Deborah Rita Paterson

Today was my FIRST DAY (!!) as an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Coach at the Merck Accelerator in Nairobi, Kenya! This is my first gig working with start ups on the ground in Africa and in the accelerator/venture capital space. The challenges are definitely plentiful, but in these cases so are the learnings and that is why is what I came here.

I still haven't figured out how to take the informal bus to work (Matatu = 14 seater van that vaguely follows a route), so I walked for 30 mins along the informal footpaths (clay/mud track carved out by insistent pedestrian traffic) that line the roads.

I took a leap and it paid off. Last week I didn't have a job or a home here, just a plane ticket from the Middle East and a pack full of stuff. An incredibly generous venture capitalist and his wife (from Australia and Singapore) let me use their house as a base, gave me an office to work from my first day and took me to Nairobi Tech Week where..... an awesome lady who runs a social innovation programme found me a home full of international social innovation fellows who are now my little (non) Kenyan family to share these adventures with...

accelerator.merckgroup.com

Exploring a new way of life means you are often venturing through the forest blind. You may be able to find clues or vaguely sense which direction to go in when there are no paths, but it can even be hard to recognise the trees you’ve walked past even if you’ve been in that forest before. Although it’s often a daunting journey and you often feel like you should’ve just stayed home by the fire, it’s a journey full of adventure and learning that once you’ve found your way out, you realise you couldn’t have done without being thrown into the mud.

Going into a new adventure blind is a revealing way to find your blindspots. If you think you don’t have any, then perhaps you might consider that they do exist, but you can’t see them and that is why they are called blindspots. Because you can’t see them, they often cause you to go in circles, or go straight down a road for too long when you probably should have done a U-turn or made a right turn five, ten or a hundred kilometres ago.

The pressures of ambiguity and uncertainty of a journey are valuable tools to use as they help create an environment that intensifies the need for those skills you’re lacking. This aspect makes it easier for you to see what those are. So whether you purposefully set out into the unknown to find your blindspots or you stumble across them, never underestimate the learning that blindness can bring if you keep your eyes open to it.

Bring on Africa and not knowing what I'm going to find here!

Photo courtesy of the wonderfully warm and talented Gabriel Bertogg aka Peanut Butter Vibes.

Challenges can be often be overwhelming and solutions hard to find. However hard they are to tackle, it's really important that we do, but sometimes this means locking them somewhere safe and coming back for them later, just like we do with our treasures.

We use our bikes to get from one place to another, locking them up safe while we rest or do other important things. Solving the challenges we face should sometimes also be put on hold till we are ready to burn energy on them and be accelerated forward on our journey. Every solution to a challenge has a different value at a different time and maybe it isn't quite the right time for this one, but it will be later.

Life is full of finding the right thing, for the right purpose at the right time. Right now, the right thing for me is rest, a slice of home and a bit of family... Then we can pick up where we left off and continue this journey and all the challenges we've put on hold that will teach us a world of good..

Photo courtesy of the wonderfully warm and talented Gabriel Bertogg aka Peanut Butter Vibes.

What does business development have in common with dating?

Amy Bonsall, a design director at IDEO whom I had the pleasure of working with in Singapore, shares how she's using what she's learning from the world of dating to make her more successful in the business development world.

I mean, after all, business can be quite 'Romeo and Juliet' too right? "You can't work with them, their our arch rivals", "They went behind our backs", "We must do it in secrecy", "Our love and loyalty will never die."

How Dating Improved My Business Development Game — IDEO Stories Like most people, I tend to make new year’s resolutions, but find reasons not to stick to them before the first quarter …

There are many emerging CEO's I've interacted with who have huge potential and all of whom have a unique way they want to add value to the world through businesses and their lives. What's common though, is the way they think about leadership and the way they go about creating a sustainable business through their team, for their customers and ultimately themselves as CEO's too.

"As a young CEO in a new generation, I would like to redefine my role and replace the words that make up that acronym to that of Chief Experience Officer. I believe that my job is to make sure that everyone - our users, customers, stakeholders and employees ... basically everyone that comes into contact with our brand in any way, has a truly positive experience...... if you can create an amazing experience, it's going to help improve your business."

As an experience designer, I realises just how relevant my skills are to leadership and business design. Although my process is usually centred around design for customers on behalf of brands, I am particularly passionate about how I apply it to design a synergetic experience for my future team, clients, partners and ultimately myself as a leader..

What experience would you create at a CEO?

The New CEO - Chief Experience Officer Close your eyes. I want you to think of the first person that comes to mind when I say, "CEO." Who did you think of? Was it the visionary Steve Jobs clad in his trademark black turtleneck? Or was it