Continuing on from Minnesota, I went to Québec for the Garage Canada conference. The Winter Carnival was also going on at the same time. I thought Minnesota was cold, but it was downright balmy compared to Québec. Despite the -40 degree weather, I found many parallels between Québec and my native states of Hawaii and [...]
Here’s a compilation of silly and stupid ways companies are hindering adoption of their products and services. I must admit, some of the companies that I’ve invested in have made these mistakes—in fact, that’s why I know these mistakes are (a) silly; (b) stupid; and (c) hinder adoption. Enforced immediate registration. Requiring a new user [...]
There are very few products that I depend on more than SpinVox. This service translates voicemail to text and then sends a text message to your phone and/or an email to your computer. SpinVox is currently introducing this service to the US. As an introductory offer, the first 250 people can get the service for [...]
I’m on a trip to my new adopted state, Minnesota. (Perhaps I am a Minnesotan trapped in a Hawaiian body instead of Canadian trapped in a Hawaiian body.) The first order of business was playing in the U. S. Pond Hockey Championships put on by Haberman and Associates. It featured approximately 200 teams playing on [...]
Before you dedicate your life to crafting a business plan the length of a book, read these two paragraphs from the 1/9/07 edition of the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Enterprise: Do Start-ups Really Need Formal Business Plans" A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated [...]
Here’s a collection of podcasts about marketing from Marketing Voices, a weekly podcast that discusses how social media is affecting marketing strategy and practices, by my buddy Jennifer Jones. There’s lots of great information for entrepreneurs and small-business owners in these podcasts. Seth Godin, marketing expert, author. States that small is the new big. People [...]
My source at LinkedIn, Kay Luo, tells me that my profile is in the 99.99th percentile of profiles viewed. She insisted that I should make it good—or at least suck less. So I enlisted her and LinkedIn’s designer, Mike Lin, to do an “extreme makeover” of my profile. This is what was wrong with my [...]
My favorite book about creativity is If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. I recently read Hugh Macleod’s ChangeThis manifesto called “How to be Creative,” and I think it’s as empowering as If You Want to Write. Hugh is the guy behind Gapingvoid (“cartoons drawn on the back of business [...]
Check out this excellent compilation of visualization methods called “A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.” This came to my attention via a convoluted path from BoingBoing (who thanks Mike Love) to Seth Godin to Acorn Creative. Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler created it. You might also enjoy reading their paper, entitled “Towards a Periodic [...]
My prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is that it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people. The book explains why some ideas stick and some don’t--and I’ve been on both sides of this equation. A warning though: If you read [...]
Talk about unintended consequences, all I wanted to do with “A Review of My First Year of Blogging” was provide some factoids about my blog. However, this tidbit became quite the topic: Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during [...]
The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven. The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes. People with [...]
Matthew E. May is the author of The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation. He has held a key advisory role with the University of Toyota for over eight years, and he is a graduate of the Wharton School and Johns Hopkins University. You can download a copy of his ChangeThis manifesto by clicking [...]
2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve [...]
For the last post of 2006, here is a funny comment from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog: The Days Before PodPhone Twas a few days past Christmas and all through the house, Vista was waiting to hear from your mouse. Jim Allchin retired and bought a nice Mac. He transferred his data and [...]
Communications coach Bert Decker just named the ten best and worst communicators of 2006. To whet your appetite, here is the ten worst list: Nancy Grace Barry Bonds Mel Gibson Ray Tillerson Lindsay, Paris, Britney, and Nicole Senator George Allen OJ Simpson Shaquille O’Neal Rosie, Katie, and Meredith George Bush Check out his ten best [...]
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for entrepreneurs: ”I will fix my pitch.“ And here’s a suggestion on how to do this written by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. Endless articles, books, and blogs have been written on the topic of business plan presentations and pitching to investors. In spite of this wealth [...]
Marti Nyman is “director of global innovation networks” for Best Buy. This means that his job is to find leading-edge, cool stuff for Best Buy—and yes, he gets paid to do this. Marti has held a diverse array of positions in strategic alliances, business development, mergers and acquisitions, business-unit leadership, sales and marketing, manufacturing, and [...]
In the spirit of Christmas, this entry is dedicated to the gift of giving. I’ve come across a couple of very interesting ways to change the world through philanthropy: First, Unitus. The purpose of Unitus is to fight global poverty by increasing access to microfinance. It accelerates the growth of the world’s highest-potential emerging microfinance [...]
A little known story: When I was writing Selling the Dream—How to Promote Your Product, Company, or Idea—and Make a Difference Using Everyday Evangelism, I attended the Billy Graham School of Evangelism to learn from the best. It was a very interesting experience. Some of the finest speakers that I’ve seen (and tried to copy) [...]