Everyone will have an opinion on "different"...

If you read anything I write (which I really appreciate by the way) you will know that I am a big advocate for "different". Different stimulates ideas, offers perspectives to better understand situations, is the champion of change, and makes things happen. It is important to realize though that different will always elicit a response, and this is actually what makes it so important.

But make no mistake about it, the response may not always be supportive. A slightly humorous case in point:

Recently I decided to adopt a whole plant based diet for health reasons (which I should point out does not necessarily mean I've adopted the vegan life style). For my efforts, some of the comments that have come my way went something like this:

• "Where are you going to get your protein from? You are gonna bonk on the ride"
• "You need to eat meat to get enough protein"
• "We were talking about you becoming a vegan and just laughing"
• "You are breaking your vegan rules because there are eggs in the bread you ate"
• " I guess we can't eat at that restaurant anymore"

Sure I received other comments that supported my new eating habits but those mostly came from people who already support a whole plant based diet (aka vegans)... although they may not be so happy when they find out I will still be wearing my leather jackets.

As in my little case study, different will most certainly elicit responses regarding the problems that will come with what you are doing or suggesting — in fact, if you aren't experiencing this it may be an indicator of "group think" or a lack of engagement. Different is supposed to elicit a response, and with it, create discussion. It is in this discussion that better ideas are developed, situations are better understood, and change can be effectively implemented. And in knowing this there shouldn't ever be any reason to shy away from offering a different opinion, taking a different point of view, or offering up that "crazy" idea — you want to invite the pushback, as well as the discussion, because it offers a better result.

And for that opinion on my plant based diet — yes you can get all the protein you need from plants; meat is actually really hard to digest and inflammatory; I'm not a vegan; there are no eggs in the bread I eat, and restaurants are extremely helpful and flexible with what they serve.

So far, so good.

iamgpe

The swarming of bees...

"Do you want me to add a virtual bee to your business card for your bee thing?"

"You mean beBee?"

"Yes... that."

At this point I couldn't help think that as an advocate for the new social media platform beBee I was at least building some sort of familiarity; although "bee thing" wasn't exactly what I was shooting for. I had seen what Olga had done with her own business card so I was excited to see what she could do with mine — I enthusiastically said yes.

Olga is a very talented sculptor and artist, and lately she has redirected her talents into the area of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, has invested in the equipment, and is out front advocating for the future and potential of VR and AR. In my view, as she repositions her skill, she has caught the wave of virtual augmentation (and virtual reality) and is becoming a domain expert when it comes to leveraging visual art — in less than a year she has built a LinkedIn following of 3,162 followers, and her recent post illustrating her virtual card had 15,479 clicks, 337 likes and 48 comments.

Sure the bee augmentation has been a fun activity for me but what really resonates is how someone is repositioning their skill sets for new opportunities, and particularly those opportunities that reflect the coming "step change" shifts in the market. There's virtual and augmented reality, artificial Intelligence, robotics, shifts in consumerism, decentralization through blockchain, advances in healthcare, the redefinition of what it is to be human, et certera, et cetera — all part of a revolution that may be unlike anything we've see before. I have said I'm a lousy futurist and stand by that, but what I do know is that we all have skills that have value, and more than ever it will be important to understand these skills, and how they can be leveraged.

• Understand what you are good at and build on it.
• Pay attention to what is happening outside your comfort zone and don't simply dismiss it.
• Appreciate that you don't need to be involved in everything, just something.
• Don't believe you are insulated from everything that is happening.
• And if you don't see it — search out someone who can help you.

As I said, my augmented business card was fun and I can easily see the utility (particularly in education, merchandising and entertainment), but that's Olga's thing. As for me, I still see great value in my sales and marketing skills, and how to leverage them in various "go to market" activities (particularly in the areas of social media and leveraging blockchain). It will be interesting where it all takes me. 

Olga and I are not the only ones doing this sort of thing because as we know, the market will do what the market does, doesn't really care much about us, and it's up to us to keep up (if we want to stay relevant).

And there are still lots of people who want to "stay relevant".

iamgpe

PS — at the very least I was also able to work the humble honey bee into my blog... which as many of you may know is in decline (and a crucial part of our ecosystem). With everything going on let's not forget our environment — and although I know there is still some debate over the causes, I think we can all agree we have way too much single use plastic littering up the place. 

PPS — Olga Nabatova

Our pathways are complicated...

This is not something that is very unique as we all have histories we can look back on with fond memories — although, I will be bold to say mine are somewhat specialized. I suspect there are only a few people who have a Biochemica mug in their kitchen cabinet.

A very long time ago I worked for a company called Boehringer Mannheim and it was with this company that I began my career in earnest — it's now a division of Roche, but at the time it was a privately held company that sold big blood analyzers, small diagnostic units for analyzing blood sugar, and had this small group that sold biochemicals into the fledgling Biotechnology marketplace. 

You needed restriction enzymes to cut deoxyribonuclease (DNA) we had them; needed to put the DNA back together with T4 DNA ligase, we had that too; needed Tris(hydroxymethyl) aminomethane, we had it by the kilogram; and yes, we also had gentle proteases to separate your cells. We had it all, high quality products for those researchers who needed them and who were willing to pay our "high quality, high value" prices. Research Biochemicals were not something that came up in regular conversation and we liked it that way because we were a little unique for it. There were four of us, and with the help of our marketing manager, we ran around Canadian universities and fledgling biotech companies selling what we offered — never discounting because our pricing reflected the quality of our products like I said.

We were a premium player after all!

In hindsight, we really had little real idea what we were doing but did it with great flair, enthusiasm, and delivered profits that engaged the support of leadership — we jumped on any and all ideas to sell and we didn't seem to be afraid of anything (which is a big tool in the tool kit when you are young). No one really knew what to do with the five of us but it did seem they were all right with it.

A component of our value proposition was information, and in one instance this information manifested itself in the form of a 4' x 3' Biochemical Pathway Chart — biology is very complicated after all, and we had to get it all down on paper to prove it. The mug in my kitchen cabinet was just another manifestation of our value proposition... get a mug, then get a super sized chart, and then pay list price for high quality biochemicals to help your research along.

Like all things, when success comes your way things change, more people get involved, and new opportunities present themselves — this golden age of my career gave me some solid foundations to build on over the years:

• High quality does matter and people will pay for it — it's not the easiest sell but value pricing will take you further in the long run.
• You can do amazing things when you don't know any better.
• Sales is a satisfying and challenging profession with transferable skills that can't be learned anywhere else — and if you are in sales, always remember to "ssffs".
• If you are going to get into something, try to get into something that's in the early stages because there is lots of runway for growth.
• Layers get in the way of speedy communication and decision-making.
• Being very profitable gets you a lot of consideration.
• It's only in hindsight that you realize how lucky you were.

I hope whoever recognizes this mug is doing well (and everyone else for that matter).

iamgpe