Leading executives, managers, and experts from SMBs and large enterprises share their insights and perspectives with bMighty on a host of IT issues, challenges, and opportunities that small and midsize businesses face.
In the face of financial turmoil, business owners are scouring their budgets for places to reduce spending, but Jeff Cornwall, the author, academic, and leading blogger, says there are places where you shouldn't cut back, especially during a recession.
The lessons you learn early in life often form the foundation for what you decide to do later on. That certainly holds true for Jeffrey Cornwall. The author, Entrepreneurial Mind blogger, and inaugural Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Tennessee's Belmont University credits his interest in small business to discussions at the dinner table when he was growing up, and to his corporate-expatriate father, who he says is now an "active, octogenarian entrepreneur." Cornwall also is an entrepreneur in his own right: In the late '80s he co-founded and ran a health-care company in North Carolina before he returned to academia nearly a decade later.
Cornwall's books include "Bringing Your Business to Life," "From the Ground Up," and "The Entrepreneurial Educator," his blog has been recognized as Forbes' Best of the Web, and the entrepreneurial programs he has guided (not only for Belmont) have received national recognition. Suffice to say, Cornwall is well-entrenched in all things entrepreneurial. In his conversation with bMighty.com, Cornwall discusses the opportunities of group collaboration, the double-edged sword called social media, and where you should -- and shouldn't -- cut back during a recession.
bMighty: Do you think social media is beneficial to growing businesses or a waste of time?
Jeff Cornwall: Anything can be either of those things. Years ago, I was one of the last people to get a fax machine. I wasn't sure it was cost-effective. I saw it being used a lot as a waste of time. Any new technology takes time to figure out how to use, and also how to use it effectively. I use things now that I used to be skeptical about being productive. I am seeing some real indications that these social media tools can be used productively. There is a lot of overkill, but I think it allows for collaborative work that's collaborative in a truly synchronous state. That can get to be pretty powerful. If I can do applications with someone across the world in real time, that is really powerful. It takes the whiteboard, creative-solving process out of the conference room.
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