A quote and a poem walk into a bar…
Our Six Pillars for Purposeful Living
This has been frequently requested of me ever since my earlier post about ‘The Six Month Conversation’ resonated with so many people. This follow up is about the framework Alexis and I devised with hopes of guiding our life journey together independently and as a couple. I know this post is arriving several years late, after tons of requests, so thanks everybody for your patience!
Making Informed Decisions: The Role of Advisory Services
When it comes to running a business or managing your personal finances, sometimes you need a little extra help. That's where advisory services come in. But what exactly are advisory services, and how can they benefit you? Let's break it down in simple terms.
Advisory services are professional services provided by experts in a particular field. They offer guidance and advice to help individuals or businesses achieve their goals and make informed decisions. These services can cover a wide range of areas, from financial management and investment advice to marketing and communication strategies.
Here are some common types of advisory services and how they can help you:
Financial Advisory: Financial advisors provide guidance on investment management, wealth management, retirement planning, tax planning, and estate planning.
Management Advisory: Management advisors provide guidance on business strategy, organizational design, operational improvement, and change management.
Risk Advisory: Risk advisors provide guidance on risk management, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and crisis management.
Technology Advisory: Technology advisors provide guidance on IT strategy, digital transformation, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and data analytics.
Human Resources Advisory: Human resources advisors provide guidance on talent management, recruitment and retention, employee engagement, and compensation and benefits.
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Advisory: ESG advisors provide guidance on sustainability, social responsibility, and corporate governance.
Legal Advisory: Legal advisors provide guidance on legal matters such as contracts, intellectual property, and regulatory compliance.
Marketing and Communications Advisory: Marketing and communications advisors provide guidance on brand strategy, advertising, public relations, and digital marketing.
These are just a few examples of the many types of advisory services available. The specific type of advisory services needed will depend on your unique needs and objectives.
As the saying goes, "trust your gut." But when it comes to making important decisions, it's not always that simple. That's where the guidance of an advisor comes in. By working with an advisor, you can trust your instincts while gaining a valuable outside perspective.
Your advisor can help you ask the right questions, challenge your assumptions, and weigh the pros and cons of different options. Together, you can make informed decisions that are based on both your intuition and expert advice. So don't be afraid to trust your gut – just make sure to partner with an advisor to gain the added perspective you need to succeed.
Extracurricular Resources for My Students
In my recent experience teaching a capstone course for SFU Beedie School of Business students in the Business Minor program, my students requested extracurricular resources they could explore to extend and deepen their knowledge around certain areas of interest. This post summarizes my suggestions, which are tailored for the audience of final-year undergraduate students with different majors including communications, engineering, criminology, education…
Sep 2020 - Learning: recommendations and personal interests
The best investment you can make is in yourself.
Many folks know me as a person who’s driven by a broad curiosity and who’s keen to explore possibilities. As a result, people often ask me for recommendations on credible resources to learn from based on their knowledge level.
Below I’ve shared my response to recent inquiries as well as some areas I’ve been personally interested in.
People have asked about:
Macroeconomics: Economics Explained - Youtube
Personal Finance (foundations): Ramit Sethi - Book
Minimalism (lifestyle): Matt D’Avella - Youtube
Startups (resources): Startup School, by Y Combinator
Sales (foundations): Brian Tracy - Book
Negotiation: Chris Voss - Book
China-US Politics: Michael Pillsbury - Book
Small Business Self-Help: Michael Gerber - Book
Sci-Fi Series: Pierce Brown - Red Rising Saga
Recent/current personal interests:
Community (Vancouver): Vital Signs - Research Findings
Family Business: Family Enterprise Xchange / UBC Sauder
Coffee: James Hoffmann - Youtube
Kitchen: Equipment Reviews, by America’s Test Kitchen - YouTube
Dog Training: Zak George - YouTube
Consumer Safety (Canada): Marketplace, by CBC - YouTube
Indian Food (various)
If you’re interested in similar stuff I’ve shared before: Jan 2016, Jun 2018 (re: careers), Dec 2018
Blogging Hiatus
Serving Mid-Market Businesses
This is a summary post about what I learned from 100 conversations with owners/CEO’s of mid-size businesses.
Here’s the structure of this post:
Background on why I did this
Defining a midsize company
Who are the people I spoke with
Common challenges during transition (from small to mid size)
Common challenges at midsize
Tips to their younger selves
So let’s get started!
Why did I do this?
Around 2015, it started to become apparent to me that there is abundant resources/expertise available for large global enterprise companies and small local/hobby businesses. They are thus very well served for nearly all of their business needs by available in-house talent and professional services. But what about those companies in between? Those mid-size/mid-market companies you her about? How does one journey from being small business to becoming a global enterprise?
This question niggled at me for a long time, until finally in the spring of 2016 when I couldn’t take it anymore. Folks I’ve mentored will smirk at this next bit. Yes, I followed my own advice that I’ve given to every one of you that you’re tired of hearing: I hustled to arrange 100 deliberate conversations with people who understand this better than me and I learned from them.
Thus, I set out to learn more about the challenges of companies in this growth/transition phase. Maybe I would discover there’s already a solid solution available on the market (spoiler: there wasn’t) or gather enough insight to be able to propose a solution for this market segment.
But before we move on…
What’s a mid-size company?
Here we know there’s this glaring gap in available resources/expertise to serve the segment of mid-size / mid-market companies, but what exactly are they?
Thoughts to Delegates of JDC West 2019
Through the January 12-13 weekend of 2019, the JDC West competition took place with the theme of “Shaping Tomorrow.” I had the honour and privilege to serve as an academic judge with the Operations Management discipline, a new category debuting on the campus of host school SFU.
First and foremost, I’d like to offer a heartfelt congratulations to all delegates of JDC West, the supporters/champions of these students, and especially to the 200+ volunteers who planned and executed this weekend which will be remembered for many years to come. Bravo!
Along with my fellow judges Nathan Armstrong, Jason Yu, Dom Wong, and Niall Duggan., I received presentations from 12 delegate teams hailing from top business schools across Western Canada. We had to score each team across the areas of Situational Analysis, Strategic Recommendation, Implementation, Q&A Management, and Presentation Structure & Delivery…
Venture Studio - Attempt 1
tl;dr: The Momenta Lab project started for the purpose of building a Venture Studio company. We underestimated the intensity of research to test our hypotheses. We were successful in coming up with a business model (strategic, financial, legal, operating) which the market has confidence in. We did not have the financial means and adequate clout which were requisite in the model. We were unsuccessful insofar as we did not launch the company. These findings and the model is something I intend to pursue one day.
Momenta Lab.
This is the name of a recent project of mine seeking to establish a Venture Studio. The objective was to create and operate profitable, right-sized technology products.
…
Bookmarks Clearing 2018
Note for any readers: this is written to myself for future reference.
While going through the exercise of year-end cleaning, the process includes checking bookmarks for what will be highly relevant going forward. These are a few I’ve kept throughout 2018, which are now lower priority but which I may like to reference again in the future.
Frameworks and Tools: