Quarter 1 is already completed in 2018. I hope that you have had an awesome start to the year. April is dedicated to innovation. Yale Information Technology Services defines innovation as “the process of implementing new ideas to create value for an organization. This may mean creating a new service, system, or process, or enhancing existing ones. Innovation can also take the form of discontinuing an inefficient or out-of-date service, system, or process.”
As we look at and highlight entrepreneurs and CEO's innovating, expect to see some awesome posts across our community including Hearpreneur's Monday Motivation that will keep you motivated and looking at innovation in a different light. This includes people such as Guy Kawaski who has written 13 books and worked with innovators such as Steve Jobs at Apple.
Steve Jobs once stated that “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” It's only right that we lead the way.
We are excited to see a soft launch of the new Blue 16 Media with a closer design to our CBNation.co site and continuing to further align the two brands. You will also notice on the site a Resources tab that includes a direct link to our site and many of the other resources that we have created to celebrate and empower you as the CEO, entrepreneur and/or business owner. We will have a soft launch of our new I am CEO Community along with the new podcast currently hosted on Anchor.
Finally, our CEO Gear shop has also launched with a portion of the proceeds going to help support a youth entrepreneurship program.
Expect the following over the next month and the 2nd Quarter.
- New mission – Our mission has evolved and each of the past ones have not quite fully encompassed why we are here. We believe “We Celebrate & Empower Entrepreneurs” fits us so much better. More information to come…
- New sites to launch – One of our distinguishers is that we don't paint entrepreneurship with a broad brush. We focus on the various crevices and the niches of entrepreneurship. At our core, we understand startups and ventures come from a CEO's or entrepreneur's mind and because we are all diverse related to location, stage, demographics, socio-economics, type of business and purpose, we wanted to highlight that within our community. While our pillars are Hearpreneur, Rescue a CEO and Teach a CEO, we will continue to launch more sites that align with our new mission.
- More content – Going back to our journalistic roots, expect a minimum of one post per day but there will be more than that. It is our focus to capture entrepreneurship and the diversity and niches within entrepreneurship as best as possible so expect more quality content and activity.
- New laser focused podcast (see above) – We know you're busy and juggling a lot. So we are focused on soft launching a brand new I am CEO podcast that features entrepreneurial interviews and behind the scenes episodes in less than 16 minutes. As busy as you are, we completely understand and want to make sure you have time to spend a few minutes taking in some awesome content from fellow CEOs.
Before I close, I wanted to leave with a couple of my favorite innovation quotes to spark the innovator in you.
- When it comes to innovation, an ounce of execution is worth more than a ton of theory. – Phil Mckinney
- I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out. – Jeff Bezos
- There are different ways to do innovation. You can plant a lot of seeds, not be committed to any particular one of them, but just see what grows. And this really isn't how we've approached this. We go mission-first, then focus on the pieces we need and go deep on them and be committed to them. – Mark Zuckerberg
- Meaningful innovation does not need to be based on outright invention. Rather, there is an exhilarating shortcut. It is based on bold, new combinations of already existing components that simultaneously unlock heightened levels of consumer value and reduce costs – Gabor George Burt
- Innovation requires an experimental mindset. – Denise Morrison
- Innovation is the new competitive advantage. – Julie Sweet
- We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here? – Steve Jobs
Have a great start to April!
-Gresh