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 [...]
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 [...]
This is a picture of my copy of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. It has broken my record for the “book with most stickies.” My system is that the stickies on the top edge are ideas for my next book, and the ones on the side are ideas for this blog. As [...]
This is the MP3 version (52,715K) of the CommunityNext founders panel in case you want to listen, as opposed to watch, it. Also, you’ll probably find this presentation by Threadless to be quite interesting. This Chicago-based online retailer solicits t-shirt designs from its community and then sells them. Rumor has it that the company’s sales [...]
At the CommunityNext conference I moderated this panel with the founders of six very successful web properties: Akash Garg of hi5 Sean Suhl of Suicide Girls Max Levchin of Slide James Hong of HotorNot Markus Frind of PlentyofFish Drew Curtis of Fark This is the most amusing panel that I’ve ever moderated, and the speakers [...]
The Kauffman Foundation is launching EntrepreneurshipWeek USA from February 23rd to March 3rd. The theme is “What’s Your Big Idea? Take it On!” There will be educational programs around the country. Stanford is embracing this program in a big way starting with the kickoff event on Saturday. The schedule for the week is packed with [...]
My favorite book about creativity is If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. I recently read Hugh Macleod’s ChangeThis manifesto called “How to be Creative,” and I think it’s as empowering as If You Want to Write. Hugh is the guy behind Gapingvoid (“cartoons drawn on the back of business [...]
My prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is that it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people. The book explains why some ideas stick and some don’t--and I’ve been on both sides of this equation. A warning though: If you read [...]
Matthew E. May is the author of The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation. He has held a key advisory role with the University of Toyota for over eight years, and he is a graduate of the Wharton School and Johns Hopkins University. You can download a copy of his ChangeThis manifesto by clicking [...]
Three of my buddies who are patent attorneys disagreed with my diatribe against patents as a key component of a startup’s defensibility. Being the open-minded Guy that I am, I offered to publish their counterpoint so that you can obtain a broader perspective of intellectual property issues for startups. Patent law is currently a sea [...]
Yahoo! sponsored an event called “Hack Day” this weekend. Approximately 500 developers showed up and created fifty-four prototypes in a twenty-four hour period. Blip.tv has the demos here and here. The winner was called Blogging in Motion. Yahoo! even brought in Beck to entertain the crowd on Friday night. (To be honest, I had never [...]
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 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 [...]
1. Make everything available. 2. Help me find it. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail I love authors like Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Anderson. They’re writer’s writers: digging through mounds of research, conducting interviews with famous people, crafting their text, and then publishing tomes with cool titles like The Tipping Point and The Long Tail. And [...]
Here are three interesting essays about how social networks work. Highly relevant reading for anyone in a social networking company—or investing in one. 5 reasons why social networks fail 5 reasons why social networks can succeed Situational Relevance in Social Networking Websites
Gina Smith, the co-author of the upcoming autobiography called iWoz, provided me with a copy so that I could read it and provide a blurb. The book is slated for shipping in November, 2006, but there’s nothing wrong with a little pre-release publicity. After all, it will probably be out BV (Before Vista), and everyone [...]
After a several month hiatus, I would like to return to my top-ten lies series. So far, I've covered entrepreneurs and VCs, Today's topic is the top ten lies of engineers. 1. “We're about to go into beta testing.” This is a meaningless statement because it doesn't matter when you go into beta testing--what matters [...]
If my memory isn't failing me, after the Robert Redford character gets elected in The Candidate, he whispers to one of his supporters, “Now what?” Raising money ls like running for office: it's very exciting and even fun if you get the money. But after you raise the money, now what? The good news is [...]
Someone once told me that the probability of an entrepreneur getting venture capital is the same as getting struck by lightning while standing at the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day. This may be too optimistic. Let's say that you can't raise money for whatever reason: You're not a “proven” team with [...]