As a follow up to Online Reviews and Small Businesses, check out this posting about the J curve of ratings. The most salient paragraph is: Across many clients in diverse industries this “U” curve turns out to be more like a “J” curve…almost a reverse “L”. The average rating across all clients is 4.3 out [...]
One of fortunate outcomes of the “democratization of information” is that anyone can now be a critic. You don’t even have to be work for a publication anymore because of sites like Local.Yahoo and Judy's Book. Even amateurs can rate businesses: Power to the people! Ilana DeBare of the the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a [...]
This is turning into Marketing Week where is a “week” is defined as whatever time period I am obsessed with a topic. I came across this great video from the Stanford Publishing Courses for Professionals program. It features Ina Saltz. Ina Saltz is the principal of Saltz Design and professor of electronic design at The [...]
Toyota is a great company. When I was in high school in the 1970s, our family had a Corona. it was a pile of junk—I thought it was made of recycled beer cans. Fast forward to the present: Toyota is kicking butt. The company stands for innovative engineering, high-quality manufacturing, and effective marketing. Compare, for [...]
Gadget Week never got rolling last week because I was on vacation in Santa Barbara, and it was difficult to recover from Career Week. :-) This blog is a potpourri of useful sites and cool gadgets. Iinnovate is a collection of audio interviews with David Kelley, founder of IDEO; Mark Leslie, founder of Veritas; and [...]
My buddy Andy Sernovitz, the CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, is coming out with a new book called, duh, Word of Mouth Marketing. I highly recommend this book because it was so practical, tactical, and hysterical. Here are the ten ideas, stories, and recommendations from the book that I liked the most: [...]
This is a video of “Startup Success,” the Churchill Club’s annual look at what it takes to build a successful startup. This panel of five Silicon Valley entrepreneurs discussed the challenges and critical success factors necessary to reach the promised land. August 17, 2006. Moderator: Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures Speakers: Lauren Elliott, [...]
Marten Mickos joined MySQL AB as CEO in 2001. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a startup to the second largest open source company and the fastest-growing database vendor in the world. Prior to MySQL, Mickos held multi-national CEO and senior executive positions in his native Finland. He holds a masters of science [...]
I’m on the campus of UCSB this week at family camp, and it’s inspired me to blog about what students should learn in order to prepare for the real world after graduation. This is an opportune time to broach this subject because the school year is about to begin, and careers can still be affected. [...]
The first time I had to park this car, I was behind a Suburban trying to get into a lot near Moscone Center. The attendant made the Suburban leave and then said to me, “There’s no room in here for a Suburban, but there is for you.” Score one for the Honda Fit. It was [...]
These are photos from the TechCrunch party at August Capital. If you'd like to zoom or see all ninety-one pictures, click on a frame (only thirty are previewed here). If I got $1.00 for every time I heard “Web 2.0,” I would not have to work anymore. Low point of the evening: Kris Tate (founder [...]
Stephanie Tate is the university relations manager for Yahoo!. (This is not her picture; it’s a stock photo from iStockphoto.) She took a look at my cover email and resume and critiqued them. Just to prove that I’m not easily embarrassed—and to provide the most value to my readers, here’s what she said: I’ll pretend [...]
Guy Kawasaki 3300 Hillview Palo Alto, CA 94304 [email protected] 650-354-1854 August 16, 2006 Dear Libby, I read your interview in Guy Kawasaki’s blog (To show I’m digitially hip enough to have read a recent blog item.), and your responses sparked an interest (A little bit of sucking up to show her that I thought that [...]
This is HR and recruiting week on my blog! This is an interview with Libby Sartain of Yahoo. She is responsible for leading Yahoo! Inc.’s global human resources efforts and managing and developing the human resources team. Prior to joining Yahoo! in August 2001, Sartain was “vice president of people” at Southwest Airlines. She holds [...]
Many people ask me for advice about getting a job in Silicon Valley, so here’s the inside scoop. Not everyone will agree with this advice, and some will outright deny what I’m saying, but if you use these tips you will stand head and shoulders above most candidates. Love what the company does. Passion for [...]
Jim Fowler is the CEO of Jigsaw. This company ignited a controversy because it enables users to exchange information about each other’s contacts. The fear is that a hapless, privacy-seeking middle manager gets inundated with sales pitches for Nigerian banking schemes, organic vegetables, outsourcing services, spam filters, and get-rich-quick seminars because she handed out her [...]
Seth Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, entrepreneurship, and work. He is also a renowned speaker and a helluva nice guy. I cornered him and got him to answer ten (really eleven) questions about his latest book, Small is the [...]
Veotag, Inc. enables people to place navigation tags in video and audio files. For example, if a speaker uses the top-ten format, you can tag where each section begins. Listeners/viewers can then click on tags to navigate the digital content. Think of this as adding a table of contents to audio or video. Search engines [...]
I read the best explanation of what makes an idea spread in Seth Godin’s new book: Small is the New Big. For an idea to be spread, it needs to be sent and received. No one sends an idea unless: They understand it. They want it to spread. They believe that spreading it will enhance [...]
My buddy Stephen Nipper wrote this very useful piece about trademarks for Think Vitamin. “Trademark Tips for Your Web App” Choosing a good name for your web app is one of the most important things to get right. But without an understanding of the way that trademark regulations work, you could fall at the first [...]