Breaking Barriers to Scale for Arab Entrepreneurs

The world needs to create 600 million jobs in the coming six years.[1] With high numbers of young people experiencing long term unemployment, it is evident, as Jim Clifton of Gallup puts it, that the ‘coming jobs war’ is for a good job. Perhaps not surprising are the staggeringnumbers coming out of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA): 56% of people are out of the workforce and 28% are underemployed—both percentages are among the highest in the world.

Creating meaningful jobs is one of the most daunting challenges the Arab region faces today. Entrepreneurs can provide powerful solutions for it. They are drivers of economic growth, innovation and competitiveness. Specifically, it is scalable startups that hold the keys to job creation. By analyzing the early stage growth paths of 380,000 companies across 10 European and Asian countries, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with Stanford University and Endeavor Global have identified that the fastest growing 5% of the total companies reviewed have generated 72% of total revenue and 67% of the total employment recorded.[2] However, although scalability is clearly critical for job creation, founders still encounter many barriers when starting and growing their businesses. Unless all ecosystem stakeholders come together to understand the roots of these barriers and craft innovative solutions to overcome them, startups in MENA will continue to struggle and so will our economies and societies.

Focused on publishing research and insights on regional entrepreneurial activity, the Wamda Research Lab (WRL) aims to inform policy makers, investors and other stakeholders on the critical challenges and gaps in this space through data driven analyses. In its first study, ‘The Next Step: Breaking Barriers to Scale for MENA Entrepreneurs’, WRL surveyed over 900 entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship experts, identifying the hurdles founders face in developing their businesses.

Our research shows signs of growth in the region: around 70% of surveyed companies that have 3-year employment CAGR have added jobs, with 50% of these businesses demonstrating employee growth of at least 20%. These enterprises are agents of job creation in the region, but highlighted here below are the top four barriers that are hindering their development:

1. Finding Talent and Building Teams

The region’s outdated education systems continue to graduate generations of unemployable youth who lack competitive 21 century skills. According to a survey carried out by the IFC’s Education for Employment (E4E) initiative, private employers said that only one-third of new-graduates in MENA are ready for the workplace when hired. On the other hand, only a third of surveyed Arab youth believe their education prepared them adequately for the job market.[3]WRL findings indicate that 63% of entrepreneurs and around 60% of experts consider finding talent and building teams as major obstacles to scale.

But the skills mismatch is only one shade of the spectrum. Entrepreneurs in our survey realize that, even if talent is available, most job seekers still prefer to work for corporations. Entrepreneurship education and thinking are still nascent in MENA. According to a study conducted by WEF, fewer than 10% of the universities in the region offer entrepreneurial courses and only 17 universities have entrepreneurship centers.[4] Therefore, public-private partnerships that institutionalize knowledge transfer and skills development are a must. Companies should take an active role in curriculum design to incorporate entrepreneurship thinking. Businesses can also partner with universities to commercialize R&D, provide startup internship and job-shadowing opportunities as well as help publish research and case studies that showcase regional entrepreneurial success stories.

2. Access to Finance

WRL research reveals that around 78% of entrepreneurs have used their personal savings at least partially to finance their ventures, and almost half of them resorted to family and friends for support. On the other hand, only 24% of companies have received angel funding and a smaller percentage is venture capital funded. Of the businesses that received funding between 2009-2012, only 21% raised more than USD 500,000.

With 36% of entrepreneurs mentioning the dearth of venture investments as a major barrier to scalability, it is obvious that more startup financing is needed, and growth investments larger than USD 500,000 are a pressing priority.

The ecosystem is slowly changing, however. More and more venture investments are happening in the region compared to early 2007, with a significant share targeting the ICT sector.[5] The venture capital market is young, but it is growing with funds such as Oasis500, MENA Venture Investments, DASH Ventures, BECO Capital, Sawari Ventures and Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) to name a few. In parallel, countries like Lebanon have come up with innovative financing programs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Central Bank of Lebanon has recently allocated USD 400 Million to guarantee up to 75% of Lebanese banks’ equity investments in SMEs, incubators, accelerators and funds.

3. Access to New Markets

While the Internet has provided alternative ways for small businesses to expand and enter new territories, our region’s fragmented markets still allow little mobility of talent, goods and capital and offer limited prospects for startups to thrive. Deepening presence in the GCC market is a top priority for company founders, yet restrictions on foreign ownership and costs of setting up are all hurdles to expansion. According to our study, 47% of entrepreneurs and 50% of experts cited finding partners to facilitate expansion as a top challenge. Moreover, 39% mentioned the high costs of setting up as another impediment.

The share of intra-Arab trade in total merchandise trade still hovers at around 10%,[6] as most countries still maintain protectionist policies that tend to stifle regional commerce. Private companies should lobby for the elimination of protectionist policies and the establishment of custom unions and free-trade agreements by building effective private-public partnerships and constructively employing trade data to craft better solutions.

4. Difficulty Marketing Products and Services

WRL study reveals that 41% of entrepreneurs consider marketing products and services as the biggest obstacle to generating revenue, and 28% mention finding customers.

Startups need early adopters to prove their concepts and grow, and there is no better way to support them than becoming their client. Business leaders can provide support by setting up procurement policies that encourage their organizations to engage and work with entrepreneurs. In return, this would help introduce innovative practices to the value chains of established companies, expand their market shares and spin new products and services. Governments can also play an active role. A recently approved law in UAE requires federal authorities and ministries to allocate at least 10 per cent of their procurement budgets for SMEs.

The fact remains that the region’s outdated education systems, fragmented markets and weak entrepreneurship support mechanisms are stifling the growth of startups and innovation. Job creation needs to be at the core of every stakeholder program, be it a policy, national strategy, private-sector initiative or social activity. It is time we pool our knowledge, resources, capital and networks to turn entrepreneurship into a development tool for our societies and economies.

[1] World Bank (2012). World Development Report 2013. Washington, DC

[2] Foster et al. (2011). Global Entrepreneurship and the Successful Growth Strategies of Early-Stage Companies. Geneva: World Economic Forum

[3] International Finance Corporation and Islamic Development Bank (2011). Education for Employment: Realizing Arab Youth Potential. Washington, DC

[4] Saddi, Soueid (2011). Accelerating Entrepreneurship in the Arab World. Geneva: World Economic Forum

[5] According to MENA Private Equity Association Third Venture Capital in the Middle East & North Africa Report, 2013, 119 venture capital transactions were completed in the past three years compared to 56 between 2007-2009, 47% of these deals were in ICT.

[6] Awadallah, Malik (2013). The Economics of the Arab Spring. World Development. Volume 45, pp. 296–313

By Fadi Ghandour

Two Reasons CEOs Should Be On Social Media

Hint: It Takes Talent to Grow a Business

The role of the CEO is to lead the organization to sustained success. Absent market forces not in the control of employees, the success of any organization is in the hands of its employees under the leadership of the CEO.

So, if a CEO’s role is to develop a plan for sustained success to be carried out by the employees, then fundamentally the CEO is the tip of the spear in recruiting and retaining top talent.

The Connected Age

There is no denying that we live in the connected age. The world no longer has geographic or time zone boundaries due to our ability to connect and engage with people around the globe through digital and telecommunications technology 24/7/365. This fact of course is no news flash. Maybe...

Then, why do so many CEOs choose not to participate in the biggest element of our 24/7 global economy, namely social media? Is it because they are reluctant to be accessible? Are they afraid of being stalked? Are they unwilling to be an unfiltered spokesperson for their brand? Are they concerned about the risk of saying something that can create a PR nightmare? Or, are they just afraid of this paradigm shift?

A recent survey published by BRANDfog states that 83% and 73% of U.S. and UK respondents respectively believe that CEO participation in social media can build better connections with customers, employees and investors.

Source: BRANDfog 2014 Global CEO Survey

Another survey from CEO.com shows that 68 percent of Fortune 500© CEOs have absolutely no presence on any of the major social networks. Last year, that number was 70 percent. The biggest social media presence among CEOs is LinkedIn (no surprise).

Source: CEO.com August 7, 2013

CEOs Are Too Busy

Among the many reasons given for CEO's not participating on social media, the one we hear most often is that they are simply too busy. While, it's certainly understood that CEOs maintain a hectic schedule, let’s be a little more honest. For some (not all) CEOs, being on social media is considered beneath them. For these CEOs, social media is for the marketing department. While we're being brutally honest, let's consider another truism. Other CEOs secretly want to be on social media but they don’t know how or where to start and they're unwilling to admit it to their staff. In those cases, their 20-something-age kids are often influential on helping the CEO break the ice.

CEOs on Social Media

I’m not one to rant on this topic without offering examples of behavior that might inspire other CEOs to take action. Below I profile three CEOs who are active on social media.

Barry Salzberg

Barry Salzberg is CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, aka Deloitte Global, an international 200,000 employee tax, audit and consulting organization. Mr. Salzberg is active in Deloitte’s internal social collaboration efforts, which are mostly privately to their employees. Externally, Mr. Salzberg is a LinkedIn Influencer with nearly 16,000 followers where he posts articles on various topics. One of his most popular articles What Millennials Want (And Why Employers Should Take Notice) has been viewed by more than 127,000 and has more than 3,500 shares on LinkedIn. Mr. Salzberg has been vocal about the role of social media in business. He chooses to limit his use of social media to LinkedIn and internal social collaboration. To learn more about Deloitte’s growing use of social media among other executives and staff, listen to my podcast interview with Janet Chang, Deloitte Global’s Social Media Manager.

Tony DiBenedetto

Tony DiBenedetto is CEO of Tribridge, a technology services firm with 600 employees specializing in business applications and cloud solutions, and a four time Microsoft Partner of the year award recipient. I've had the privilege of knowing Tony and watching him grow Tribridge to a formidable business that Inc. Magazine ranks #55 among the top 100 private businesses in the U.S. Tony maintains as grueling a schedule as any CEO. He participates in social media through his blog, where he writes about leadership topics, as well as his Twitter account. As a technology services firm, recruiting top talent is a constant goal for Tribridge. Tony's participation in social media helps communicate both to current and to future employees his professional thoughts and ideals. Tony has dedicated his entire career to the areas of business innovation, customer advocacy and servant leadership. His active participation in social media provides more than a glimpse into who he is. Humanizing a CEO goes a long way toward recruiting top talent.

Jack Salzwedel

If you're thinking that only B2B or tech centric CEOs use social media, look at Jack Salzwedel, CEO and Chairman of American Family Insurance. Mr. Salzwedel has risen through the ranks, beginning his career at American Family Insurance as a claims adjuster in 1983, to being named CEO in 2011. In his blog, Beyond the Tweet, he says: "I created this blog to discuss ideas about leadership, culture, innovation, social media and more. This is a chance to continue the conversation we’ve had on Twitter, and explore topics with a little more detail and depth." He is also active on Twitter. How does the CEO of a 10,000 employee company have time to write blog content and tweet? I didn't interview him for this article. Therefore, I don't know the specific answer to this question. But, I am willing to suggest that Mr. Salzwedel considers his blog and Twitter activity as an important enough method of communication that he makes time for both.

Common Threads

I've intentionally highlighted three CEOs you may not read about in mainstream media. They span different industries and different company sizes. What they have in common is an understanding that as a CEO in the modern business era where people are digitally connected they need to lead by example to motivate their employees to use social media in productive ways. And, what these CEOs also realize is that attracting and retaining talent is influenced to some degree by their willingness to communicate and engage in social media.

To summarize the title of this article, two of many reasons for CEOs to use social media is to attract and retain top talent.

By Bernie Borges

Social Selling – Love It or Hate It, You Gotta LIKE It

Every time you view a post on social media, you probably contemplate whether you should click the Like button or ignore it and move on to the next. You may also have wondered what the fuss is all about. Is there really a benefit to liking a page or a post? Apart from satisfying one’s ego, does anybody really care?

I’ve been a serious student of Social Media for over four years and what I’ve found is very few people understand the engagement process behind likes. Should you like every post you read, should you monitor your likes,is there a way to leverage the likes you receive? To help you understand the hidden dynamics behind likes, I’ve provided a simple explanation which will help you get significant results with social selling.

So, here is my acronym for L.I.K.E.S.

LEVERAGE IT

When you Like a post, you gain an introduction to the friends or contacts of whoever made the post. Imagine going to a party. You see a group of people enjoying themselves, introduce yourself and contribute to the conversation. The more you contribute meaningfully, the more group members like you and begin to show an interest.

In a social media context, as you begin to like and comment on others’ posts, you will notice complete strangers beginning to like your posts. This happens because your profile gets linked to the conversation and people begin to take note of you. You get notified when others like you. As you begin to get more likes and shares, you are able to expand your network beyond your immediate connections. The leverage you gain in this way opens opportunities way beyond what you can get from your direct connections.

INTELLIGENCE GATHERING

Even today, when I attend networking events I find people making the same mistake. They focus solely on trying to see who among the group is a likely target for their products and services. They then proceed to do a sales pitch, exchange business cards and hope they can convert at least one or two of the people they met to paying clients.

What’s wrong with that? What people don’t realise is that everyone they meet is connected to at least five others who may need their services. They don’t bother to gather intelligence about who else the members of the networking group know that could be potential clients.

When I log in to my LinkedIn account every day I find out more about the people who like my posts or whose posts I find interesting. Who among their connections is my potential client? Which groups have they joined? Which business pages do they follow?

This way I know whom to invite as a connection and it also keeps me from accepting every invitation to connect.

Gathering intelligence in this way you too can target the right prospects on social media channels instead of playing a guessing game by accepting every invitation to connect…hoping one of them can turn out to be your ideal client.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

I use likes and comments on posts to build a knowledge base of topics and ideas I can later use to prepare engaging content in the form of articles, videos and infographics. So when I see a particular topic generate a lot of likes or comments, I keep track of not just the topic but the people who like the topic. Do certain people post with a higher frequency on specific topics?

Apart from providing insights about trending topics and topics of interest, knowledge gathered in this way also provides an indication of what to say and what not to say when posting comments and providing content. After all you don’t want to get bitten by posting comments that may be offensive, do you?

ENGAGING FOR SUCCESS

A lot of us on social media are like stalkers. We read valuable content and only think about how we can implement the knowledge gained for free in our business. What we fail to do is acknowledge the effort made in providing us with valuable information we would otherwise take hours trawling through the internet to find.

Imagine how you would feel if you provided valuable information to your client or gave away a free sample of your product and didn’t get so much as a “Thank You?” Would you like to have this person as a client?

The least, we can do is acknowledge the author by liking the post. To show greater appreciation, leave a positive comment and share the post with your connections. Ultimately, these engagement process will lead you to your direct and indirect Social Selling success.

STRATEGIC APPROACH

As I have always emphasized, to win the social selling game use a strategic approach. Many business owners fail to use a strategic approach to social selling.

Now you know what Likes are all about. I hope the next time you’re on a social media site; you will take the time to acknowledge the valuable content others provide. As you all know, what goes around, comes around. If you found this post valuable, why not make a start by clicking the Like button and sharing it with your connections. I take the time to read all your comments and would love your feedback on this post.

By Logan Nathan

Is Google+ The Walking Dead?

Google 8 year employee and the "father" of Google+Vic Gundotra announced his resignation from Google last week. Immediately the rumor mill cranked up to full steam. TechCrunch in particular seems to have taken the most dire angle on the portent of his departure announcing that Google+ is now "The Walking Dead" and an equally dismal story by a writer who did a 3 month internship at Google in 2011 titled "A Personal Reflection On Google+".

One thing that I think is interesting is that none of the articles I have seen discussing all the "failings" of Google and Google+ take into account some obvious comparisons between the other social networks and Google that cast any negative light on Facebook or Twitter. Both of these other social networks have had their failures and rolled out features that no one uses. Facebook mail anyone?

Consider MySpace and its life cycle. It was extremely popular then became bloated with decorations, games and features that no one wanted and then crashed and has never recovered. It seems to me that Facebook has followed nearly an identical path and is now already past the peak of it's popularity if not already beginning it's own downward spiral. This graph of the search popularity of Facebook over time seems to lend credence to that hypothesis.

There is also the little matter of Facebook slowly limiting the organic reach of posts made by the owners of business or fan pages on the platform. This is obviously intended to force users to buy advertising on the platform in order to get the same exposure they used to get for free (with some hard work).

Twitter also jumped on the Google+ bandwagon with their recent re-design. You could say that Twitter profile pages look a lot like Google+ now. Coincidentally Facebook too has been making changes in appearance so you could just as easily say that Facebook now looks more like Google+ as well.

If Google+ is "walking dead" then the other social networks seem very eager to drink that same Kool-Aid.

In addition, no one mentions the #2 social network in the world; YouTube. YouTube has been a stunning success and has most of the same features as Facebook and more than Twitter so it is certainly a social network.

My own feelings about Google+ came somewhat late in its existence. I was several years late to it because I was already tired of Twitter and Facebook (in that order) and didn't want yet another "social network" on my plate to further complicate my life. So I never gave it a chance.

I first really started to embrace Google+ when they integrated Google Places, and YouTube comments into Google+. At that point the platform came into my sphere of everyday consciousness because I work with businesses and entertainment projects doing local SEO and video marketing so both Google Places and Youtube are a big part of that.

My own view on the continued evolution of the Internet has been one where the large social platforms become less relevant and small, light apps become the new social. I am currently working within the early stages of two start ups that embody this philosophy 1; in social networking and 2; the need for quality content to satisfy the new SEO requirements for search engine ranking.

I think that Google+ is also a step in this direction. The best way that a large company like Google could evolve into the new Internet is by doing exactly what Google has done with Google+. It is a single login that allows you to take part in all of the many features that Google offers. It also allows you to use a few of them. Or, more importantly, only those features that you actually WANT to use. It doesn't try to force everything it has into one platform which has always been a failing of social networks up until now.

If you see it from that perspective you realize that it is all of the other social networks which are trying to become Google (not the reverse) and also the reason why none of them ever can. Also, from that perspective Facebook is a distant third at best in Internet dominance. If you add up all of the platforms that Google+ connects a user to on the web and compare them with what Facebook or any other social network offers you soon see this to be true.

I think that Google+ was initially created as a social network offering but that it grew into something more. Something that is now outside the definition of a social network and is being hampered by the fact that public perception still equates the term Google+ with a social network platform like Facebook or Twitter.

Is YouTube Google+? No. How about Blogger? No. Google Search? No. Google Places? No. Google Maps? No. Gmail? No. Hangouts? No. Is it just a G+ profile page? No. yet it is all of these things and more. It is like energy, everything and nothing at the same time so comparing it to a mindless "walking dead" zombie is about as far from the reality of it as you can get.

Google+ will live on whether you believe in it or not. It represents the next evolution of the Internet and resists the best attempts to pigeonhole it into a single category. It it can easily adapt to new changes (such as a mobile focused web) because it is already there. For those who like a smaller, lighter web, it is there too. If it loses it's distinction as being just another social network so much the better because that is not really what it is anyway.

By Michael Johnston

Business Leaders Can See the Invisible and Do the Impossible

Seven Radical Principles That Will Transform Your Organization

Have you ever wished you could predict the future—and be right? What would it be like if you could clearly see critical changes in the months and years ahead, and use those glimpses toshape that future, instead of just letting it unfold by default?

You can accurately predict enough of the future to make all the difference. In fact, you can hone your ability to trigger a burst of accurate insight about the future and use it to produce a new and radically different way of doing things. Called a Flash Foresight, this is about looking into the future and transforming it into a new paradigm for solving “impossible” problems, unearthing “invisible” opportunities, and positioning yourself as a leader in your organization and industry.

For the past 25 years, I have been studying and systematically applying Flash Foresight, and I have discovered seven principles or “triggers” that lead to Flash Foresight results. They are:

• Start with certainty (use Hard Trends to see what’s coming)
  
  
  You can use the power of certainty to spot and profit from future trends long before your competitors do. Just look at Apple, who accurately saw the trends of accelerating bandwidth, processing power, and high-capacity storage and harnessed them to create the megahits iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad. Meanwhile, Polaroid, Kodak and Motorola spent years clinging to analog models while their competitors triumphed by grasping the arrival of the digital age.
  
  
  Likewise, GM failed to respond to trends that were obvious for over a decade (rising gas prices driven by increased global demand from China and India, and improving quality from foreign rivals), and Blockbuster lost out to Netflix by failing to embrace the leap to virtual space.
  
  
  Remember 1999, when the U.S. government predicted a trillion-dollar surplus? We’ve all made similar, wildly wrong predictions because we confuse cyclical change (the stock market) with linear change (population growth), and don’t know how to distinguish Hard Trends (baby boomers are aging) from Soft Trends (there won’t be enough doctors to treat aging baby boomers). However, by distinguishing what’s certain (future fact) from what’s uncertain (future maybe), you can make accurate predictions.
  
  
  Anyone can avoid the fate of Polaroid, Kodak, Motorola, GM and Blockbuster, and instead create must-have products and high-demand services—as Apple, Canon, Toyota, Netflix and so many others have—by seeing what others can’t: the Hard Trends that are shaping our future.

• Anticipate (base your strategies on what you know about the future)
  
  
  Change from the outside in is typically disruptive. Change from the inside out is purposeful and constructive. This is the kind of change that allows you to direct your future and seize your destiny. And the only possible way to operate in that kind of change is by becoming anticipatory.
  
  
  Based on the certainty of Hard Trends, this is about asking yourself, “What are the problems I am about to have? What problems will my company be facing in the next few weeks, months, years? What problems will our customers be facing? What problems will my spouse, my children, and my friends be facing?” Then look for creative ways to solve those problems before they happen. Another good question to ask is: “What is my ideal future ten, fifteen, and even twenty years from now? What are some of the steps I could take to shape that future now?”
  
  
  When you anticipate your future challenges and opportunities, you can redefine your product or service to capitalize on the Hard Trends you see unfolding, enter new markets, and become the leader. Remember that change is going to happen whether you want it to or not. From education to health care, agriculture to energy to manufacturing, it will burst through every industry and every institution, metamorphosing everything and leaving nothing untouched in its wake. It will disrupt catastrophically every aspect of every industry and every aspect of human activity—except for those who see it coming.
  
  
• Transform (use technology-driven change to your advantage)
  
  
  Changing means continuing to do essentially the same thing, only introducing some variation in degree. Build it a little bigger, smaller, faster, higher, longer. Increase the marketing budget. Add a few staff to the department. Build a snazzier-looking SUV. Come up with a new slogan. But the recorded music industry or television networks can’t survive simply by changing. Embracing change is no longer enough: we need totransform.
  
  
  Transformation means doing something utterly and radically different. It means nanofusion; it means putting oil rigs at the bottom of the ocean and reimagining GM on a Dell model. In the early 1990s Barnes & Noble superstores changed how we shop for books. By the mid-1990s, Amazon was transforming how we shop for books, which then transformed how we shop for everything.
  
  
  Therefore, ask yourself, “Using Hard Trends, how can I expect my own field or business to transform in the next few years?” And equally important: “How can I give my current and future customers the ability to do what they can’t do but would want to—if they knew it was possible?” Your answers to these questions will help you start crafting strategies to transform how you sell, market, communicate, collaborate, and innovate.
  
  
• Take your biggest problem and skip it (it’s not the real problem anyway)
  
  
  What is the biggest problem you’re facing right now? Whatever it is, you have to take that problem…and skip it. Why? Because, that problem you just identified? It’s not your problem. In fact, the key to unraveling your organizations’ most intractable problems often lies in recognizing that the problem confronting you is not the real problem. The real problem lies hidden behind the distraction of what you think the problem is.
  
  
  This is what happened with Eli Lilly. To solve the big molecular puzzles they needed to solve, create new pharmaceuticals, and breathe life into their falling stock prices, they needed to hire at least another one thousand new PhD employees—and they frankly did not have the money. Lilly’s problem was, to put it bluntly, no money. Or was it? By skipping the problem, they realized that their real challenge was solving molecular problems. So they created an online scientific forum called InnoCentive, Inc., where they posted difficult chemical and molecular problems and offered to pay anyone who could solve them. By making the site open to any scientist with an Internet connection and posting the problems in over a dozen languages, the company created a global, virtual R&D talent pool that soon found solutions to problems that had stumped its own researchers. As a result, they created new drugs, and Lilly survived—and thrived.
  
  
  So, what about that biggest problem of yours? Like Eli Lilly, if you hold the problem up and look at it from different angles, you may well find that it is not your true problem—and that rather than trying to solve it, you may fare far better by skipping it entirely.

• Go opposite (look where no one else is looking to see what no one else is seeing and do what no one else is doing)
  
  
  Often, when searching for the real problem you want to address, it’s not always easy to know where to look. One way to help tease that insight to the surface is to note where everyone else is looking—and then look in the opposite direction. Jeff Bezos looked at how Barnes & Noble had taken the traditional bookstore to a new level of size and substance, creating the modern superstore, and went the other way: he shrank the size to nothing and made it completely insubstantial.
  
  
  Likewise, Dell looked at the PC industry’s reliance on retailers and did something else: direct marketing. Meanwhile, JetBlue looked at the hub-and-spoke system used by legacy carriers, and decided to do the opposite. Launching their low-cost airline based on a point-to-point system, they profited while others suffered and went into bankruptcy. Many other companies, from Netflix to Starbucks to Volkswagen, did the opposite of what their competitors were doing…and they transformed their entire industry.
  
  
  Therefore, one powerful way to trigger a Flash Foresight is to take note of where everyone else is looking, and then look in the opposite direction. So ask yourself, “What is the current way of thinking regarding any subject in my industry?” Then think the opposite to see new opportunities.

• Redefine and reinvent (identify and leverage your uniqueness in new and powerful ways)
  
  
  In the twenty-first century, the one and only thing you can depend on is transformation. This means you can’t go backward, and you can’t stand still; you can’t rest on your laurels, and you can’t keep doing what you’ve always done, even if you do your best to keep doing it better. The only way to survive, let alone thrive, is to continuously reinvent and redefine. Reinvent and redefine what? Everything.
  
  
  Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich reinvented an entire marketplace when they redefined the family station wagon. Baby boomers needed a set of wheels with substantial family room, but, Dodge realized, they did not want to look and act just like their parents. So in November 1983, Chrysler introduced the Dodge Caravan, creating an entire automotive category—the minivan—that they would continue to dominate for the next quarter century. It was a stroke of Flash Foresight, based on the Hard Trend of baby boomers and their needs (along with the eternal insight that people don’t want to look or act like their parents).
  
  
  But while companies like Chrysler redefined and reinvented, companies like Maytag and Toshiba did not…and they paid the price for their complacency.
  
  
  Reinventing oneself has always been a powerful strategy, but in the past, corporate and product reinvention was an option; today it is an imperative. In the past, stability and change were two contrasting states: when you achieved stability, you did sodespite change. Today change itself has become an integral part of stability: today you can achieve stability only by embracing change as a continuous and permanent state.
  
  
  Therefore, forget competing; instead, leapfrog the competition by redefining anything and everything about your business. Additionally, decommoditize continuously—look for creative ways to make the mundane exceptional and transform the normal into the extraordinary.

• Direct your future (or someone else will direct it for you)
  
  
  Your vision of the future is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Change your view of the future, and you direct your future. Flash Foresight starts with seeing the certainty of Hard Trends, and based on that, learning how to anticipate accurately. It also lets you see Soft Trends, as factors you can influence to shape a better future. But it’s not enough tosee Hard Trends and Soft Trends, anticipate, transform, go opposite, skip your biggest problems, and reinvent yourself. These are all valuable and vital steps, but there is something larger and more embracing: you need to actively shape your own future.
  
  
  Directing your future is the conscious exercise of your creative capacity to envision and rewrite your future life and career that wraps all the other Flash Foresight principles together. The fact is that you become what you dream. So if you want to know what you are becoming, you need to ask, “What am I dreaming?”
  
  
  This is the skill at the heart of Flash Foresight: the ability to project yourself into the future and then look back at your present position from the future’s point of view—what I call your futureview®. This futureview is not the same thing as a goal, plan, ambition, or aspiration. Futureview is not what you hope for or are trying to create—it is the picture you actually hold, for better or for worse, of what you expect and believe about your future.
  
  
  Becoming aware of your own futureview puts a tremendously powerful strategic tool in your hands. It gives you the controls of your own future. Your futureview determines which actions you’ll take, and which you’ll avoid taking. Different futureviews create different realities. What does your futureview say about you?

Chart Your Course

Having accurate flashes of insight about the future are the key to successful innovation. And if you want others in your organization and industry to view you as an innovator, then you need to take a strategic position and help shape the organization’s future. By committing to these seven principles, you’ll keep your company and yourself ahead of the curve so you can navigate a solution before the rest of the world even sees a problem coming.

By Daniel Burrus