Career resources
Monday, April 3, 2006
Filling Your Knowledge Gaps Will Help You Get Ahead
Continued from Page 1
By Carol Hilderbrand
Lack of Skills Poses Barrier
Like Brennan, thousands of technology-oriented professionals realize each year that they need more knowledge. They could be technical geniuses who want to build and sell their latest invention, or they could be mid-career executives like Brennan who’d like to branch out from a technical base. But they all have one thing in common: They lack the necessary business skills to achieve their goals.
Philip Zerrillo is familiar with stories like these. As director of the Institute for Managerial Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, Zerrillo hosts what he calls "Startup Sundays," at which budding entrepreneurs ask about how to launch companies. And invariably, says Zerrillo, technology-oriented folks are long on the tech stuff and short on business acumen. "They may have good instincts and realize that good cash flow is important to starting a business, but they don’t recognize how to attract capital to a startup, or price products or negotiate price policies rather than price points."
