Duct tape (the tape) is simple, effective, and affordable—it’s not always the prettiest solution, but it does always work. The central theme of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch is that effective small business marketing is a system—not an event—composed of simple, effective, and affordable techniques. When [...]
I grant you that I know very little about music. The most I can say is that my parents named me after Guy Lombardo (I consider myself lucky because they could have named me after Guy’s brother, and I would be “Carmen Kawasaki.”) That said, I declare this “Violin Monday” for two reasons: First, I [...]
Amazon—yes the place you buy books from—has a cool service called the Mechanical Turk. It’s a system that enables people to complete online tasks (“HITS”) such as tagging, classifying, searching, grading, and transcribing. For example, you could pay people to do tasks such as: Grading a podcast transcription Summarizing a blog post Finding out who [...]
Since blogging about Bob Sutton’s notorious book, The No Asshole Rule, I have received a constant flow of emails from readers sharing their own tales of lecherous bosses and indignities suffered. Mean-spirited morons are still running much of the workplace, and it’s time to take a stand. Most nastiness is directed by superiors to subordinates; [...]
At the Elite Retreat I gave an off-the-cuff answer to a question concerning getting the attention of venture capitalists. My buddy Wendy Piersall blogged about my answer, and it was a very popular. However, to truly help entrepreneurs, I’d like to provide a cogent list of the tips to get the attention of a venture [...]
I love the Internet because I wake up every day and discover something cool. Today’s discovery is TrendHunter, a site that recruits people around the world to spot trends. Here are some examples: Condom testers needed in the UK—mum’s the word or shaken, not stirred? Portraits made of chewing gum—giving a whole new meaning to [...]
This is a follow-up to the posting of March 14th based on a new book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It is a video of Professor Carol Dweck explaining fixed and growth mindsets. Also, this diagram explains the differences between the two mindsets. It’s great—but that’s not surprising because Nigel Holmes created it. [...]
This is the final issue of Science Daily Week. Here’s a three-fer. Researchers at the University of Oregon found that when people watch someone perform a task that they know they’ll have to repeat later, similar parts of the brain are activated that are used doing the the task itself. The source is “Watching With [...]
Today’s Science Daily tidbit is that advertising during television programs with sexy content is less effective than during programs with no sexy content. This is the research finding of Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham of the Department of Psychology of the University College London. I loved this quote: “The fact that recall of adverts was [...]
Science Daily Week continues with the study of assistant professor Vanessa Patrick (University of Georgia) along with co-authors Debbie MacInnis and C. Whan Park (University of Southern California): “Marketing: Too Much Hype Backfires.” The study shows that “people take notice when they feel worse than they thought they would, but—oddly—not when they feel better than [...]
I recently learned about Science Daily. It is a treasure chest of interesting studies that has implications on business practices. I’ve collected so much material from it that this is going to be “Science Daily Week” in my blog. For example, have you ever wondered whether giving employees a pay-for-performance bonus or a merit raise [...]
I’m making a speech next week (March 29th) in Kelowna, BC for the Okanagan Science and Technology Council’s “2007 Silicon Vineyard Innovation Awards.” If any of you are in the area, I hope you can make it.
My Stanford psychology professor, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, and Zeno Franco, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology wrote a terrific article called “The Banality of Heroism.” Dr. Zimbardo ran the (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment, so he knows how circumstances can make good people do bad things. This article is different—it’s [...]
The guys at iInnovate posted a lovely interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Among the topics they covered were: Anti-trust (with a beautiful deke to create “time and space” as we say in hockey) Innovation Competitive advantages Motivation of entrepreneurs Maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit Traditional and non-traditional organization design What Microsoft and Yahoo does [...]
SlideShare.net, a site for sharing PowerPoint presentations, today announced The World’s Best Presentation Contest. The judges are a “who’s who” of presentation gurus: Bert Decker, Garr Reynolds, Jerry Weissman, and me. Contestants upload their presentation files to Slideshare.net, and people from anywhere can rate the entries. Their votes will determine the “People’s Choice” winner. The [...]
Bob Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, continues to, well, kick butt. It’s gaining notoriety across the globe and, more importantly, it’s usually in the top twenty sellers of Amazon. Here are some interesting factoids about the introduction of the book. 57,774 people have taken the [...]
More TED Talks are now online—though not the ones from this year. The last time I blogged about TED Talks, I made that claim that Majora Carter was as good as Steve Jobs and that created a controversy. One of my favorites is Richard St. John’s. It’s from 2005, but it’s still highly relevant. He [...]
If you manage any people or if you are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read The Effort Effect. This is an article about Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck. It examines her thirty-year study of why some some people excel and others don’t. (Hint: the answer is not “God-given [...]
Avenue A Razorfish recently published the 2007 Digital Outlook Report (6230.6K). This report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other. Specifically, it covers the following areas: Digital Buzz Digital Media (R)evolution Search Consumer Dialogues: The Digital Class Measurement Op-Ed: What’s on Our Minds? [...]
On Monday, March 19th at 11:00 am Pacific Time, I will be speaking on The Art of Innovation at the Microsoft Small Business Summit. This is a FREE online event that lasts for five days. There are approximately fifty eight sessions designed to provide small business owners with strategic insights from experts in business and [...]