely have to do. And it's the one thing that worries me."

Consider it the risk that goes along with a humongous upside. Brooks's plan for Baxter is so ambitious that it's almost scary: replacing humans in millions of jobs in the U.S. alone. Baxter can be taken out of the box, set up, trained, and put to work in about one hour. At $22,000 each--less than the price of a minivan--it could easily pay for itself in months, saving a company $30,000 a year or more in labor costs per robot. (This will be a good thing even for the workers who are replaced, Brooks argues, because they will get better jobs--but more on that later.)

That's just Baxter 1.0. A few years from now, Baxter could take over more complex jobs on manufacturing lines, such as operating machinery. Perhaps one day, it could also make a mark on service industries. Picture Baxter flipping burgers, tending cash registers, sorting files.

And Brooks hints at even more ambitious plans. He is aiming at no less than a revolution in how work gets done, one that would change the economics of labor. "This robot will just keep on improving, and doing more and more," he says.

David H. Freedman: A Boston-based contributing editor, Freedman is the co-author of A Perfect Mess, which examines the useful role of disorder in daily life, business, and science. @dhfreedman

3 Keys for Stellar Mobile Marketing

Whether you have a mobile app or a mobile website, these channels can help your target audience find your mobile presence.

Estimates from eMarketer indicate that the population of mobile social network users will reach 79 million by 2015, which would result in mobile adoption rates that crush other technological adoption rates of the past. As with any new tech platform, organizations need to understand how to participate in and be found via mobile channels. Whether you have a mobile application or a mobile webpage, here are the top three channels that can help your target audience find your mobile presence:

Mobile Organic Search

A recent study by Google found that a smartphone was the most common starting point for online activities. It's crucial to show up at the top of organic search on mobile devices, because 65 percent of the study participants started with a mobile device when searching for information, as well as shopping, online.

The best way to optimize your website for a mobile device is to create what is known as a responsive website. A responsive website will auto-detect the visitor's device prior to serving up the website content. Upon detection, CSS will then tailor the website content to the specific device. Responsive websites will reduce clutter and avoid duplicate content issues that may arise from duplicating website content on a mobile subdomain such as m.yourdomain.com.

Marketers can also monitor performance using the mobile search data segment in Google Webmaster Tools. Use this tool to monitor the results of your mobile search optimization.

Mobile Content Marketing

The goal of content marketing is to create target-market-oriented content that informs, entertains, provides value, and inspires sharing. It's important to consider context when creating content for different devices. The same Google study mentioned earlier found that smartphone use is primarily motivated by communication and entertainment activities. By contrast, PCs are the most common starting point for more complex activities like planning a trip or managing finances.

It's important to serve the needs of your target market within this large mobile user group with content crafted with a mobile context in mind. For example, launching complex content such as a research paper or interactive survey wouldn't be valuable in a mobile context. Focus on content ideas that support communication, fact references, or entertainment. Be sure to always post mobile-friendly content using HTML and CSS rather than Flash or JavaScript.

The Google Keyword Tool also allows for mobile device segmentation, which can provide keyword research insights for targeting mobile users. Combine the most popular mobile search trends with top-performing activities in mobile such as social networking, informational search, and shopping online. This kind of focus will start you down the path to content built for success on mobile devices.

Mobile App Stores

According to Nielsen, mobile users are spending 10% more time on mobile applications than the mobile Web. There are tremendous opportunities in mobile application development for organizations that want to extend marketing reach through this highly interactive channel. However, deep reach in this channel requires great app content and a solid strategy to make sure your app is found on platforms such as the Apple App Store.

A new start-up promises to add some Ooomf to your mobile app marketing strategy by using a platform that mixes mobile app developers with users to enhance and promote their mobile applications. Founder Mikael Cho recognizes that building a great app is a challenge, but getting people to care about it is even more difficult. Ooomf will employ a promotional strategy that offers a curated list of mobile apps. The company also hopes to develop relationships with mobile journalists and mobile influencers to help them discover apps on the Ooomf website.

You can also monitor the top trending mobile applications by category on Chomp or 148Apps. Emulating the best trending apps on the mobile app store is the best strategy for success, according to the book App Empire.

Right now, companies have the opportunity to be first to market in the world of mobile applications and websites. Use these three platforms to jump-start success for your organization in the mobile space.

Aaron Aders: Aders is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Indianapolis-based Slingshot SEO, a national leader in online marketing, planning, and execution. Aders steers the strategic vision behind software and business processes. @SlingshotSEO

9 Life Lessons for Every Entrepreneur

Here's a set of simple rules to live and work by--from a very unexpected source.

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Getty

Gordon Dean circa 1957

Gordon Dean was an American lawyer and prosecutor whose distinguished career was fairly typical for Washington types. He went to work for the Justice Department under President Franklin Roosevelt, and taught in the law schools at Duke University and the University of Southern California. He was appointed one of the original commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1949 by President Harry Truman, eventually becoming its chairman from 1950 to 1953. 

In short, he's hardly the usual suspect to offer entrepreneurs advice in 2012. Stick with me. 

When Dean died in a plane crash in 1958, it's said that among his personal effects was an envelope with nine life lessons scribbled on the back. These lessons aren't about the law, or atomic energy, or foreign relations. Rather, they represent wisdom that should be shared and used by people everywhere. 

These are his superb lessons:

1. Never lose your capacity for enthusiasm.
2. Never lose your capacity for indignation.
3. Never judge people. Don't type them too quickly. But in a pinch, never first assume that a man is bad; first assume that he is good and that, at worst, he is in the gray area between bad and good.
4. Never be impressed by wealth alone or thrown by poverty.
5. If you can't be generous when it's hard to be, you won't be when it's easy.
6. The greatest builder of confidence is the ability to do something--almost anything--well.
7. When confidence comes, then strive for humility; you aren't as good as all that.
8. The way to become truly useful is to seek the best that other brains have to offer. Use them to supplement your own, and be prepared to give credit to them when they have helped.
9. The greatest tragedies in the world and personal events stem from misunderstandings. So communicate!

The reason I'm so impressed with Dean's lessons is that--besides being written on an envelope--they apply across the board, to all ages in every profession. They are simple yet profound. 

Perhaps you remember Robert Fulghum's runaway best seller, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which the author says reminds us that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities. Again, the life lessons contained in Fulghum's book are not complicated. It is their simplicity that makes them universal. 

You may have noticed that I end every column with a moral--a life lesson of sorts. Some of those morals resulted from experiences that taught me I still have plenty to learn. We have all learned some lessons along the way, including plenty from the school of hard knocks.  

Mackay's Moral: We are all students of life--pay attention and take notes!

Harvey Mackay, author of The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World, is founder of the MackayMitchell Envelope Co. He has written six bestsellers, including Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. @HarveyMackay

Richard Branson's Plan to Fix the Student-Debt Mess

At a time when student-loan debt is crippling the American Dream, the British mogul has a big idea on how entrepreneurship can fix it.

Gulltaggen via Flickr

America has a big problem with student-loan debt.

The total amount of student debt surpassed the total amount of credit card debt in 2010, and the amount of all auto loans last year. That comes out to an average of more than $25,000 per graduate. On the human rather than statistical level, that means a host of horrific stories of recent grads saddled with humungous monthly payments at the very start of their careers.

So what's a budding entrepreneur to do? Follow in the famous footsteps of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and drop out of college before the loan burden gets too heavy? Try for a highly competitive alternative path, like Peter Thiel's 20 Under 20, or an uncredentialed path into much-in-demand tech jobs?

These options may work for a few incredibly talented and driven individuals, but they're highly risky and limited. Is there another solution to bridge the gap between high school and starting a business for more entrepreneurially minded young people? Virgin founder Richard Branson, himself a famous nongraduate, offered a suggestion while speaking recently at Salesforce's Dreamforce event in San Francisco.

Some of the mogul's most fascinating quotes from his conversation with Salesforce boss Marc Benioff were rounded up on Saleforce's blog, including this thought-provoking suggestion:

In the U.K, I have been lobbying the government to do entrepreneurial loans instead of student loans...For some people it's much better to just get out in the real world and say, 'Screw it. Let's do it,' and give it a go. You learn so much from being in the jungle and building a business from scratch.

The best way of learning about anything is by doing.

Here's the complete hour-long video of the interview if you're interested in the deep dive into Branson's remarks:

Of course, there are big differences in how student loans are handled in the U.K. and in the United States. British grads (at least since 1998) start to pay back their loans only after they've reached a certain income threshold (currently £15,000, or about $24,000). At that point, payment is determined as a percentage of income and is taken directly from their paycheck, much like Social Security in the States. The scheme is run by the government. 

This means implementing entrepreneurial loans in the U.K. would probably work much differently than any such scheme in the United States. But in both countries the case could be made that smaller amounts of debt given as entrepreneurial loans could help recipients earn more money more quickly than traditional student loans.

Do you think entrepreneurial loans could be part of the solution to the U.S. student-loan problem?  

 

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist. @EntryLevelRebel

The Way I Work: Fab.com's Jason Goldberg

In just two years, deal site Fab.com has reached $150 million in annual sales. But CEO Jason Goldberg tries to keep his team focused on why the company "sucks."

Mark Peterson

Full Transparency: Jason Goldberg's door is always open--the better to shout at his co-founder, Bradford Shellhammer.

In 2010, entrepreneurs Jason Goldberg and Bradford Shane Shellhammer had to face hard facts: Their gay social network, Fabulis.com, had flatlined at just 130,000 members. Rather than throw in the towel, they refocused the business on their shared love of great design and relaunched the company as Fab.com, a flash-sale site that offers a spectrum of chic items, including handcrafted furniture and avant-garde jewelry. In less than two years, Fab has grown to six million members, adding one million--a 20 percent bump--in July alone. The company is on track to finish 2012 with about $150 million in sales. As CEO, Goldberg oversees more than 400 employees spread among Fab's New York City headquarters and international offices. Goldberg spends a lot of his time refining the website, interviewing job candidates, and strategizing about how to make Fab a $1 billion company. He spoke with Liz Welch.

My co-founder, Bradford, and I decided from the beginning that we'd never make a single decision about what goes on the website based on how much money we'll make on a particular product. Instead, we ask, Will it make customers smile? Excite them? Make them tell their friends about it? The biggest realization I've had is that if you really want to build a successful business, it's not about how much money you're making. It's emotional. For us, it's how do we make our customers smile? Every single decision we make comes down to that.

The two of us split our responsibilities--he chooses every item that goes for sale on the site, and I focus on the user experience. Currently, Bradford has 50 design scouts who look for products worldwide. I spend all day thinking about how to make our Web and mobile design better for our customers.

I start my day at 6 every morning, and the first thing I do is check overnight emails. Our technology team is based in India, so they're ahead of us. After I respond to any urgent emails, I do my morning run on the treadmill at a full steep incline for 30 minutes. I try not to think about work. Instead, I watch TV shows on my iPad. Currently, I'm watching Curb Your Enthusiasm--I'm up to Season Six. My other favorite shows are Top Chef, Dexter, and Mad Men.

When I get to the office a little before 8 a.m., I have a Skype call with the India team and several New York-based managers, which often lasts until 10. We discuss conceptual ideas that we might want to work on as well as the nitty-gritty details of what we want to accomplish that day. We'll look at mockups and see how certain features are coming along. I'm very hands on in the design process: I'll literally measure pixels on the screen. I really believe that for Web and mobile design, less is more, so I spend a lot of time asking, "Do we really need that? Can we find a way to do without it?"

I carry a Behance notebook everywhere, in which I keep my to-do lists and ideas. I use a Lamy pen, which I bought on Fab---I've bought a lot of things on Fab, including my desk. I start every single day by taking my to-do list from the day before and copying the things that I didn't get to. During the day, I'm constantly sketching out ideas for the site about how to improve the browsing experience. Then, I use Keynote on my laptop to make quick mockups that I can share with my team. I fill up about a notebook a month. I label them so I can look back and see what I did the previous month.

Bradford and I probably talk to each other more than 100 times a day. Our offices are joined by a small shared conference room that has glass walls and sliding glass doors. The doors are always open so that Bradford and I can call over to each other while sitting at our desks. He is louder than I am. We designed the entire office space to be open--all the walls are glass. There is no hiding.

Bradford and I share an assistant, Tom Trocola. I'm pretty self-sufficient, but I travel so much these days that it's great to have Tom help with scheduling. He's also very good at making sure I remember to do things. My schedule's on my phone and my computer, but Tom reminds me when I need to be somewhere or if someone is waiting to meet or talk with me.

Once a week, we have an executive-management meeting with the heads of all the departments to talk at a high level about the business. Then, throughout the rest of the week, I have deep-dive meetings with each of the department heads to discuss details about specific projects.

I have an old HP 12C calculator, which I bring with me to every meeting. I'm a numbers geek. If numbers come up, I want to be able to calculate, say, the conversion rates or percentage of products sold.

As CEO, I see my job as setting the direction of the company and then figuring out how to get where we need to go. I hire smart people and give them the freedom to do what they need to do. But I've seen businesses fail when there's a lot of talk at the top but no action below that--so I like to do regular meetings to hear how people are doing at reaching the goals we set together.

We have a saying at Fab: We focus more on why we suck than why we're doing great. The goal of those meetings is to find out what is working and what's not in each department. For instance, we have great products, but we are not getting them to customers fast enough. I'm on a mission to change that. Currently, 75 percent of products are shipped through an outsourced warehouse partner, which takes an average of 12 days to get products to customers. We can do it in one to four days from our own warehouse, so we're building a new one in New Jersey now. My COO, Beth Ferreira, and I have regular meetings about this. She currently has 80 people on her team and is hiring 150 people to work at our new warehouse.

Liz Welch is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist who has written for The New York Times, Real Simple, Glamour, and Inc., among other publications. She is the co-author with her siblings of the recent book The Kids Are All Right, a highly regarded memoir of her childhood. @lizmwelch

6 Tricks To Build Your Business On Facebook--For Free

It's amazing how much business comes in over Facebook. And I don't pay Facebook--or anyone--a cent.

Scott Beale/Flickr

I love Facebook. Maybe it's because I have a short attention span and a PR degree, but there's just something exciting about sharing news in small, informal tidbits with friends and colleagues. Facebook helps me stay on top of world events, popular culture, business trends and the personal lives of my friends and colleagues. And I'm very surprised how much real business my company gets from Facebook - without any paid advertising.

Here are six ways to do it.

• Watch for distress signals About 10:30 pm on most Sunday nights, my overworked clients and prospects realize another week is about to start, and they vent a little. On Facebook. To nobody in particular. Late-night posts from exasperated clients are a gold mine for me and my business. I commonly see posts such as, 'Where are all the great PR consultants?' or 'Ugh! Wish I had help writing this executive presentation!' I usually reply with a gentle, 'Can I help?' to remind them of my company's services. 
• Be right there Facebook Chat is my secret weapon. During the course of my work day, I keep an eye on the lower right corner of the Facebook page to see who's online. Anyone with a green dot next to their name is usually sitting there, right now, and I know my message will grab their attention. That's the time to check in with a client about an invoice or ask a consultant if they're available for work. And I'll ask friends to spread the word about a new project, which often results in more business leads. 
• Promote others People love compliments, especially public ones. Use Facebook to shine a bright and happy light on your customers and colleagues. Congratulate them on a recent promotion or a successful project. Spread the word about their upcoming event or job opening. If they're mired in the details of their day, a thoughtful Facebook post may generate more than just warm fuzzies. 
• Collaborate Most high tech marketing clients rarely have time for a coffee or even a call, but their keyboard is rarely idle. Some will post a business-related question, and we can offer suggestions and solutions for their marketing projects. Virtual brainstorming is fun and powerful, and reinforces the partnership we've built with clients: We're always here to help, even when it doesn't require a purchase order.
• Competitive context Facebook helps me see my clients in the context of what their competitors are doing and better understand the pressure they're under. I can share an article and say, 'Did you see what your competitor announced? How does this affect you?' And if the client needs help differentiating their company, product or executive, it's the perfect opportunity for my company to make them look like a hero. 
• Stay tuned in Facebook is a gold mine if you need to know the latest celebrity gaffe, news item or trending video. The fun stuff glues us together and keeps us top of mind--as long as we're not annoying or too political. I'll send a direct Facebook message to a client or prospect with something fun or unique to our relationship--from a restaurant recommendation in Cabo San Lucas to a fascinating TED Talk video. 

In this day and age, putting up a firewall between your friends and your business associates--which many of us have done in the past--just no longer makes sense. Social media is designed to bring those barriers down, and they should come down. Your friends can help you in business, and your business connections can become your friends. That won't necessarily happen if you continue to compartmentalize both groups.

 

Rene Shimada Siegel is founder and president of High Tech Connect, a specialized consultant placement firm for marketing and communications experts. @renesiegel

Admit It: You Still Need a BlackBerry

What iPhone 5? Despite the hype around iPhones and Android devices, many business users still swear by their BlackBerrys.

Hugo Londoño/Flickr

What iPhone 5?

For some people, it doesn't matter how much buzz Apple's devices get; they're still die-hard BlackBerry users, thank you very much.

Despite Research in Motion's eroding market share, bad press, and plummeting stock price, the company still makes a phone that many say is simple to use and better for business tasks like typing emails.

In fact, in data collected for Inc.com, Visage, a start-up that aggregates and analyzes enterprise mobility purchases, revealed that 63% of workers at more than 200 U.S. companies still use BlackBerry phones.

Here are the Top 10 reasons small businesses are sticking with the BlackBerry--no matter what:

1. Speed of Email Access

BlackBerry users swear by their email access and speed. Bruce Coustillas, owner of Crystal Custom Eyewear, says he uses BlackBerry because of the push email. He says there is no extra setup involved to make this work--email just arrives on the phone automatically. In a side-by-side comparison, some users say they even get email a few minutes before it arrives on an iPhone or Android device.

2. Simplicity

Call it a dumbphone if you want, but one clear advantage to the BlackBerry--like a budget car or that one-size-fits-all shirt--is that the phones are not too complicated. Jeff Lewis, a spokesperson for Group M, a marketing company, says he plans to stick with the BlackBerry. He can quickly find the Web browser, email apps, and text-messaging tools. Fewer high-end functions--like one-click access to voice recognition or augmented reality apps--make the BlackBerry phone easier to use.

3. Better Security

Many BlackBerry phones force you to use a complex password--this is a feature that your IT department probably created to make sure your company is safe from hacking. More consumer-oriented phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III also offer authentication, but some of the features can be easily bypassed. (For example, the facial-recognition security will work if someone who has a head that's a similar size and shape to your own tries to tap into your phone.) Amy Zhang, a managing member of Affinity Fund Services, says her company uses BlackBerry because of the need for better security.

4. Fast Typing

I have not experienced this problem myself, but some BlackBerry users say the touchscreen keyboards on phones like the iPhone 4S and the Nokia Lumia series do not respond well to finger presses. This is partly based on the size of your fingers and whether you need tactile feedback, although many phones use haptic technology to send a slight buzz when you touch the virtual keys. Tracy Wemett, the president of BroadPR, swears by the BlackBerry keyboard: It's faster than any touch phone.

5. BlackBerry Messenger

Some users have stayed with the BlackBerry Messenger client. Wemett says many of her colleagues and vendors also use this platform, which is like SMS text messaging from a carrier but works through the BlackBerry's Net connection. Familiarity is a common explanation: We trust what we know.

6. More Privacy

Some BlackBerry users are not big fans of the Google privacy policies. Deb McAlister-Holland, who manages a marketing consulting company, says she won't use any Google products and has decided to stick with the BlackBerry platform instead. She also says those who prefer iPhone and Android phones may view this as a generational issue--she has no need for the extra apps and services.

Do you swear by your BlackBerry? Let me know why in the comments.

John Brandon is a contributing editor at Inc. magazine and writes the Tech Trends column in every issue. He also writes the Tech Report column for Inc.com. @jmbrandonbb

3 Reasons Good Strategies Fail

So that great new strategy failed miserably. But there might not be anything wrong with the strategy. Take another look.

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Often times a perfectly fine strategy is implemented, but rather than giving it time to show results, the postmortems begin almost immediately.

We've all experienced the frustration of realizing that a highly prized, hard-fought-for, innovative strategy has gone south. 

You know the pattern: Hopeful execution is followed by poor results; then there's an initial period of denial, after which you double down on execution; then comes the pang of recognition that this just ain't gonna work; and finally the painful process of unraveling from what you now accept was a flawed strategy to begin with.

Sound familiar? I see this pattern repeat frequently in the leadership teams I work with, but I've also noticed something else. Around two-thirds of the time, there's nothing actually wrong with the strategy itself.

The core problem lies elsewhere.

Here are the three most common reasons good strategies go bad, and how to fix them without ditching the strategy itself:

1. You throw out the baby with the bathwater.The implementation of a new strategy often involves hiring or promoting someone who is specifically tasked with the implementation of that strategy: a designer for the splashy, expensive new website, perhaps, or a business development exec for the new strategic push into Asia.

Sometimes--often, in fact--we get the hiring wrong.

And, as a result, the strategy fails or seems to. Truth is, there may well be nothing wrong with the strategy. It's just that you hired the wrong person to execute it. But because hiring is difficult, we often just dump the strategy rather than go through the tortuous hiring process again.

So next time you realize you've put the wrong person in place to execute a strategy, don't dump the strategy. Take a deep breath and, instead, find the right person to implement it.

2. You pull up the plant to look at the roots. Who plants a sapling then pulls it up every week to see how the roots are coming along? That would be dumb, right? And yet I see it happen with strategic implementation all the time. A perfectly fine strategy is implemented, but rather than giving it time to show results, the postmortems begin almost immediately. 

And if results aren't forthcoming quickly enough, we start tinkering with the strategy--the strategic equivalent of pulling it up by the roots and replanting it over and over again.

Here's what I ask executives in the strategic-planning stage: Would you rather this strategy fail in six months or succeed in 12? Sounds like a no-brainer, but if the answer is that you want it to succeed in 12 months, then it's up to you to be patient and give it that long to bear fruit.

3. You didn't execute. Remember Netflix's recent pricing blunder? Some research analysts calculate that the company could have lost up to 30% of its recurring income as a result of the ham-handed way it tried to split subscriber plans between DVD rentals and streaming downloads.

The fact is, splitting the physical DVD rental business from the streaming download market makes a lot of sense. In fact, strategically, Netflix will have to find a way to make this happen if it is to remain competitive in both markets.

The problem wasn't with the strategy. The problem lay with the clumsy tactics the company used. So next time a strategy of yours goes belly up, ask yourself, Is it really the strategy that's at fault, or does the problem lie with how you executed it? If the latter, gird your loins, make the changes you need, and try again.

Les McKeown is the author of the bestseller Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization on the Growth Track--and Keeping It There and is the CEO of Predictable Success, a leading advisor on accelerated organizational growth. His latest book is The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success. @lesmckeown @lesmckeown

A Smarter Way to Hire Millennials

Sometimes millennials are the best candidates for the job. Here's how to find and hire the right ones.

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At my company, User Insight, we work to understand the usage and impact of new technologies and trends.

Because millennials--roughly speaking, those who were born in the early 1980s to early 2000s--have grown up using technology, adapt quickly to new trends, and have learned the basics of how to apply both to real-world problems, some of the best candidates to fill the jobs I have at User Insight come from their talent pool. The challenge, though, is how to find and hire the right ones.

Millennials don't do typical job searches. They don't post resumés or search job boards, and their overall style is far more casual.

Here's what I've learned you need to do to recruit your own millennial talent:

1. Forget about recruiters.

Millennials don't trust professional recruiters. They believe recruiters are going to "sell" them a job, and they know there are far better ways to find one. The millennials' No. 1 approach to job hunting is to build strong social networks--online and offline. They see this as a way to enhance their job search--and their lives in general.

Look to LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and even Facebook to start to prequalify potential young talents and determine if they could be a good fit for your company.

2. Don't do interviews.

You and your company have been completely vetted before a millennial walks in the door. Millennials expect that you are doing the same to them.

There is so much information available about you and, likewise, your potential candidate, an interview with a millennial should be more of a continuing conversation about what you already know about each other. A positive outcome of this is that it moves the hiring process along much quicker.

A word of caution: If you think that participating in social media or posting your thoughts and ideas on a blog are a waste of time, a millennial is likely to feel the same about you and your company. This may be one of the roadblocks standing between you and millennial talent.

3. Meet informally.

Millennial style overall is more casual. So it's important to meet millennials in a setting that is less formal. This will help you get a truer sense of their talent. Also, adjust your expectations. You might have the best person for the job in front of you, but because he or she is not as formal as are members of other generations--in dress, language, or overall appearance--you might dismiss someone prematurely.

4. Encourage employee referrals.

Ask your millennial employees to refer others they've worked with in the past. Their contact lists of prior colleagues is vast and talented, and millennials always know someone great who is looking for a new job.

If you use this resource wisely, your millennial staff members will point you to like-minded individuals who will fit well with your company culture. This doesn't circumvent sticking to your standard hiring process but offers an avenue for introducing potentially viable candidates into your pool. Recently, I had a millennial leave User Insight; from her network, she helped locate and hire her replacement.

5. Keep a hot list.

It's true; millennials don't stay in jobs long. To help tackle this, I'm always "hiring," even if I don't have a position open. You never know when and where you might meet someone, and even if you don't hire that person right away, you might have a need in the immediate future.

I keep a short list of millennial candidates I can reach out to quickly. Just as in sales, if you never stop hiring, you'll always have talented people waiting in the wings when one of your millennials gets bored and is ready to move on.

Millennials have truly embraced the new age by successfully doing personal networking to get new jobs. Learn how to join them in conversation, and you will never have to post a job opening again.

Eric V. Holtzclaw is CEO and founder of User Insight, a user-experience strategy and consulting firm. Holtzclaw's weekly radio show, The "Better You" Project, shines a spotlight on entrepreneurs' business journeys. @eholtzclaw

3 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Businesses

We mostly hear about what great businesses do well. But there are lessons to be learned from the traits that keep many businesses from reaching their potential.

Grant Faint/Getty

Plenty has been written about the characteristics of highly successful businesses. We think it is worthwhile to understand the traits of unsuccessful companies. If you identify the factors that are limiting your business's success, you may generate new ideas about how to earn a better return.

There are three key inhibitors to any management team's ability to build a successful business.

1. They believe that their circumstances are unchangeable and therefore don't act.
2. They do not set milestones for their journey.
3. They do not reevaluate along the way.

"Unchangeable" Circumstances

There are always options and choices. For our business, we can change the way we address our customers, our employees, or our goals. We won't always be able to change all three--but there will never be a time when we can't change any one of them.

In our experience, when successful management teams objectively view the facts, they are able to see options and flexibility. For example, not all business assets are on the balance sheet: Customer engagement and loyalty, relationships, and location (to name a few) can always be leveraged for growth beyond the four corners that your business now occupies. Opportunities always exist, even in difficult circumstances.

Lack of Milestones

Milestones let us know we are heading down the right track. Unsuccessful businesses will not identify what success "looks like" and will not create the metrics that measure their successes. Growth and profitability alone are not sustainable without milestones.

When we plan for what we want, we get there a lot faster. To set milestones, first identify where you want the company to be in five years, based on metrics tied to the drivers of value creation. Then work backward to the present day, outlining the important steps and achievements that need to happen along the way. Finally, prominently display and really celebrate the milestones as you reach each one.

Lack of Follow-up

After leadership teams do the hard work to objectively view facts, engage key personnel, and plan milestones, they need to follow up by reevaluating their plans on a regular basis. Unsuccessful companies often push reevaluation low on the to-do list.

Perhaps your strenuously developed strategy isn't working. Or maybe everything is going exactly to plan, but everyone is miserable. In either case, you need to rethink your plan and make whatever changes are required to get back on track. One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes about career satisfaction can also be extended to business strategy: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been 'no' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

Unsuccessful businesses don't always have to be on the brink of decline or failure. An unsuccessful business could be doing nominally well but be missing huge market potential. By continuously addressing circumstances as changeable, creating milestones, and performing comprehensive evaluation, your team will reach more of its potential.

What does your business do to stay ahead of the curve? Let us know your story at karlandbill@avondalestrategicpartners.com.

Avondale associate Marc Uible contributed to this article.

Karl Stark and Bill Stewart are managing directors and co-founders of Avondale, a strategic advisory firm focused on growing companies. Avondale, based in Chicago, is a high-growth company itself, and is a two-time Inc. 500 award recipient. @karlstark

It's Time to Ditch Your Dress Code

Talented people are as diverse as the clothes they wear. You may be stifling your employees with your dress policy.

Stephen Simpson/Getty

When I got out of college, in 1989, I worked double duty: My primary job was for a local TV station called WCBS-TV during the day, and my second job was at Express, a hip retail company, in the evening. (New York City is expensive out of college, no?) Both places required that their people dress pretty sharp (even if we were never in front of clients), and Express even made us wear pantyhose if our legs were showing. Archaic? Today, maybe. But each business wanted its image to be "put together" and its people to be the same.

Fast-forward more than a few years to my email marketing company, VerticalResponse, and you'll often see myself and my team in jeans and T-shirts. Why? I think it's important that people are comfortable in their clothes each and every day. Even when we go to trade shows, we oftentimes wear pretty casual clothes. When I speak in front of large audiences, I'll dress up in a pair of dark jeans with a jacket. (How conservative!) In general, I want our customers to know that they're doing business with real and generally casual people.

But it's not the same for every company. Tech companies are different from law offices, which are different from car detailing shops, which are different from construction sites, and so on. You need to have the proper dress code for each.

I do believe that if more "cubicle"-type companies offered a more casual work environment, they might just attract more talent. Talented people are as diverse as the clothes they wear.

Some benefits that might be considered if a corporate dress code goes casual:

1. People get creative. At VerticalResponse, we had "great shoes Friday," which made dressing up to work fun. We even had people vote for their faves!

2. People love to wear their logo'd hoodies wherever they go; a great culture driver.

3. Our employees are comfortable doing their work in what they want to wear, not what we require them to.

4. No one judges colleagues for what they're wearing.

5. There is less stress on "picking the right outfit" each and every morning.

The worst dress-code experience I've had: a lovely engineer who showed up to work in a bathrobe and Birks. Not a good look if you have people coming into the office; your jeans, all of a sudden, look like a tuxedo!

Do you have any great (or horror) stories you can share?

Did you enjoy this post? If so, sign up for the free VR Buzz weekly newsletter and check out the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service e-mail and event marketing, online surveys, social media, and direct mail solutions. The company was ranked No. 1,771 on the 2011 Inc. 5000. @janinepopick

5 Personalities Your Company Needs

It's natural to hire like-minded people. But by doing so, you might be missing crucial ingredients for your company's success.

Henrik Sorensen/Getty

Typically, leaders think to build teams based on job title: CTO, CMO, VP of Engineering, Director of Sales.

While functional leadership roles must certainly be filled, slotting talented people into an org chart will never unlock your company's fullest potential.

By thinking of your team only in terms of roles, you risk building a group with homogeneous cultural attributes. This is an easy trap to fall into, as we tend to hire like-minded people, often in our own image. But by doing so, we miss crucial ingredients for success by passing over candidates who just might be the difference makers.

Rather than only looking at educational background and functional experience, make sure your organization has each of these personality types:

The Visionary
While the rest of the company is heads down on the challenges of the day, someone needs to be heads up, willing to dream wildly and think ahead. When your organization has a senior leader who focuses on what's possible and breathes reinvention, you ­­­have a chance to reach those stellar, dreamed-about heights. Without this foresight, you run the disastrous risk of sliding into bureaucratic mediocrity. Growth won't happen by protecting old ideas. You must employ a champion to push the organization forward into uncharted waters.

The Executor
As a venture capitalist, I regularly see start-ups sputter because they're so focused on vision that they don't take the unsexy, detail-oriented work seriously. If your team is all grandeur and no precision, you'll end up lagging behind instead of accelerating ahead. It is rare to find a founder who is world-class at both vision and execution, so make sure there is balance to your team. Countless great visions crashed and burned because there was no one owning the role of disciplined follow-through until completion. 

The Customer Advocate
Someone has to live and breathe for your customers. A deep, empathetic understanding of your customers' wants and needs can make the difference between realizing enormous success and fizzling out. Many companies start with a brilliant insight on how to better serve customer needs, but then make the shift to an internal focus as they grow. A key leader who never loses touch with the market satisfaction is as important as keeping the lights on.

The Street Fighter
Academic, manicured approaches rarely work in fast-growing companies. Irrespective of job title, someone needs to be the voice of grit and determination. The courage and commitment to do whatever it takes to achieve cannot be understated. In the words of Alexander the Great, "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." 

The Promoter
The average customer sees more than 3,000 brand messages a day, so someone on your leadership team needs to be in the zone while pounding on the table and demanding attention. Unless a team member is foaming at the mouth to shout your story from the mountaintops, you'll be lost in the nonstop noise. Think of the magic that Steve Jobs, Oprah, and Donald Trump have unleashed to make ignoring them simply impossible.

In the same way that a football team loses if it has all running backs and no defensive tackles, your organization is at risk if it's missing key personality attributes. It is possible that some individuals may possess multiple traits; just make sure each characteristic is represented with strength around the leadership table. 

It's time to think of your org chart by leadership traits instead of functional roles. Get this right, and you'll be unstoppable.

Josh Linkner is a five-time entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and professor and the New York Times best-selling author of Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity. You can read more at JoshLinkner.com. @JoshLinkner

14 Early Signs of Successful Entrepreneurship

Is an entrepreneur made...or born? Successful young business owners share how their start-up abilities showed up early in their lives.

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The Young Entrepreneur Council asked 14 successful young entrepreneurs about being bitten by the start-up bug early in life. Here are their best answers.

1. A Special Kind of Teenage Angst
I don't think I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I did know I always wanted to be an independent creator. From a very young age, I was writing long stories, starting secret societies, and dreaming up imaginary brands. And as a teenager, I hated that I was expected to work menial summer jobs just to "pay my dues." I think the entrepreneurial seed was planted then, when I got good and mad! --Amanda Aitken, The Girl's Guide to Web Design

2. The Early Quest for Autonomy
In elementary school, I was trying to sell not only my own toys but also, for example, my uncle's products to friends and family for a profit. In high school, I worked part-time jobs for 20 hours a week and used the cash to go to music festivals and on backpacking trips abroad. It was a continuous quest for autonomy, which I have now found as an entrepreneur. 
--Christopher Pruijsen, Letslunch.com

3. Custom-Built Computers--Before Dell
In high school, I really wanted a new computer but couldn't afford the ones at Best Buy. So I convinced my cousin to take me to a computer trade show, where I was able to acquire parts from suppliers to build my own for a third of the price. It was a no-brainer then to start doing the same for my friends and their families at a modest profit. It lasted until Dell became mainstream! --W. Michael Hsu, DeepSky

4. Just Some Posterboard and a Suit
When I was 8, I'd create presentations for my parents on posterboards and an easel (this was pre-PowerPoint), put on a suit, and conduct official meetings, where I would carefully lay out my rationale as to why I should get a pet or get my ears pierced. Once I learned what "sales" were, I realized I may have a proclivity for them! --Darrah Brustein, Finance Whiz Kids | Equitable Payments

5. Selling Lost Golf Balls to Golfers!
As a kid, I knew every hidden spot on the local golf course where a golfer might lose his ball. I'd pick them out of the ponds, find them in the thick rough, and in the woods. The next day, I'd sell them back to them at the clubhouse or through my first online business on eBay. --Matt Wilson, Under30CEO.com

6. A Persistent Kid With Big Dreams
I'm not sure I identified, before starting my company, that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I definitely displayed signals of having the core skill set necessary to be successful in entrepreneurship. My favorite example is my quest, as a teenager, to become an actress. I didn't have the look or the talent, but I persisted past a million nos to finally land an agent and two commercials. --Lauren Friese, TalentEgg 

7. Love of Publishing and Video Games
I didn't know I was a child entrepreneur until I became an adult entrepreneur and realized that writing my own newsletter at the age of 11 was a little ahead of its time. I was your average teenager who loved playing video games and decided that if I printed and distributed reviews, I could receive free "review copies." And thus I was an editor of a video-game newsletter at 11 years old! --Alex Frias, Track Marketing Group

8. Making a Magazine and Lending Library
I used to collect stories from my friends and write my own stories, and then type them up into my own magazine. Then I'd go back to my friends and family and sell them a copy of the magazine. I also had a lending library, where my friends could pay to borrow my books, and I would use the proceeds to buy new books. Cheeky, I know! --Nathalie Lussier, The Website Checkup Tool

9. Serving Countless Sour Clients
When I was young, I set up a lemonade stand right next to my sister's and charged twice her price. I made more money than she did--until people found out it was the same lemonade. I found out you can make a lot of money as an entrepreneur, but that you have to offer the client real, substantial value to sustain it. I was hooked at that point! --Nick Friedman, College Hunks Hauling Junk

10. Rethinking Uniforms
Entrepreneurship is for anyone at any age, but certainly for me and most founders I know, signs were there early on that we'd go down an entrepreneurial path. One of my first ventures was in middle school: A co-founder and I offered more stylish Physical Education uniforms for fellow students. But the school was not pleased with students' popular new PE halter tops...so, on to the next venture! --Doreen Bloch, Poshly 

11. Always Open to Opportunities
Having grown up in an entrepreneurial household, I was told from a young age: "If you ever want to make something of your life, you must be an entrepreneur." At the age of 4, I created and sold artwork to my neighbors, and when I realized I could make money at such a young age, I wanted more of it. I continued to brainstorm and create new opportunities every year since then! --Charles Gaudet, Predictable Profits

12. Trading Up for Better Toys
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My father was a successful entrepreneur, and this encouraged me to follow his lead. I used to sell the toys I got for Christmas when I was done playing with them and trade up to bigger toys I wanted. I was cutting lawns, shoveling driveways, delivering papers, and detailing cars and boats when I was 10. I wanted to make money! --DC Fawcett, Paramount Digital Publishing

13. Young Master of Partnerships
I started my first business in middle school, when I was 11 years old, by partnering with an artist friend of mine. He would draw people's names artistically on a sheet of paper, and we'd charge 50 cents for the drawing. He was the "manufacturer," and I was the "salesman." We made enough to pay for our lunches every day--up until the principal shut down our gig! --Chad French, PeerFly

14. Constant Convergent Thinking, Early
I wasn't constantly selling or inventing as a child, but I had the knack of thinking of a dozen ways to solve a problem or look at a question. Being able to see lots of options, evaluate them, and make a suggestion paved the way to my work as a consultant, where there is not often one "right" answer. Blame it on being raised by an engineer! --Kelly Azevedo, She's Got Systems

The Young Entrepreneur Council is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC published #FixYoungAmerica, a book of proven solutions to youth unemployment. @TheYEC