I am often asked, “Why should we consider Chiliad?” As the CEO, I confess that this is a question I welcome because it gets to the heart of how we distinguish ourselves. We recently created an entirely new look and feel to our software through a modified graphical user interface. Our VP of Marketing, Ken [...]
Tag Archives: Strategy
Tic-Tac-Toe: A Sales Strategy Perspective
From an early age, I learned that success requires strategy—some plan or method to achieve a desired outcome. Playing tic-tac-toe as a kid, I placed an “X,” my opponent placed an “O,” and so forth until a winner emerged. I liked to win, so I honed my strategy until I was the one who most [...]
The Secret to Success? Pattern Matching
For years I have worked with a wonderful assemblage of talent from a wide variety of fields, both inside and outside government. This includes venture capitalists, intelligence analysts, business analysts, and senior executives. The really good ones are able to ingest a lot of information quickly and iterate through it quickly to make decisions, more [...]
Our Move to Healthcare: So Different, So Similar
Following the attacks of September 11, the intelligence community quickly realized it needed a better way to integrate, share and analyze the massive volumes of data it was collecting and tracking to fight terrorism. Chiliad provided a unique capability to support the intelligence analyst community work through massive amounts of data quickly to protect our [...]
Decision Making in the Grey Areas
I was recently discussing decision making with one of my colleagues. He suggested there are two major classes of decisions that you need to be aware of: Decisions that one does not have the authority to make Decisions that one does have the authority to make This second category can be further broken down into two types: [...]
Open Yourself to Ideas – Plus, Minus, Interesting
When my mind gets too negative towards my own ideas, it’s unpleasant but tolerable. However, when my mind gets negative towards the ideas of others it can be a real liability, cutting me off from insight and creativity. At these times I like to turn to a technique called “plus-minus-interesting”. It comes from Edward deBono [...]
Law of Unintended Consequences
The more experience I get, the more impressed I am with the Law of Unintended Consequences. The basics are that it is impossible to anticipate outcomes even when one has the best intentions — and some percentage of those outcomes will not be positive. This immutable law appears to apply in every aspect of public [...]
The Wisdom of Mike Tyson
I suspect we all agree planning is important — thinking through alternative scenarios and evaluating responses. While I won’t denigrate planning, perhaps the higher value is flexibility — the capability to move quickly, react to unexpected events. Whether one considers terrorist threats or health issues, both can spring up out of nowhere, not forecast, [...]
More Sky than Duck
I grew up in the Midwest – in Minnesota. As a part of that experience I was taught and developed a life-long love of the outdoors. I grew up fishing and hunting. Duck hunting in particular, taught me an important lesson for life and business that I want to share with you. I recognize that [...]
