How to dream big but focus on staying small.

How to create intelligent measurements for the emerging face of marketing

2010-06-06T06:31:00.001-07:00

Christine Morrison on Social Marketing at Turbotax « Dachis Group Collaboratory.

I like the "love revenue" part. Good motivation for you to figure out how to categorize the value and impact of social marketing in your firm.

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Andrea Miller: How to Date an Indian (Advice for the Non-Indian)

2010-06-05T18:28:00.001-07:00

Which leads to point number two. Indian people tend to be really good looking.

via huffingtonpost.com

I hope my wife agrees with Andrea Miller ;-). In either case, this article will put a smile on your face.

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Beyond the obvious : what else can we learn from Apple about good product management

2010-05-27T19:49:00.001-07:00

Don’t get me wrong: If Apple’s products were not shining examples of hardware and software design, no amount of marketing, education and evangelism would help sell them. But the reverse is also true. The greatest products in the world don’t get anywhere without telling a good story. The ability for Apple to tell that story and then allow consumers to get hands-on experience with products has become a powerful combination that’s allowed Apple to succeed where others have failed miserably.

via macworld.com

I am a big fan of being able to tell a story that connects your customers with the wonders of the product you have built. I firmly believe that this does not have to be restricted to retail or consumer software, it is sorely needed in enterprise software :). If you can do something about this, START NOW! the business world will thank you.

On a side note, Altimeter Group is a rocking collection of post 2.0 analysts such as Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang. Check them out.

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True delight - when folks do things with your product you did not even dream of

2010-05-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

via sjohnson717.posterous.com

Thanks Steve! great post!

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Shout out to all the parents out there (on a related note Toyota does seem to get social media + marketing)

2010-05-20T08:44:00.001-07:00

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Exclusive: Seagate confirms 3TB drive | THINQ.co.uk

2010-05-18T08:25:00.001-07:00

After a few weeks of rumours, Seagate’s senior product manager Barbara Craig has confirmed to Thinq that “we are announcing a 3TB drive later this year,” but the move to 3TB of storage space apparently involves a lot more work than simply upping the areal density.

via thinq.co.uk

That is pretty wicked. Think about it, a 3TB drive is ~385 DVD length movies in your hard drive. That is a LOT of hard drive.

How will this change our current reality, our current constraints? If you can contain the entire contents of a couple academic research libraries on your hard drive what does that change? What can you now do that you could not do earlier? What "law of physics" can you now change?

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Autonomy | Purpose | Mastery ---- How to Motivate People: Skip the Bonus and Give Them a Real Project | Fast Company

2010-05-17T14:53:00.001-07:00

via fastcompany.com

Just watch the freaking thing!! it is awesome :-)

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Demographic trends in the US: Women marrying men with less education, income - CNN.com

2010-05-17T07:02:00.001-07:00

If dating is a numbers game, then single ladies should consider this: A Pew Research Center report this year noted a surge in women between the ages of 30 and 44 making more money than their husbands. Women made more money than men in 22 percent of married couples surveyed in 2007, compared with 4 percent in 1970. While men make more money overall and hold more management positions, women are making greater gains

"The supply of men has changed," said D'Vera Cohn, senior writer at the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project. "The pool of college educated men isn't growing as rapidly as it is for women."

There is also a gender shift in the realm of education. Women represent nearly 60 percent of students holding advanced degrees in areas such as medicine, law, business and graduate programs, the U.S. Census reported in April.

via cnn.com

CNN has an article on marital preferences. Honestly, not very useful to me. All the women cited in this article are in their mid to late thirties or forties, make of that what you will.

What is more intriguing to me is the stat that says 60% of students holding advanced degrees are women. It would be valuable to trend this over time to ensure this is a moving trend that is not cyclical or serendipitous but indeed consistent. I am curious about what are the men doing instead? Assuming the division has moved from 50-50 to 60-40. What are the 10% of the men who used to pursue advanced degrees doing instead?

My specific interest is in seeing if there is a rise in entrepreneurship that correlates with this decline in advanced degrees? Gary Hoover (http://hooversworld.com/) has been expounding on the value of understanding demographic trends in uncovering opportunities for a while now.

What trends are you noticing?

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Are you ready to face the financial world?

2010-05-14T09:23:00.001-07:00

If you earn money and have savings you have to deal with the financial world, you don't have a choice. I know it sounds unfair but that is truth, with that reality let us examine the big picture.

We are innovating in finance faster than in any other field of science. It is not clear yet if we can sustain the pace of innovation without taking massive risks or causing heart attacks to the market. Neither is there a definitive answer to "is this level of financial innovation driven leveraging good for the world as a whole or is it just extremely lucrative for the traders who take risks with other people's money?". You can always come up with a "jaw dropping CAGR" or a "makes me wanna throw up CAGR" depending on the time period you pick.

Unfortunately saying "I am going to take my ball and go home" is no longer an option :-(. You can put your money under your bed and sooner or later inflation will wipe you out. You can put your money in safe investments such as pension funds or index averaged mutual funds but you have no way of knowing how much risk exposure they have since you don't know who the managers of these funds are working with to put the capital to good use. I DON'T HAVE THE ANSWER for you, but I hope to get you to start thinking for yourself in case you have been avoiding it. This post was inspired by Mark Cuban's latest blog post, more on that below.

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Mark Cuban (his tactics as a NBA team owner aside) wrote a provocative blog post title "what business is wall street in". The timing is clearly influenced by the crazy market plunge and snap back from earlier this week.

It makes for an extremely interesting and thoughtful question for us imo. Is Wall Street playing its part in the large macro economic theater or is it a case of the tail wagging the dog. I highly encourage reading through the post and the comments, mainly for self education if not anything else :-).

Cuban's Post -> http://blogmaverick.com/2010/05/09/what-business-is-wall-street-in/

One of the key points for me from this post:

Regulators have got to start to recognize that traders are not investors and vice versa and treat them differently. Different regulations. Different tax structure. Different oversight. Individual investors and the funds that just invest in stocks and bonds are not going to crash the market. Big traders who are always leveraging up and maximizing the number of trades/hacks they make will always put the system at risk. We need to recognize that they do not serve much of a purpose other than to add substantial risk to the global economy. That their stated value add of liquidity does not compensate the US and World Economy nearly enough for the risk of collapse they introduce into the system.

What jumps out for you?

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Moneyball does it again

2010-05-10T06:26:00.001-07:00

Dallas Braden #51 SP

2010 STATS

ERA W-L SO WHIP

3.33 4-2 28 0.96

2010 FANTASY STATS

% OWN WK +/- AVG DRAFT

53.2% -19.8% 201.1

Full Name Dallas Lee Braden

Birth Date August 13, 1983

Birth Place Phoenix, AZ

Age 26

Weight 184 lbs.

Height 6-1

Bats Left

Throws Left

Experience 3 years

College Texas Tech

Drafted 2004: 24th Rnd, 727th by Oak

Salary 2010: $420,000

via sports.espn.go.com

Michael Lewis wrote a wonderful tome laying out the adventures of Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta as they create a credible ball club out of Oakland A's using the slimmest of payrolls.
Dallas Braden is the latest example of the fact that this still works. He pitched the 19th ever perfect game in major league history. The beauty of it all; he was recruited in the 24th round and his payroll for 2010 is $420,000. I highly recommend the book if you want to get more into the A's school of thought.

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Warning: Macroeconomic ignorance will lead to exploitation by your elders

2010-05-02T06:34:00.001-07:00

Vaggelis Gettos, 24, is just as alarmed at the burden being heaped on the young by austerity measures expected to be announced today, and has pledged to resist them in more protests this week against what he sees as a plot to impoverish Greece.

“We will live much worse than our parents,” he said. “Why should we be made to pay for their mistakes?”

The question of who was to blame and who should pay for the greatest crisis to afflict the single currency was a subject of heated debate, particularly after a leading credit rating agency put the cradle of civilisation in the same category as Azerbaijan by reducing its government bonds to “junk” status.

Economists regard the bloated civil service with its jobs for life and generous pensions as a cancer consuming the country’s resources. The older generation, the experts grimly concur, turned the state into a giant cash machine to be plundered at will.

Today the party is over, however, and that makes some experts optimistic: Greece now has no choice but to implement much-needed reforms that will bring swift results. “It’s like a dentist putting a child in braces,” said one observer. “It’s not nice, but necessary for growth in the right direction.”

via timesonline.co.uk

I love the irony here. Mr Veggelis Gettos is justifiably worked up and says "why should we be made to pay for their mistakes". Good question Mr Gettos but here is the problem, if you don't, that leaves us with two other options.

a. You are passing the buck on to your children who can ask the same question. or
b. You are making it the rest of the world's problem (i.e. the Germans and the IMF) and they contrary to your parents did not retire at 45 with the world's best benefits.

So let us try this once again Mr Gettos, if this is not your problem, whose problem is it then? I know now is not the time, but I would seriously recommend picking up a book on macroeconomics sooner rather than later. Try http://goo.gl/Kffh or http://goo.gl/bA2W.>

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Pop Quiz - Do you know the most influential women in technology?

2010-04-30T07:28:00.001-07:00

Last year, our list of the Most Influential Women in Technology raised plenty of eyebrows, ire, and fist pumps of joy — depending on the reader. And we’ve no doubt this list will follow suit.

via fastcompany.com

I was woefully ignorant of the people or the organizations as I went through the list compiled by Fastcompany.com. Time to learn.

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Shame on you GM - Lies, Damn Lies and Accounting Lies

2010-04-25T07:10:00.001-07:00

In short, GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money. And at a 2% lower interest rate at that. This is a nifty scheme to refinance GM's government debt--not pay it back!

GM boasts that, because it is doing so well, it is paying the $6.7 billion five years ahead of schedule since it was not due until 2015. So will there be an accelerated payback of the rest of the $49.6 billion investment? No. That goal has been pushed back, as it turns out.

In order to recover that investment, the government has to sell its equity. It plans to do that only when GM becomes a publicly traded company once again. GM was hoping to turn a profit by the end of 2010 and float an initial public offering this winter. However, GM Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, when queried about that timeline a few days ago, demurred. The offering will be made, he said, "when the markets and the company are ready."

(Take that, taxpayers!)

The reality is that there is no certainty that GM will ever be able to make taxpayers whole. Some analysts such as Center for Automotive Research's Sean McAlinden and Global Insight's George Magliano believe that it will--eventually. McAlinden maintains that this will happen when the company's market capitalization touches $60 billion. (At GM's peak in 2000, this level was only $57 billion.) This is a challenging but not an impossible goal--provided the economy does not dip into another recession, he maintains. Magliano too maintains that the company will be able to pay back taxpayers if the industry is able to ramp up annual vehicle sales from the expected 10.8 million this year to 17 million in 2014 and GM captures 20% of these sales.

The General Accountability Office, on the other hand, remains deeply pessimistic. It concluded in a December report (which a more recent April report has said nothing to contradict, despite media spin to the contrary) that: "The Treasury is unlikely to recover the entirety of its investment in Chrysler or GM, given that the companies' values would have to grow substantially more than they have in the past."

via forbes.com

GM's CEO is on TV commercials claiming GM paid back the loan 5 years ahead of schedule. One might be led to conclude from this that the company has managed an amazing come back and turn around, well the truth it turns out is very different.

I am all for GM building a positive public image but please have the decency to speak the truth. If nothing else, the past couple years should have taught you a small dose of humility

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Trust your instincts with embracing "innovations" in consumer software

2010-04-23T10:11:00.001-07:00

A fairly obvious search for “from card” this morning returned 127 results that included full credit card numbers.

via venturebeat.com

This venturebeat.com story is a good example of releasing consumer software without any serious research or understanding of the cultural ramifications and side effects. Companies are learning/developing their business models on the back of the early adopters, and in some case burning them pretty badly in the process. This is nothing new but the pace is frighteningly faster compared to 10 years back.

My conservative recommendation would be for all current users of Blippy.com to destroy the credit card tied to Blippy.com and order a replacement. Blippy will find a way to learn from this of course, maybe they will buy a lifelock subscription for all of their current users (lifelock.. that is a whole another blog post).

My biggest take away is to trust your instincts, it is an expensive way to live life if you are an early adopter in all categories. Pick your passion/poison and restrict your risk exposure to those areas. Hopefully none of you signed up for Blippy.com just because it is cool. If you are curious about the disruptions and changes to personal finances and business models, then by all means go for it. The rest of us should wait for this mistakes to play themselves out before taking the next step.

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The unending giver that is google voice

2010-04-23T06:08:00.001-07:00

This was Google's transcription of a message that was left for me. FYI, the speaker did not leave the message in English: "Hey about this or not. Yeah, it would be cool too much. Bye."

Ah, the beauty of software :-)

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This is not your high school Apple Computers anymore

2010-04-21T07:12:00.001-07:00

Two million phones in a country of half a billion cellphone owners may not sound like a lot, but according to Huberty, the addressable iPhone market in China (which she defines as people with with an annual income over $20,000 and an average cellphone bill of $22 per month) is about 50 million. If she's right, Apple may have captured 4% of it in the space of six months.

via tech.fortune.cnn.com

Most of the analysts seem to believe that Apple is still under priced at this point. That is the power, the myth and the complete market disruption that "China" brings to the table.

Dr John Doggett gave an excellent speech recently summarizing what the BRIC nations mean to the global market over the next 15-20 years. Absolutely worth a read. Btw, in case you are not grasping the significance: China alone is expected to have over 500 million middle class citizens by 2025. That is an unprecedented event in the world history. One way or the other we will all feel the tidal wave. Oh, and India will add another few 100 million to this number.

Exciting times if you are an entrepreneur -> http://goo.gl/G5Y1

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The cold hard facts of making "smart" managerial decisions

2010-04-20T11:50:00.001-07:00

In his latest report, there are some truly spine-chilling first-person accounts of factory life. And it is a life. Workers are billeted, 14 to a dorm, in the compound. If they don't supply their own mattresses and bedclothes, they sleep on plywood boards. They are permitted three days off each month. The air-conditioning is only turned on when foreigners visit the factory, and when the workers meet their targets, the management immediately raises them.

via fastcompany.com

Worth a read. Good reminder that some one some where is always losing margins when prices drop.

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Science shows that marriage and blisters are tightly connected

2010-04-20T05:35:00.001-07:00

The results were remarkable. After the blistering sessions in which couples argued, their wounds took, on average, a full day longer to heal than after the sessions in which the couples discussed something pleasant. Among couples who exhibited especially high levels of hostility while bickering, the wounds took a full two days longer to heal than those of couples who had showed less animosity while fighting.

via nytimes.com

I enjoy reading about these studies. We can now scientifically show that if you significant other has a blister, you can control their recovery time by controlling your animosity knob.

There is more of course, about 5 pages worth, Read the article if you want to explore it.

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Quote to remember from the Boston Marathon record setter

2010-04-19T15:06:00.001-07:00

I am going to buy some cows," Cheruiyot said.

via sports.espn.go.com

I love this. This man runs a freaking marathon in under 2hrs 6mins and reminds people that he is a farmer by the day :-).

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Reason #124 - Why I love my neighborhood

2010-04-17T13:58:00.001-07:00

All,
We woke up this morning missing a chicken. She's a big black hen who's likely somewhere around --- and -------. If you see her please call us and we'll retrieve her. Thanks!

This is a real email from our neighborhood mailing list. I love living in the heart of Austin and seeing emails like this.

Btw, the chicken is safely back at home now.

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Joss Whedon to direct 'The Avengers'?: Existence of God no longer in doubt

2010-04-13T15:33:00.001-07:00

via popwatch.ew.com

I think Robert Downey Jr is going to own the screen. Hope this turns out to be "awesome"! :) Now all that is left is for an epic "Justice League" production to happen.

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Leverage - small changes with big results

2010-04-13T06:30:00.001-07:00

The scientist said the variety was one of the major achievements in the field of rice research and added that if they could manage to promote the rice across the country, it would help save fuel and consequently the environment as well.

"Promotion of such rice would save fuel, time, and above all it would help maintain a cleaner environment. It would be very useful for the poor in general, who find it difficult to afford firewood, coal or cooking gas," he said.

via business.rediff.com

This has the potential to be a huge lever, it remains to be seen if the market will accept it or reject it.

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Ten Ways To Be Your Own Boss

2010-04-11T14:07:00.001-07:00

via avc.com

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Do you call yourself an good manager?

2010-04-11T13:07:00.001-07:00

The good news is that none of this is the way things have to be. The one-sided, boss-dominated performance review needs to be replaced by a straight-talking relationship where the focus is on results, not personality, and where the boss is held accountable for the success of the subordinate (instead of just using the performance review to blame the subordinate for any problems they're having).

via online.wsj.com

The WSJ article by Samuel A. Culbert brings some straight talk into one the most common activity in corporate America. Performance review's ubiquity as a management practice is its biggest resistance against change but also the biggest reason to try and change it.

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Law of unintended consequences

2010-04-11T06:26:00.001-07:00

There is an ugly new word for this mass slaughter: gendercide.
Thanks to a state policy which has limited many families to one child since 1979, combined with an ancient and ruthless prejudice in favour of sons, the world's new superpower is beginning the century of its supremacy with an alarming surplus of males.

via dailymail.co.uk

Lots of interesting questions. What went wrong here? Is anything wrong? Is it just perception, maybe we have never before seen public policy enforced publicly on a country this large.
The comments also point to some inherent western biases, etc.

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