Tech exec: Key to success more than idea, vision

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the richest man in the world. Maynard Webb, eBay’s chief operating officer and serial billionaire entrepreneur. Orin Smith, the high-octane president and CEO of Starbucks.

These are the icons of startup companies everywhere, revered as men of vision. But it takes more than an idea and willpower to create what seasoned technology and communications executive and author David G. Thomson calls "Blueprint Companies."

Such firms have climbed to revenues topping the billion-dollar mark through a common set of guidelines and circumstances, Thomson told 250 technology executives, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs attending their industries’ annual combined luncheon Thursday at Thanksgiving Point.

By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune

Full Story: http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_4200069

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Practicing art of business adds to company’s success

To run a good company, you need to know the "craft" of business. To run a great company, you also need to practice the "art" of business.

The skills you need to know to run and grow a business — how to improve your marketing, hire employees, use technology — are basic to running your company every day; they’re the "craft" of business.

But to build a great business, you need art as well as craft. No, you don’t have to know how to paint a picture or mold a sculpture, but the best entrepreneurs and managers add passion, creativity, and vision to their skill set.

The "craft" of business enables you to survive. The "art" of business propels you to succeed.

Think about knitting a sweater. If you’re making a sweater merely to have something to keep you warm, all that’s important is workmanship. You need the right number of knits and the right number of purls, otherwise your sweater will have holes in it.

But if you’re knitting a baby sweater for your first grandchild, you want that sweater to express all the love and hope you’re feeling. You put more thought in every step of the process — from choosing the yarn, colors, buttons. You might even go so far as to design your own pattern as a legacy. That sweater is infused with caring.

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2006-08-18-craft_x.htm