Rube Goldberghydrogen sector
- Keep up on business issues as diligently as on technology issues. Most technologists pride themselves on their link to relevant technology developments, but very few apply the same discipline to business and big-picture changes. Good entrepreneurs know they have to be experts in business as well as technology.
- Regularly communicate with major business leaders in your domain. Business leaders are the ones who best understand the balance that must be achieved between a technology and business success. Effective communication is not a debate, but active listening and an exchange of perspectives in a personal and informal environment.
- Develop written business plans as detailed as product plans. Good technologists produce written product specifications, to help them personally be confident that all the technical requirements are covered. Yet their business plans rarely get more than a page or two written. Defining a good business is as complex as defining a good solution.
- Participate in business leadership groups outside your technology. Effective personal networking involves reaching outside your level of expertise, and interacting with people who can balance your perspective. Activities that broaden your focus to societal, environmental and economic issues will help make you a winner in business.
- Find a business advisor with credibility to challenge your assumptions. Sometimes it takes some humility to even ask for input, and even more to really listen to negative feedback. Most successful entrepreneurs, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, maintain mentor relationships with key advisors that they highly respect.
- Focus on advancing return on investment, rather than state of the art. By prioritizing customer need and value first, you will more likely achieve the satisfaction of seeing your paradigm shift become reality. Technology opportunities require effort and money, so they should be driven by value to customers, rather than the intellectual challenge.
