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by: John Caddell
I've been working through my midlife crisis (profiled in this earlier post)--not buying a sports car or seeking a trophy wife (I have one of those already), but confronting this: since retiring at fifty is neither practical nor desirable, working 2000 hours or so per year better be fun and have some meaning in it.
Continue reading "The New Midlife Crisis--It's an "Existential Necessity"" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
An email pitch from an entrepreneur named Sherry Couch of BizNiche
brought a big smile to my face. First of all, how could I skip an email with a subject line like this one: "Everything you should know about me as an entrepreneur you could learn from my OB/GYN"?
by: John Caddell
When I was growing up in the northeast US, it became fashionable for weather forecasters to declare, "This is one of the ten best days of the year!" And I always wondered what happened if they used up their ten-best days too early--for example, not being able to duly recognize a spectacular October 17th.
Such is the risk in proclaiming a book on January 14 to be one of the best books of the upcoming year. But if I read five better books than "The Opposable Mind" this year, it will have been a good year indeed.
A broker friend of mine sent me this Merrill Lynch report, "Top Internet Themes for 1H'08", by Justin Post. The report contains useful information if you're in online businesses. It discusses these six themes/events:
Continue reading "Merrill Lynch 2008 Internet Trends Report" »
. In the book, he bursts many of the bubbles of entrepreneurship in America.Continue reading "Partnership Pitfalls and Avoiding Murder" »
Over the past few years, one of the most interesting innovations in the
airline industry has been the growth & expansion of the "business
class only" travel segment for service between international cities
such as New York and London. Companies like Eos, SilverJet and MAXJet
were early pioneers and deserve enormous kudos for their courage and
tenacity for taking on the airline majors in a brazen attempt to siphon
away the industry's most profitable customers.Continue reading "The company that went bankrupt on Christmas Eve" »
by: Eliane Alhadeff
Following my prior post Microsoft Shaping The Serious Games Movement Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market, where I state that "by no means would Microsoft join either a current $ 150 million dollar market or a to-be $ 1 billion market only in 2011" (as projected by a few sources), BusinessWeek has published an article this week where David Boker, senior director of the Business Development Group at Microsoft's Aces Studio, one of Microsoft's game studios where ESP was developed, says Microsoft conservatively estimates this market at $9 billion.
Continue reading "$9 Bi: Microsoft's Conservative Estimate for the Serious Games Market" »
There are risks and challenges associated with adopting any new technology, and Enterprise 2.0 is no different.
It is quickly becoming evident that successful implementation is arising from business strategy, aligned with clearly defined outcomes & objectives, and supported by organisational structures, company's culture and adapted technologies. Like any other project, it requires thought, preparation, support, energy, and communication.
Continue reading "Driving successfully web 2.0 into the enterprise" »
Google announced the winner of the Adsense Story Contest today: Hometips
.
This is a site that features free content concerning home improvement,
remodeling, repair, redecorating, and do-it-yourself projects. For
example, here are tips for hanging Christmas lights. by: Karl Long
LOL, is it me or is this guy taking some swipes at scoble:
“blogging even if your wrong” when scoble was talking about search and then the closing classic picture of scoble leaving the apple store in triumph with the iPhone?
by: Guy Kawasaki
Stanford Magazine has a terrific article about Kiva
called “Small Change, Big Payoff” by Cynthia Haven. This is the story of how Matt and Jessica Jackely Flannery created it to enable people to make micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world.
by: Alain Thys
Every day thousands of people die from bad marketing. Neither Google nor I remember where I read these words. Perhaps I never read them at all. But as I was flying from Zurich to Amsterdam I couldn't get them out of my mind.
I had just read about Sir Bob Geldof badgering a number of CEO's on their moral obligation to get involved in poverty. And while - bless him - he probably saved quite a few lives by guilting them into a donation, I doubt whether anything beyond "token money" will change hands.
Continue reading "Marketing Challenge: Can We Profit From Poverty?" »
by: Yann Gourvennec
All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players … (1)
Our friend Markus Giesler is assistant professor of marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto, ON, Canada. He is also the author of a previous article on Napster (the anthropology of file sharing, consuming Napster as a gift). Here is his new opus in which he compares marketplaces with drama.
by: Alain Thys
A few weeks ago I spoke in the Netherlands at a Marktplein 2.0: A Little Less Action, A Little More Conversation, a conference, which essentially wanted to encourage (direct) marketers to engage in conversations with the consumer, rather than just shout at him. Confronted with the hyperbolic language of the conference brochure indicating the "'newness" fo the conversation phenomenon, I couldn't resist the jab of inverting the title of the conference for my keynote. In stead of talking about conversations with customers, I think it's time marketers got out of their office and actually had them.
Continue reading "A Little Less Conversation ... (slideshow)" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
TechCrunch published a great guest post by Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, called “Entrepreneur 2.0.” It inspired me to piggyback on his idea that investing in “serial entrepeneurs” who have already been successful might not be all that it’s cracked up to be and write this post.
by: Lynette Webb
I really like this analogy. It touches on an interesting debate too… although I personally agree 100% open always trumps 100% closed in the end, nowadays it’s not always so black and white. Services can be open in some aspects and not others; there are different degrees of open-ness…
Continue reading "Proprietary Platforms are Like Ice Cubes" »
by: Dominic Basulto
The other day, the Wall Street Journal featured one of the most inspiring stories about innovation that I've read in quite some time. Shai Agassi, once a fast-rising senior executive at software giant SAP, left the company in March under mysterious circumstances and dropped off the grid, only to re-surface this week, flush with $200 million in VC funding and a radical idea for disrupting the automotive industry.
Continue reading "Radically Re-thinking the Automotive Business Model" »
by: Dick Stroud
Research from Ipsos shows that Canada's 50-plus have the same intentions as their Brit counterparts and are setting up their own businesses in droves.
Continue reading " The Entrepreneurial over-50s - Same Message from Canada" »
by: Dick Stroud
For the past couple of years I have been banging on about the fantastic marketing opportunity to provide products and services to assist the 50-plus who are starting their own business.
by: Guy Kawasaki
Like CEOs, marketers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, lawyers tell their own specialized tales. Most of my experience is with lawyers who do work for tech entrepreneurs, so this is my focus.
by: John Caddell
Lessons learned practice involves examining projects for things that went wrong or could have gone better. The old name, postmortems, has been retired, I guess, because it was too graphic or too negative. Too bad. The best lessons-learned stories are from scrutinizing worst practice.
Continue reading "Lessons learned captured in stories at Lawrence Livermore " »
by: Guy Kawasaki
David Bornstein is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.
Continue reading "Social Entrepreneurship: Ten Questions with David Bornstein" »
by: Christian Smagg
While Enterprise 2.0 is often described as “web 2.0 meets the enterprise”, what Enterprise 2.0 encompasses is much bigger. Enterprise 2.0 represents a radical change in the way businesses operate and is as much about the people, the culture and the processes as it is about the technology, tools and platforms.
by: Dominic Basulto
Leave it to the New York Times to stir up the innovation pot with the provocative thesis that innovation is increasingly becoming the exclusive preserve of the techno-elite, notwithstanding the recent trend toward consumer-generated innovation.
by: Alain Thys
Spoiler alert: This post gives away a key plot point of the final Harry Potter book. So if you've haven't finished the book, do not read on.
Last week Monday (at 1:30 AM) I finished part 7 of the Harry Potter series and after sat through the young man’s wizardry adventures for thousands and thousands of pages, the end of the series felt like losing a friend.
by: Joel Makower
Where are we, exactly, in the trajectory of green business? Things seem to have changed decidedly in the past six to twelve months, as more and more companies do more and more things. But what should we make of it?
Continue reading "Have We Reached a Green Business Tipping Point?" »
by: Alexander Osterwalder
Today I did a webcast with Etienne Eichenberger, co-founder of WISE (and formerly at the World Economic Forum WEF), to talk about his fascinating start-up.
By: Guy Kawasaki
I work in the surreal world of Silicon Valley where venture capitalists fund companies based on PowerPoint pitches and executive summaries. My friend Tim Berry rightfully pointed that business plans still serve an important role in "the rest of the world."
Continue reading "How to Write a Business Plan: Ten Questions with Tim Berry" »
by: Idris Mootee
A friend of
mine saw my posting yesterday and sent me an email to ask about the most common
start-up mistakes entrepreneurs make. There are just too many mistakes, but
some are just part of the journey. But there are a few that are avoidable and
these are the key ones that have most often prevented the success of many, even
though they were smart and armed with great ideas and lots of invested capital.
by: Idris Mootee
The scene is a Starbucks in Downtown Toronto, Canada. I am sure similar
scenes are happening in London, Amsterdam, San Francisco or Boston. Four young
men and women are doing a five-minute web 2.0 idea pitch from a Macbook to two
venture capitalists. One of them asked how much it had burnt so far for the
prototype. The reply was "Five". I think the VCs thought they meant
$50,000 until another question revealed it was $5,000, and the total funds
being sought a mere $350,000 - definitely pocket change for the VCs who think
in millions.
Continue reading "Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs! This is the time" »
by: Dick Stroud
This chart shows an Aging Vulnerability Index that attempts to measure how vulnerable countries are to an aging population. The index looks at things like pensions, healthcare, numbers of younger people, education etc...
by: Guy Kawasaki
Scott Berkun worked on the Internet explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999. He is the author of a recently released book called The Myths of Innovation
