Earlier this year I had heard from sources at various business schools that given the recession and slower consulting and investment banking hiring, a lot of MBA graduates were looking to careers in business development. This is a great development, but in my experience the term "business development" means quite different things to different people. Here's a paraphrasing of some of the types of statements I've heard in the workplace:

Recently I found myself describing (in somewhat abstract terms) how a particular consulting engagement should come together. The upshot of my argument was that given a particular statement of work, there are a number of "ways to skin a cat" and get an engagement team to gel. In this particular case, my feeling was that an engagement approach would be equally valid if the team shifted the basis of consulting towards one of the three prototypes I describe below (even if it meant shifting away from another).

Though anecdotal, I've seen a slight rise in activity with companies looking to incubate new businesses or start-up climates within a larger company. These are challenging situations to get off the ground. Based on a mixture of consulting to a number companies in these situations and being involved with at least one of these situations as a manager within the company, here are some thoughts on winning and losing moves:

Yesterday while getting some minutes on the elliptical machine, I was re-reading George Lois' advertising book, "What's The Big Idea". Two of the stories really cracked me up, and they led to write this perspective post on lawyers, more from a startup, venture, or new business initiative point of view.

When thrust into a situation where either resources are constrained, there are competing management choices, and paths forward are unclear, I often find a consulting method of "finding and relieving the bottleneck" useful.

The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2,

Earlier this quarter I had an opportunity to contend for a contract product management role associated with a company that provides software to marketing professionals and intermediaries (e.g., in the agency space). At risk of oversimplifying, the software that this company provides is somewhat new in its packaged form - the technology could be consider offspring technology (new product introduction) developed via consulting projects with big brands.

The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2,

The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2,