I didn’t set out to own my own business, and going back to college it was the furthest thing from my mind. Over the years I have met people who had their own businesses as their primary income, and where I admired them, I never saw it as something I could – or would do.

As many people who develop and design Internet solutions do, I always did some work on the side, whether it was a favor for a friend or organization to outright freelance work. As time went on, the people who I did this work for were demanding more from me, and wanted to expand their presence on the Internet.

It wasn’t until my wife and I decided to move to Chicago when I began to entertain the idea of going out on my own, or dare I even call it entrepreneurship at the time. Faced with the task of finding a job in the Windy City, I decided to create my own. And many of these people who I did freelance before are clients today, and were part of the catalyst for me starting Dunkirk Systems in the first place.

Do I think about this much? Actually, yes. When I talk to others who have struck out on their own, or even those who probably should blaze their own trail, I recount this story. Whatever you call it – entrepreneurship, the American Dream – I call it doing something that I enjoy, and I can’t think of a better thing to do to occupy my time.

Business • (1) Comments • Permalink

As I have mentioned before, I am a New England Patriots fan. So it goes as no surprise that I would have received the biography on current Patriots coach Bill Belichick for Christmas from my wife, and this was my read for February.

For a book on football, The Education of a Coach had many takeaways for business. The biggest one that permeated the entire story was networking. Even though Belichick’s father was a well-known and respected Naval Academy football scout, on his own he continually sought out connections with coaches, general managers and owners. This is due to the lack of job security in athletic coaching, which in some regards is no different than contracting in the business world. The second, yet of equal importance, was mentorship. Though Belichick was skilled at reviewing football film to analyze past games, he sought out positions that would allow him to continually grow and be overseen by coaches that were willing to take him under his wing. He then paid it forward as he did the same for young and up-and-coming coaches. Where mentorship may not be as much in vogue today as it was years ago in business, I believe it should be.

If you are a football or sports fan, I highly recommend this book. But if you are not a sports fan, you may lose interest in the detailed descriptions of coaches, teams and games. For the fan, the book reads like you are hearing stories of people and games as being told by an old uncle who may have been at the game themself. And if you are a Patriots fan, it fills in many details of the career of coach that has made you proud of your team again!

Note that the title of this book is The Education of a Coach and not The Education of a Man. People who are familiar with Bill Belichick know all too well that he is an extremely private and publicly shy person and abhors the limelight. Where you get great insight into his maturity as a coach, you learn very little to nothing about him personally. There are barely 4 sentences about his family – only mentioning he got married, had to have his family protected when he was the coach of the Cleveland Browns, got divorced and likes to spend time with his kids. In an age where you know far too much about celebrities, as much as this is different it is also refreshing.

Shortly after I finished reading this book, its author, David Halberstam, was tragically killed in a car crash. The Education of a Coach would be his last book, though others were in process or completed but not published. After reading Halberstam’s style of storytelling, I am eager to explore his other works.

---

This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email.

  

---

Book Take-Aways • Business • Diversions • (3) Comments • Permalink

Back in January I pledged to read one book a month, and write not a review but take-aways I got from the book. If you read regularly, you will only see that I have posted one take-away so far. Well, I am catching up, both on my reading and writing. I am one book behind on my reading and have several take-away posts swirling in my head - watch for more!

Book Take-Aways • Business • Diversions • (0) Comments • Permalink

The next likemind will be tomorrow Friday, June 15 in 25 cities around the world. In Chicago, it will be at Intelligentsia Coffee,, 53 E. Randolph, at the corner of Wabash.

Business • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

Is it getting better for Palm? Apparently so, as today it was announced that the mobile device manufacturer sold a 25% stake in itself to Elevation Partners, a private equity firm who counts as one of its partners Bono, the lead singer of U2.

This announcement makes it a beautiful day for Palm, as not only are they getting some star power, but some horsepower in management. Apple’s former top hardware engineer Jon Rubenstein, who ran the iPod division for 2 years, will walk on to the Palm board as Executive Chairman. My guess is he had nothing to do with last week's announcement of the already much maligned Palm Foleo which may be destined to be a lemon.

If you look at the corporate history of Palm, it seems like it still hasn’t found what it’s looking for. Take the spinoff of its software division, the manufacturer of the Palm operating system, then to only license it back from its new owners. You have to wonder with repeated moves like this over the years where did it all go wrong?

As a loyal Palm user until the end of the world, I take pride and welcome this move like a summer rain. Hopefully today’s announcement will be like New Year’s Day for Palm, and not a day too soon with the announcement of the Apple iPhone’s release on June 29. If Palm doesn’t act soon, it may be stuck in a moment that it can’t get out of.

Ok, now tell me how many U2 songs I referenced in this post!

(The accompanying photo is a picture of Bono I snapped from Google Images with my Treo 680, then I took a picture of the Treo with my digital camera.)

Business • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink