I just came across a brilliant post by Joe Lewis at WebProNews, where he has summarized Guy Kawasaki’s opening keynote address at this year’s PubCon. In his talk, Guy has given a detailed overview outlining ten specific points that innovative companies should heed when developing new products and services.
Having long read Guy’s amazing book ‘Art of the Start’, I know the points outlined in Joe’s post and can vouch for a fact that this is some very, very useful information. Infact, I would urge each one of you to invest in Guy’s book if you haven’t already done so. Its a brilliant read, and there is so much more that he talks about.
Remember my post from coupla months back on the subject of “The Long Tail“? Well, if you do, I am sure you can also remember my fondness for Joe Kraus’s idea about the ‘Long Tail of Software’ and especially his PowerPoint pitch for his company JotSpot.com
Well, I guess someone at Google must have seen the same pitch, because Google recently announced its acquisition of JotSpot.
Ohh Yeah, there is one more ‘King Ka-ching’ behind the whole $1.65bn YouTube.com acquisition by the Big G. Like most of the people(including my friend Kedar) , I too have been closely following the Google takeover, and there is a whole lot being said about the deal. But very few people actually know that there is a 3rd founder involved with the YouTube team.
I recently came across a very intriguing interview involving marketing legend - Dr Philip Kotler, his eminent colleague at the Kellogg School of Management - Dr Bala V Balachandran and PagalGuy.com founder - Allwin Agnel.
PagalGuy.com has made available the audio and transcripts of the interview. They were also kind enough to allow me to host the audio file on my blog and share it with my readers. So, you can also listen to the interview by clicking on the ‘play’ button below !
While doing my daily dose of BusinessWeek reading, I came across an insightful article which absolutely warranted a post on my blog. So here it is !
In their quest to come up with a “summer reading list” , BusinessWeek asked entrepreneurs which books were most influential in helping them build their companies. These were the replies …
1. Carol Bartz - Executive Chairman, Autodesk
“A little book called THE CONATIVE CONNECTION, by management consultant Kathy Kolbe, has been by my side for years. It explains motivations and work styles better than anything else I’ve read. In any business, you have to bring out the best in people. The only way to do that is to understand them.”
Lately, I have been reading a lot about the “Long Tail” of everything. The phrase - The Long Tail - was first used by Wired Magazine’s editor Chris Anderson. The concept drew in part from an influential essay by Clay Shirky, “Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality” that noted that a relative handful of weblogs have many links going into them but “the long tail” of millions of weblogs may have only a handful of links going into them. Anderson went on to extend on that same idea by drawing a perspective on the effects of the long tail on current and future business models.
A few weeks back I decided to try something other than just cranking out ‘one more’ niche portal. I decided to learn and experiment with building lists and promoting to them. So with that in mind, I enrolled as an affiliate for a new product that was on the brink of a huge online launch. I slapped up a grabber page for the same and started advertising on yahoo/overture … and did something which I never intended to do … forgot about it !!!
Business 2.0 Magazine’s senior writers, Michael V. Copeland and Om Malik, claim now is the time for entrepreneurs, to make the most out of the new technologies which are creating new business opportunities, and radically reducing costs for startups. But they warn … Success is as difficult as ever !
So, why such a statement? Probably, due to the notable upsurge in VC funding for any business idea tagged(pun intended) as Web 2.0 … well that would be normal considering the fact social networking sites like myspace and the likes were acquired for multi-million $’s !!
A two-year-old Portland based company called Vocation Vacations, is giving people the opportunity to “test drive” their dream jobs. Creating temporary but intense mentor/apprenticeship experiences, Vocation Vacations enlists professionals from a variety of fields — everything from winemakers and makeup artists to architects and sword makers — and pairs them with people who fantasize about leaving their day jobs and want spend a few days in a profession that they had previously thought beyond their reach.
Twenty young people with a business idea in the creative sector will be selected to take part in the Creative Future School at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore in August. There they’ll learn how to structure their business proposition, develop their networking skills, understand what an investor is looking for and hear from successful creative entrepreneurs about how they have built their businesses. The faculty will include senior academics from IIMB, leading figures from creative businesses in India and the UK and other experts.
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