Do you love technology? Do you long for or live on technology’s bleeding edge?

Which comes first in your mind, the technology or the problem it addresses?

Too many entrepreneurs’ focus is 80/20—80% technology and 20% problem.

“To me, the computer is just another tool. “It’s like a pen. You have to have a pen, and to know penmanship, but neither will write the book for you. —Red Burns, the “godmother of Silicon Alley” and head of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

The problem is the book and the book is what you’re selling.

Your buyers/customers/users don’t care about the technology—at best they won’t notice it; at worst they can ignore it.

They will care about the book; about the story it tells and the experience it offers.

It is the book they will pay for—not the technology.

And it is the book that others will invest in.

Flickr image credit: brewbooks

There are three functions required to live in the 21^st Century—no matter your country or circumstances.

Whether you choose to live loudly, taking risks and seizing every opportunity, or just move through life with minimum effort every person living leads, manages, and sells every day of their lives.

And I do mean everyone, from the very top—heads of state, financial barons and CEOs to everyday people and the homeless.

Look at each from a functional point of view.

Lead means “to go before or with to show the way” and you probably do that at least 50% of the time in your daily life, even when you only lead yourself.

Manage means “to be in charge.” You can be in charge of various things or various people at various times, but you are always in charge of yourself.

Sell means “to persuade or induce someone to do something” which is what you do when choosing a movie, putting your kids to bed or convincing your boss about X.

After a years of reading and watching myself and others I find that these three functions, in their broadest sense, seem to embrace everything we humans do.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/759309122/

What does it take to be an entrepreneur? According to Anthony Tjan, Founder/CEO of venture firm Cue Ball, you need to be an architect (big-picture planning), storyteller (research and selling), and disciplinarian (executing).

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and endless hours, and you often forget that running really hard does not necessarily equate with running in the right direction.

It doesn’t always start with a formal business plan or even with a specific idea. Innovation strikes in different ways as you will see.

Robert Croak is CEO of Silly Bandz, the hottest new kid craze.

Croak is an opportunist who has found the greatest opportunity of his life. “I’m the luckiest guy alive right now. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who has a reason to be happier than I am,” he says. “I have the hottest toy, the hottest fashion product on earth. All the right people like Silly Bandz. Everyone asks who my publicist is. I don’t have one. We don’t advertise. All we do is viral marketing. This is happening on its own.”

Tod Dykstra, founder of Streetline Networks, watched cars circling the block in San Francisco looking for cheap parking.

Streetline’s system lets parking authorities identify crowded streets and jack up parking-meter rates block by block. The idea is to encourage drivers to stop circling and get off the streets—either paying for a municipal garage or heading to a less crowded neighborhood. San Francisco and Los Angeles are now installing Streetline technology.

Many people believe that entrepreneurs are all risk takers with a horror of working for large companies, but that isn’t true. What is true is that they go through many of the same efforts and traumas as the more traditional ones.

Gary Martz is a senior product manager at Intel, who proves that the three skills Tjan describes are just as applicable in-house as outside.

Intel nearly killed off WiDi… “They literally laughed me out of the room.”

Anil Duggal, a physical chemist at GE’s research labs, had to go to the Feds for funding when Jack Welch was GE’s boss, but it was a different story when Jeff Immelt took over.

First, Duggal had to develop a genius for getting funded. The idea of manufacturing lighting with a method akin to newspaper printing was a tough sell. In the late ’90s, he managed to buttonhole U.S. Energy Dept. officials visiting GE to look in on other projects. The $1 million grant that resulted helped keep the project going. Then in 2001, Jeff Immelt, still new in the role of CEO, challenged GE engineers and scientists to strive for breakthrough ideas. Today, OLED and LED research get about half of GE’s R&D budget for lighting.

As you can see, a common thread that runs through these stories is that entrepreneurs see things differently from the rest of us. They see what is and needs to be, or should be, or could be.

Ben Huh saw the potential of a site called I Can Has Cheezburger, raised some money and $10K of his own savings to buy it and then used the concept to create the 53 sites that make up Cheezburger Network.

“It was a white-knuckle decision,” he said. “I knew that the first site was funny, but could we duplicate that success?”

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

There are three universal functions that people at all levels do in the course of daily life and I bet that you can’t guess them.

Every day, no matter who you are or what you do you lead, manage and sell.

Most people don’t believe me when I say this.

Workers think they don’t lead or manage because they’re workers and non-salespeople, especially engineers, are usually adamant that they not only don’t, but couldn’t, sell.

The point is that these three functions have been swathed in enough mystiques that most people believe they don’t do them when, in fact, they do them daily.

You sell every time you convince someone to do what you want them to do.

You lead every time you take the initiative instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

But people hesitate to use words such as sales, manage or lead to describe what they do unless they’re in that profession or already at a certain level in the organization and that holds them back from growing.

We humans have a habit of assigning value to acts based to a great degree on the language used to describe them.

I’m not suggesting that you use this language for bragging rights, but you should use it inside your head when you think about what you do.

For instance, if you’re an engineer who, after thoroughly researching the subject, presents a compelling argument to your boss for buying a new piece of software or equipment and it is purchased as a result, then you sold your argument.

The same is true when your idea of where to have lunch or which movie to see is chosen—you sold it.

Or you’re the junior member of the team, but you take the initiative to research something that you think will contribute to the success of the project even though it’s not your responsibility, then you’re leading.

When it comes to managing most people realize that to get anything done anywhere in their life requires various management skills, but they rarely call it that.

But if you want to grow that’s exactly what you need to do.

Examine what you do every day, including the little things, and acknowledge each time you led, sold or managed and then use the correct language when thinking about it.

It’s what’s in your head, what you believe, that’s important, because no matter what others say, if you don’t think it you won’t believe them.

Image credit: flickr