It amazed me to hear the number of women speak of their business as if it were their baby. You could hear in their tone, if not their language, this primal connection they felt for their little going-concerns. So much emotion attached to these vehicles of commerce that these business owners could hardly speak of it without a catch in their voice and a surfeit of sentiment in their eyes.

It could be that I’m overstating the point, but certainly it’s fair to say that these women could simply not imagine selling the thing that they had made, the sometimes unassailable wisdom of doing so notwithstanding.

I’m not sure if this is a female-versus-male kind of thing, but if it is, then I’m herewith laying claim to the mind of a man.

Come on, folks. It’s a business, full stop.

It is, at the end of the day, little more than a stack of papers that make provisions for the sale of something that you have decided is worth a certain value—and someone else has agreed. I made partner at Deloitte for one reason and one reason only: I build businesses. Within the framework of Deloitte, it was a “service line” I was putting together, admittedly, but the final product amounted to a self-sustaining business within a larger model.

Today, I am building 360 along the same route, and not one of my employees imagines that there won’t come a day when I will sell the thing out from under the lot of us. It may be to them (the employees), it may be to another business, it may be to Daffy Duck—who knows? But my intent to sell is real, and I’ll make no provision for any emotions that might crowd this decision.

As for the question of when, well, I don’t know that, either. At $5m? Maybe. At $10m? Could be. At $25m? I can’t say for sure.

But I do know this thing: emotions will not play any part in my decision. And if that’s cold-hearted of me, particularly considering my repeat spot in Profit magazine’s W100 list, Canada’s largest annual celebration of entrepreneurial achievement by women, then so be it.

But I prefer to think of such things simply as cleaning up the table before starting another project on it.

Just like a woman.

This is my third time in this annual ranking, which profiles the country’s most successful female business owners and is published in the November issue of Profit and online at www.profitmagazine.ca. In 2007, I clocked in at #100. Last year, I bumped to #94. This year, I took a vault up the ladder to grab the #58 spot.

You can see the whole list here.

While upping my ranking thus certainly puts a smile on my face, I’m happier still that the magazine decided to change the qualifying criteria for 2009, from a pure gross revenue perspective to a combination of gross revenue and three-year growth. This more comprehensive assessment makes the contest more inclusive than before, which explains why the magazine attracted more participants than ever this year.

And I was thrilled to be among them.

Really. I was.

Time and again I’m at the receiving end of admonishments by my executive coaches or members of my advisory board for not taking the time to revel in my accomplishments and actually enjoy the sensation of sunlight on my face. More inclined am I just to plow on to the next achievement or goal, leaving the last uncelebrated in my wake.

So it was that the Profit W100 ranking came and went with scant fanfare on my part.

Still, as much as people might congratulate me on this triumph, I will never file it as mine alone. The Profit prize, as with any, is not a Lynn Cooke award, but a 360 Visibility award. It’s simply not on to take personal credit for this kind of thing when it’s clearly an acknowledgement of the work of a team of individuals, all of us driven toward the common goal of being number one in Canada

Anyway, my greatest regret around all of this is that they appear to have cancelled the Profit W100 event that physically gathers together the extraordinary women with whom I share this honour, the PROFIT W100 Idea Exchange. Economic conditions have squeezed this day of learning and networking out of the realm of possibility, alas and alack, and I will miss it very much indeed.

But this unfortunate fact diminishes not at all my feelings about the honour.

I’m thrilled to have scored this recognition from such a respected source, thrilled to be included inside such an impressive collection of businesswomen, thrilled to be named to such an esteemed list, and for the third year in a row. Thrilled.

Really. I am.

Ranked number 100 in 2007 and number 94 in 2008, Lynn Cooke has skyrocketed to number 58 for the 2009 issue.

“In many ways, female entrepreneurs have the odds stacked against them. They are more likely to be turned down for bank financing. They have to balance their work with their family life. And they still face long-outdated stereotypes about the types of companies they run.” says Canadian Business Online. “Despite the obstacles, however, female entrepreneurship is thriving in Canada. Since 1997, women in Canada have started companies at about twice the rate of men. Women are driving some of this country’s most dynamic and robust businesses — and you’ll find the leaders of many of those firms on this year’s PROFIT W100, our list of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs.”

As a mother of two children under the age of 6, a former Partner in the consulting firm Deloitte Consulting Group, a Certified General Accountant, and a Certified Management Consultant, Lynn Cooke understands the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs today. In 2003, when she and her partner Marco D’Ercole co-founded 360 Visibility, she knew that in order to succeed and grow the business, it was going to take more than motivation “Over the last 6 years we’ve worked really hard to not only maintain our business, but to grow it.” says Lynn. “It hasn’t been easy. Given the economic situation over the last few years, and the fact that the face of business is changing, we’ve had to adapt our approach in order to continue to succeed. I am proud of the hard work and dedication of our entire team, and I am excited for the future. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds.” Having been named to the Top 100 list 3 years running, and moving up the list each time, it’s clear that Lynn’s future will hold great things – perhaps a spot in the Top 10 for 2010.

Lynn Cooke formed 360 Visibility Inc. with her partner Marco D’Ercole, around a vision to provide all enterprise participants in a client organization with the information they need to make swift, well-informed, coordinated, and above all profitable business decisions. They currently offer clients enterprise software, communication and technical infrastructure solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management, AltiGen Voice Over IP telephony solutions, and Microsoft enabling infrastructure technologies and services.

Over the last 6 years, 360 Visibility Inc. has built an outstanding reputation in the fields of professional services – including media and PR agencies, engineers and architects, financial services, hospitality – including hotels and resorts, and wineries. Helping a number of clients to effectively pilot their businesses to compete and win in today’s challenging and dynamic business environment, 360 Visibility has truly accomplished their vision. The company has grown to over 25 employee’s and continues to expand, landing new clients and increasing their competencies and offerings.

360 Visibility. See clearly. Act faster.

About PROFIT Magazine:

PROFIT: Your Guide to Business Success, is Canada’s preeminent publication dedicated to the management issues and opportunities facing small and mid-sized businesses. For more than 25 years, Canadian entrepreneurs across a vast array of economic sectors have remained loyal to PROFIT because it’s a timely and reliable source of actionable information that helps them increase their revenues, boost their profitability and get the recognition they deserve for generating positive economic and social change. Published six times a year by Rogers Publishing Ltd., PROFIT is distributed almost exclusively to the chief executives of companies with 5 – 250 employees and annual revenue of $1 million to $25 million, reaching more than 300,000 readers across Canada. Visit PROFIT online at www.PROFITmagazine.ca.

See the entire Profit 100 list at Profit Magazine.

But before all that grinding activity and high-flown success, there was only a newcomer, and the daunting task of having to create an entire technology infrastructure for it. Because, in spite of the fact that Birch Hill was a spinoff, the company was established as an independent, so everything, and I mean everything, had to be invented and installed and integrated from the ground up for it—ideally, at the hands of a single-source supplier.

I’m happy to say that, from the massive Great Plains implementation to the Microsoft CRM and BlackBerry sweep, we pulled that bit of magic off and helped to launch this new entity as a going concern. It’s a trick we’ve performed too many times to count now, but it bears remembering.

After all, an ever-changing legislative landscape, intense global competition, a proliferation of product and service offerings, and the incredibly and increasingly complex risk-and-regulatory scene mean companies involved in financial services play on a field characterized by some of the most challenging data needs of any sector.

What’s more, success breeds complication, with explosive revenues translating into explosive data content. Financial services firms need to accomplish everything from sales forecasting to sales cycle visibility and accuracy, to customer service, and they need to do it all competently, profitably and—given the very public nature of some aspects of their business—visibly.

To succeed in this environment, clearly, you need a powerful combination of ultra-secure technology and comprehensive business applications designed specifically for financial services operations. More than ever, the ability of companies in this sector to manage growth, control costs and respond effectively to change is a function of the flexibility and scalability of the enterprise systems and financial services software that define them, and the business solutions firm that supports them.

We at 360 are well placed to deliver to our customers the most appropriate of this kind of stuff, whether our clients’ business is in credit unions, banking, investment, insurance or any other financial services engagement. Drawing on a deep well of expertise and experience in implementing customized Microsoft business solutions that boost revenue and increase customer satisfaction, we help financial services clients—like Birch Hill—to automate and optimize themselves with business performance solutions that bear remembering.

The sweeping appearance of voice and data networks on the evolving scene put analog, digital and key phone office systems out to pasture. If you’re still punching up one of these babies, though, I wouldn’t despair. We at 360 can yank your legacies into the latest century with telephone technology that’ll lay you flat.

Our world-class converged communications solutions capitalize on the latest Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and set you up with a state-of-the-art phone system that’s as robust and flexible as it is reliable and cost effective. What’s more, because so much of the cool stuff is software based, thus sidestepping the proprietary hardware-rooted phone systems of old, it’s a breeze to manage yourself.

This kind of thing is particularly worth hearing if you’re at the helm of a “virtual office” whose requirements for a full range of telephony and networking functionality are every bit as acute as those of the guy in the more conventional office setting.

There are many hallmarks to a good phone system. Maybe it allows a company to communicate across multiple offices as if employees were in the same building, whether that means patching a client through to a remote staffer or allowing employees in any location to pick up an incoming call.

Maybe it accommodates the latest in videophone technology and is reliable enough to finally count as a legitimate alternative to travel.

Or maybe it’s just an ultracool setup that lets users dip into the latest finds—including instant messaging, web-based collaboration, and all manner of video and mobility solutions—from the telecommunications pool.

The waves began in the 1870s, when a slew of inventors made a dash for the patent office to indemnify designs for telegraph-busting technology that transmitted speech electrically. Alexander Graham Bell clocked in first and the rest, as they say, is history.

The earliest phone made good on the hypothesis that by converting sound waves into electrical signals and employing a transmitter with a membrane capable of broadcasting them and a receiver capable of reproducing them, one could reinvent forever what it means to communicate remotely.

Today the humble telephone is among the most common household appliances. By the end of 2006, there were nearly four billion mobile and fixed-line subscribers worldwide. Four billion! Talk about a killer app.
Eventually, the industry gravitated into digital telephony, improving its quality and capacity along the way and today, well, today, all bets are off. Telephone conversations that started as analog signals over wires are digital signals that travel by micro- and lightwaves over land, optical fibre and air. The traditional analog telephone is converging with computer data and entertainment networks. Cats are mating with dogs. And nothing nothing nothing will ever be the same.

Over here at 360, the best thing is that we get to watch all this change from the front lines. More than that, we get to effect it.

With this development, we now have various deputies overseeing our every H1N1-influenced rumination, including one charged with communicating all the scraps of H1N1 news to everyone else.

I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic with all of this, but it seems a bit extraordinary to have to put in writing such common-sense imperatives as the one that says, If you’re sick, stay home! Anyone who’s got school-aged children knows the rules. The kid gets a fever, the kid stays at home until 24 hours after the fever has gone. Full stop.

I appreciate that some folks suffer the pressure to keep up with their workload to such a degree that they feel they simply can’t afford the convalescent time off. We’re all crazy busy, and all with tasks that needed to be finished last week.

But the problem with that kind of thinking is the impact it has on the rest of us, the pathetic masses who put their healthy selves in peril at the office every time a coworker who felt he had no choice but to carry his germs with him sees through that decision.

That he does is nonsense.

We give our employees more than enough sick days to cover their various forays off the healthy path. Nobody should feel compelled to come into work when they’re not well. It’s easy to stay at home.

What isn’t so easy, as a CEO heading up a typical collection of healthy and not-so-healthy individuals, is negotiating the grey area between having sympathy and trying to run a business.

Another thing that’s making me shake my head these days? A news article I saw recently about ERP reseller Tectura Denmark having to write off an astonishing 68,000 hours of work when a project with which it was engaged came seriously off the rails. Its failure forced Tectura to halve its employee count and has generated a deficit of some $58 million.

What’s more, the ordeal has not surprisingly led to accusations of breach of contract from both the UK customer by whom Tectura was retained, and Tectura.

It baffles me how an organization could let something like that get so out of hand.

Illnesses—both real and metaphoric—have no place in corporate Canada. Let’s pay attention, be alert and take action before an at-work sickness of any kind finds its way inside our doors.

I remember the genuine shock with which I greeted a statistic noting that 70% of companies use just 30% of their software functionality, courtesy of an alarmingly widespread lack of training that keeps folks from tapping into the full potential of their technology.

It’s one thing to stock your arsenal with a slew of technological marvels, to arm yourself with the most robust tools on the streets, but quite another to hunker down and actually learn how to use the stuff.

Don’t limit your training efforts to the geek squad. It’s folly to imagine that information technology training is the purview of the information technologists alone. It behooves management to cast the net a bit wider, to snag a few from the trenches with this imperative to understand.

Indeed, the benefits for employees of a formal, wide-reaching IT training program outweigh the risks. Most employees want to enhance their skills, and may view training as a bonus from their employer. Organizations that offer formalized training and keep employees’ salaries competitive mitigate the risk of losing these souls to other organizations.

Whether it’s through traditional training or online education, the 360 Visibility team has what it takes to ensure that everyone in your organization has those skills to keep their souls intact. And by paying this subject heed, managers make a visible commitment to improving the lots of their firms with a system that cuts IT costs, reduces business risk, and generates new opportunities and growth.

Ideally, nobody should ever leave the classroom.

Even while you’re figuring one revolutionary, groundbreaking, bleeding-edge thing out, another revolutionary, groundbreaking, bleeding-edge thing is taking shape on the horizon. And you’ll have to learn about it, too.

Think about it. Just a decade ago, if you started whittering on about “blogs” or “wikis,” you might as well have been speaking another language. Today, admit to a disconnect on these critical concepts at your own peril. But that’s just the point. This is how learning takes place. The crowd gets there in the end. But by the time they do, you should, by all standards of reasonable performance, have left them in your dust.

“Your ability to learn faster than your competition,” said Arie de Geus when he was head of Shell Oil’s strategic planning group, “is your only sustainable competitive advantage.”

By committing to an ongoing program of information technology training for all levels of staff, management demonstrates its dedication to exploiting this advantage to its greatest extent.