"I already have a meeting at lunch." This isn't a lie if you consider talking to people on the bench between shifts a "meeting." What can I say? One of my great joys in life is playing hockey, and some of the best games are at lunch time during the week. So if I tell [...]
Much of my blog, and other information for entrepreneurs, focuses on creating new products, raising money, and building a successful startup. The advice stops there, and everyone lives happily ever after. Guess again. Here’s some information about what happens after the honeymoon is over when the shiitake hits the fan. There are three parts to [...]
As reported in the San Jose Mercury News. You’ve got to love Scott McNealy’s sense of humor. He’s a very good hockey player, by the way. 10. “I don’t have to apologize for stuff I say to Wall Street.” 9. “I’m no longer on the most overpaid CEO list.” 8. “I just say, ‘See Jonathan on that.’” 7. “I [...]
This is an MP3 recording from the venture capital panel at a Garage event called The Art of the Start. In this panel, five prominent venture capitalists from Silicon Valley firms discuss entrepreneurship, fund raising, and market sectors. The panel occurred in 2005 (that is, after the dotcom implosion), so the information is still highly [...]
Oy vey, Uri calls out marketing gurus with this top twelve list. By my count, I’ve committed at least five of these sins, but I won’t reveal which five. :-)
Nathan MacNeill, the co-founder of a company called Network Streaming (recently renamed Bomgar), documented the lessons that he learned from winning the DEMOgod award at DEMO 2006. I am publishing what he wrote for three reasons: To supplement “How to Be a Demo God.” To help the entrepreneurs preparing for Red Herring Spring 2006 (especially [...]
In a manner of speaking, I’m running out of lies to tell. So far I’ve taken care of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, engineers, and marketers. The target of this posting is “corporate partners.” (You might find a previous posting, “The Art of Partnering” interesting.) These are the large, infinitely rich, and high brand-recognition companies that supposedly [...]
If most venture capitalists weren’t liars, we’d tell you that if we had the opportunity to fund Google, we would have passed. Seriously, who would have thought the world needed another search engine in 1995? Fast forward to 2006. Does the world need another web conferencing product? Maybe. Check out Vyew. Vyew is a free [...]
I just learned that Jajah is giving away 100 minutes of long distance calls to moms. Check out the offer here. Powered by Qumana
Two little gems rolled across my desktop today: First, a blog about gift giving. Perhaps a little late for Mother's Day, but Father's Day is coming. Check out "The Art of Gift Giving" by Carolyn Goodwin. This is a great guide to getting more analog in a world that's too digital. I loved this little [...]
In the spirit of anti-bozosity that Pam Slim’s posting recently established, here is an interview with Bob Sutton. Bob is a professor of management science and engineering at the Stanford School of Engineering. His latest book, co-authored with Jeffrey Pfeffer, is called Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. It’s a [...]
This is an MP3 recording of Jim Whittaker speaking at a Garage event in 2005. Jim is the first American to climb Mount Everest and the former CEO of REI. His topics include leadership, perseverance, and risk taking. Download 05_keynote__a_life_on_the_edge.mp3 Powered by Qumana
Check out this web site of world maps that are cartograms (density-equalising maps). The one on the right depicts the level of toy imports. There are ninety-two different maps covering population, imports, exports, tourism--you name it. Thanks to Jon G for bringing this to my attention. Seeing these maps definitely alters how one looks at [...]
Just read this blog entry by Pam Slim. Pam was a consultant to management (as opposed to a management consultant). In this piece, she lets it rip about what she thinks management does wrong. Very entertaining. You’ll love her spirit. It starts off like this: I am writing to you as a newly minted rebel. [...]
A few weeks ago I provided a site where you can see my Art of Innovation speech. My buddy, Mike Johnston, just showed me that my Art of the Start speech is online here. The Art of Innovation is a speech for any stage of company that is trying to create and marketing innovative products [...]
Saw this at Presentation Zen: Steve Jobs testifying at the Cupertino City Council. There is much to observe in this short clip: Casual speaking style No slides or multimedia crutches Friendly yet powerful: i.e., he's essentially saying, "We could have gone elsewhere, but we stuck with Cupertino so be nice to us..." What other Fortune [...]
Have you ever cleaned out the pockets of an old pair of pants and found a couple of twenty dollar bills all crumpled up, just waiting to be spent? Sometimes you can get the same feeling by receiving an unexpected email. For instance, a few weeks ago someone from Audi USA sent an email to [...]
My buddy at BlogHer, Elisa Camahort, pointed out a good article about blog marketing. It's called, "Strategic commenting: no blog is an island." The author is Amy Gahran (seen here). This is some text from it: If your weblog currently doesn't have much of an audience, then an easy way to build an audience is [...]
I must say that the "reality check" on Goowy worked better than I anticipated. Here's another product to look at called Jajah. Jajah is a VOIP company. It enables you to make long distance calls for about $.02/minute. Some people's initial reaction will be, "I can already do this with Skype." I don't think so. [...]
In the entire history of my blog (all 130 days or so), I probably haven't written an entry of less general interest than what you're about to read. "The Scourge of Arial" is a fascinating explanation of the creation of the Arial font. I had no idea that fonts could have such a "story." I'm [...]