This WSJ article’s a hot item for retweeting on Twitter presently — I’ve boomeranged it myself. But a good read and well worth a blog:

FEBRUARY 23, 2009 | COVER STORY
So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur
First, answer these questions to see if you have what it takes

1. Are you willing and able to bear great financial risk?

2. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle for potentially many years?

3. Is your significant other on board?

4. Do you like all aspects of running a business?

5. Are you comfortable making decisions on the fly with no playbook?

6. What’s your track record of executing your ideas?

7. How persuasive and well-spoken are you?

8. Do you have a concept you’re passionate about?

9. Are you a self-starter?

10. Do you have a business partner?

Here’s the article, with details addressing each of the above.

As an adjunct, I just IM’d to a budding entrepreneur: “As long as you have a relatively clear vision, an idea targeting a growth sector, a network of people you can count on, a day job or some money in the bank, and an indefatigable passion to see your baby through to success, you should be in good shape to take the leap.” Though, I suppose I neglected to point out that a little luck and, voilà(!), magic always helps….

Posted by: Colin Mangham

We’re pleased to announce, albeit in a quiet voice, that the HENAAC Board of Directors has voted [unanimously], and the initial fruits of our labors begun with a comprehensive Brand Audit will soon be manifest in the public domain.

Wait, HENAAC? Hmm? Yes, we know, we’re working on that. But it stands (or, once stood) for Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards. The non-profit was founded in 1989 “as a means of identifying, honoring, and documenting the contributions of outstanding Hispanic American science, engineering, technology and math professionals.” Today the Los Angeles-based organization is heightening its focus on educational programs that both develop and inspire the professionals who will be honored by the HENAAC conference in years to come.

If you’re doing the math, and even if you’re not, 1989 to present day makes for a 20th Anniversary this year, and we’re proud to be a part of the moment and, indeed, the movement. Now, more than ever, we need to not just preserve but significantly increase America’s strength in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and our inner cities and other under-served communities hold amazing promise as the talent pools for future success. Hats off to HENAAC for continuing to stoke the fires and stay the visionary course. More news soon….

More on HENAAC here: www.henaac.org

Posted by: Colin Mangham

A longtime colleague pinged me in Facebook today regarding the Friedman article I plucked from Twitter threads and blogged about yesterday. His question, and it’s a good one: “Does it need to be one or the other?” My reply: Not at all. I think this is mostly concepted in cartoon. But I mainly like the notion of helping entrepreneurs and small business (no thanks to American Express) do their part in reviving the economy.

If we’re meant to be in the quote-unquote Creative Economy, with our number one export being or soon to be intellectual property, we’ve got to get behind the innovators, the visionaries, the guys in a garage thinking up the Next Big New Thing that the big boys (in tech, in auto, in government, in aerospace, in manufacturing/distribution, in the energy sector, etc.) will roll up into their big machines to pump it all out to the masses for, yes, the Greater Good.

But, again, yes, I agree, it’s not black-n-white, all or nothing, this or that or, particularly, Left or Right … this economy and its constituent stakeholders is an ecosystem as complex as the human body. Let’s just keep a focus on what’s good, what’s positive, what can bind us all together to harness all the hope out there and spin it into gold, that would be nice, but also food, water, shelter, comfort and confidence. Ever-forward….

He replied: “I agree. How do we get people to “unclench their fists”?

Now that will require some pondering, along with, for good measure, clicking the heels of ruby slippers and repeating “there’s no place like home … there’s no place like home … there’s no place like home…”

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Great to see more and more voices the likes of Thomas Friedman (NY Times article yesterday) helping to more effectively illuminate the role of entrepreneurial America in getting things back on track. Wait, no, maybe that’s the wrong figure of speech … it’s not that we need to get back on the same old track, but rather we need to blaze new trails and interconnect millions of tiny tracks. A topic for a longer discussion, for sure.

Now, Friedman’s model would need some tweaking of course. We know that. He knows that. It’s largely written in chalk to make a point. And I’m not suggesting baby-out-with-bathwater regarding the current stimulus plan. But the driving premise is compelling and necessary: entrepreneurs, many of whom will be former c-level execs forced into such roles, comprise the beating heart of what is, can and should be next for our economy.

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22friedman.html?_r=2

Excerpt: “Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country, and it is not how we’ll get out of this crisis … You want to spend $20 billion of taxpayer money creating jobs? Fine. Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners — university endowments and pension funds — are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose. If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors’ upside and keep 80 percent for themselves.”

“As we invest taxpayer money, let’s do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech, info-tech, nanotech and clean-tech companies, with real innovators, real 21st-century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers. Our motto should be, “Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don’t nurse the old G.M.’s.”

Posted by: Colin Mangham

I initially read this a couple years ago when it first came out; lives up to most of its hype with interesting perspectives on brands.

Example: Rapaille cites the Jeep as having a different positioning (both in the corporate communications and in the minds of consumers) in the US than it does in Europe. The author states that the “American experience with Jeeps is very different from the French and German experience because our cultures evolved differently (we have strong cultural memories of the open frontier; the French and Germans have strong cultural memories of occupation and war).

Therefore, the Codes — the meaning we give to the Jeep at an unconscious level — are different as well.” As such, the Jeep may be positioned as highly utilitarian in Europe, but as a vehicle to take on the elements and the proverbial Great Outdoors in the US. ~Colin Mangham