Here's a first draft of content for the bifold brochure for Meeting of Minds, one of my two new
businesses.
Please excuse the formatting. Comments are welcome.
I'll show you the draft brochure for The Caring Enterprise Coach later this month.
Welcome
to a meeting of minds
Meeting of Minds
is a collaborative, equal partnership of experienced independent
consultants,
technologists, innovators, learning experts and information
specialists. Our
partners each possess unique and specialized skills essential to the
delivery of our offerings. We have no hierarchy, no physical assets, no
front or back office, no overhead, no bureaucracy, and no employees.
We
pool our intellectual assets – expertise, skills, experience, networks,
and leading edge thinking, tools and technologies. We bring agility,
economy,
efficiency, reach and depth that no limited, hierarchical professional
services organization can match.
The products and
services of Meeting of Minds fall into three clusters:
|
|
Solution cluster 1:
improving front-line effectiveness
A major challenge for
business in
the 21st century is improving the productivity and effectiveness of
increasingly specialized, mobile, business-critical, time-challenged
front line
workers, and at last realizing, as a result, a healthy return on the
business’ major investment in deployed information technology.
The traditional model of
‘knowledge
management’, where top-down, centrally managed, standardized knowledge
bases, loadsets and ‘productivity suites’ are pushed, cookie-cutter
style, to all your employees, have not worked. Nor have attempts to
‘capture’ internal best practices and know-how in massive, central,
indexed
repositories.
The Meeting of Minds approach is
completely different, and is based on our members’ learnings from
failed knowledge management and one-size fits all IT deployment programs worldwide.
In contrast to the
traditional model, our approach is personal and customized to the needs
of each front-line worker. It extends the boundaries of your
organization by allowing everyone to tap into the personal internal and
external networks of everyone -- to bring to bear, just-in-time, the
best
minds on the planet to solve your business problems, not just the
information that your employees happen to have written down in case it
was needed again.
Our four offerings in
this Cluster
are implementations of a new set of front-line focused technologies
called Social Networking Applications, voted 2003’s “Technology of the
Year” by Business 2.0
magazine. They are:
Personal Content Management:
Simple, leading-edge tools and processes that allow individuals to
organize, manage, add to and share the knowledge that they have on
their desktop. These tools, customized and stripped down versions of
commercial 'weblogs', also allow this personal, organized collection of
knowledge to be shared, simply and automatically, with others at the
individual's discretion, and likewise permit your front-line people to
browse and subscribe to the personal knowledge collection of others,
inside and outside the organization, reciprocally, worldwide. The PCM
tool therefore serves as the individual's proxy, e-filing cabinet, CV
and calling card.
Expertise Location:
Simple, boundaryless networking tools that allow individuals to find
world-class expertise inside or outside the organization to solve large
and small business problems quickly and effectively. These tools,
customized versions of commercial social networking applications, can
tap into PCM knowledge and the assessments of others outside the
business to enrich and extend the search for expertise, automatically
collect and maintain a 'super address book' of expertise to provide
instant, multiple points of contact with identified experts, and can
even be used to contract to buy from or sell to those outside the
organization.
Simple Virtual Presence:
Simple, professional laptop based tools that provide one-click
multimedia access to anyone in each employee's 'super address book',
and virtual presence at any conference. Used in connection with a
rotatable laptop camera and headset, these tools simultaneously show a
view of the person you're talking to, the document or presentation
you're collaborating on, and any sidebar instant messaging
conversations you're participating in.
Personal Productivity Improvement:
Short, focused, pre-researched, one-on-one sessions with each of your
front line people that address the specific technology and information
challenges of each individual, configure their computer for optimal
personal use, provide useful leave-behind reminder tips ('cheat
sheets'), and identify and report back to management systemic knowledge
and technology problems that are hampering employee effectiveness on a
wider scale. These sessions hone employees' problem-solving,
researching, analysis and communication, consultation, collaboration
and technology use skills in the context of what they do in their
individual roles, in ways that work for them.
Social
Networking Applications, properly designed and implemented, are as easy
to use as a telephone, and function intuitively, allowing individuals
to do electronically and virtually what they now do physically, in an
analogous manner, without the need for substantial training.
These products and
services can be used to
innovate, reinvigorate, enhance, and improve the effectiveness and
value of your IT, Learning and Information/ Knowledge Management teams
and processes, and enhance the productivity of everyone in your
organization.
We work closely with the
people at
both the top and front lines of your organization to achieve these
improvements. We do not reduce cost or the need for people in your
organization. Instead, we enable your existing staff to do
significantly more, in areas that are strategic, even critical to your
business’ success, and to do so more effectively.
|
|
|
|
|
Traditional,
Failed Approach
|
Meeting
of Minds Approach
|
Content
Management Strategy
|
Large,
centrally- managed repositories
|
Personal,
individually- managed repositories
|
Knowledge
Acquisition Strategy
|
Internal
employees contribute to central repositories
|
Individual
repositories are connected peer-to-peer
|
Knowledge
Deployment Strategy
|
Centrally-available
knowledge is promoted
|
Individual
repositories are 'published' and 'subscribed' to
|
Knowledge
Re-use Strategy
|
Search
repositories for previously contributed knowledge
|
Just-in-time
canvassing of 'community'
|
Boundaries
of Knowledge
|
Sourced
from and shared within the organization only
|
Sourced
from and shared anywhere (subject to security policy)
|
Critical
Connections
|
People
to (internal) knowledge
|
People
to (internal & external) people
|
Critical
Knowledge Tools
|
Intranet
search engine and internal community of practice 'spaces'
|
Expertise
locator & individual repository browsing, publishing &
subscription tools
|
| Standard
Collaboration Protocol |
Face-to-face
meetings
|
Simple
virtual presence
|
Technology
Deployment Strategy
|
Standard
'loadsets' and productivity suites for all staff
|
Customized,
personalized tools for each person
|
Technology
Training Strategy
|
Standard
group training and computer-based instruction
|
Individual,
face-to-face productivity training
|
|
Solution cluster 2:
INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY &
ORGANIZATION
Management today has a love-hate relationship with infrastructure. On
the one hand, it is the long term investment in technology,
intellectual capital, and learning that helps the people in the
business do what they do best, effectively, and provides enduring
competitive advantage to the company. On the other hand, much of this
investment is in areas that are not core competencies of the
organization, and it's difficult for management to measure and justify
its value, especially when today's mantra is to outsource everything
possible, especially in areas of fixed cost.
Meeting of Minds
can help you identify which technology, information, learning and other
infrastructure strategies make sense for your business, and whether,
and how, to outsource. Our three offerings in this Cluster are:
Infrastructure Strategy Alignment:
We help you assess alternative infrastructure strategies, bringing to
bear competitive intelligence on which strategies have and haven't
worked for other companies in your industry. Then we show you which
alternative strategies are most closely aligned to your short and
longer term organization-wide business strategy, and help you find a
migration path that will give you the infrastructure you need, where
you need it, in both the near and long term.
Infrastructure Reorganization & Outsourcing:
We take a look at your overall infrastructure resources and investment,
and the value they provide to your business. Then, drawing on leading
global practices in infrastructure organization and management, we help
you determine whether, and how, reorganization of your infrastructure
groups and redeployment of intellectual resources can benefit
operational effectiveness. If outsourcing is a logical alternative, we
work with the existing staff to help them be part of the solution --
helping them set up new infrastructure specialty houses that can
improve their job satisfaction while transitioning them from an
employee to a supplier relationship with you.
Infrastructure Future State Visioning: At Meeting of Minds we
take a long view of business change. We know that sometimes what
provides short term pain creates long term pain, and that many
businesses are undone not by poor business management but by failure to
anticipate and adapt to unexpected innovations and environmental
changes in the industry. We closely monitor what's happening at the
leading edge of intellectual capital development and management, and
how today's emerging infrastructure tools will transform the way
business is done tomorrow. Future State Visioning can provide you with
a dynamic scan of the horizons of your business and industry, and allow
you to anticipate and capitalize on future trends, and stay on your
industry's leading edge.
|
SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE:
KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY &
INNOVATION SCORECARD
Here are ten questions that will help you self-assess the current state
of your knowledge, technology and innovation infrastructure and
processes. If you're not able to answer 'yes' to each of them, Meeting of Minds would be pleased to help you get you there:
1. Are you aware of, and satisfied with, the return your business is
getting on its investment in information, technology and learning?
2. Do you know what the prevailing 'information behaviour' of your
front-line people is -- how they use information, where they look for
it, what sources they trust, and how they learn?
3. Are your people able to effectively use the technology and
information that is available on their laptops/desktops -- can they
find what they need quickly, reliably and efficiently?
4. Do your people travel only when other effective means of
communication, meeting and collaboration are unavailable -- do they
even have these alternatives at their disposal and are they comfortable
and effective using them?
5. Are you, and your senior IT and KM people, aware of the existence
of, and potential value of, Social Networking Applications, and why
Business 2.0 magazine called them 2003's Technology of the Year, and
why some people think Social Networking will be the successor to
Knowledge Management?
6. Do you know the pros and cons of central vs decentralized vs
outsourced models of infrastructure management -- technology, knowledge
and learning -- and are you confident your company has it right?
7. Do you know how much of your revenue is coming from new and
innovative products vs. incremental and 'sequel' products, and is it
substantial enough to achieve your revenue goals even in the face of
new competitive price pressures?
8. Are your best and most creative people happy, fulfilled, charged up about their jobs?
9. Do you really understand how the producer-customer relationship has
shifted in unprecedented and inexorable ways in the past decade, and
how your business should adapt or even reinvent itself around a new
relationship with customers?
10. Are you on top of the latest techniques in business management --
viral marketing, working capital outsourcing, scenario building -- and
are you using them effectively to help your business succeed?
|
Solution cluster 3:
RE-ENERGIZING BUSINESS INNOVATION
In the early years of the 21st century the focus of business has been
on short-term productivity and cost management, and many businesses
have taken their eye off the ball of innovation, the longer-term engine
of business success. At Meeting of Minds
we're watching for you, tracking innovations, notably in some
unexpected industries and countries, that will transform business and
produce new products and services with unimagined benefits and render
today's products and services obsolete. Here are six of our offerings
in the Innovation Cluster:
The New Business Incubator:
Your most creative people are also likely your most entrepreneurial and
least risk-averse. Taking a page from some of the world's most
innovative companies, we can help you set these people up in their own
new business incubator, and set them free to do what they do best.
We'll teach them the basics of entrepreneurial business management -- a
program we call Entrepreneurship 101 -- and work with you to set them
up in a separate autonomous business, where they set the rules, they
decide on priorities, they source and manage their own budget, they
take all the risks, and you are their #1 customer.
The Innovation Amplifier:
Drawing on our knowledge of how innovation succeeds in different
business environments, we can assess your existing innovation processes
and your 'innovation culture', and help you introduce proven techniques
and methods that will give you a better 'environmental scan' of
emerging trends and technologies that could have application in your
business, better connectivity with your most future-astute customers,
skill in 'thinking customers ahead' to assess the commercial value of
new ideas, an ability to 'fail early' to cut the costs of unsuccessful
innovation, and the competence to commercialize and implement
innovative products, services, processes and technologies effectively.
Economic Scenario Builder:
Using a variety of financial forecasting and sensitivity models, the
Economic Scenario Builder can answer your 'what if' questions about the
impact on your business of sudden changes in interest rates,
unemployment rates, currencies, tax rates, GDP growth rates, trade,
social and environmental laws and regulations.
The Customer Handshake:
The latest innovation in Customer Relationship Management is a very old
idea: build your contract with customers on trust, transparency, and a
simple 'handshake' commitment to mutual satisfaction. The concept uses
simple-language agreements and tools that replace today's adversarial
relationship with customers with a collaborative, 'win-win'
relationship of respect and compromise.
Working Capital Monitor:
Inability to properly manage cash, receivables, payables and
inventories is the #1 cause of business failure. The Working Capital
Monitor is a tool for forecasting and optimizing levels of each of
these assets.
Viral Marketing Toolkit:
Capitalizing on the explosion of connectivity and information in
today's consumer society, and new knowledge of how ideas are propagated
and catch hold, one person at a time, the Viral Marketing Toolkit shows
you how to promote your products and services without coercive and
expensive advertising.
|
Sample credentials:
dave pollard, founder
Each of the members of Meeting of Minds
is an independent businessperson. When you decide to contract with us
to help your business succeed, we work with you to select the team of Meeting of Minds experts best suited to the particular project.
Each of our members has unique, deep and exceptional business skills and experience. As an example, here are some of the credentials of Dave Pollard, the partnership's founder:
- Thirty years of business experience
- Ten years as Chief Knowledge Officer of Ernst & Young in Canada, and as their Global Director of Knowledge Innovation
- Director of the Center
for Business Knowledge, the world's largest and most award-winning
centrally managed knowledge organization
- Core Member of Ernst & Young's Innovation Team and author of the firm's Idea eXchange innovation database
- Fifteen years advising
entrepreneurial businesses on all aspects of business success --
financial and operations management, start-up, forms of business
organization, financing, acquisitions & divestitures, IPOs, process
improvement, technology and general business advisory services
- Author of many published
articles, presentations, book chapters and speeches on social
networking, knowledge management, innovation, the virtual workplace,
and the future of business
- Author of Canada's highest-rated business weblog
[Contact information]
|
|
5:03:48 PM 
|
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
