Category: management

  • Simple Growth Strategy

    simple-growth-strategy

    A big term in college basketball this year was, “Are you the hunter or are you the hunted?” In other words: Are you the aggressor?

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  • The New Economy Emerging

    The New Economy Emerging

    “This is a bad economy…”

    “Pretty cool, especially in this economy…”

    “You know, in this economy, every dollar counts.”

    I don’t know about you. But I hear bad news about this economy all the time. It’s at the point where it drives me nuts. You see, it’s one of those things that’s said on the news or people believe that just isn’t true. Want some proof? Read this AP article from today.

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  • The Secret Connection that Drives Growth

    The Secret Connection that Drives Growth

    You probably didn’t even notice. But you’ve benefited from this for years.

    The lowly API is driving tons of growth in businesses small and large, connecting systems and sharing information behind the scenes.

    What’s an API?

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  • The Process of Winning

    The Process of Winning

    I remember a few years back about 10 years ago a speaker at the Willow Creek Leadership Conference saying there were two types of organizations that see huge gains.

    1. The organization that buys talent. (Like when the Florida Marlins won the World Series)
    2. The organization that grows talent. (The speaker compared that to the farm system of the Boston Red Sox.)

    The implications were simple. You could go out and buy talent and win in the short-term or you could build an organization that cultivates talent.

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  • “That’s not my job”

    “That’s not my job”

    My stress level quickly elevated when I arrived in the returns lane.

    “How am I going to get all of this stuff and that little boy to the airport in time to catch our flight?”

    A car seat. Two check bags. Three carry-ons. And one sleepy toddler.

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  • Pushing Forward by Letting Go

    Pushing Forward by Letting Go

    The beta test year for OpenYM is now about 3/5th complete, with Boston this weekend and Grand Rapids at the end of the month.

    Three years ago Open started as a whitepaper. Something I was tentatively calling “YouthMin Camp.” It was forking the very best of WordCamp & some of the flavor of BarCamp, and adding in a few elements to make it work within the youth ministry world.

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  • The Digital Farmer

    The Digital Farmer

    Adam’s Weird Dream

    Last night, I had a vivid funny dream.

    The vivid part was that I was just going about my normal day-to-day life. Running errands, going to meetings, taking kids to school, going to the bank and post office and all the normal stuff I do every day. That part is not funny. What was funny was that as I made my way around all day with a horse trailer with a horse in it. So, in the dream, I was navigating normal SoCal life in San Diego with a horse in tow. So I’d have to leave a meeting to go feed or water the horse. Or I’d have to figure out how to parallel park a pick-up truck & trailer on El Cajon Boulevard.

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  • The Key to Doing is…

    yc-all-black-200This week Marko and I are hosting The Summit for the 2nd time. It’s a TED-talk style event for youth workers, 18 presenters each delivering a 12-15 minute talk on a topic related to an overarching theme.

    It’s a gathering of a few hundred people looking to have their imaginations sparked, new ideas ignited, and fellow sojourners more interested in helping youth ministry find new realities than hanging onto the past.

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  • Team Hustle

    do-the-hustle

    Can I share a little secret about being an entrepreneur?

    • You don’t have to have the best idea.
    • You don’t have to have the best team.
    • You don’t have to spend the most money.
    • You don’t even have to be the most popular.

    So what are my keys to making it? I’m 3-0 in start-ups, batting 1.00 lifetime in a role most people fail.

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  • How do you create an environment for innovation?

    The Saturday morning session at The Summit last year was the strongest single session of any event I’ve ever attended. (And I’ve been a part of a few events) I remember leaning over to Marko and saying… “I’ve paid way more money to attend events that weren’t nearly this good.” It was that good.

    Ben Chestnut’s talk is so important for leaders. He’s not just talking about this stuff out of an ethereal or academic perspective, he’s  talking about it as the CEO of one of tech’s most healthy, creative, and on constantly innovative companies: MailChimp.

    He dives into one of leaderships most challenging questions: How do I foster an environment that is insanely creative, moves faster than the marketplace, and sustainable so it doesn’t burn people out or run out of cash.

    Questions from Ben’s Talk

    1. What’s the impact of not creating “things” in your work? (Non-profit, for-profit, etc.)
    2. One of Ben’s core learnings was that he can control time people get on a project. How would that translate to your context?
    3. Do you think your role as a leader is primarily connecting things?
    4. What in this talk  doesn’t correlate at all to your context?