Andrew Rudin

Spring has sprung! But what signaled its approach weren’t daffodils or the many hues of outsized azalea blossoms. It was a dependably punctual annual request—well, more accurately, a demand: “Can we get rid of some of this junk in the garage so I don’t have to go through contortions just to get out of my car?”

“. . . . Yes, Dear. As soon as Strasburg gets this last out. . . .”

Let’s saunter over to see the collection of articles I painstakingly stowed over the winter, now deemed undesirable. What to get rid of? Partially filled cans of old, congealed paint? Obsolete computer peripherals? A stack of disassembled Ikea shelving, with holes and channels precisely routed to accommodate the long-missing metal doo-hickeys? I'll take all of this suburban detritus out to the curb for my neighbor to pick over and put in his garage. Done! Now the car door swings fully thirty degrees—room enough to get in or out without having to swear.

It’s...

Sequestration. Bloated agencies. The Fiscal Cliff. When it comes to inefficiency and wasteful spending, my city, Washington DC, beats your city. In fact, economist Milton Friedman once quipped that if you randomly grouped any three or four alphabetic characters, you would name a Federal agency that, if eliminated, would never be missed. But despite Washington’s well-deserved reputation for stultifying red tape, our region has become a thriving innovation hub.

Friedman would be surprised, if not amazed. For entrepreneurs housed in the region’s start-up incubators, tech acronyms like API, XML, AJAX, and HTML are just as likely to hold important meaning as Federal ones like FDA, OSHA, FCC, and BLS. And the focus on entrepreneurship and technology starts early. Last month, Virginia’s...

Every day, lots of sales professionals beat mighty revenue goals. What’s odd-or remarkable, depending on your view-are the persistent references to salespeople as individual contributors. For me, year after year, a not-insignificant chunk of my revenue has had as much to do with the efforts of others as it has had to do with mine.

“I Achieved X% increase in product sales each year in my territory . . .” Similar stories are told through LinkedIn profiles, biographical thumbnails, and personal resumes. But if we unpack these claims, we'd find deeper, more socially-networked, collaborative heroism. We'd uncover back stories that include a gamut of reseller sales, revenue “splits” for systems engineered and sold out of territory but installed locally, reliable run-rate revenue, and bluebird sales that flittered in from...

“Becoming a digital business changes how a company interacts with its customers, but it also requires companies to break down old operating silos and bring in new expertise,” according to an March 18, 2013 article in InformationWeek, Goodbye IT, Hello Digital Business.

Pick up a sledge hammer and start swinging! The slurry of concrete and stone we just poured to support Sales2.0 and SocialCRM has hardened quickly. Now, we’re told, it’s in the way. Oh—your IT person might not be up to the task. Something about an old rotator cuff injury.

It’s déjà vu all over again! Break down silos! Bring in the experts! . . . where have I heard this before? . . . So let’s...