How to Identify New Opportunities – the Robot Way

”See the need, fill the need” - this is a quote from the film Robots, which I recently watched with my children. Robots is a fun movie to watch, and Robin Williams stands out as a great voice in this animated feature.

In this film the main character, Rodney Copperbottom, is the child of a dishwasher. In order to help his dad, who comes home exhausted every night, Rodney builds a working prototype that will clean all the dishes. The machine was invented to give his dad more satisfaction and better results, meaning that dad and son would be able to spend more quality time together. Rodney saw a need, and looked for a way to solve the problem.

In the book ”5 Patterns of an Extraordinary Careers” - a survey of over 2,000 successful executives - one of the keys for those that succeeded was that they overcame the "permission paradox". I often hear people complain they can't find a role or a way to solve a particular type of problem. In many cases, they wait for the solution to be presented to them. Yet some of the great stories of our time come from seeing a need, finding a way to solve the problem, and then figuring how to turn the experience into a new opportunity or business.

Think Google, think EBay, think iTunes, think Toyota Prius, think Home Depot, think Starbucks. These are world class companies – their founders saw a need and filled it. This leads to two questions:

1 How do you see it?

2. How do you fill it?

Both are key. Here's where you come in. Please share with me some of your thoughts and comments on these questions - alan@CareerJoy.com - next week I will share some of your thoughts with the rest of the readers.

What do Elections and Careers have in Common?

Now, I know there are two things we are
not "supposed" to discuss -politics and sex. However, I
am a bit of a political junkie. While you may not agree
with the politicians themselves, the principles they use
to get elected can be learned from (at least the ethical
ones!)

I just watched an interesting documentary on the
campaign for the 2002 election. The politicians hired
GCS consultants to help them with their messaging,
polling, and strategy. The "C" in GCS stands for James
Carvelle. Does that name sound familiar? It may very
well, as he was the architect of the Clinton win in
1992.

Since that time, James has worked on elections around
the world with campaigns in wide ranging countries
such as Ireland and Russia. His team has developed a
methodology that can be applied to any election in any
country around the world. The principles are universal,
even though the issues are local.

To get the win for Goni (the candidate whom they were
working for), for example, Carvelle's team had to
determine what the big issues were for the population
of Bolivia. They then continually tweaked their campaign
message to best expose the weaknesses of their
opponents, and position Goni as the people's best
choice for leading Bolivia.

Carvelle's team employed tools consisting of polls,
focus groups, and advertisements. They used a
scientific process to gather data, and then brought in
James (the big gun!) to interpret the data, provide
input on a strategy, and guide their candidate along
the trail to winning the election. Their message was
"The Brand of Crisis: our experience is what you
need" (at that time, Bolivia was undergoing
tremendous challenges).

4 principles:

Find the needs of the market

Get your message in tune with the needs

Clarify and repeat your message as often as
possible

Tweak when necessary

CareerJoy has the tools and experience to help our
clients with all four principles so that they too can
win. Write to us if you're interested in having an
experienced team in your corner (info@careerjoy.com).

How to Get a Lucky Break

Recently there was an award banquet for the Young Entrepreneur Awards. The participants were from across the country, and were all under the age of 35.

One of the winners was Melody Dover. She is 34 and lives in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Melody is the founder of Fresh Media Inc., an organization that does web design and branding work on the east coast.

I was fascinated by her story - three years ago she fell and broke her right wrist. Now, you have to understand that at the time, she was a graphic designer. It was a bit difficult to do design work with her wrist in a cast, to say the least!

For some people this would be absolutely terrible. While the injury was painful for her, both professionally and personally, it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

In Melody’s own words; "With my arm in a cast, I realized I had to expand my skills. I took the Interactive Multimedia course at Holland College." While taking the course, she won first prize in Animediafest. This led to the start of people approaching her to do work for them. She said; "I realized this was a great opportunity."

With $2,000, some used equipment, and a small office, away she went and launched her own company. Melody's broken wrist, but more importantly her mindset, enabled her to see this as a “lucky break”. She took courageous and appropriate action to move forward in her life.

As they say - "break a leg"! It could be the best thing that ever happens to you.

The Ipod Way

Ipod is really hot these days. Apple, the computer company, is now “The Music Company”. The person behind it all, from the very beginning, is Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and current CEO.

Now, I have a confession to make. I love all of Apple’s products. CareerJoy is a Mac shop – great quality products, easy to use, and boy, do they ever know how to package!

Steve Jobs never finished university. He started a computer company in his garage with a friend (sound familiar?) and launched what became the PC revolution. Despite Apple’s success, however, Bill Gates still won the war.

Steve also started up Pixar (yes, the people who brought us Toy Story and the Incredibles). And more recently, for the Trinity of success, he launched Ipod, which, in four short years, has become a runaway success. Ipod has sold over 22 million, and owns 74% of the market. In addition, Itunes owns 84% of the download market and sells 2 million songs a day at 99 cents a pop. Not a bad business to be in!

About 1 year ago, Steve went to see his doctor, only to discover that he had a pancreatic tumour that was expected to kill him in a matter of months. However, later that same day, doctors discovered they could cut out the tumour - it was in an unusually fortunate spot.

Steve spoke of this experience at Stanford University’s commencement ceremonies this year; "Death is very likely the single best invention in life. All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving what is truly important." He added that his journey of facing death was the thing that focused his mind and his life; "Always do what you love and never settle."

I think that Steve dealt with this issue, like others in his life, with thoughtfulness and courage. He searched for the lesson in this unbelievable life challenge.

Are you doing what you love? Or are you settling? It is very, very easy to settle, and yet, there always is a cost. For most people, it takes a significant external event to "wake us up out of the stupor of life”.

Hopefully I can encourage you to take the pill before the sickness. Email us at info@careerjoy.com.