I had a meeting with a business prospect today and this is one statement that was made during the 90 minute conversation. I thought I was dreaming.

This is a public sector (Government) organization so this statement and the entire dialog felt very unusual. I have been saying in most of my client meetings lately that they should forget about the technology and work on the vision of what you want for your organization. There are technologies off-the-shelf or with minimal development to perform almost any function that you could dream up. (No flying cars yet though)

Of course the behavior of depending on the technology features has been created by technology companies, we will demo clients to death, we are proud of our technology, when that happens long enough users start believing that the only thing that can be done is what is seen within the demo’ed technology. Unfortunately the feature set and belief is coming from a minority of companies, those big ones with big sales teams, big channels and big marketing budgets.

Those of us who have worked within the community of smaller tech companies know better, we also have great technology, with advanced features and at less cost, we just can’t afford to tell anyone. What this forces us to do is to listen deeply to each customer and build just what they need, do that long enough and continously and you will have a great piece of technology.

Like the client in the meeting today the one thing smaller tech companies do is build strong relationships, we have to and we like to, we like to solve problems over time and usually we have very efficient and effective processes for doing so. Smaller firms typically have less turnover of team members which is critical to evolving a relationship.

So I have two wishes: I wish all prospects would look to buy relationships and process and that together we would spend time on vision and dreams and set aside for a bit the tech demos and features.

Hear is Visioning Story Number 2: (See Number 1 in Earlier Post)(These are fictional)

Headline: Oprah Helps Launch 14 Seconds to Change the World Movement Today

Brief: To kickoff the new initiative called 14 Seconds to Change the World, Oprah today distributed Flip video players to her entire audience with instructions to make a video, which can be no longer than 14 seconds about how they, a friend, family member or person on the street thinks they could change the world. Once the videos are done the Flips are programmed to automatically upload the vidoes to the website of 14Seconds where they will be displayed and viewed across the internet. Leveraging one of Oprah’s favorite things ‘Hope’ this initiative is designed to help world changers share their story, connect with other like minded individuals and aspire those needing inspiration.

A business partner of mine and I are working on a world changing web idea and one of the things we are doing is writing stories from the future that represent the impact our idea could have, sort of a long-range visioning type of thing. We like to really stretch our thinking in regards to what may be possible. You move toward what you envision.

Anyway, directly below is one of the future stories, I hope you enjoy it, if you would like to know more about the business idea leave a comment.

Year 2110 December 20thday

Virtual Bulletin Unit # 2110@7.2Lx

Official EarthWorld Leadership Council correspondence

From: Co-President Marianne Melitta

To: Our citizens of Earth

Beloved Citizens:

On the cusp of this new year; 2110, we celebrate 25 years of peace, globally. In spite of the friction, in principle, over the Mars Colonization Act back in 2099, our hearts are warmed that the resolution was reached, now 10 years ago, without physical or neuronal conflict. We continue to appreciate the visionary leadership of the Moon Resolution Team, lead by Barak Obama Ahmadinejad III. We owe the Moon Resolution Team our gratitude for their ability to avoid conventional brain-erasing neuron spike & Byte warfare. Due to this resolution, our Globe and Inner-ring Planetary Alliance is safe – and peaceful.

Today, we also celebrate and recognize the 75th year of the Improvidea14Sec Awards, a continued companion to the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a sometimes forgotten story of simple authentic innovations for the betterment of the citizens of our World; Earthanians… and the People of our Planets.

But 100 years ago, in 2010, we still lived in a world of fear, economic struggle, inequities, suffering; and hard to believe; starvation. Back then, we believed it was all about people… and our Planet was at an environmental pivot point. In that day, our World was an arcane assemlance of 100’s of countries and governments; all fighting for resources, power and domination…. This was a time when disease still existed. As hard as it is to believe, many humans died well before their 130th birthday, and in many cases, actually suffered prior to their expiration.

It is also little known that in 2010, humans struggled to communicate through the now long-defunct Internet, ever since its collapse and the subsequent creation of the SynapseNet. Back then, a network of human-interface devices called “computers” were manipulated by “keyboards”. The keyboards were hit with fingers so they could type words. Humans would hit these keyboards and communicate in various languages, unlike today’s UnitarySpeak of real-time thoughts and gestures. Then, the concept of real-time one-to-many and many-to-many connection, globally, was a new idea.

We are now in the dawn of a new era.

Our SynapseNet & ThoughtBasis began with the vision of a small group of individuals who were originally from the Crater Region, which was once a rich area fueled by then-abundant H2O units. It was called the Great Lakes, a region of the then United States. We know little about these people due to the Global Byte War II, where all electronic information everywhere was erased in 2144. Thanks to the power of human will, and the oral tradition, now called “thought tradition”, we still know the basics of these people and their story.

…. Little did these people know what they started back then – - this group-of-few – - affecting so many in the future. This handful of individuals in those crude years had the vision to catalyze change through global communication in small chunks. A change that sparked deeper understanding & empathy across the Globe. The Improvidea14Sec founders had a simple idea: Connect people through the magic of “seconds” and “milliseconds” (i.e., the time-unit terms they used then). Our now-all-so-familiar ploik time-unit was created by them. The ploik was called “40 milliseconds” back then. For those of you who don’t know; 35 of our ploiks equaled “14 seconds”. That’s where the “14″ came from.

Thanks to these precursor efforts, the 4DBrainVision-ideo was developed in 2167.

Anyway – Back to 2010: The 14-second moving-images, called “videos” inspired a shift in our society. Today; our 4D brain-vision-ideo’s couldn’t have even been imagined by the producers of these 2D moving images which had to be viewed on a “screen”.

But the Improvidea14Sec founders and their predecessor to the 4DBrainVision-ideo knew they had something that could spark the minds and hearts of Earth citizens, through the tools & technologies that they had available at that time.

So; Earthians – I challenge you to think about every little thing you can do, even in the short time of a ploik, to continue to affect positive change.

Thankfully, we are peaceful globally & Inner-ring-Planet-ly… but we have much to still learn in our effort to protect the future.

Though we are on the cusp of ubiquitous time-travel and history-alteration entries, we cannot rest easy in this era of uncertainty – especially given the recent discovery of the Klargs in solar system LV34. They have made it clear they want our solar system, primarily because of the fact that our planets and colonized moons are friendly to their plant-like bodies. I challenge all of you as citizens to engage in a solution for how we can work with, and peacefully communicate with, the Klargs… for a better East-North Milky Way future, together.

Respectfully and in your service,

Marianne Melita

Co-President

EarthWorld Leadership Council

I love new business models particularly when applied in totally radical new areas. Ok, here is the story.

A friend of mine, Craig James (cat-strat.com) is the entrepreneur who met up with the stone sculptor Walt Rickli (walt.rickli) from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Walt lives near a quarry that is still actively being mined. Ok, keep that in mind for a second.

One day while working in his artist studio, Walt’s son comes in wearing the rattiest looking torn up jeans, Walt told him to stop wearing those jeans as they are unsafe for being around the various stone saws in use. Walt ultimately got a hold of the torn jeans and went to work patching them up with cool rivets and other materials (the guy is a scuptor) and then gave them back to his son.

His son, (Named Steven) was out one night wearing the jeans and his buddies thought the jeans were awesome!

So flash forward a few days later this group of friends is visiting at Frank Lloyd Wrights Penfield House. Finally in the wee hours of the morning stories were being told about fireworks and childhood experiences and dynamite came into the discussions. There and then the idea was born to blow up jeans with dynamite and make them amazing art pieces. Seven days later it actually happened (see video below) at the quarry. And so was born BOOM (goes the dynamite) Jeans!

Every pair is one of a kind! When you get your unique piece of art, I mean pair of jeans there is an iPhone in the pocket with the video of your jeans being created, I mean produced. This is the ultimate in wearable art.

The designs are targeted to be available for purchase in 2010.

I admit it is early in the business launch cycle but EVERYONE who hears about it or sees the video gets this strange happy look on their face. It must be that we like to blow things up or something.

Take a look at the first creation/production blast in the video below. If you look closely you can see denim flying all over.

I love to learn and collect things so books are perfect and it seems as if there is a never ending supply.

There have been some great small business books written this year. Take a minute and place your vote, just click on the image. You will see some titles that you want to explore and read. There are some great choices.