Category Archives: Recommended Links

Recommended Links

Management and Motivation

Leave a comment

Management: I was catching up a back issue of Fast Company magazine.  In the December/January issue, there were a couple of very interesting articles. The first was a report on how John Chambers is changing the corporate culture at Cisco, a $26B company.  By developing  a decentralized decisionmaking structure, Cisco has been able to generate significant new business in a fraction of the time that it used to.  The second article talked about the future of solar energy, both thin-film and photovoltaic technologies.  The future for these technologies is very (excuse the pun) bright.

Management: I am continually amazed by the lack of leadership in the big corporate executive suites.  From Wall Street to Detroit to San Jose, it seems the only lesson they know is “Where’s Mine?”.  These titans of industry are now regarded by the average American as being slightly less honest and ethical than the average attorney.
Why is it that no corporate leader has said “We will not lay anyone off this year.”?  “We may have to reduce our profit levels from what Wall Street expects, but we are willing to take that hit for our employees and our nation. We’re all in this together.”  Wouldn’t this have enormous strategic value?
Then, we have Larry Summers, by all accounts a smart guy.  He was a former Treasury Secretary, then president of Harvard, now Director of the White House’s National Economic Council.  He has made the determination that AIG must pay $165M in bonuses to the derivative traders that were at the heart of the Wall Street collapse. Sure seems like sticking it to the shareholders in AIG (that’s us, if you weren’t paying attention, the US government owns 80% of AIG).

Three different points of view on this topic: Aaron Zelinsky writes about a creative way that the government can classify these bonuses as to make it a little more palatable to the owners. Another idea has been floated by Matt Miller, who wrote about another idea to help the AIG traders and executives get a little backbone. Eliot Spitzer took a more skeptical view on Slate.

Motivation: The Freakonomics blog tells the story of why basketball teams that are behind by one point at halftime have a higher game winning percentage.

Recommended Links

Fun, Economy and Technology

Leave a comment

Fun: If this isn’t a movie soon, I will be surprised.  Joshua Davis tells the inside story of a diamond heist that although a bit long, is totally mesmerizing.

Economy: While still remaining on the topic of heists, Vanity Fair magazine has a long article on how Bernie Madoff was able to perpetuate his scam.

Technology: Ever wondered how Google prices their ads?  Here is the scoop from the Chief Economist of Google.

Technology: I wrote about tools for the entrepreneur last week.  I have found a few more that just might make the cut for you.  Officezilla is a free tool that does much of what Basecamp does for project managment.

Economy: I am not sure that I can believe this, but the Boston Globe is reporting that the FDIC needs to borrow $500 Billion to potentially prop up bad banks.  What is most interesting is that the FDIC did not collect premiums from most of their member banks from 1996 to 2006.  Why didn’t they collect the insurance premiums?  Well, Congress prevented the FDIC from collecting because they felt the FDIC was so solidly capitalized. Whoops!

Fun: What does a trillion dollars really look like? I had no idea, but half of that picture makes up what the FDIC is looking for.  Ouch.

Recommended Links

The Big Picture, Economy and Entrepreneurship

Leave a comment

The Big Picture: For some reason, it seems that stories come in pairs; two totally different points of view on the same topic within 24 hours.  It just happened to me.  I had read a lengthy blog post and comments on MetaFilter about a woman who is confined to a wheelchair who is looking for love.  Then along comes a New York Times article written by the husband of a woman with a spinal cord injury.  The juxtaposition of these articles certainly makes you think.

By the way, if you ever have a half hour and want to learn something new, check out AskMeFi.  There is always something interesting there. But beware, that half hour could turn into much more.

Economy: Richard Florida, an urban studies expert, wrote a very interesting article in The Atlantic about the future of the American urban centers as a result of the economic crisis.  My favorite tidbit — Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, is now larger in population than Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Miami.
Now a question for you (Not in the article).  How many state capitals have a smaller population than Naperville, IL? Answer below.

Entrepreneurship: Daniel Tenner writes about the rules about starting a business with a friend.  I ran my first business with my wife, so these ideas were near and dear to me.  We’re still together, so that says something about how we navigated these waters.

Ever Wonder Why?: Ever wonder why the Nissan.com website doesn’t belong to the Nissan Motor Company?  Well, it is a long and convoluted story.  It is a bit scary for a small business proponent.

Answers to above: Naperville had a population of 128,358 as of the 2000 census.  There are 24 state capitals with a population below Naperville’s: Juneau, Dover, Hartford, Springfield, Topeka, Frankfort, Augusta, Annapolis, Lansing, Jefferson City, Helena, Carson City, Concord, Trenton, Santa Fe, Albany, Bismark, Harrisburg, Columbia, Pierre, Montpelier, Olympia, Charleston and Cheyenne.

Recommended Links

Technology, Marketing, Ethics & Movies

Leave a comment

Technology Paul Heinz wrote a thoughtful essay on Lost Arts.  It is a riff on all of those things that we used to be able to do. Now, technology has changed things, mostly for the better, but it is fun to wax nostalgic.

Marketing: Mental Floss has a good article on the marketing of the movie Coraline.  Lots of good tidbits here, but what hit me most was the viral marketing campaign around the alphabet cards.

Ethics: Freakonomics looks at the law of unintended consequences in two articles and how it affects the disabled.

Behind the Scenes: On my list of all time favorite movies is Raiders of the Lost Ark.  A transcript of the story conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan (the writer) has been posted to the web.  Lots of interesting examples on how creative people think and then execute in the film.

Recommended Links

Innovation, Leadership, Healthcare, Entrepreneurship and Economy

1 Comment

Innovation: When entrepreneurs get together in Chicago, a common topic of conversation is how the city fares in terms of new business.  A lot of entrepreneurs look longingly to either coast and the greener fields (in many respects 🙂 ) that beckon. McKinsey talks about innovation (not venture financing, alas), but Chicago fares pretty well in the diversity of companies that have been granted patents.  We are third in the world, behind only Silicon Valley and Toyko in one measure of developing a diversified business base.  I have always felt that this was a hidden gem in the Chicago economy, compared to the boom and bust cycles of mono-industry cities like Detroit, Houston, Denver or Hartford.

Leadership: A friend pointed me to this article on entrepreneurial leadership in this economy.  (Hat Tip: BF)

Healthcare: Should America have universal healthcare?  According to the experts, 50 million of us are not covered by health insurance.  We pay significantly more for healthcare on a per capita basis, have less access to advanced technologies and actually have worse outcomes than most other countries. Joe Conason, writes about the issue in Salon today.

Entrepreneurship: Paul Graham‘s new rallying cry is “Be Relentlessly Resourceful“.

Economy: Wonder why the prices of groceries haven’t been going down, as raw materials prices have?  So have the big grocery chains.

Recommended Links

Talent, Wordplay, Entrepreneurship and Done

Leave a comment

Talent: Stephen Dubner of the Freakonomics blog pointed to a poster that he found in his neighborhood in New York.  He looked at it as an interesting example of the Talent discussion that has been discussed by Colvin in Talent is Overrated and Gladwell in Outliers.  I look at it as an example of entrepreneurship starting early.

Wordplay: I love a pun more than the next guy, so I was tickled by this picture. On so many levels.

Entrepreneurship: Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo.com, wrote a deeply personal and enlightening article in Business Week on What to do if Your Startup is Failing.  No sugar coating here, but required reading for any entrepreneur in this economy. If you are still looking for that perfect business idea, check into this post on fear.

Strategy: The chatter around the The Cult of Done Manifesto is increasing.  I agree with a lot of this, but what I really love are the posters.

Recommended Links

Failure, Warren Buffet, Writing and Wages

2 Comments

Entreprenurship: One of the things that entrepreneurs don’t talk a lot about is failure.  But it happens.  I know.  Failure is the toughest thing in the world to go through, but probably the best learning experience.  I know that I learned more from failures than from success, although success was much sweeter.  Here is a story of failure in entrepreneurship.

Economy: Warren Buffett writes the best shareholder letter in the industry.  He has just released the 2008 version.  Besides his recollection of “We trust in God, all others pay cash”, he recounts the good and bad (unforced errors?) that made 2008 for Berkshire-Hathaway.

Writing: I pointed last week to Paul Graham‘s article on Startups in 13 Sentences.  The folks at EtherPad, a developer of tools for collaborative editing, posted a demo of a future feature of their program that allows one to see the writing process in real time.  The sample article that they used was the Paul Graham article.  I was mesmerized.

Business: Alex Krupp writes in the SixMonthMBA blog about why entrepreneurs should get paid more than engineers. What do you think?

Recommended Links

Politics, Entrepreneurship and Business/Politics

Leave a comment

Politics: John Bolton, our former UN Ambassador, suggested at a Conservative Political Action Conference that President Obama might need to learn a lesson in foreign relations.  Perhaps a nuclear bomb that would be detonated in Chicago.  That would show the President. Wow!  Those Conservatives sure have a sense of humor.  He was greeted with applause and laughter.  Are you kidding me? I think our diplomatic corps are better served without Mr. Bolton’s brand of humor.

Entrepreneurship: I highlighted Bruce Schneier‘s article last week about the amount of data that is being accumulated about each of us.  Seth Godin tells us why this might be a problem.  Remember that you can control what type of information is out there about you to a certain extent.  And people are checking…

Business (and Politics): Jeff Leitner has written a great post linking the strategies of politics applied to business.  It is the first of a 6 part post. I know that I am looking forward to parts 2 through 6.

Recommended Links

HELP, Marketing, Security and Entrepreneurship

2 Comments

Marketing: A friend and I were talking marketing recently and the question came up… What is the minimum offer that a coupon has to offer to get your attention?  Has it changed recently due to the economy?  What will it take for you to try a new place versus a coupon from a regular vendor? Please reply through the comments and I will tally the answers for a summary post next week.  Thanks

Security: Bruce Schneier has written a thoughtful essay on the role of data in our lives.  Almost everything we do today, leaves a trail and these trails can be analyzed.  The toothpaste is already out of the tube.  We as a society need to determine how to manage our collective toothbrushes.

Entrepreneurship: Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, asked an interesting question.  How does the rate of entrepreneurial activity change with the age of marriage?  One could expect that single people would be able to take more risks, a point I made in my young entrepreneurs column last week. Can you name three vibrant entrepreneurial countries where the average age at time of marriage is low?

Help: The Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul University is near and dear to my heart. The students at the Center are hard working, giving and smart. One of these former students is Jessica Cowin, a 25-year old recent DePaul alum who after battling health issues her whole life, is now being faced with a new challenge: a need for a new kidney.

Her sister is a match and will donate one of her kidneys, but there is a catch. Their health insurance will only cover up to $30K, and Northwestern Hospital will only perform the transplant if they are able to pay the full amount of over $100K. She will need to have the surgery within the next 3 months.

I’ve heard a lot of people this week talk about what they should give up for Lent. Catholic or not, here is an opportunity to be part of something that will have an immediate impact on this family, which could easily be any of our families, sisters, friends, etc.

So what can you do to help? Visit: www.giveforward.org/helpjess/. Make a donation. Forward this blog to your network, family and friends. Share the url on your Facebook status. Nearly $10,000 has already been raised in the past couple of days alone – clearly there’s power in numbers, and everything and anything will help.

Recommended Links

Economy, Reputation, Entrepreneurship & Writing

Leave a comment

Economy: Each of us is affected by the current economic situation. Bob is a sound engineer in LA.  He has been forced to declare bankruptcy and has started a blog to document his travel along the path.

Business: One of the key guiding principles that I use in my life (both business and personal) is that your reputation is crucial to your success.  You can’t afford to mess up on a project without figuring out how to fix it, possibly at a financial loss, for example.  I may be rethinking how often I publicly declare my feelings on reputation management. Freakonomics pointed me to an interesting interview with Bernie Madoff, several years ago.

Entrepreneurship: Sales has always been one of my weakest areas.  Today, Seth Godin talked about what are the prerequisites for sales at a first grade level, just perfect for me.

Writing: As part of this blog writing thing, I have had to find my voice as a writer. I know that some of you feel that I should probably find another one, but I believe that I need to use more of a strong active voice. Cindy has written a good post today on the ways that Eric Holder is using active voice and powerful verbs. I guess I could do worse than to try to emulate him.