My favorite scene in The Last Samurai was when the Tom Cruise character says something to the effect that “I’ve never seen a people who are more obsessed with perfecting simple skills” as he watches some villagers. This is just so Japanese—I’ve used it several times to explain to my wife why I try to [...]
You’ve got to read “Is the Tipping Point Toast?” by Clive Thompson in FastCompany. The gist of Thompson’s piece, based on the work of Duncan Watts of Yahoo Research, is that the theory that a select few “key influencers” matter more than “the rest of us” when it comes to viral and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns [...]
Dave Walker pointed out a very interesting blog post called "Ecommerce Registration Usability Tips." The author(s) analyzed the registration procedure of eighty seven online retailers. One of my pet peeves is sites that don't allow you to use your email address as a user name--he found that only 13% do. Surprisingly, only 1% of the [...]
Triggit is a WYSIWYG web application for integrating third-party elements into websites. It enables people to drag and drop advertisements, Flickr pictures, and YouTube videos directly into their site without any skills in web programming. Triggit is free to use, and works on any site that accepts JavaScript. It does not require any downloads, access [...]
My friend Anastasia Goodstein is running the Ypulse College Mashup conference for companies who are trying to reach the college-student market. The conference is running from January 31 to February 1 in Santa Monica, California. Speakers include: Jake Sasseville, host, The Edge With Jake Sasseville; Jessica Barron, director, Front Page Programming, Yahoo!; Chip Ross, director [...]
Saturday, January 12, 2008 I write this after a good night’s sleep—the first I’ve had since December 29. That was the day that incumbent Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announced victory in the country’s elections and was sworn in as a nation listened, paralyzed with shock. Moments later, the radio system went dead. When broadcast resumed, [...]
All hail Garr Reynolds! He has written the definitive book about making great presentations: Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter). To give you a taste of his book (and increase my link count), here are ten questions (really thirteen) with Garr. Question: Who indexed your book? I know I’m [...]
Here's a feed of video coverage of CES via the Inquirer (you've got to love the British sense of humor). There are fifty-four sessions in this feed including keynotes by Bill Gates, Jerry Yang, Paul Otellini, Rick Waggoner, John Chambers, Michael Dell, and Ed Zander. If nothing else, you'll see why people should read this [...]
This is a guest post by Scott Shane as a follow up to his entrepreneurship test. He is the A. Malachi Mixon Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which is The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy [...]
A site's signup page is the second most important page on a site (the most important is the home page itself) because this is where you're asking for committment. Everyone worries about the home page (and still don't do a good job), but most companies do a poor job with the signup page. For example, [...]
Scott Shane of Case Western recently published The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By. In the book, he bursts many of the bubbles of entrepreneurship in America. Says he, “People start businesses based on the myths we tell ourselves about entrepreneurship and then are hurt when confronted [...]
Bert Decker, executive coach extraordinaire, announced the ten best and worst communicators of 2007. He named Mike Huckabee the best communicator and Alberto Gonzalez the worst one. Click through to see the other winners and losers. Even I made the list, but I won’t tell you if it is as a winner or a loser.
While many venture capitalists flew in private jets to their third homes in Sun Valley, Deer Valley, or $t. Moritz, yours truly drove to San Francisco in his Toyota Sienna to stay in a World War II submarine with my son’s Boy Scouts troop. This is one of the great joys of fatherhood—that is, you [...]