Pontificating, theorizing, and terrorizing abounds these days in tech startups. Here is a simple test to help you figure out if the startup you work for is in trouble. All you have to do is listen to your CEO talk to people for a week and determine if she uses these lines. “Let me tell [...]
No matter who you support in the upcoming election, you will appreciate the cleverness of customizing videos to get your friends and relatives to vote. Click here to see what I mean. Many companies could use custom, viral videos for their products and services. I would love to do something like this for Alltop. For [...]
Nothing warms my heart than an entrepreneur who seizes the day, and Kathryn Finney seized it in a world-class way. Step 1: Republican National Committee buys the Sarah Palin family $150,000 worth of duds. Step 2: Kathryn Finney of the Budget Fashionista shows how to outfit the Palins for $147,500 less. What did this take? [...]
Check out this very interesting application of Kronomy technology to portray the lives of Barak Obama and John McCain. Check here for Obama, and here for McCain. Cool stuff no matter who you support.
I learned of the "mother of social media lists" and the "father of social media lists." Click here to see mom and here to see dad. These are the most comprehensive lists of examples of social media applications, videos, blogs, podcasts, widgets, crowdsourcing, bookmarking, microblogging, photosharing, wikis, mashups, brand monitoring ad nauseum. Check them out [...]
The experts are promulgating many esoteric ways to determine the financial condition of the economy. It's irrational to base one's mood on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). After all, (a) what does that have to do with the real world? And (b) it reflects the buying (and selling) decisions of the same investment bankers [...]
I've been to many interesting places, but nothing compares to my twenty-four hour visit to the USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier. I was a guest of the Navy who operates this program in order to bolster recruiting, retention, and overall awareness of what it does. I hope that you enjoy these pictures and [...]
Nancy Ortberg of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church recently gave a sermon called "Every Life Needs a Truth-Teller." It contains excellent advice about telling people the truth--admonishing them well if you will. Get the audio version here or the video version here. You can apply much of this sermon to relationships with employees. Nancy is the [...]
I posted an entry called "What You Can Learn From Hollywood" over at the American Express small business blog. I derived these lessons from the work of Scott Kirsner. He studied the movie industry and ended up writing a book called Inventing the Movies: Hollywood's Epic Battle Between Innovation and the Status Quo, from Thomas [...]
Free video chat by Ustream Chris Pirillo is on the cutting edge of live stream media. The 35-year-old web whiz knows how to generate online community by hosting videos on UStream and other websites such as CNN.com. In this interview, he discusses how he drew an audience of five million people in 2007, what you [...]
I posted an entry in American Express blog entitled the "The Art of Customer Surveys" based on some information sent to me by Dave Wanetick, the managing director of IncreMental Advantage. He points out deficiencies in typical customer surveys that you will find interesting, and he boils down effective surveys to one simple question.
"Dear Henry" certainly generated passionate comments. Here's another marketing thought: If people want the House to pass the bailout, all they'd have to ask is, "Do you want China and Abu Dhabi to come in and buy America at fire sale prices?" The bill would pass by this weekend. It's all about framing.
With nothing better to do on a Saturday night, I was browsing through this blog's archives, and I came upon this posting: "Frame or Be Framed." It examines the work of U.C. Berkeley professor George Lakoff--specifically, how Republicans are good framers and Democrats are lousy ones. It seems to me that the "bailout" of the [...]
These are some photographs from a recent trip to Mumbai, India. This is one intense city with a population of approximately thirteen million people. Clearly, this is not Santa Cruz, California. This is the view you'll most frequently see when you're driving around the city. It can take two hours to go a few kilometers. [...]
A common assumption is that communicating face-to-face is more persuasive than email. That's not always true, according to a 2002 study. Researchers found that men are often more responsive to email because it downplays their competitive tendencies. On the other hand, women react better to in-person encounters because they are more relationship-oriented. These same researchers [...]
Over at the American Express Open Forum blog I posted an interview with Ori Brafman, the author of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. In this interview he explains how to resist irrational and dumb behavior. Click here to check it out. Not reading it would be irrational.
The proliferation of topics from twenty to 215 made a redesign of Alltop necessary for efficient navigation. The three primary enhancements to the site define version 2.0 of Alltop: Ability to find topics in three ways: searching by keyword, viewing by category (for example, Tech, Sports, People), and viewing by topic name. Addition of 200 [...]
Keynote lunch. On stage with Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion. Brett Tabke of Webmasterworld. James Whatley of SpinVox Gary Vee of Wine Library TV. Line to talk to Gary Vee. Gary Vee and Hawaii contingent. Zach Coelius of Triggit, Jessica Hanson, and Laura Fitton. Laura is the person who brought me to Twitter along with [...]
According to a series of psychological studies discussed on Psychology Today, research participants are able to successfully communicate sarcasm and humor in a mere 56 percent of emails—and most of the senders had no idea their attemps were so ineffective. How do you avoid this? The article gives some tips: Read your emails aloud and [...]
I recently visited the offices of Google in Munich, and these are some of the pictures I took there. Enjoy! Google in the pretzel font. Front-desk receptionist. Front-desk receptionist trainee. Google-wear collection. I don't know what this lion is about. Google cow-bell bike bell. This is really how Google Maps are created. Cafeteria. Buffet line. [...]