…you’re in for a treat.  In keeping with the theme of looking at the upside of the economy and how to capitalize on it, I suggest you take a look at Blue Ocean Strategy — How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.  The fundamental concept of the book is that a business can choose to compete in a “red ocean” market, head-to-head with its competitors with the same products or services, or a business can create new products or services by combining ideas from diverse markets, thereby operating in a “blue ocean” with little or no competition.

A prime example is a group of entrepreneurial street performers that in 1984 took the idea of a typical circus like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, combined it with the aspects of a dance company such as Pilobilus, and created Cirque du Soleil.  According to Chan and Mauborgne, this blue ocean enterprise has been seen by “almost forty million people in ninety cities around the world.”  And they are still going strong.  When I was in Las Vegas this spring, Cirque du Soleil was running six shows simultaneously throughout the city.

The book is well organized and easy to skim for key concepts if you don’t have time for the full read right now, but I highly recommend you do read it cover to cover when time permits.

Get Into Action 
Make a list of the products or services you currently offer.  Make a second list of all your talents and skills, whether they relate to your current business or not.  Now put those lists side by side, pour yourself your favorite festive beverage, turn off your phone and computer, and think about links between items on the two lists that have blue ocean potential.  It can be fun and fruitful to do this with a friend/colleague – together you can stir up quite a brainstorm, including ideas for joint ventures!