Growing Your Biz

Dream, Believe, Dare, Do

If you've studied Walt Disney or read The Disney Way, you know that his four guiding pillars were: Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. What great advice for entrepreneurs. What's important is clarity about what phase we're in and making sure we launch (Do) after we've dared (ask for funding). SafetySpan and Trunity were our stars at last month's Entrepreneur Forum and found themselves in different phases of Disney's famous continuum.

SafetySpan's dream is to change how we construct buildings, one floor at a time. Doug Leonardi, CTO of SafetySpan in Wilton, explained that the company's building system is a mesh-like, modular, flooring construction system designed to offer affordable alternatives that cuts waste and carbon emissions. Why brand "safe" in the name? For a couple of reasons. For one, the company claims to be collapse resistant, meaning that if an earthquake were to hit or some other disaster, the floor flexes rather than cracking and collapsing, and that flex prevents the entire building from collapsing. (Does the World Trade Center come to mind?) Second, by using a more sustainable material than concrete, SafteySpac reduces emissions. Third, a flexible, light weight, honeycomb-like spaceframe can be assembled between steel beams or wall mounts of a building's interior construction frame. The magic is in the geometric shape, often used in nature and which is known for phenomenal strength.

Today, most buildings are created with concrete flooring. That is heavy, expensive, and inflexible if the earth shifts. On the upside, concrete is strong, but has a hefty environmental emissions consequences. SafetySpan's design replaces concrete flooring altogether. Same strength at half the weight. It's modular so that makes it easy to install, manufacture, and recycle. Each component is based on human scale making it easy to pack, ship, and install. No mixing required. SafetySpan's targeted applications are commercial, residential construction in addition to temporary buildings for military installations, emergency response shelters, and interim housing for victims of earthquake and natural disasters. SafetySpan's solution helps architects and civil engineers gain LEED accreditation, based on its sustainable nature (see USGBC United States Green Building Council www.usgbc.org). It's also a great solution for data centers with raised floor requirements. Think crawl space for laying cable.

The panel consisted of Lester Hensley, CEO and president of EMSEAL Joint Systems in Westborough, Mass., Wayne Siladi, PE, associate principal, Weidlinger Associates in Cambridge, Mass., and Andrew Connolly, director of finance for R.R. Keller & Associates in Manchester. Andrew observed, using the Walt Disney vernacular, "You're in the dare phase. You need to have more guts and ask for more money." He applauded the company's concept, but felt that they should be more bullish and launch SafetySpan boldly. He said most entrepreneurs underestimate what they will actually need for expenses and tend to be overly conservative financially.

Wayne Siladi shared his firm's experience in assessing vulnerability; risk analysis; forensic, earthquake, wind, and blast engineering; soil/structure interaction; and sustainability. Weidlinger Associates' portfolio includes marquee projects like the Shanghai Port's International Cruise Terminal (80,000 ton capacity), the Georgia Dome, the Jacob Javitz Center in New York, and The World Trade Center Forensic Study after 9/11. He said, "Interesting product." He referenced the Buckminster Fuller Institute that published an article, written by SafetySpan's experts where they noted that earthquake loads in particular raise havoc on large buildings, especially where concrete floor comprise 70 percent of the building's dead weight. Seismic activity distributes tensile loads across rigid membranes or concrete floors. When dead weight swings and sways, buildings collapse taking human lives. Ideally, design engineers want seismic activity to "pass through" the building. SafetySpan just might be the conduit seismic experts are looking for.

Hensley of EMSeal, which provides structural and architectural sealing products for construction projects such as span bridges, sports stadiums, high rise buildings, and parking decks, suggested SafetySpan complete all testing of the product and then provide civil engineers and architects with the results. Concrete has been used for commercial flooring for decades. Introducing a new fabric could shake up the building industry. But once embraced in the engineered product space, LEED-savvy civil engineers and architects could make this product the wave of the future. He felt SafetySpan's number one selling point is its prevention of progressive collapse, something concrete can't do.

The second entrepreneur, Terry Anderton CEO of Trunity, introduced the company's knowledge-sharing platform, which leverages crowd sourcing, or community based design, knowledge, and problem solving. This approach is the trend in e-learning empowering virtual publishing, dynamic textbooks, rich content (video) and breaking news.

Trunity has harnessed 1,500 scientists to contribute to textbooks delivered on-line through Trunity's Virtual Classroom. Furthermore, Trunity has been awarded several NSF grants to develop this disruptive solution and is partnered with NASA, the National Academy's of Science, the Encyclopedia of the Earth and the National Foundation for Science and the Environment. Now the "Do" part. Trunity is working with IBM to deliver a commercial solution.

Ben Bassi, CEO of CommonPlaces e-Solutions in Hampstead, Bill Horn, executive and advisory board member of the RIMA Foundation, and Yvonne Simon, CEO, Southern New Hampshire University Online in Manchester, were the panel for this presentation. Bassi kicked off the panel's comments by recommending that Trunity focus on half its time on education products and half its time on commercial applications. He asked, "Are you selling to universities or professors?" Then he cautioned that universities are in the business of generating revenue for textbooks. He suggested Trunity find a way to make this a win-win for educational institutions, partner with publishers, or compete with them.

Horn suggested that there may be wisdom in approaching new commercial markets such as bio/medical or pharmaceutical. Both markets publish volumes of information that must be made available worldwide. He also suggested approaching LexisNexis, the global source for legal research data now expanding to universities (law schools) and corporations. The challenges he noted could be data relatedunstructured content can have legal and compliance exposures and the company would have to ask who is responsible for managing it. Finally, he noted these challenges might be overcome by Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that "develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation."

Simon suggested that Trunity could make its mark by becoming the replacement for Blackboard, the defacto standard for educational tracking and online learning today. She noted that professors need a way to contribute content quickly and Blackboard doesn't allow this easily. It's also not a social learning platform or open, Simon said.

Yvonne brought to light a progressive initiative led by Cable Green, Director of eLearning & Open Education for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). They just adopted an open licensing policy for the competitive grants they administer using "An Expectation of Sharing: Guidelines for Effective Policies to Respect, Protect and Increase the Use of Digital Educational Resources" and "An Evaluation of Private Foundation Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities." Cable's passion started as an initiative to drive down the cost of textbooks, many of which are sold in bundles, if you need them or not. Legislation followed and is moving state-by-state in favor of students who can't afford to shell out hundreds of dollars they don't have.

Do these trends democratize content, or create a via business model that Trunity can capitalize on? The Dream part is real. Students in Africa can have access to the same information that students in Boston, Manchester, or Durham have. All they need is a cloud and a dream.

In closing, you might enjoy finding out what "Dream, Believe, Dare, Do" blossomed into Disney Corporationtheir 10 guiding principles. And that's something to hitch your star to.

10 Disney principles*:

1. Give every member of your organization a chance to dream, and tap into the creativity those dreams embody.

2. Stand firm on your beliefs and principles.

3. Treat your customers like guests.

4. Support, empower, and reward employees.

5. Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners.

6. Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition.

7. Train extensively and constantly reinforce the company's culture.

8. Align long-term vision with short-term execution.

9. Use the storyboarding technique to solve planning & communication problems.

10. Pay close attention to detail.

*The Disney Way, by Bill Capodagli & Lynn Jackson, McGraw Hill, 2000

About Catherine Blake: Entrepreneur Catherine Blake, founder of Sales Protocol International, has a passion for sales, marketing, business development and a heart for encouraging others to be their personal best. Blake has more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience with FORTUNE 500 corporate giants such as EMC, GTE, IBM Corporation plus startups and private ventures. Her assignments have taken her outside the United States to Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. Key clients of Blake's have included Philips, NBC, ESPN, Raytheon, DeBeers, Daimler-Benz and the U.S. Navy. She has survived some of the best leadership training on the planet, including walking across a bed of red hot coals to establish self-control and focus.

During her professional career, she had the privilege of working with the renowned marketing giant, Jack Trout, author of Marketing Warfare and The Twenty-two Innumerable Laws of Marketing. Her professional expertise includes creating a corporate identity, branding, sales, public relations, and business strategy.

Blake has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and an Executive MBA from Harvard University. She is currently an adjunct professor at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business & Economics in Durham. She has been recognized by Who's Who in Information Technology and is an award winner for her team's advertising campaign at TeleCon XVII, an international trade show.

Blake has served on the board of directors of several nonprofit groups including The MIT Enterprise Forum, The Boys & Girls Club, and Girls Inc. She is affiliated with SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services), SAMA (Strategic Management Association), and AMA (American Marketing Association). Blake appeared in TIME magazine on October 11, 2004 in an article entitled "The Battle for the Woman Voter."

Her business, Sales Protocol International, is located in Durham. Contact her at 603 828 7312 or cblake@salesprotocol.com or www.salesprotocol.com