“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” –Albert Einstein

A recent discussion about a potential business opportunity led the client to ask about my career goals. I thought it might be useful to share these goals and measures with my readers here as well.

The world has always faced some serious problems. Individuals and cultures, and even mankind itself, have frequently faced problems that at times threatened their very survival. All too often these were problems they created for themselves in the past. Einstein’s quote explains exactly why “innovation” continues to be the driving force in my life.

My career goals have never changed over my lifetime. I’ve known what I was meant to do since my early childhood when my grandfather regaled me with the accomplishments of dozens of famous Scots-American inventors of the industrial age, and instilled in me the “Scots-American Inventor Imperative” that can be summed up thusly:

“To conceive and create useful, never before imagined, products and services, and by bringing these innovations to market, to in some way improve the world and benefit the lives of as many of its inhabitants as possible.”

That’s a simple easy to understand concept for anyone to understand, even a child of 5 years old. But if I left my explanation at just this high level, you might well think that it so nebulous that it really doesn’t have enough specificity to be actionable. I’m a results oriented guy, so while the above goal is nice and simple, it isn’t detailed enough for me. So I have broken this high level description into ten more specific measurable goals that have driven my life and my career. Here they are:

  1. To create innovative new solutions to problems people have. (Measure: products and services invented).
  2. To develop and introduce those new solutions to market so that people can acquire these solutions and benefit from their adoption. (Measure: products introduced to market).
  3. To package and deliver those solutions in such easily accessible (easy to learn) and rewarding (easy to use) ways so that people will strongly desire to use them. (Measures: adoption rates, market growth; product awards, numbers and enthusiasm of customer testimonials; editorials, columns, praise and recognition from the press; and leadership recognition from market analysts).
  4. To thereby create large groups of wildly enthusiastic and appreciative users, customers and other beneficiaries whose lives have been improved by the existence and adoption of these new solutions, large or small. (Measures: total number of users, customers or beneficiaries; relative market share; product price paid/value received, cost/benefit, return on investment, efficiency improvement measures, and cumulative product lifetime savings in cost, time or effort saved).
  5. To discover, develop and improve repeatable innovation skills that allow me to do achieve the innovation goals listed above, with greater reliability, and success with each new innovation. (Measure: repeatable methods identified and described, increasing frequency of success of later innovations ).
  6. To convert these personal innovation skills into replicable and teachable techniques, learnable methods and skills that can be mastered. (Measure: courses and training materials, consulting and coaching materials created ).
  7. To increase the base of formally trained innovators who can improve our world, solving personal and societal problems large and small, by teaching,training, coaching and nurturing others in the skills for how to create, develop, introduce, package and deliver their own useful innovations, so that world benefits in even more unforeseen ways. (Measures: courses taught online or in person, practitioners taught, training materials produced in various media, consulting and coaching engagements concluded, references to, and reuse of my methods and training techniques by other educators and practitioners).
  8. To nurture and coach innovators and start-ups to greater success so that we can all benefit from the fruits of their imagination. (Measure: Consulting and Coaching clients).
  9. To create, nurture, assist and participate in the formation or growth of successful businesses that will be the next generation of Engines of Innovation which will:
    1. Create new, meaningful and inspiring employment opportunities that create extreme employee loyalty by treating employees humanely and with utmost respect, (Measures: jobs created; employee satisfaction ratings, retention rates and praise).
    2. Create and deliver desirable products and services that improve the overall conditions of the communities they touch and the world at large. (Measures: products manufactured and services delivered; community relations and social responsibility ratings and reports).
    3. Attract and benefit enthusiastic customers, users and other beneficiaries (Measures: Customer satisfaction ratings; word of mouth recommendations, customer retention measures; letters, blogs, tweets, online comments and letters to executives containing customer, user and beneficiary praise).
    4. Reward the investors and lenders who had faith in the business and provided the financial resources it needed to launch it and make it grow.(Measure: earnings per share, stock price, debt ratings).

  10. Generate profits from innovation that fuel the next generation of innovation: empowering even more innovators, innovations, and innovative companies to accelerate the rate at which the individuals, businesses, governments and mankind can respond to new crises and opportunities, increasing the overall welfare of all its inhabitants.(Measure: increasing standards of living, health, longevity and environmental health).

MY TRACK RECORD
You can check out my track record against these goals and measures on my personal website: www.smcgregor.com, and about some of my methods at my consulting site: www.swiftdesigngroup.com.

MY BEST KNOWN SUCCESS TO DATE
My best known success is as the Product Strategist that created the PlaceWare Web Conferencing Center. This was the first web conferencing service to establish Web Conferencing as a new market category tracked by analysts. And during my tenure as Product Strategist the company was the market leader. With the creation of this service, I increased the company’s sales from $500K to over $10M in just 2 years, which enabled the company to file for an IPO and ultimately led to its acquisition by Microsoft. Today that service is Microsoft Live Meeting, and every day, over a million happy users jump on line to meet in a Live Meeting instead of jumping on planes!

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
Whether any future client or employer can accomplish the same kind of results with my help is impossible to determine without study of the specifics of the opportunity. But if any reader is interested in exploring this possibility, I would love to speak more with you to determine what kinds of results we might achieve together.

Happy innovating!