February 2012
6 posts
Great quote about being an entrepreneur...
The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities. - Michael Gerber
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The actual value of the "top" in organizations -...
Interesting conversation in Charleston SC about the actual impact of senior leaders in organizations. The popular mythology has it that “tone is set at the top.” I would argue otherwise that the tone at the top becomes the glass ceiling for the rest of the organization. Low ceilings sustain pessimism and high ceilings sustain optimism. When tone ceilings are low, even people with great passion...
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'PayPal Mafia' Gets Richer - Businessweek
The Yelp executives join Facebook Inc. investors Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. founder Elon Musk on a short list of ex-PayPal employees poised to generate big-time riches from pending IPOs. PayPal, which developed an online payment system, was purchased by EBay Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2002, making many of its early employees rich and eager to pursue new...
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Why Pinterest Is Playing Dumb About Making Money -...
Commissions on sales for affiliate links vary widely, but they average around 5 percent. After SkimLinks cut, that’d be 3.75 percent (although SkimLinks says they can sometimes negotiate deals that would keep the percentage closer to the original number). So, Pinterest has 10 million users. Let’s say that the average across all of them is that they buy items valued at $10 in a month...
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6 Tips for Tapping Pinterest's Surging Popularity...
Some tips: Create categories. Take a cue from Warby Parker Inc. of New York, with its Pinterest profile showcasing the brand’s eyewear, combined with other images that are intended to say something about its culture and mission. Notice how its profile is separated into categories, or “pin boards,” with themes such as “Fresh New Frames” and “Sunglasses...
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Download The Mobile App Roadmap PDF and get a $48...
via mobileapproadmap.com If 2011 wasn’t the year of Mobile, 2012 will. I’m excited to be part of the Mobile App Roadmap Report and Event with Barb Cagley to help organizations learn how to effectively launch mobile initiatives.
January 2012
6 posts
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The Faculty Project
Vision There are millions of lifelong learners across the globe who do not have access to the world’s greatest institutions of higher learning, but do have an Internet connection. The Faculty Project showcases incredible Professors in an unprecedented series of free online courses that will dynamically engage this audience. Educators The Professors involved have been...
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Knotice and Gigya Announce Partnership - PR...
AKRON, Ohio and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 26, 2012 — /PRNewswire/ — Knotice, a leading provider of direct digital marketing software and services, and Gigya, the #1 social choice for websites, today announced a strategic partnership that will transform the way marketers can leverage permission-based Facebook data across addressable, direct digital marketing channels. Through...
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This Tech Bubble Is Different - BusinessWeek
The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks. via businessweek.com
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Apple's most serious threat is Amazon, not Android...
The term platform is overloaded with meanings in the technology industry and this is particularly the case in mobile telecommunications where it has been used to describe carrier infrastructure, hardware devices, operating systems and most recently, a commercial framework for publishing and selling content. For some time mobile operators have tried to work out how to provide service delivery...
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What's an Entrepreneur? The Best Answer Ever |...
Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. via inc.com I agree. Although today you need fewer resources than in the past to get started.
The Cult of Amazon Prime - LAUNCH -
At dinner parties and business meetings, I’ll frequently ask who has Prime and what they think of it. The number has grown from one or two in seven to three or four out of seven folks over the past five years. My circles tend to be people like you, which is to say more technically sophisticated (and good looking). Prime is at a tipping point. via launch.is
December 2011
8 posts
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My Favorite Quotations
“Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.” - Benjamin Disraeli “Being contrarian is one thing. Ignoring the obvious is another.” - Douglas Craver “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” - Maria Robinson “Wealth is the...
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Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy (BBC) - YouTube
via youtube.com
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Marketing firm Knotice following the big tech boys...
Knotice, which offers digital marketing software and services, is the latest tech company to open an office here. The list includes well-known companies like Facebook and Zynga. But Seattle also is attracting smaller companies, such as New Zealand-based GreenButton, which recently opened an office in Seattle. via techflash.com So wonderful to see Knotice named along with these other great tech...
30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back. via marcandangel.com Thanks to Ron Copfer for sharing this on Facebook.
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Most Adults Under 35 Own a Smartphone
The growth of smartphone adoption and associated mobile technologies has been staggering. As of the end of 2011, the majority of U.S. adults under the age of 35 now own a smartphone. Sixty-two percent of them have downloaded apps (mostly games), and mobile Web usage among these consumers has grown 45% since last year. via readwriteweb.com
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Lessons I Learned From Poker Altucher Confidential...
There’s a theory in programming chess computers that applies to other areas of life, including this one. It’s called “conspiracy theory”. If too many things have to happen in order to bring about the situation you want, then back out of it and try again later. via jamesaltucher.com
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Knotice Opens Seattle Office, Adds Talent From...
According to Brian Deagan, co-founder and CEO of Knotice, the new office will help the company better serve its west coast clients. “It’s a significant step in the growth of the company,” says Deagan. “Not only does this continue to extend our national footprint, it also allows for future expansion. With access to outstanding technology and marketing talent in the Seattle...
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Knotice at the 2011 Weatherhead 100 - Ranked #8...
The Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) revealed the Weatherhead 100 ranking at a special awards dinner in Cleveland last night. The Weatherhead 100 recognizes the fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio. This marks our third consecutive appearance on the list. The fastest growing software company in Northeast Ohio,...
November 2011
1 post
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Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy...
We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he said in a statement when first announcing the policy in Feburary. “At [Atos] we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution. via news.yahoo.com Email is a...
October 2011
4 posts
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Akron online marketing firm expanding West - Top...
Deagan said digital marketing “is a market with enormous opportunity” as companies shift advertising dollars “from offline to all things digital – which is usually cheaper, faster and measurable.” He envisions Knotice taking one of two growth paths. One path is going it alone – without additional outside investment – and reaching sales of $30 million to $50 million in the next five years. The...
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LeanDog's lean, agile tools build customer base,...
LeanDog has taken lean practices well beyond the manufacturing realm, where techniques like Kaizen originally made their mark. Today, the Cleveland firm, which helps organizations in virtually every industry take waste out of their IT operations, has hit its stride, growing sales more than 1000 percent since 2007 and landing at 311 on Inc.’s annual list of America’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies....
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Knotice getting knoticed
“Knotice started this year with 55 employees, and today employs nearly 90, with several positions still available,” says CEO Brian Deagan. “Current openings include account executives with mobile experience, software engineers, sales professionals, creative talent, finance and administrative staff … We’re opening a Seattle office in November, so we’re excited...
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Real Artists Ship
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And...
September 2011
8 posts
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The Business Case for Building Influence Networks...
The social network sciences have become a rich and amazing source of data based validation and hope for social networks. We can intentionally and strategically grow them. And to the degree that we don’t have formal power and cannot buy relationships to formal power, we grow our influence at the rate we grow our networks. In the new world of networks, influence can be grown more sustainably...
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A Modern Marketing Strategy – Social Media...
The way we shop is changing and marketing strategies are simply not keeping pace. Whether we’re shopping for corn flakes, concert tickets or a honeymoon in Paris, the Internet has changed how we decide what to buy. Today we’re all digital explorers, seeking out online ratings, social media-based peer reviews, videos, and in-depth product details as we move down the path to...
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Google Offers A Carrot/Stick For Marketers To Go...
The hot mobile statistic of the week is that there will likely be more mobile internet users in 2015 than PC users, according to IDC. Whether or not that turns out to be an accurate prediction it’s going to be true at some point, and probably within five years at the outside. via searchengineland.com
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DIY Facebook Page Management: The Choice Gets...
Spotted by an Inside Facebook reader, the new tab, found in Page Insights, includes such data as impressions per post and the total percentage of a Page’s fans that left feedback on the post.Before this test, admins could only see daily impressions and feedback data in Insights, Inside Facebook said, noting that the enhancement could compete with certain low-end page management companies. ...
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Startup Genome - Our mission is to amplify the...
Today we are releasing the first benchmarking application for startups based on the Startup Genome framework. Founders can now assess their type and stage, diagnose themselves for premature scaling and compare themselves to other startups across more than 25 key performance indicators. Try it here. via startupgenome.cc Imagine if we took all the money wasted on econ dev and put it in projects...
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With New Technology, Start-Ups Go Lean - WSJ.com...
Led by start-ups, small employers have generated 65% of net new jobs over the past 17 years, says the Small Business Administration. As such, steady declines in start-up size, which stretch back more than a decade, could explain the slow labor market recovery following the previous recession in 2001, as well as today, according to Brian Headd, an economist at the SBA’s Office of Advocacy. ...
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Are You A Pirate? | TechCrunch
I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. If you haven’t started a company, really gambled your resume and your money and maybe even your marriage to just go crazy and try something on your own, you’re no pirate and you aren’t in the club. That thrill of your first hire, when you’ve convinced some other crazy soul to join you in your almost certainly doomed project. The high from raising venture...
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Computational Linguistics: What Our Word Choice...
As I pondered these findings, I started looking at how people used pronouns in other texts — blogs, emails, speeches, class writing assignments, and natural conversation. Remarkably, how people used pronouns was correlated with almost everything I studied. For example, use of first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my) was consistently related to gender, age, social class, honesty, status,...
August 2011
23 posts
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Edward R. Muller and Larry Zimpleman: An...
While our two companies run very differently, we have come together to support what we believe is the only set of ideas that stand a chance of turning things around—ideas that can pass political muster in an otherwise very deeply divided Congress. These ideas center on reinvigorating what up to recently has been the most reliable source of job growth and innovation in our economy—the formation...
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Lucy Hood: Smartphones Are Bridging the Digital...
This month’s Pew Internet Report on Smartphones spotlights some specifics. Under 30, nonwhite, low-income and less-educated smartphone users report “they mostly go online using their phones.” Some 87% of them, according to Pew, sometimes use their mobile phones to browse the web, but 38% use their handsets as their primary means to access the Internet. via online.wsj.com
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Amazon, Skirting Apple, Announces Cloud for Books...
Amazon, in opting for the latter, could become the first of many major digital-content sellers to take the route of such Web applications, which use a technology called HTML5 that give browser-based software similar functionality to downloaded software. via online.wsj.com
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Why HTML5 Web Apps Are Going to Rock Your World —...
The presentation that really brought home the potential of these next-generation web technologies for me was by Brad Neuberg, a developer who used to work at Google. Neuberg’s talk had the theme of “Small pieces, loosely joined,” and showed how technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, SVG, Canvas and WebGL can be used together to create stunning applications within the browser. The centerpiece of his...
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HTML5 Seems To Be Gaining Momentum - BusinessWeek
In the last month or so, we’ve seen some major services relaunch their websites for the iPhone, iPad, and other tablets based on HTML5 and bring them to the mainstream users—so much so that even giants such as Microsoft (MSFT) are ready to cast aside their own technologies in favor of HTML5. Google (GOOG), whose apps keep getting better and better, is clearly leading the HTML5 charge. If that...
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Google+ May Pass Twitter With One-Fifth of U.S....
Started in late June, Google+ is growing faster than Facebook and MySpace Inc. did in their early days. The service, which lets people connect with and manage groups of friends on a website, gained about 25 million users worldwide in less than a month, estimates market researcher ComScore Inc. Facebook has more than 750 million active users. via businessweek.com
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About Tout - Making email better...
In a world that is more “connected” than ever before, technology still does not facilitate meaningful conversations. Twitter limits to 140 characters and Facebook minimizes to 1-click actions. We believe E-Mail is still the most viable platform for having meaningful conversations and we’re here to fix its problems. 10 years from now, we believe we’ll still be using...
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CLE? - There is a context to London's riots that...
As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as “social problems” (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and...
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Job Recruiters Turn to Facebook to Find Candidates...
Facebook’s use as a job-recruitment tool remains small, but its appeal may be growing. Some recruiters say they have all but eliminated their spending on job boards, which can charge a few hundred dollars per job posting, depending on volume. Others note that while LinkedIn contains a more comprehensive résumé database, candidates tend to value referrals from their connections on Facebook...
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CASE STUDY: Obama Online Tactics & Success for...
Obama_Online_Tactics_and_Success.pdf Download this file
PHOTO: @enviroleaders AgileSlate 2 Month Action...
@Mark_Quinn Tweet: Tasty Foodie Exploration
@DougCraver Foodie exploration I wanted to share. Grilled a pineapple, cut into 1/4’s & basted it w/sauce of: 3 tbs butter, 1 tbs honey, one shot of rum. Melt butter in sauce pan, then combine with honey & rum. Brush over fruit then grill about 7 min. Was a great finish to a light meal.
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Reflections of a Newsosaur: Why journalists need...
Here are a few: As a college student in 2004, Brian Stelter anonymously launched TV Newser, an insightful and gossipy blog about television news that soon became must-reading among industry insiders. His reporting was so compelling that he was hired by the New York Times, where he now is one of the top media experts in the nation. Recognizing that the mainstream media were missing lots of...
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About Us | EngagingCities - new approaches and...
What we do Our goal is to inspire urban planners, architects, developers, educators, economists, and policy makers to apply new approaches and technologies in ways that make community development more participatory, collaborative, and effective. We highlight new online tools and examine how they can be used in the emerging culture of citizen participation and engagement. We also explore...
Social Pulpit - Barack Obamas Social Media Toolkit
Social_Pulpit_-_Barack_Obamas_Social_Media_Toolkit_1.09.pdf Download this file
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The Media Equation - How Obama Tapped Into Social...
Like a lot of Web innovators, the Obama campaign did not invent anything completely new. Instead, by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans. via nytimes.com
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Fun at GiveCamp - Jack/Zen
Cleveland’s annual GiveCamp this weekend produced 22 projects engaging more than 200 tech volunteers. They collaborated to tirelessly create an amazing array of websites and apps for appreciative local non-profits, representing a half-million dollars worth of services. It’s another amazing example of generous communities, adding to this already robust emerging social pattern. What is less easily...