(vectorfunk, Flickr)

A hot discussion in the business world this year is the replacement of the traditional business card and what technological innovation members of the business community can use to replace it. If you’re about to kick your cards to the curb, you may want to take a look at a Business Week article on why just using LinkedIn is actually hurting you.

The article, written by Roger Bennett, quotes several different business professionals on why they still stick with the good old card. Sure, using technology has its advantages, but many believe the business card is another tool in their tool belt to make an instant impact on customers or clients. It makes sense too, as a business card gives a person something tangible to walk away with to remember you.

“LinkedIn is no more your personal brand than Farmville [, a popular Facebook game,] is your personal business,” Evan Shapiro, president of IFC and Sundance Channel says in the article. “You cannot be unique and allow your brand to be a template designed in Silicon Valley that offers the same plodding terms: ‘managed,’ ‘coordinated,’ ‘oversaw.’ ”

Now that isn’t to say there isn’t a place in the world for LinkedIn, because there is. It is a fantastic tool for connecting with others you may know in the business world, creating discussions on a topic and searching for information. What a LinkedIn page doesn’t show though, is the type of person you are or the type of business you have.

In the same article, Shapiro says the business card “is not a simple information exchange, it is a profound expression of identity.” Shapiro’s statement right there is why a business card is important to have. It is a statement of why a person should hire you, work with you, recommend you etc. On LinkedIn, only your resume, and everyone’s looks bland, is what someone has to make a determination about you.

Business today has evolved and technology is a big part of it, but with so many people lost in the tech void, it is the personal connection which will set you apart. Think of that next time you walk into a meeting, if you currently aren’t getting the response you want from other meetings, try taking your cards. It may not give you the immediate impact you were hoping for, but long term I bet more people will remember you and how you can help them.

If you find them annoying a recent Forbes article believes they may be a crucial key to succeeding in business.

Carol Pinchefsky talks about the “5 Not-So-Secret Powers of Extroverts” in a piece published Thursday afternoon. Sure there are the light-hearted answers, like they are thrill seekers, but the interesting super power she brings up is how when they get bored they get innovative.

It is an interesting idea and many organizations should really focus on how to harness the power of extroverts. In the piece Pinchefsky says, “Extroverts crave newness, and monotonous routines are like nails on the blackboard of our souls. But when [extrovert’s] minds wander – and they always do – we can find entertaining ways to keep our thoughts occupied. As a writer, I use the time I spend doing dishes to think about my next assignment, because ya know, I would never think about dishes.”

Think about it for a minute, you could have a wealth of people itching to talk about new ideas and generate a new product who have no voice. Sure they may talk a lot and they may need some wrangling like a herd of cattle, but deep down they most likely have real ideas that could help your company grow. The key is figuring out how to utilize them, a wandering mind can sometimes be just what a stale project needs.

The key to innovation is talking and bouncing ideas off of multiple people. No man is an island and no company should operate like everyone is on a separate one. Communication breeds diversification, which breeds new ideas and better thought processes. If you are having a problem spurring that communication, maybe you should look no further than the person who can’t stop gabbing.

Who knows, maybe there are six, not five, special powers of extroverts, the last of which is creating uniquely new ideas for your company.

Andrew Tomlinson is an analyst for Consult | IMC and can be reached at atomlinson@consultimc.com.

(nikk_la, Flickr)

Personally, I am a big sports guy and, if you follow sports like me, there is a chance you have heard of the recent Jeremy Lin, Linsanity, phenomenon sweeping basketball. The 23-year old Harvard graduate has come out of nowhere to become what some are calling the savior of the NBA and are comparing him to Tim Tebow. Business Week wrote an interesting piece on how so many NBA teams missed on the kid’s talent because they were looking at the wrong numbers when evaluating him.

They said teams were looking at bench press numbers instead of how he rebounded or shot the ball. Now at this point, I may have lost some of you in basketball mumbo-jumbo, but it is an interesting lesson for businesses to remember to.

What numbers are you using to evaluate your business decision on a regular basis?

If you’re using the business equivalent of evaluation based on bench press and 40-yard dash times, then it is time to reshape your decision making process. Looking at just the amount of money something costs against how much it will bring in, would be considered a “bench-press” statistic, in my opinion. The truth is, short term benchmarks should be taken into consideration, but really can’t predict the success or failure of an idea.

Things like sustainability, job creation and overall projected consumer support is an example of better statistics in the business world. Those statistics can be compared to shooting percentage in basketball, RBIs in baseball and passer rating in football. Businesses needs to look at the numbers they are presented with in a better way. Stop looking at them quantitatively and instead look at using them to evaluate an idea or product in the greater scheme of things.

I can bet you several NBA team wish they looked at Lin’s bench press numbers in comparison to his actual playing statistics, if they had they would have a better point guard then they probably have now. Businesses, especially smaller ones, need to look passed the glamor numbers like projected income in six-months and look at how it can have long-term growth and value.

(Flickr, US Mission Geneva)

Sometimes hubris can kill a great idea if someone in the upper-management is not able to understand they might not have all of the answers.

An interesting article in Business Week looks at Clara Shih, a master of social media in today’s business world. What caught my eye in it though, was not the story about what she does, how she became so successful and where she has gone in her career, but instead a detail on how a name created who she is.

Shih published the bestseller The Facebook Era a few years ago, but a different social media network was almost used in the title. Her editor wanted her to insert MySpace into the title instead of Facebook. Shih followed her gut though and continued on with Facebook and the book was a hit.

In her mind, Shih knows if she had changed the title, she wouldn’t be on the Starbucks board of directors.

Ask yourself how many times have you overruled one of your staff members on an idea or project because you thought you had the answers, even though they tried to fight you on it?

Did the project succeed or fail?

Some of you may say,”well it succeeded,” and that is great, but I think all of us know of an instance where we were overruled by a manager or we did the overruling. Sometimes it may be okay to go with the team’s idea and belief, even if it is not yours. After all, people will also work harder if they feel as if it is their project not someone else’s.

In the fast moving world of business where the number of truly unique ideas is incredibly small, it is the tiny details that determine somethings success or failure. Don’t let the detail that caused an idea to fail be the one you changed from the one your team brought to you. Trust in your employees and understanding they are the knowledgeable ones on a topic are traits undervalued in business and are two that can really cause a company to hit it big.

Just look at Shih, she was the expert in social media and, as a result, went with her expertise on her book’s title. She certainly made the right decision and it turned out well for her, are you trusting your gut and your employees? If you are not you need to. Trusting them will help you out in the long run.

(via Flickr, SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget)

When looking at refocusing your business to drive better results and improve employee morale, it should be the top-leaders leading the charge for change by interaction with their employees.

Today’s business culture within an office can be so crowded that low level managers and employees may never actually meet the top dogs. As a result, it becomes very hard for members of a company team to get on board with new initiatives the CEO or Partner dreams up. Without the personal relationship between a boss and his employees, it becomes hard for workers to relate to the boss and thus, are quick to write off their ideas.

Some of the best companies are the ones with CEO’s and leaders who don’t separate themselves from those who do the less than glamorous work. Take a company like Apple Inc., for instance, when Steve Jobs was running the company he would be seen walking the Apple campus. He ate in the same cafeterias as the low level programmers and account managers. It allowed him to not only be visible, but also appear relatable to his employees, since he did the same things they did every day.

Obviously it is not possible to create a personal rapport with every employee, but by doing it with just a few, a CEO can take a companies morale a long way. Staying visible, instead of on a pedestal, allows a CEO to not only know what their employees need to succeed, but allows them to feel like they have a real stake in the company.

A 2010 article by Duncan Dannatyne in the Telegraph discusses this topic and sums up why being a visible leader is incredibly important.

“In the same way, staff should feel able to approach and talk to their managers in the office and it is equally important for business leaders to maintain visibility amongst their own employees. It is much more rewarding for staff to work for someone they know personally, rather than for a faceless organization.”

If you are struggling to enact change in your organization or are having a hard time motivating you people, try spending an hour a day walking the floor. Interact with your employees and it can be on topics as simple as the Super Bowl, or as complicated as a new sales system. By relating to your employees as a leader, you will lead them better and your internal business will improve.

Announced this week, Malloy said the state is going to make a 10-year, $330-million commitment to affordable housing in the budget he is proposing next week. The money will be split up into $30-million increments spread out over the next decade. Malloy is hoping the funding will not only provide clean and safe housing for those in most need of it, but will also cause a boon in the construction industry, by adding 6,000 jobs over a two year period.

“Every dollar spent on affordable housing generates multiple times that amount in private economic activity,” Malloy said.

This new funding is landmark for multiple reasons in Connecticut. Not only is it the first time the program can be adequately funded since 1991, but it is also a move supported by the Connecticut legislature. With support from both sides of the aisle, there is a greater chance the public housing portion of the budget will pass.

With projects in Connecticut, IMC is very aware of the impact a well funded public housing program can have on a community. A good development can help people find shelter, but also start them on a path to self-sufficient life. The great development’s get those people there and help them learn how to find long term success in life. This funding will hopefully help Connecticut create great developments and reshape communities in the state.

When looking at creating a new product, process or service many businesses turn to those who created their last big hit. It is the idea of riding the horse that got you there, which in some cases makes the best business sense. At some point though, when is the horse unable to carry you any further?

An article in this month’s issue of the New Yorker titled “Groupthink” looks at the creation of ideas and where they come from. The piece examines everything from brainstorming to whether or not collaboration between familiar and unfamiliar directors creates a better broadway play. While all of the examples do not directly apply to the business, one story about a lab at M.I.T. can be directly correlated to today’s rapidly developing business world.

In 1942 M.I.T. needed to create a new lab for radar research during World War II. The structure was hastily created, cramped and chaotic, it was called Building 20. Despite the less than perfect living conditions the building “pushed research in the field ahead by at least 25 normal peacetime years,”according to the Department of Defense.

The lab still exists today and has created many innovations including the creation of the Bose Corporation and a deeper understand of how every language is deep down connected.

What is fascinating about the lab is not what came out of it, but how those innovations came to fruition. Building 20 is so poorly laid out people eventually have to run into each other in the hallways and end up striking up conversation everyday. These conversations would be between people working in everything from high-speed photography to the physics behind a microwave. These conversations would allow these scientists to get a set of fresh thoughts or ideas on their work without even realizing it. In essence, it became almost a hive of creation where every worker in there bounces ideas off of each other.

Building 20 is just one example of what every business in America should be doing as they try to grow with an ever shrinking world. While companies shouldn’t create or endorse shoddy construction and cramped working environments, they should encourage different parts of their business to talk to each other. Interconnectivity breads different ideas and new perspectives on stale or old topics.

This interaction shouldn’t be forced either, but instead supported. Not everyone is going to run out and talk to IT about a problem in marketing, but if a company breathes the ideals Building 20 fell into, then overtime there will be a culture shift within a company.

Innovating is great, but companies need to make sure they are just not polishing rocks and are instead creating legitimate new ideas. Sometimes to get to a new idea, a topic just needs a new set of eyes.

(via LondonBrad, Flickr)

The media coverage of the United States housing collapse focused almost exclusively on residential housing. Rogers Lewis, a professor at the University of Maryland, points out low-income housing may have taken the biggest hit in the market collapse.

In his Washington Post article, published on January 12, Lewis points out some of the major problems in the current low-income housing market. One of them is the fact people who rely on housing subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, have to use more of their income to pay for their housing. Because of the increase in rent, residents have a hard time saving part of their paycheck and rely more on credit, as well as debt, to cover their costs, which puts them in a cycle of monetary struggle. One of affordable housing’s goals is to not only give people a roof over their head, but also not force them to rely so much on credit to live.

Of course there is an easy solution to these problems and it is an increase of public funding for these projects. The subsidies have largely begun to run dry, as much of the money the US Government has to play with is used on other initiatives and projects. The clamor and perceived need isn’t their anymore, but so many people in the United States still can’t afford adequate living conditions.

IMC has done extensive work with public housing and helped plan several low-income housing projects in New York, Connecticut and Detroit. Overtime, we learned how much of an impact affordable housing can have on a community and a family. As a result, we are doing everything we can to help Local Housing Authorities and housing projects rethink the way they currently operate.

In a situation like the one the affordable housing market is currently faced with, everyone needs to pitch in and help remedy the situation. We understand that and it is why we want to help figure out how to make it cheaper to construct the housing, make the housing last longer and make it a better quality building to live in. To do that though, there needs to be some sort of financial backing.

HUD is in a great position to help grow a housing market so many people depend on. Low-income housing can be the gateway out of poverty for some, but they need better access to it. Read the rest of Lewis’ article and then if you feel passionate about this topic, be sure to contact your representatives to help increase the money set aside for HUD and fund public housing.

(via Flickr, nyaa_birdies_perch)

Last week, the Washington Post ran an interesting article on why businesses just now turning to a cost savings method are already behind the 8-ball and are ultimately on the path to failure. The idea behind keeping costs down to create product is sound, but the doomsday scenario outlined in the article is a little too far from the truth.

It is true that cost is by far one of the first things any customer considers when they are going to make a purchase, but there are definitely ways around the obstacle. If a high-quality product is truly priced accurately, then customers will ultimately make a purchase. Said purchase may not happen today, but if you create a better product than your competitor, customers will learn about it and will ultimately seek out the better value.

Having a better product, being cheaper and ultimately moving towards the sale is not the only thing to consider when you look at your business. Sure all of those things are important in the grand scheme of things, but it is important to make sure you are working efficiently in your thought and product stream. In other words, cutting unnecessary costs in the efficiency department is the future of effective business, not just simply offering the cheapest product.

By creating a cheaper system, especially in manufacturing, a business can create a good product made in the United States that can compete with brands made overseas. Not every shoe or apparel manufacturer outsources their production, instead they operate under the idea they need to be more efficient to remain relevant. The overall goal of business is turn a profit, being cheaper on the backend will ultimately allow a business to turn around a higher-profit margin than one who is simply slashing prices.

Sure, being cheaper is important in an economy with almost everyone counting pennies, but it doesn’t mean just slashing prices. Cutting prices is a short term solution, while becoming more efficient and offering a cheaper, yet still accurate price, is going to create long-term sustainability. Sustainability should be the future of US business, not being cheap.

(via Flickr, radiofabrik)

Keith Ferrazzi of the Harvard Business Review wrote and interesting article on criticism, meetings and overall business success in this month’s issue. What makes the piece so fascinating is how it captures the true essence of so many meetings in today’s business world. Take a look at the piece to glean some of your own thoughts, but one thing I want to highlight is some of the results of a non-scientific study Ferrazzi and his team conducted.

For the article, Ferrazzi’s team “interviewed executives at six top banks to gauge their team’s level of candor.” What they found may shock some of you, but really shouldn’t be a surprise. After interviewing the leaders, the team found that “teams that scored the lowest on candor saw the poorest financial returns among those banks during the recent global economic crisis.” What is perhaps fascinating about the results is not what they validate, but the fact business leaders didn’t already know this.

At IMC, we pride ourselves on being a firm focused on openness and collaboration. What it allows us to do is have input from as many thinking styles and perspectives as possible. More than anything though, it allows us to be honest about our expectations and the goals we hope to accomplish. With everyone involved, IMC is able to not only understand and build upon an idea quickly, but we are also able to quickly determine what is something we should pursue and something we should abandon. It is a major key to our success and is one of the primary reasons we are so successful.

Really, what being able to take criticism is all about is being realistic. If a company is unable to be honest with each other, how can they be honest about their work and what they hope to do? If you want to set your company up for success, set truly attainable goals and don’t be afraid to say something is a bad idea. Once you set a realistic goal in regards to an idea, or even determine it is not a worthwhile idea, then you truly can succeed in the business world.

Honesty is not something every employee will jump immediately on board with, as being honest can be hard, but it should be worked on constantly. If no one ever says an idea or project is bad or subpar, it will never improve. Just remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease and in business it is the idea with the most interest and discussion that moves forward. In a world so focused on up to the minute market updates and 24-hour news, constant evolution is the key to business survival.

Ferrazzi has some ideas on how to increase honesty and candor in meetings in the rest of the article and be sure to read it to see if you can apply them to your business.