How to build trust as a foundation for innovation

Image credit: Pixabay

By Michael Manning

As a manager, you know all too well that every organization endures periods of change. Maybe it’s due to a long-needed digital transformation. Perhaps it’s the result of a series of innovation projects or an aggressive move by a competitor. Maybe you had to replace a departing superstar or cut your team because of budgetary constraints.

The reason for the change doesn’t matter one iota if a crucial element is missing: trust. Without trust, avenues of communication experience gridlock. Collaboration ends up stifled and stilted. Everyone feels on edge and misaligned. A lot of this falls on the manager’s shoulders.

A team that lacks trust is a bad setup for innovation. It’s also risky, because no company can adapt without the confidence of its people. Consider the jarring findings from a December 2017 study by Ultimate Software: 93% of employees said trust in their direct support is crucial to staying satisfied at work, and a majority said they’d turn down a large pay increase to stay with a great boss.

Here’s the disconnect: 80% of managers think they are transparent with their employees, while only 55% of employees agree. And, 71% of managers say they know how to motivate their teams, while just 44% of employees agree.

Trust on both ends of this dynamic is lacking.

Warding off the troubles of distrustful teams

Have you ever been on a team whose members don’t trust one another? It isn’t really a team at all, just a group of people working on similar efforts. Plus, most of its members spend too much time protecting their work, not to mention wasting energy battling over rights and responsibilities.

It’s a shame. Without the bonding that comes from colleague confidence, no team or department can be innovative, creative, or productive.

Ironically, many leaders and managers forget this fact when they agree to implement digital transformation endeavors. Instead of making sure their people have faith in one another’s abilities and motives, managers move full steam ahead with programs and strategies. Then, they watch in surprise as talented members leave, infighting begins and trust dissolves.

As one piece of Forrester research showed, battles over digital ownership negatively affected 43% of reporting businesses. That’s a significant number of organizations trying to compete in their industries with limited trust.

On the flip side, companies that clearly define their team players’ roles and talk about innovation transparently from Day One have a better chance of constructing cohesive teams — and ultimately winning the digital revolution race.

When team members can clearly see their purpose in any effort, they naturally worry less about one-upping each other and concentrate on hitting overall goals. As they see and celebrate real-time progress, they foster a culture of innovative thinking that’s not limited by change-related fear. Without the presence of suspicion, loyalty grows and objectives come to fruition.

Establishing levels of trust prior to transformation

Considering a digital quantum leap of one or more corporate processes? Be certain your team members are ready to work together seamlessly by taking a few necessary steps:

1. Share your game plan

What do you hope to accomplish with your upcoming change? Hold nothing back and tell the full story to team members. Don’t feel you have to sugarcoat difficulties. Instead, talk about them honestly and discuss how you expect to overcome them. Being realistic, positive, and honest from the jump will help your team feel less anxious about working together to tackle the unknown.

2. Give your teams a wide berth

If you want your teams to take full ownership of their tasks, don’t hold them back with unnecessary red tape. Allow them to make decisions on their own — with parameters that you have precisely outlined upfront — so they can adapt as needed. The more agile they are, the faster they’ll achieve their expected goals.

3. Make listening to everyone’s ideas a must-do

Promote thought diversity along every step of your digital transformation, encouraging your players to toss out ideas originating in their personal experiences and knowledge. As employees open up, they will naturally grow closer. They’ll also start offering solutions that wouldn’t be considered in a less diverse forum, and their faith in you as a manager will flourish.

4. Get buy-in from less-enthusiastic workers

Have some team players who aren’t thrilled to embrace their roles? Get their buy-in as soon as you can. Be empathetic to their concerns while remaining firm about going forward with the digital transformation. After your conversation, they should feel heard but should also recognize that their contributions are expected. The last thing your team deserves is a naysayer who strives to resist, not commit.

Digital transformation can be a game changer for any corporation, but it doesn’t happen without strategic planning. Innovation won’t just find you. Instead, go out and discover it yourself by empowering and educating a trust-infused team.

Article source: https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2019/02/how-build-trust-foundation-innovation

Disruptive Tech with Innovation Management

Image credit: Pixabay

BY EVAN MORRIS | techspective

Economists have been studying human behavior for centuries, determining how our ever-changing desires fuel supply-and-demand paradigms. They have conducted in-depth analysis of the legal frameworks responsible for current trading regimens for SMEs, and government enterprises. These centuries-old systems, developed though they may be are now being upended by new-age technology that is adding value, cutting costs, and increasing efficiency like never before. Innovative new technologies are being designed to be more inclusive, more transparent, and more rewarding. These systems allow for easy, quick, and efficient information dissemination.

Of course, these concepts encompass so many other attendant technologies. Innovation management technology has the capacity to radically transform financial, legal, medical and information dissemination networks across the board. These disruptive processes are already yielding results in the way that enterprises function. Global management systems have evolved dramatically over the years. Prior to his passing, Nobel laureate Douglas North pioneered new institutional economics. The institutional economics that he referred to were the rules and frameworks that were established, and the systems that were used to enforce trade. We have evolved from hunter gatherers to formal institutions where banks were involved, and later to online institutions. The global economy has now metamorphosed into a large interconnected online system. Within this online network lies innovation management par excellence.

Dramatic Trade Transformations Pay Dividends

Human economic activity is now facilitated by way of online institutions through ecommerce operations including Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and the like. Every new iteration that humankind develops through innovation and dynamism – the latest being online connectivity via the Internet – is designed to lower levels of uncertainty when creating value. Before, management systems relied on the banking sector and government for their operational functionality.

Now, we can use sophisticated technology without banking or government to define our new-age economic system. This has resulted in dramatic innovation management systems and a new breed of employees who are bringing this dynamism to life. For many folks, the concept of innovation management remains shrouded in mystery. The power of these new-age management systems is extraordinary, and enterprises are using disruptive innovation management solutions to facilitate cutting-edge systems that are rendering traditional economic models defunct.

Unleashing Corporate Innovation and Coupling It with State-of-the-Art Technology

We are seeing a merger of innovative technology and innovation management right before our eyes. The traditional system of authoritarian management has given way to collective systems where feedback is encouraged, fostered, and engendered in organizations since the employees have a vested interest in furthering their own objectives alongside those of the enterprise. Even new ICO companies are springing up rapidly, fusing blockchain tech with innovation management systems. These enterprises are proposing new-age solutions that have traditional institutions running scared. The magic of innovation management is that it offers exponential benefits to corporations since these companies are drawing on the synergistic power of their human capital.

It is against this backdrop that companies are able to reshape their activities, redesign their products and services, and refocus their creative wells of inspiration to draw from their strongest assets – their employees. Whether it’s incremental innovation or disruptive innovation, it is thanks to out-of-the-box thinking in concert with innovation management technology that we are able to achieve amazing feats of human ingenuity, trustless systems, and efficient operations.

Article source: https://techspective.net/2018/11/17/disruptive-tech-with-innovation-management/

How learning processes in Artificial intelligence (AI) can improve business decisions

Dataconomy

 ANNINA NEUMANN

In today’s IT world, everything is about being fast, flexible and efficient. We work agile, build prototypes and use fast-scaling adoptive cloud infrastructure. At the same time, the advances in the fields of AI and machine learning seem to make a business world possible, in which many tasks are optimized or even taken over by learning algorithms and intelligent software.

But whoever thinks of this world in terms of just picking out the low-hanging fruits from the growing AI-tree might be in for a big disappointment. Sure, rapid hardware advancements and cloud infrastructure enable fast computations but they don’t solve one of the core challenges inherent in the way most algorithms learn: based on mathematical properties that are deducted from input data.

Of course, this is not a secret at all. In many discussion and contributions focusing on the limits of AI and machine learning this topic comes up quickly. As Peter Guy puts it in the South China Morning Post: AI is only as smart as the given data input or Jason Pontin on WIRED: “new situations baffle artificial intelligences, like cows brought up short at a cattle grid”. However, this limitation does not seem to be very prominent when businesses envision the great potential they see in AI bringing them forward. Gartner estimates that in 2021, AI augmentation will generate $2.9 trillion in business value and recover 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity (see “Forecast: The Business Value of Artificial Intelligence, Worldwide, 2017-2025”).

How much time and effort are we willing to spend training machines?

In order to meet these high expectations regarding AI to leverage business processes and boost productivity, we need to deal with the dependency on input data when learning. Otherwise, I’m seriously wondering who is going to teach all those machines. Or else: who is going to get them all the adequate data input they need in order to drive forward a business? When you listen to Michael Chui and James Manyika in their McKinsey podcast about the real- world potential and limitations of artificial intelligence, you get an impression of how tedious and time consuming it can be to teach and generate adequate training data for only one specific machine learning task. And how much this is often underestimated when thinking about “self-learning” machines.

This underestimation could grow into a serious issue because in order to learn properly, algorithms have some requirements, which seem to become scarcer in today’s IT and business: time, consistency and extensive variety. If we want algorithms to pick up patterns and machines to make smart decisions, we need to teach them over time. Or at least give them data, rules and an environment in which they can…Continue reading

Article Source: https://dataconomy.com/2018/10/how-learning-processes-in-artificial-intelligence-ai-can-improve-business-decisions/

How To Future-Proof Your Business

qimono / Pixabay

Most business industries evolve over time and customer buyer habits change. As a result, how your business adapts to these changes will directly affect how successful you will be in the future.

There are many famous companies in the past that failed to adapt to buying behaviour of customers and as a result, they have been consigned to history. Kodak for example were once probably the most trusted brand in the photography industry. The company failed to adapt to the digital photography revolution, which was one of the fundamental reasons for their downfall.

In this post, I will outline some measures that you can take to help future-proof your business for ongoing success.

1) Adapt Your Products / Services

It is important that you get regular feedback on your products that you sell or the services that you provide. What you offer needs to evolve to match customer needs.

Disruptive businesses can potentially change buyer behaviours. Netflix and on-demand television services have disrupted more industries than just the movie rentals and general television sector. Off-license liquor stores and take-away restaurants have had to…Continue reading…

Article source: https://www.business2community.com/small-business/how-to-future-proof-your-business-02119529

How Can Inbound Marketing Help Your Restaurant Grow?

Image source: The Marketing Folks

By RAPHAEL GARCIA

There are a lot of restaurants out there to choose from, and if yours is relatively new then it can be hard to attract the following you need to make the business successful. It’s very difficult to gain attention in a new market, especially if you don’t have a main road location. Your potential customers are also being over-saturated with advertisements and learning to tune them out, so this option isn’t great. However, inbound marketing for restaurants can work wonders for helping you to build a following.

This technique is much less intrusive than straight out advertising to your target market, and is based on the idea that by interacting with people and making it easy for them to find you they will be attracted to your restaurant. This is can be done through digital marketing, using SEO and social media to attract and engage with potential customers.

As a restaurant your inbound marketing will mainly revolve around SEO (getting your website visible on Google) and social media. These digital strategies can be time consuming, but they should help you to grow your brand and – more importantly – increase your customer base and revenue.

In terms of SEO the first step is to have an attractive and user friendly website. Ironically, focussing on keywords and SEO at the web development stage can actually be counter-productive, because the most important thing for your website is that people like using it and are likely to return.

As a restaurant your site should clearly indicate your location and opening hours, along with any specials. You should also have a page for your menu, and a way to book online. A photo gallery featuring your different dishes can also help encourage people to use your site and come to your restaurant. A blog featuring news about the restaurant and some recipes can also be a big help.

You will then need to start working on your off-page optimization. A good way to build high quality links back to your website is to offer recipes to food bloggers with a short plug about your restaurant (with a link) at the end. You can also try to encourage people to review your food to help spread word of mouth.

A strong social media presence is also a huge boost to your inbound marketing efforts. As a restaurant you will be able to share photos and videos of your food preparation, as well as information about menu changes and specials. The main challenge will be not spreading yourself too thin!

You will probably get the highest ROI (even if the only investment is your time) out of Facebook and Instagram. These platforms will allow you to share visual media easily, and to interact in the comments with potential customers. Facebook also makes it easy for customers to send you messages, and hopefully leave positive reviews.

Instagram is a very high reward environment to involve yourself in. Apart from sharing your own images and videos of your food, you can encourage your customers to get in on the action and promote your restaurant for you (for free). Many brands build a very successful community over this social media platform, and reap the benefits.

There is a risk to having a lot of social media engagement, however. If your food is not as good as you believe it is, or something goes very wrong in the kitchen, the news will spread like wildfire. You will not have control over this process, especially over Instagram, as people will be posting their own pictures and comments.

Even with the risks involved, it is still worth using Facebook and Instagram. After all, if your food is bad enough that the strategy backfires then you will not succeed as a restaurateur no matter what marketing strategies you use. You just need to make sure that your food is well-presented as well as delicious.

Inbound marketing for restaurants can be a fantastic strategy which yields great returns. If done properly you can keep yourself in the front of the mind of your target market, and therefore get a lot of repeat customers as well as getting recommended to their friends. It’s also a lot less likely to annoy a market that is getting increasingly jaded about traditional advertising anyway!

Article source: https://themarketingfolks.com/how-can-inbound-marketing-help-your-restaurant-grow/

How to Hand Off an Innovation Project from One Team to Another

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By Joe Brown

Nearly every business leader I meet fears being overcome by tech-savvy upstarts. That fear drives their companies to invest millions into coming up with breakthrough innovations. But a sickening number of those investments fail. Truth is, you can have the right portfolio of investments, the right metrics and governance, the right stage-gate development process, and the right talent on the right teams — but if you don’t design the right handoffs between your teams, all of that planning falls apart.

If innovation projects are going to succeed, they’ll need to survive a handoff from an innovation team to an execution team. And every time you create a handoff, you risk dropping the baton.

Here’s an example. One major Asian electronics company built a design lab to develop new hardware product ideas. All too often, when the design lab passed a concept on to a product manager, like a computer customized for 3D modelers and film editors, the PM would ignore the lab’s thinking and simply apply the physical design of the computer to a product that she was already developing — like a low-powered computer targeted at students for the back-to-school season. When sales of the Frankenstein product missed their mark, everyone shared the blame. This electronics company had no clear plan for how projects would transition from the small design lab team back into the core business. They didn’t have a handoff, they had a drop-off.

How do you prevent a drop-off? By tailoring each handoff to the teams involved. In many companies, innovation teams tend to fall into three buckets: Explorers, Scalers, and Optimizers (with credit to Bud Caddell and Simon Wardley). Optimizers make up the core of most established businesses — they’re skilled at enhancing and perfecting the existing business to drive growth or improve operations. Explorers work in teams like R&D, customer insights, or product development. Explorers are skilled at… Continue Reading

Article Source: https://hbr.org/2018/08/how-to-hand-off-an-innovation-project-from-one-team-to-another

Making way for new levels of American innovation

Image credit: Ron Miller

By Matt Weinberg | Tech Crunch

New fifth-generation “5G” network technology will equip the United States with a superior wireless platform, unlocking transformative economic potential. However, 5G’s success is contingent on modernizing outdated policy frameworks that dictate infrastructure overhauls and establishing the proper balance of public-private partnerships to encourage investment and deployment.

Most people have heard by now of the coming 5G revolution. Compared to 4G, this next-generation technology will deliver near-instantaneous connection speed, significantly lower latency — meaning near-zero buffer times — and increased connectivity capacity to allow billions of devices and applications to come online and communicate simultaneously and seamlessly.

While 5G is often discussed in future tense, the reality is it’s already here. Its capabilities were displayed earlier this year at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where Samsung and Intel showcased a 5G enabled virtual reality (VR) broadcasting experience to event-goers. In addition, multiple U.S. carriers, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, have announced commercial deployments in select markets by the end of 2018, while chipmaker Qualcomm unveiled last month its new 5G millimeter-wave module that outfits smartphones with 5G compatibility.

While this commitment from 5G commercial developers is promising, long-term success of 5G is ultimately dependent on addressing two key issues.

The first step is ensuring the right policies are established at the federal, state and municipal levels in the U.S. that will allow the buildout of needed infrastructure, namely “small cells.” This equipment is designed to fit on streetlights, lampposts and buildings. You may not even notice them as you walk by, but they are critical to adding capacity to the network and transmitting wireless activity quickly and reliably. 

In many communities across the U.S., 20th century infrastructure policies are slowing the emergence of bringing next-generation networks and technologies online. Issues, including costs per small cell attachment, permitting around public rights-of-way and deadlines on application reviews, are all less-than-exciting topics of conversation but act as real threats to achieving timely implementation of 5G according to recent research from Accenture and the 5G Americas organization.

Policymakers can mitigate these setbacks by taking inventory of their own policy frameworks and, where needed, streamlining and modernizing processes. For instance, current small cell permit applications can take upwards of 18 to 24 months to advance through the approval process as a result of needed buy-in from many local commissions, city councils, etc. That’s an incredible amount of time for a community to wait around and ultimately fall behind on next-generation access. As a result, policymakers are beginning to act. 

Thirteen states, including Florida, Ohio and Texas, have already passed bills alleviating some of the local infrastructure hurdles accompanying increased broadband network deployment, including delays and pricing. Additionally, this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved on multiple orders that look to remedy current 5G roadblocks, including opening up commercial access to more amounts of needed high-, mid- and low-band spectrum.

The second step is identifying areas in which public and private entities can partner to drive needed capital and resources toward 5G initiatives. These types of collaborations were first made popular in Europe, where we continue to see significant advancement of infrastructure initiatives through combined public-private planning, including the European Commission and European ICT industry’s 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP).

The U.S. is increasing its own public-private levels of planning. In 2015, the Obama administration’s Department of Transportation launched its successful “Smart City Challenge” encouraging planning and funding in U.S. cities around advanced connectivity. More recently, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded New York City a $22.5 million grant through its Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) initiative to create and deploy the first of a series of wireless research hubs focused on 5G-related breakthroughs, including high-bandwidth and low-latency data transmission, millimeter wave spectrum, next-generation mobile network architecture and edge cloud computing integration.

While these efforts should be applauded, it’s important to remember they are merely initial steps. A recent study conducted by CTIA, a leading trade association for the wireless industry, found that the United States remains behind both China and South Korea in 5G development. If other countries beat the U.S. to the punch, which some anticipate is already happening, companies and sectors that require ubiquitous, fast and seamless connection — like autonomous transportation, for example — could migrate, develop and evolve abroad, casting lasting negative impact on U.S. innovation. 

The potential economic gains are also significant. A 2017 Accenture report predicts an additional $275 billion in infrastructure investments from the private sector, resulting in up to 3 million new jobs and a gross domestic product (GDP) increase of $500 billion. That’s just on the infrastructure side alone. On the global scale, we could see as much as $12 trillion in additional economic activity according to discussion at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January.

Former President John F. Kennedy once said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” When it comes to America’s technology evolution, this quote holds especially true. Our nation has led the digital revolution for decades. Now with 5G, we have the opportunity to unlock an entirely new level of innovation that will make our communities safer, more inclusive and more prosperous for all.

 

Article source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/15/making-way-for-new-levels-of-american-innovation/

GOOGLE GLASS IS BACK—NOW WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Google stopped selling the consumer version of Glass, shown here, last year, amid privacy concerns. CHRIS WILLSON/ALAMY

By Tom Simonite | WIRED

Google Glass lives—and it’s getting smarter.

On Tuesday, Israeli software company Plataine demonstrated a new app for the face-mounted gadget. Aimed at manufacturing workers, it understands spoken language and offers verbal responses. Think of an Amazon Alexa for the factory floor.

Plataine’s app points to a future where Glass is enhanced with artificial intelligence, making it more functional and easy to use. With clients including GE, Boeing, and Airbus, Plataine is working to add image-recognition capabilities to its app as well.

The company showed off its Glass tech at a conference in San Francisco devoted to Google’s cloud computing business; the app from Plataine was built using AI services provided by Google’s cloud division, and with support from the search giant. Google is betting that charging other companies to tap AI technology developed for its own use can help the cloud business draw customers away from rivals Amazon and Microsoft.

Jennifer Bennett, technical director to Google Cloud’s CTO office, said that adding Google’s cloud services to Glass could help make it a revolutionary tool for workers in situations where a laptop or smartphone would be awkward. “Many of you probably remember Google Glass from the consumer days—it’s baaack,” she said, earning warm laughter, before introducing Plataine’s project. “Glass has become a really interesting technology for the enterprise.”

The session came roughly one year after Google abandoned its attempt to sell consumers on Glass and its eye-level camera and display, which proved controversial due to privacy concerns. Instead, Google relaunched the gadget as a tool for businesses called Google Glass Enterprise Edition. Pilot projects have involved Boeing workers using Glass on helicopter production lines, and doctors wearing it in the examining room.

Anat Karni, product lead at Plataine, slid on a black version of Glass Tuesday to demonstrate the app. She showed how the app could tell a worker clocking in for the day about production issues that require urgent attention, and show useful information for resolving problems on the device’s display.

A worker can also talk to Plataine’s app to get help. Karni demonstrated how a worker walking into a storeroom could say “Help me select materials.” The app would respond, verbally and on the display, with what materials would be needed and where they could be found. A worker’s actions could be instantly visible to factory bosses, synced into the software Plataine already provides customers, such as Airbus, to track production operations.

Plataine built its app by plugging Google’s voice-interface service, Dialogflow, into a chatbot-like assistant it had already built. It got support from Google, and also software contractor and Google partner Nagarro. Karni credits Google’s technology—which can understand variations in phrasing, along with terms such as “yesterday” that typically trip up chatbots—for managing a worker’s tasks and needs. “It’s so natural,” she said.

Karni told WIRED that her team is now working with Google Cloud’s AutoML service to add image-recognition capabilities to the app, so it can read barcodes and recognize tools, for example. AutoML, which emerged from Google’s AI research lab, automates some of the work of training a machine learning model. It also has become a flagship of Google’s cloud strategy. The company hopes corporate cloud services will become a major source of revenue, with Google’s expertise in machine learning and computing infrastructure helping other businesses. Diane Greene, the division’s leader, said last summer that she hoped to catch up with Amazon, far and away the market leader, by 2022.

Gillian Hayes, a professor who works on human-computer interaction at University of California at Irvine, said the Plataine project and plugging Google’s AI services into Glass play to the strengths of the controversial hardware. Hayes previously had tested the consumer version of the app as a way to help autistic people navigate social situations. “Spaces like manufacturing floors, where there’s no social norm saying it’s not OK to use this, are the spaces where I think it will do really well,” she added.

Improvements to voice interfaces and image recognition since Glass first appeared—and disappeared—could help give the device a second wind. “Image and voice recognition technology getting better will make wearable devices more functional,” Hayes said.

 

Article Source: https://www.wired.com/story/google-glass-is-backnow-with-artificial-intelligence/

 

Going somewhere as a team? You need different personalities.

Image Credit: goodmorningquote.com

If you’re going somewhere as a team you need different personalities committed to a shared common goal.

-Nick Fewings

 

Why the innovation ecosystem matters | Opinion

Ready Responders co-founder Benjamin Swig, center, pitches his business during The Big Idea competition March 24, 2017, at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. (Greg LaRose, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Opinion by Jon Atkinson

Now a normal part of New Orleans’ lexicon, the word “startup” evokes excitement and energy. A startup’s job is to figure out new and innovative business models, bring novel technology to market, fill underserved gaps in existing marketplaces — and, most importantly, to become a larger business, quickly. Being a startup is typically a temporary phase in a company’s life cycle. It is one characterized by the “search” for unique ways that the company will create value later. Established businesses, by contrast, know their business model and optimize to “execute” it.

Like any good startup, The Idea Village has spent considerable time and energy searching for its ideal business model. Since its founding in 2000, The Idea Village has been a critical part of catalyzing a cultural shift to embracing the new and different and empowering our community to “trust their crazy ideas.” Programs such as New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW), IDEAcorps, and the IDEAx Accelerator have forged connections, championed a needed dialogue around entrepreneurship, and helped build a foundation from which others have gone on to succeed. The leaders who came before me believed that New Orleans could be an innovation hub, well before that idea was cool.

Today, we have an opportunity for The Idea Village to transition from is initial phase as a startup catalyst to operating as an execution engine that serves startups, their founders and employees, investors, mentors and resource providers.

We must leverage our experience and history to become an execution engine that helps others search for their business model. We also must become a repository of knowledge concerning the problems that are common to early-stage, high-growth startups and package this knowledge into meaningful solutions for the companies we serve. It is our job to do this, so founders can focus on what really matters: building industry-specific expertise, developing their business model and creating meaningful solutions for their customers.

Building great companies doesn’t happen overnight. For every glowing press release about a startup’s success, there are often years of toil, lost sleep and worry about making payroll. Building a vibrant ecosystem is an even longer-term proposition. When I listen to TPG founding partner Jim Coulter’s keynote every NOEW, I find myself wondering where this guy hides his crystal ball. However, I think his secret is that he always has his eyes on the horizon, looking 10, 15, 20 years down the road. To be a successful entrepreneurial community that fosters startups and innovation, we must have staying power and be willing to absorb — and even celebrate — failure.

Staying power is a challenge for startup communities across the country and for many potential founders. To increase our staying power as a community we must build great companies that generate opportunity for people from all backgrounds. Great companies cultivate a cycle of entrepreneurship by training and seeding the next generation of founders. To start this cycle, we must band together as a community to focus our resources on the long-term.

The first phase of building this ecosystem is to create a culture that is accepting of risk-taking and innovation. New Orleans is unique in that we are one of a few places in the country that has meaningfully moved the needle on creating an entrepreneurial culture over the past 15 years. Organizations like The Idea Village helped foster that culture.

The second phase is about cultivating businesses that can succeed at scale. This means solving more meaningful problems, tapping bigger markets — often beyond our borders — attracting capital, managing rapid growth and cultivating, attracting and retaining top-tier talent. The Idea Village was a leader of the first phase; we are now called to search for the resources and solutions to empower and master the second.

If we can successfully make this transition, it will unlock the potential for meaningful economic and community development. This means jobs, upward mobility, opportunities, economic “exports” and civic leadership on a new level.

Building an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship means we can be who we want to be (a thriving, innovative business-focused city) without compromising who we are (eccentric, fun, a truly unique city). And if we do this right, we can continue to be New Orleans, celebrating our history, culture and sense of place, while creating economic opportunity to improve our neighbors’ lives.

I look forward to leading the Idea Village in this next chapter, so that in another 18 years we can look back again on what we’ve accomplished.

Jon Atkinson is the CEO of The Idea Village in New Orleans and the former director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Community Development at Loyola University New Orleans.

Original Post: https://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/07/idea_village_future.html