Ever wonder what scientists read when they are not mapping the universe or otherwise changing the world with their discoveries? Hint: They're not all geeky science texts. For example, physicist Freeman Dyson has printouts of 165 emails. Here is a link to the books and other whatnots of a handful of famous scientists like cosmologist [...]
This is a great analysis of how a rug merchant in Turkey applied the principles of Robert Cialdini. Do you think he read Influence or Yes!? You must read this story if you're into persuasiveness. Thanks to Mitch Weisburgh for pointing it out.
Just posted a book report for Yes! for my buddies at American Express. This is the best business book I've read this year. Please check out my posting here. One of the co-authors is Robert Cialdini; he is The Man when it comes to persuasion and influence. Every entrepreneur, sales, and marketing person should read [...]
Because patent attorneys charge many thousands of dollars to prepare and file a patent application, some people with the next bright idea opt for the "poor person's patent" (call it the three Ps), which is simply to write up a patent-like description and send it to themselves by registered mail or to pay a notary [...]
You know how I feel about young venture capitalists, right? If you don't, read this. Having written this, I still have an open mind, and this morning young Matt Winn told me about a tool he created called the VCDB (venture capital database). Indeed, you should check out this tool because it's quite useful. You [...]
In the venture capital business, many people think that a short pitch is thirty slides and a short business plan is fifty pages. My how they are mistaken. The more slides and pages that you need to explain your business, the less likely you will succeed. Truly, the best pitches and plans require nothing more [...]
Check out this great article called "How Women Work." It's like a combination of Women for Dummies, Everything You Wanted to Know About Women But Was Afraid to ask, and Women: The Missing Manual. My favorite factoid: men have 6.5 times more gray matter than women. Women have 10 times more white matter. Gray matter [...]
Scientists in two studies at the University of Virginia discovered that softball players and golfers who had good days perceived balls and golf holes as larger than the players who had bad days. The question is, Did this difference in perception cause the player to have better days or did the day's performance cause the [...]
A research team from Durham University and the University of British Columbia is investigating magic tricks to further understand how people's minds work. The key magician's techniques that the team investigated were misdirection and illusion. For example, in the misdirection trick, a researcher dropped a lighter and cigarette while misdirecting the subjects to the opposite [...]
Take a look at what Jeffrey Gordon did with Kronomy after he read my posting about the company. Apple Computer’s life path make your own show details
Guy Kawasaki’s life path Kronomy make your own show details God help me, that's my high-school graduation picture that you see in the second frame. Showing you this picture, however, isn't the reason for this posting. The real reason is to tell you about a company called Kronomy that enables you to create a time [...]
Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do--for example, host 250 women bloggers at your house. This is a photo from the Kirtsy ("Digg for chicks") and Alltop ("aggregation without aggravation") pre-BlogHer party. If you click here, you can see many more including White Trash Mom lifting her leg, Jenny the Bloggess [...]
Voters have selected the five winnners of the Alltop badge contest. Each winner will receive a iPod Touch. The winners are: Jesse Pons Glenn Sakamoto Kristen Chase Ben Goheen Cayley Vos You can see the winning entries here. My thanks to everyone who entered and who voted.
There's nothing I like to study more than techniques of persuasion, and I want to persuade you to check out a website called ChangingMinds.org. You can think of it as Robert Cialdini, my hero when it comes to persuasion, on steroids. Here is a direct link to theories of persuasion but do spend time on [...]
A sign of PR cluelessness is writing to a reporter after an article appears because you think that it should have mentioned your product or company. There are two problems with this theory: first, the reporter isn't going to revise the original piece; and second, she's not going to write another article covering the same [...]
I recently signed up for Friendfeed, and I had a hard time figuring out who to follow. Christine Lu told me that this is a common problem, and we came up with idea of aggregating the top Friendfeeds to help people get started. Check it out: Frienderati.alltop.com. You can use this as a starting point [...]
Neuromarketing has another great blog post. This time the subject is the power of "free." Click here to read it. Apparently, a free offer has power that is far beyond what you'd think. There are many marketing and advertising implications, so go read the posting.
NowPublic bought Truemors yesterday, and I became chairman of NowPublic's board of advisors. You can read more details here. These are exciting times! Thank you everyone for contributing your stories to Truemors and for visiting our site.
Dr. Bianca Wittman of University College London found that making novel choices activates the ventral striatum of the brain. This area is associated with rewarding behavior. Thus, labeling a product as "new" may increase its sales because of this brain wiring. Also, familiar brands also cause higher levels of brain activation, so the perfect pitch [...]
I love ideas like this: bubble-wrap calendars. You pop each day when it's done. A company from Brooklyn sells them for $50--$50 for bubble wrap! I love the margins as much as the idea. Put this one in the "why didn't I think of that?" category.