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 [...]
Dear Santa: 2007 was a great year and I thank you, but I want to provide you with my Christmas list for 2008. I’ve worked with so many engineers that I know that a 363-day lead time should be sufficient. MarsEdit is indispensable for my blogging and Truemors. (If any Macintosh bloggers are on your [...]
Spokeo finds information about your friends—long-lost or not—and then tracks their online activities as they make updates. These friends don’t have to “invite” you, approve your friend “request,” or be a member of Spokeo. Spokeo is able to, for example, monitor their Facebook notes and shares, YouTube videos, Amazon wishlists, Flickr and PhotoBucket photos, Pandora [...]
PARC was the center of the universe for the development of many personal computer and Internet technologies. For example: Ethernet, laser printing, personal computer (Alto), graphical user interface, and object-oriented programming. Maybe “center of the universe” is an exageration, but at the very least, it’s one of the main trees as you can see by [...]
One of Garage’s portfolio companies, cFares, is a leader in discount air fares. Magazines such as Money and Travel & Leisure have called it “Best for Airfares” and the “Costco of Airfares.” cFares would like to offer my blog readers a 90-day, risk-free trial of a cFares Platinum membership for only $1. As a Platinum [...]
Now that you’re a nanotechnology expert, here’s the next trend to study: Free. This is a video of Chris Anderson discussing his next book. Chris is the editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail. Kudos to whoever at Nokia decided to put this keynote online for the rest of us. And kudos to [...]
Batelle Memorial Institute recently completed a report called "Productive Nanosystems: A Technology Roadmap." It's a complete analysis of this world-changing technology.
This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (good luck finding the issue online because I couldn’t) says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular folks is more powerful than “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be all that it’s cracked [...]
I used to take an adult hockey class. Each session started with all of us facing the boards and skating backwards on the instructor’s whistle. We were all supposed to stop on a second whistle; then the instructor grouped students by how far they had skated in the limited time. (This is a picture of [...]
Google announced the winner of the Adsense Story Contest today: Hometips. This is a site that features free content concerning home improvement, remodeling, repair, redecorating, and do-it-yourself projects. For example, here are tips for hanging Christmas lights. According to the owner, Don Vandervort, the revenues generated by Google Adsense went from paying for coffee to [...]
Thankfully, Craig M. and Carla D. pointed out Kiva gift certificates. Your recipient can go online and select an entrepreneur to support. When the loan is repaid, the process starts again. What a great idea for Christmas gifts.
Continuing on the theme of naming companies, you should read “Company Naming Changes 2006” by Strategic Name Development. 1,900 name changes occurred last year. The company has identified nine categories of name changes: Dog Eat Dog (34%) Too Big or Too Little (29%) Build on the Brand (Building on a Strong Brand) (5%)
Stanford Magazine has a terrific article about Kiva called “Small Change, Big Payoff” by Cynthia Haven. This is the story of how Matt and Jessica Jackely Flannery created it to enable people to make micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world. The results are awesome: more than 123,000 people have loaned more than $12.4 million [...]
I enjoy the process of coming up with a name for a company or product, and the fact that so many domains are taken makes it more challenging and enjoyable. (My latest, greatest is Muchobene.) Halfagain Marketing posted an article called “What’s my name?” which is a very useful list of naming tips. For example, [...]
After a very short while, hearing about the nth social-media, video-sharing, or user-generated-content startup gets boring. After all, you can only listen to so many “unique” ideas if you know what I mean. Luckily, once a year or so, I hear about a company that is truly different, and tonight I attended the friends and [...]
Today Amazon announced its foray into selling hardware with a data service. The device is called “Kindle,” and it represents a daring move for an “online bookstore.” You’re going to see two kinds of reviews: bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have. It’s that kind of product—plus [...]
IMHO, this is the best truemor posted yet. It certainly is one way to change the world by fostering pride and empowerment.
The recordings of the “A Brand You World - 2007 Global Telesummit” are now online as MP3s and iTunes Podcasts. It includes people like Jason Alba, Richard Bolles, and Andy Sernovitz. If you want to learn how to market yourself, check them out.