Investing in people
With little fanfare, Grameen America opened up shop in the United States about a year ago. Grameen America is a microfinance lending company that serves poor, aspiring entrepreneurs. Microfinance is for micro-enterprises, which are generally defined by governments as a business having 5 or fewer employees and seed capital of less than $35,000.
Micro-enterprises have no access to the commercial banking sector, and typically they are single individuals with no capital at all.
Grameen America offers loan amounts from $500 to $3,000 coupled with training and peer circle to maximize the chance of business success and loan repayment . . . . (read more)
Rethinking business cards
After looking at thousands of business cards over a lifetime, a person has a good idea what they are, what they are for, and what to expect. A name, address, phone number, and various other methods of contact, with a logo perhaps or a photo of a grinning face, and there you have your basic business card. What more is there? When was the last time you were surprised and delighted by a business card?
I have a different way to look at business cards.
I see a business card as a blank two-sided canvas. With about 7 square inches per side, a business card presents a very small blank canvas to work upon, but its blankness stands as an open invitation to print anything I wish in any style I can imagine.
The utter sameness of the business cards . . . . (read more)
What Makes an Entrepreneur?
Not everyone is well suited to the task of starting and running a successful business. That has been a topic for investigation, speculation, and research since the time of Joseph Schumpeter's (1883 - 1950) writings. Schumpeter argued that the innovation and technological change of a nation comes from the entrepreneurs, or wild spirits.
Schumpeter came down squarely on the side of the personal individual characteristics associated with entrepreneurs as being the determinative factor . . . . (read more)
Branding is what you do to cattle
I am baking a chocolate birthday cake today. Last night I was reading Garr Reynold’s blog post Who says we need our logo on every slide? right before trotting off to the supermarket to get birthday cake baking supplies. So, the idea of branding was on my mind when I found myself standing in front of sixty-four linear feet of boxed cake mixes, comprised of three brands only: Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, and Pillsbury.
This is what the cake mix packaging looked like . . . . (read more)
Branding is what you do to cattle - Part 2
Branding is what you do to cattle - Part 3