FeldThoughts uncovered a great video recently of Simon Sinek, a marketing consultant who developed “The Golden Circle” concept for business, speaking at a Tedx Conference in Puget Sound, WA on 09/17/09.

As a slight variation to my introduction of OpenSource, Sinek looks at how most businesses default to looking at the “What” and “How”, but seldom take the time to identify the “Why”, which he feels is the most important question to ask and answer.

What’s critical to note is that WHY is an open-ended question that can lend itself to a variety of contexts: Why is this business important? Why is your product innovative? Why would customers care? Why are you doing this? Why would investors take interest? Why not?

When a business is able to answer these questions, the WHAT and HOW will follow much more easily.