Are You Being Crowded Out?

Canadian business owners are realizing that the world is indeed flat and that no matter how much they try to ignore other competitors, it is getting tougher, meaner and just not as nice out there.

What to do?

"If you are a business owner," says Jacoline Loewen, author of Money Magnet, "There are so many more options for you. It's not all bad." One of these is to take on private equity partners who can see if your competitive pool is too crowded and it's time to find a new spot. These partners are not just lending you money, they are actually partners too and have an incentive for your to grow the business, not just pay back the loan.

Is Social Networking Over-Hyped?

It seems as though every second start-up business is about social networking.
Is it over-hyped?
Is it like a movie with famous faces but no plot?
Just remember, high tech has always been over-hyped, whether for cars, phones or electricity, the Internet, or the current new bubbles of alternative energy and climate change.
As discussed in the new book on private equity, Money Magnet, companies put their business plan together, obtain funding from venture capitalists, open an office, and hire engineers and PR types. They talk up their technology and hope that the Bay Street analysts will declare the new product a world-changer.
"The technology for social networking is just beginning," says John Loewen of Loewen & Partners. "It will be a world changer. No longer just for swapping music files or photos, business people are using social networking to market and communicate."
Just as Nicholas Negroponte predicted in his 1995 best seller, Being Digital, the three separate industries of computers, broadcasting and publishing have merged. Imagine a Venn diagram, which Negroponte describes as three teething rings – the interactive world, the entertainment world, and the information world. The convergence of these three giants – who had power comparable to Soviet-controlled industries – changed how decisions are made regarding who gets published and what gets broadcast. The impact on society has been extraordinary.
To access this ocean of information, we are all hooked into a giant grid by means of various devices – iPhone, Blackberry, laptop, car navigation system or TV. It gives us marketing, entertainment, business access, our child’s latest school marks and social connections to school pals from thirty years ago. Technology does determine the future of the human race but as we have learned over the course of history, the social bits around the technology are more critical.
“To control or not to control?” is the question asked by parents watching what appears to be the slothful, antisocial behaviour of their online children or by anxious employers eyeing their staff online during work hours. Yet this social networking allows staff to play, explore, take journeys far from the office and bring back useful nuggets for your next marketing piece or customer sales presentation. Merging your soft (people) with the hard (technology) is good business and if you are worried, remember, the more you use the reins, the less they’ll use their brains. China has developed MBA schools to teach these soft skills, encouraging employees to think for themselves. Xiang Bing, Dean of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, talks about the hard-working ethics of the Chinese and their excellent technology but also points out the challenge of further developing their soft skills.
Less democratic governments are anxious about social networking. Many are trying to control this sharing of ideas and have convinced Google to co-operate in censoring online access to content. Thank heavens Canada seems to have more confidence in the ability of its people to maintain harmony despite the blogging of nutjobs or hate-mongers.
Are people sitting inside their four walls connected to this giant grid but not getting outside to meet real people? Yes, but they are also meeting others from far away neighborhoods that they will never visit and they can read blogs by people with radically different political views. All of this may raise their blood pressure but it surely develops mutual understanding. These online journeys and conversations are teaching people more about social interaction and how to argue a point. Up until now, fake personas and fake names have been used by many online people and anonymity - not owning your own words - is one of the biggest contributors to the rudeness on comment sections of blogs. It seems that people have forgotten their manners (I’m being kind here in assuming they had them in the first place); they quickly move off the debate topic and resort to name calling: “Gawd, Joey99, how do you put your pants on in the morning?”

I am still waiting for the business version of YouTube with real names only, so we can do without the juveniles and can we get some grown up brand names while we are at it? Saying Twitter, Dig this or Bebo makes me laugh!

Absolutely, social networking is a great journey, but do keep your real life. My sons have assigned me a “technology hour” when I’m at home so that I don’t bury myself in blogs. It seems they understand this technology thing better than I do

The Secret to a Great Board Meeting

It’s eat lunch or get eaten for lunch and in this dog-eat-dog world company owners need an edge. Setting up your own advisory board can be a powerful boost to your company performance but the challenge is enticing these senior business experts to show up at your meetings repeatedly, not just for the one time. Besides setting a well-timed agenda, the biggest secret to running a successful board meeting is the food.
It is extraordinary how people bond over the sharing of an interesting meal. Somehow, the breaking of bread gets people to relax and know each other better. Think of a dinner party you attended with like-minded people and how you came away inspired by the conversation. The food probably was good, setting a caring atmosphere. Look at Harry Potter eating weird, vomit flavoured candy with his newly made friends on the train to Hogwarts. What about the Klingons sitting down to dinner on the starship Enterprise with Captain Kirk, eating their foul food with their mouths wide open while claiming that Shakespeare stole all those plays from them? OK, maybe that didn’t go as well, but you get the point. Food is a shared experience which can add sparkle to an otherwise tedious event.
For your advisory board meeting, there is no need to order in pizza or soggy sandwich wraps. That signals tired ideas and soggy thinking. Get out of the box and head over to Pusitarri's, Soby’s or Loblaw's where you can purchase pre-made snacks which are delicious and different from the usual business fare. Mark McEwan, Chef Proprietaire of North 44, is opening up a ready-to-go-meals store in Toronto at Bayview and York Mills which will be terrific incentive to attend after-five meetings. Check out web sites, such as Canadian Living with Elizabeth Baird, to glean ideas of simple but unique platters of finger foods. The goal is to keep it simple but make your advisory board think they are on the dock at Muskoka watching the sunset while enjoying the company of good people.
Be sensible. An overly lavish spread may raise eyebrows, causing your board members to silently wonder if you are developing an Enron style of entertaining with the budget to match. The recent G8 summit held in Japan received criticism for the eight course banquet put on for the country leaders and wives by the Japanese leader but given at a time of food shortages around the world. Point taken. But does the G8 meal really symbolize a “let them eat cake” attitude to the poorer people in the world? Are any of those G8 leaders supping on rice wrapped in seaweed also deliberately starving their citizens? Let’s compare the G8 leadership of their populations with Bob Mugabe’s treatment of the people of his nation, the beleagured Zimbabwe. He has managed to take Africa’s bread basket and crush it to a smoldering wreck. Yet Bob managed to snag a free trip to the United Nations’ Food Conference held in Rome. He deserves a quick trip to the guillotine for that callous attitude, along with whoever issued the invitation.
Peter Handal, the head of Dale Carnegie, suggests that setting up the meal at your important meeting as a buffet because people are not stuck in their seats from the start. Not only does this keep everyone fresh, but they can network more with each other. If you plan a little in advance, your advisory board meeting could turn out to be the most valuable meal this year.

Carlyle Learns Bitter Chinese Lesson

In 2005, the Carlyle Group agreed to pay $375 million for Xugong Group Construction Machinery, however, according to the Financial Times report, it soon became a contentious issue that the Chinese government was pressured to block by nationalistic groups.  The asset was considered a strategic asset that was being sold at a bargain price.  The deal fell through this week, in what many consider a culmination of the difficulties of doing business in China.

Private Equity Hot for Infrastructure

In 2005, there were four infrastructure-focused private equity firms in the market looking to raise $US 1.8-billion, this year there are a record 71 such funds.  An article in The Globe and Mail reports, these funds have emerged as a result of the recent volatility in the market, energy infrastructure companies and power utilities have become highly valued for their stability, long-term cash flow, and lack of correlation to other investments including equities and bonds, according to this report.