I interviewed Matt May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, about the topic of elegance. He says that the four qualities of elegance are: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. If you’re interested in creating elegant products and services, you’ll find it very interesting. Check out the interview here. [...]
On a recent trip to Kansas City, I took a tour of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Organized league structure occurred in 1920 with the formation of the Negro National League in Kansas City. This is the first display area of the museum. You’re separated from the “field” in order for you to experience segregation. [...]
In response to the tremendous need for news and information, we build Swine-flu.alltop. At this site we aggregate the major news feeds about swine-flu. Check it out if you can use such an information source.
Over at the American Express blog, I posted an article called "How to Hack Together a Twitter Client" because of my frustration with Twitter clients. If you're a power user of Twitter, check it out.
Over at the American Express Open Forum I just posted this interview with Pamela Slim of Escape from Cubicle Nation. In this interview she explains how to quit your job and start a company to change the world. It’s a must-read for anyone thinking of taking the leap.
In “The Sales Profession: Attention Must Still Be Paid,” Ben Stein explains how a summer job selling shoes taught him how to sell. I feel the same way about my first real job: selling jewelry. I learned more about sales, marketing, and evangelism schlepping gold and diamonds than in any high-tech position since. If you [...]
There are lots of beauty pageants out there for companies looking to raise money, but in my experience, if you want to raise money, it’s probably best not to ask for it in public. Better, tell the world what you have accomplished, not what you need. That’s the idea behind “Launch: Silicon Valley,” which Garage [...]
If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it, but Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, and Rosati, one of Silicon Valley’s dominant law firms (as in Apple, HP, etc), has created a free, online term sheet generator. This is the site’s description of the tool: This tool will generate a venture financing term [...]
Over at the American Express Open forum, I just posted a blog entry called “How to Demo Twitter.” It really explains how to suck people into Twitter if they’re not already members. Check it out if you’ve ever needed help convince people to join Twitter. Please mark it “found useful” if you did.
Over at the American Express Open blog, I posted a story called “The Inside Scoop on Design: Ten Questions with Hartmut Esslinger.” Hartmut was instrumental in the design of Macintosh. If you’re into industrial design, you’ll enjoy this interview. Please mark it “found useful” if you did.
Just returned from my first visit to Barcelona, Spain. Here are pictures from the trip. Mercat de la Boqueria. I’ve been to some cool markets in my life, but la Boqueria set a new standard for me. It was my favorite place in Barcelona. Can you pick out the bull’s balls? Andrew Zimmern would be [...]
Posted a story about the “Art of Commercialization” over at the American Express Open Forum. Check it out if you’re working inside an organization trying to commercialize technology or outside an organization trying to get a deal done. Please mark “found useful” if you did. it’s not easy but can be done.
Over at the American Express OPEN blog, I posted an article called “The Art of the Tutorial.” If you have a product or service that needs explaining, you should read this article (I don’t know many companies that shouldn’t!). Good stuff from my buddies at Atelier Transfert. Please mark that you found the posting useful [...]
“We love the new MyAlltop and think it adds the missing piece to the overall Alltop experience…” Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable http://www.youtube.com/v/Rze0ie_sIN8 This is the first anniversary of Alltop, the “online magazine rack” that aggregates news by topics. We shipped a new version today; the major new feature is customizable pages called “MyAlltop.” MyAlltop enables [...]
Over at the American Express Open Forum, I posted a continuation of an interview with Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited. In this post, he explains when to use Facebook and MySpace and offers advice about generating buzz for an online property like Alltop. Check it out if you’re interested in generating [...]
Sometimes it’s good to be me. For instance, Audi wanted me to blog about its super, duper R8 sports car, so this kind person showed up at my house and handed me the keys to one. Holy kaw! Pinch me: am I awake? This produced a stunning upgrade in my automotive image from a Toyota [...]
Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, an online real estate brokerage firm. Prior to joining Redfin, he was a co-founder of Plumtree Software, a publicly traded company that created the enterprise portal software market. Prior to starting Plumtree, Mr. Kelman worked as one of the first employees at Stanford Technology Group, a startup that [...]
Over at the American Express OPEN blog I posted a story called “How to Get Retweeted” to explain why and how to get your tweets forwarded by people. Check it out if you want to get more out of Twitter. More about Twitter at Twitter.alltop and Twitterati.alltop.
I thought that because Harvard is so prestigious that it could sit back and let the best and brightest students come to it. I was wrong. In “How Harvard Gets Its Best and Brightest,” BusinessWeek reporter William Symonds explains the Harvard recruiting process. In the spring it starts recruiting juniors who will graduate in a [...]
Over at the American Express Open Forum I just posted an interview with Emanuel Rosen in which he explains the "Art of Generating Buzz."