Darkstar

The SEO Playbook

The SEO Playbook - Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice - Stuntdubl - Search Engine Marketing Consultant is a great article on the advanced basics of SEO architecture for you site. A must read and resource to keep on hand.

What makes a widget

Don Hinchcliffe the Enterprise Web 2.0 guru has a great article talking about the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) web phenom of Widgets, Badges and Gadgets.  He has a great quote that matches why we are developing Netvocate

If you’re still playing the old single Web site game, aren’t using syndication strategically, and haven’t leveraged the entire Web as a platform for your content and services, changes are that you’re at a significant competitive disadvantage. Even the page views/advertising issues aren’t as big as expected. Widgets actually don’t take away from business models based on advertising, and in fact, can complement advertising viewership significantly.

Feld Thoughts

Brad Feld on Term Sheets is a great summary of the many issues surrounding term sheets and negotiations. Definitely worth archiving.

Technorati Tags: startup, termsheets

Web 2.0: Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking | Smashing Magazine

Web 2.0: Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking | Smashing Magazine is a pretty killer blog post on how to measure our blog or any site's buzz online. A definite must read for those that care.

Technorati Tags: widgets, netvocate, buzz, metrics

Secrets of an investor presentation

Ever wonder what investors are thinking when you make a presentation? Following are the questions to address. I grabbed this off a couple angel investor docs given to me over the years I think.. it was an old post on my other blog.

1) WHAT IS YOUR VISION? - What is your big vision? - What problem are you solving and for whom? - Where do you want to be in the future?

2) WHAT IS YOUR MARKET OPPORTUNITY AND HOW BIG IS IT? - How big is the market opportunity you are pursuing and how fast is it growing? - How established (or nascent) is the market? - Do you have a credible claim on being one of the top two or three players in the market?

3) DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE - What is your product/service? - How does it solve your customer’s problem? - What is unique about your product/service?

4) WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER? - Who are your existing customers? - Who is your target customer? - What defines an "ideal" customer prospect? - Who actually writes you the check? - Use specific customer examples where possible.

5) WHAT IS YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION? - What is your value proposition to the customer? - What kind of ROI can your customer expect by using buying your product/service? - What pain are you eliminating? - Are you selling vitamins, aspirin or antibiotics? (I.e. a luxury, a nice-to-have, or a need-to-have)

6) HOW ARE YOU SELLING? - What does the sales process look like and how long is the sales cycle? - How will you reach the target customer? What does it cost to "acquire" a customer? - What is your sales, marketing and distribution strategy? - What is the current sales pipeline?

7) HOW DO YOU ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS? - What is your cost to acquire a customer? - How will this acquisition cost change over time and why? - What is the lifetime value of a customer?

8) WHO IS YOUR MANAGEMENT TEAM? - Who is the management team? - What is their experience? - What pieces are missing and what is the plan for filling them?

9) WHAT IS YOUR REVENUE MODEL? - How do you make money? - What is your revenue model? - What is required to become profitable?

10) WHAT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT ARE YOU AT? - What is your stage of development? Technology/product? Team? Financial metrics/revenue? - What has been the progress to date (make reality and future clear)? - What are your future milestones?

11) WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR FUND RAISING? - What funds have already been raised? - How much money are you raising and at what valuation? - How will the money be spent? - How long will it last and where will the company "be" on its milestones progress at that time? - How much additional funding do you anticipate raising & when?

12) WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION? - Who is your existing & likely competition? - Who is adjacent to you (in the market) that could enter your market (and compete) or could be a co-opted partner? - What are their strengths/weaknesses? - Why are you different?

13) WHAT PARTNERSHIPS DO YOU HAVE? - Who are your key distribution and technology partners (current & future)? - How dependent are you on these partners?

14) HOW DO YOU FIT WITH THE PROSPECTIVE INVESTOR? - How does this fit w/ the investor’s portfolio and expertise? - What synergies, competition exist with the investor’s existing portfolio?

15) OTHER - What assumptions are key to the success of the business? - What "gotchas" could change the business overnight? New technologies, new market entrants, change in standards or regulations? - What are your company’s weak links?

Here's a great ebook from Seth Godin on Really Bad Powerpoint (and how to avoid it)

A couple startup pointers online

Genuine VC: Seven Common Tactical Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make in their Initial VC Pitch which are Simple to Fix

Genuine VC: Seven Founding Sins: ""

Allen's Blog: Ten Commandments for Entrepreneurs 1) Meet with the right partner at the VC firm. Try to get your idea and meeting with the person that has the most appropriate background for your idea. 2) Be on time! Duh! Actually be early so you can set up your laptop, hook up to the projector, get access to the wireless hub, have a glass of water, and breath 3) Tease. Don't cram several meetings into one. The objective of the first meeting is to get a second. Tell them you have a great technology idea, being implemented by a great team, and attacking a huge market in the midst of a transition. Crisply and clearly reduce a complex business message into a short set of slides that intrigues the audience and makes them want to find out more. The same tactic with the Exec Summary. 4) Know your audience. Either read up before the meeting or ask questions about domain experience, companies in their portfolio, etc. Don't get surprised by who knows what and bore them with redundant background info. 5) Get to the point. Tell the audience what you are doing right away. “What problem is my startup solving?” 6) Describe your idea by analogy. Compare it to what else has been in the market. Google adwords for widgets. 7) 13 slides. Check out Guy's 10/20/30 rule for presentations 8) Know, but admit when you don't. 1) know a lot, (2) know what you don’t know and (3) admit it when asked -- will get you a lot farther down the road. 9) Know your competitors and list them. Be intimate with strengths and weaknesses. 10) Listen well to questions and answer quickly. Don't play the ego game and followup on points in dispute after the meeting.

Focus Focus Focus

EarlyStageVC How to Double Your Valuation That got your attention, didn’t it? Maybe I learned something from all those enlargement offers in my email after all. Now, let’s get down to business. I re-learned something last week. Focus sells. Duh. I'll be specific. Last week I saw two remarkably different pitches, both from companies with great technology. One sold the generality of what they could do, telling a Big Story. The other told a Focused Story about an existing customer base they were going to serve better. .They explicitly avoided in the pitch any mention of where else their technology might apply. That was the voice over in the conversation around the pitch. All other things were equal -- limited management team, pre-launch, working alpha. I struggled with the Big Story Company, befuddled about who would really use this. I jumped out of my chair (metaphorically) to chase the Focused Story, because I could envision so many more uses beyond the first beachhead market. VCs are great at imagining a big Future, but most of us want an anchored Present. The Big Story Company was hoping for a valuation $10M pre-money. The Focused Story already had a term sheet at $20M when we met. There is an enormous temptation in startups to think and talk expansively about a long-term vision centered on the technology of the Company. That vision often includes the word enable as in we will enable … That’s your first clue. Enable is one of those value-halving words. So are Discover, Context, Create, and Build. All those words really say, The proof of value is left to someone else. That applies equally to the valuation. The proof of value is left to someone else because we can't articulate it. Companies started by technologists routinely fall into this trap. (I mean both business and engineering technofiles, BTW) They don’t start with the intent of solving a specific problem. They start with the intention of “leveraging” a specific technology. The fact that the technology is a piece of many potential futures seduces the team to think they have a big opportunity. It is uncomfortable for the team to commit to a market because they don’t know the end user. There are two solutions to this. Turn inward and build technology, or turn outward and recruit people who do understand the solution. It is dilutive, but if it doubles your value, you can’t afford not to do it. Years ago I was on the board of a company that had phenomenal technology for building predictive models from text or data. The team had identified potential applications in CRM, online advertising, search, database marketing, customer support, and others. The CTO referred to the product as a bolt-on brain, because it made many existing applications much smarter. The problem was that the technology was 10% of any given solution, even though it was the piece that differentiated the rest of the system. Capturing the other 90% required domain expertise not present in the team. The Company never went deep, straddling several potential markets. They were eventually acquired for the team and tech, not for the book of business it created. It was an unsatisfying outcome for nearly everyone. It was positive, but vastly under the potential. So how do you double your valuation? Pick one application; serve one type of customer and be in that business. Show how you can conquer a specific set of competitors by virtue of the technology, but don’t be in the technology business. If you can persuade your investors that the first beachhead is attainable and interesting, you will get credit for subsequent applications and the big, horizontal play. Tell a story that shows you understand who your customer is, how to get to them, and why they will buy or use your product/service. Show how powerful the technology and team are, but stay on message about the focus. Let us imagine the Future. * Don’t enable – solve * Don’t provide context – provide conclusions * Don’t ask customers to build – ask them to use Technology is raw material. Create finished goods. Enhance your value with this Vi@gr@ for startup companies. Your partners will love you for it.

The Meaning of Badge Proliferation

The Meaning of Badge Proliferation: "

It seems that the number of conversations I have had in the past two months and the number of articles/blog-posts I’ve read about online badges has skyrocketed. By ‘badges’ I mean small snippets of HTML code which consumers cut and then paste onto their blog or social network profile. (I am not necessarily talking about ‘widgets,’ which contain richer interactive functionality and often reside on the desktop, though I do realize that the definitions and manifestations of the two blur together quite a bit.)

For example, Fred Wilson posted last month about his ‘new blog bling.’ The number of badges has exploded so much recently in that Pete Cashmore asked earlier this week, ‘Are there any startups that don’t plug in to MySpace these days?’. The importance of for the industry of badges and widgets for MySpace pages was highlighted with the recent scramble after the mandate that all Flash-based ones be upgraded to newest version from Adobe.

Tim Post coined a very apt term, calling these badges, the ‘flying seeds of the internet’ and has an excellent blog entirely devoted to the subject (it’s a must read on the subject which I’ve poured through extensively). In a conversation he and I had the other day, we discussed how badges are a unique combination of marketing and technology, like interactive stickers for the web. They are becoming another method for self-expression in and of themselves. Bumper stickers for the internet generation to communicate to others in ‘traffic.’

Just like those sticky pieces of paper slapped on the back of a car, online badges can and will allow people to express affiliations with schools, groups, locations, brands, bands, and much more. But unlike static stickers, online badges (like those created by Badgr) possess the ability to be personalized. And they’re not just for people - Brian Phipps has an interesting post about ‘widgets as brand pipelines,’ which can easily be applied to badges as well.

Beyond the above affiliations, badges have the capability to communicate about individuals’ relationships with products. As many long-time readers of my blog know, I have a keen interest in ‘social commerce’ sites (see a post from last December), as I have a vision where they could provide consumers with rich social context and relevancy to the purchases which they are making. The current crop of social shopping sites are experimenting with badges as a way to promote their service. StyleFeeder, Wists, Nabbr, Kaboodle, Sprout Commerce (the creators of MyPickList and FavoriteThingz), and StyleHive - just to name a few - give consumers the ability to express themselves via products in various ways. It’s a very powerful notion, especially as it introduces the notion of monetizing these badges as forms of advertising. It remains to be seen, however, if any of these services can attract significant enough consumer adoption.

Resulting from my recent exploration, there are two questions which I am currently contemplating and learning about:

1. What are the best practices for marketers to harness the power of these badges to promote services, brand, or products?
2. What are the business models for the services that enable and create these badges? Or are they just another marketing tactic for services as opposed to something to develop a business around? Are they a means to an end or an end in and of themselves?

(Via Genuine VC.)

How to Get in TechCrunch

How to Get in TechCrunch:

Here’s a video of Guy Kawasaki in an interview with Mike Arrington of TechCrunch.

The salient question that Mike answers is, ’How do I get my company in TechCrunch?‘ The short story is:

1. The ‘standard answer’ is to send an email to editor@techcrunch.com and take your chances. Thirty pitches come in per day this way.

2. The most effective way is to get a referral from a venture capitalist or someone ‘known’ who can speak on your behalf. Ten per come per day this way. Thirty plus ten equals forty, and he runs four stories per day, so you might think that ten percent make it. However, many of his stories are internally generated (followups, reports on what big companies do, etc.), so the actual percentage is much less.

3. The key is how good the company is, not the ‘slickness’ of the pitch. For example, an unpolished pitch for a great company will get through. Also, a great pitch for a lousy company won’t. Basically, you should assume that the bull-shiitake detector is always on.

4. Speaking of bull shiitake, specifically don’t use descriptions such as ‘revolutionary,’ ‘Web 2.0,’ ‘huge,’ ‘change the way you’ll use the Internet,’ and ‘disruptive.’ This is what Mike calls ‘cheap adjectives,’ and they are kisses of death in Michael’s eyes.

5. To describe what you do, you should provide a tangible frame of reference instead of using the usual bull shiitake. For example, one pitch that worked is 'YouTube for PowerPoint.' Many entrepreneurs are loath to mention other products and prefer cheap adjectives. This is a mistake.

6. Finally, only the first two or three sentences count. If you don’t capture him that quick, you’re hosed.

In short, you should approach TechCrunch as you would a venture capitalist except that TechCrunch doesn’t write checks, but it can get you in front of 250,000 or so people.

(Via Bona tempora volvant--by Guy Kawasaki.)

The Charles River Ventures Quickstart Calculator

The Charles River Ventures Quickstart Calculator: "

Reader Dave Lavinsky has created a nifty calculator for entrepreneurs wanting to know how their seed and subsequent rounds affect their ownership in a start-up.

He calculates the seed round on the ‘QuickStart’ formula popularized by Charles River Ventures, which we wrote about last week. CRV is writing small checks in return to start-ups in exchange for getting a discount on an investment in a company’s first round.

The calculator allows up to 5 rounds of financing and shows the equity that the management team, CRV (in this case), and other investors get. You can view the calculator here.

"

(Via VentureBeat.)

Knowing when to hold 'em

Knowing when to hold 'emis a great article by Evan Williams today... his post follows: "

Barry Diller actually said something Tuesday at Web 2.0 that was pretty good. In response to a question from an entrepreneur, apparently about whether he should sell his successful web enterprise, Barry said: 'Don't sell. The way you build equity is to hold on.'

Which got me to thinking about lots of web companies that have had 'successful exits' and wondering if maybe they shouldn't have been so hasty.

What if Flickr hadn't sold?


What if del.icio.us hadn't sold?


What if MySpace hadn't sold?


What if Blogger hadn't sold?


Apologies, again, for using Alexa graphs to demonstrate a point. But it's safe to say that all these properties have grown dramatically since their sale. If you imagine these are stock charts, you would probably conclude that the sellers would have been wise (/lucky) to hold on a little longer.

Now, that's rather simplistic, isn't it? You have to ask yourself several things before coming to such a conclusion. You have to ask, first:

How much was the acquiring company responsible for the growth following acquisition?
This is easy to conclude in the MySpace case: hardly at all. Does Fox even have the capability to bring measurable traffic to MySpace? Perhaps in the form of massive TV commercials, but that hasn't happened.

But in the other cases, obviously Yahoo! and Google have the ability to introduce these fledgling products to many millions of people. That's definitely part of the promised benefit of these deals. But does it happen?

On the Yahoo! homepage, there's a link to Yahoo's product that competes with Flickr. And on their entire site, only a few obscure mentions of Flickr are found.

Same with del.icio.us.

Perhaps they've done other things I'm not aware of, like free ad campaigns or emails or marketing dollars (but marketing dollars doesn't really count as using their distribution). I'm going to go out on a limb and say that very little of these services' growth was due to Yahoo's massive distribution power.

How about in the case of Blogger? Blogger is linked on Google's 'even more' page and, in the Google Toolbar, if you go to Options / More, you can turn on a BlogThis! button. Other than that, again, a few obscure mentions. They once ran a homepage promotion for Blogger on non-US Google sites, which had a nice impact for a few days. And the toolbar button brought in quite a few users for a brief while in 2003, when it was on by default, before they hid it. The 'even more' page does not have a significant impact.

No, Blogger has grown, for the most part, without tapping into Google's huge reach.

But the second question you have to ask is:

Have the acquirers stopped imminent doom from happening?
This isn't as obvious of a benefit of getting acquired as distribution, but it can happen. For example, if rumors are to be believed, YouTube may have melted under the pressure of lawsuits had the awesome power of Google's attorneys not come in to save the day.

For the services mentioned above, although you never know what's going on behind the scenes, but it's hard to imagine such a scenario. I'm assuming, in all cases, that these companies would have acquired reasonable funding had they not sold. (Flickr and Blogger had offers on the table, and Delicious had just raised some.) That being the case, most problems are solvable.

One of the promised benefits of going to a Yahoo! or Google is scalability. Maybe they'll save you from doing a Friendster (which probably would have been better off selling). I don't know about Flickr, but I know del.icio.us is moving, or has recently moved, to some Yahoo! infrastructure that is purportedly quite nice. (If they have moved, it wasn't very long ago.)

As for Blogger, this was definitely something we needed and looked forward to. There was no way our codebase in early 2003 would support the load of today. However, until the most recent version, which is in beta now, Blogger has run on 90% homegrown code. Not code that we came there with, but code that was written specifically for Blogger (and the same database). There just wasn't any magical Google scaling device we could port to.

Of course, we ran on Google hardware and network, took advantage of Google libraries here and there, and had great Google-recruited engineers working on it. Also, as I'm sure with all of these services (save MySpace), we had parent-company ops and security folks who may have averted a disaster or two. But these aren't the core things that tend to illicit or prevent growth.

So, this is pure speculation, but it's hard to say that any of these sites would have been taken down, or seriously hindered, were it not for getting acquired.

As long as you're asking these questions, you should probably ask:

Would they have grown even more had they not been acquired?
Who knows. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility that these sites have been hindered after acquisition by a lack of flexibility or by having fewer resources to do what they needed to do than they would have otherwise, because they had to compete for them internally instead of buying them on the open market.

Just a thought.

Am I saying these companies shouldn't have sold?
No. There are still many other things to consider. For example, if you traded one stock for another stock that grew even faster, that would still be a good deal from a financial perspective. Also, from a financial perspective, it's possible that your further funding may have diluted you more than your growth made up for.

Or, not the case for any of those mentioned above, but if you just got offered a ridiculous price, despite not having a lot of substance to your business, you might regret not taking it.

Or if you just don't want to hack it out on your own—which I know is the case for some tiny startups that have gotten acquired by Google before really getting going—that's a legitimate reason. (In the vast majority of cases, the opposite is true, and founders beat their heads against brick walls in the big company for a couple years until escaping.) Or if you're just not interested in your thing anymore and want to move on, it can be great to find a stable home for it (not that acquirers don't often kill entrepreneur's babies on a whim).

All I'm saying is that you often hear about companies that should have sold when they had the opportunity, but you rarely hear about companies that shouldn't have.

And that Barry Diller has a point: Sometimes you should hold on.

Addendum! Kevin Fox writes in with several excellent points, not all of which I had thought about, but all of which I agree with. From Kevin:

An additional aspect that's important to consider is to what degree predicted performance is built in to the offer price. Even if Alexa traffic charts were accurate measures of traffic over time, they alone tell us nothing about the estimated future traffic at various points along the way. Thinking about Web 2.0 timing is much more like buying and selling tech stocks than it is trading commodities.

Take any significant Web 2.0 acquisition and try to estimate what the annual growth would have to be for the price paid to be a fair price. How much will Myspace have to grow to pay back Fox for its half-billion dollar bill? While P/E and PEG ratios are part of the standard vocabulary when valuing stocks, their equivalent (most 2.0 acquisitions are still in the red, rendering these numbers undefined) is just as important as their current web footprint.

Finally, hindsight usually favors waiting since people forget about the companies that didn't sell when their growth estimates were higher than their actual outcome. Just like mutual fund companies that start dozens of funds a year and only keep the ones that perform well, the persistence of memory (or lack thereof) is a confounding factor. There will always be success stories, and there will always be failures. I would guess (and you would have more experience than I in this) the ability to hedge your bet and cash out weighs heavily on the minds of founders of promising companies with negative cashflow.

Of course, another factor is often a founder's desire to be an eternal entrepreneur. There comes a point when you want to do something new, whether it's changing to a different project at your new parent company or leaving to start the adventure all over again.

This is an attitude I admire. ;-)

Right on. So, in conclusion: You never know.

"

(Via evhead.)

Talk with Guy Kawasaki today

Talk with Guy Kawasaki today: "

Michael Arrington took a break from the Web 2.0 Summit this afternoon and went down to Microsoft Silicon Valley HQ to meet with Guy Kawasaki. He is an incredibly charismatic guy. They spoke for about an hour about startups and blogging. The video is here. TechMeme buzz is here.

"

(Via CrunchNotes.)

So little time

From Adam Justo's blog:

"I’m reminded of how difficult it is to create something that people want to use while simultaneously making a profit from it.

It’s easy to create something that people want, whether it’s a product or service. The question is, are people willing to pay, and, if so, how much? If they’re not willing to pay, can you translate the bodies/eyeballs into a workable business via advertising revenue? If you can, how much work will it take to make that process happen, both in terms of finding the advertisers and figuring out how to make their advertising pay dividends so that they continue to want to be associated with you?

In many startups, especially Internet startups, the first step is in building the offering. If it’s good enough to attract attention, you then have to convert some of that attention to actual money. And while you’re trying to get to a healthy monetization level, you still need to provide all the things you provided to begin with that brought you the visitors/customers in the first place. And you have to do this double work with the same staff you had when you were doing half the work, which already seemed like more than twice the work that most humans could reasonably handle.

Even more difficult, if your business has ramped up to a decent level but not home-run territory, and the money’s starting to run low, you may have to shift gears to monetization before you’d like to, thus forcing you to somewhat take your eye off the ball in terms of providing the service or product that brings you customers in the first place.

It’s no wonder that sometimes the details get lost in the shuffle, or that as a business owner you simply have to choose what is the most important thing that needs to get done at a particular time, and live with the fact that there is something else that needs attention but will not be getting it at the moment.

And yet everyone wants to be an entrepreneur these days."

The Art of the Executive Summary

So what happens when you start one company and stumble into an entirely new opportunity that in some ways is many times larger than your original concept. Well, you build on what you have already done and be agile enough to realize a new opportunity. We are still very much focusing on launching chipin.com and have a product roadmap to enhance the system once it is launched for our core client base. But in order to raise the VC level Series A we need, we have to show why we are the next big disruptive business. Well, Netvocate is going to bit it.

So I am now reworking our preso, exec summary and bplan. Of course to keep things in perspective, I had a quick look at Guy's short article on what should be included. I have found there is no such thing as a template, but by looking at several resources it helps create a check list of what I want to include.The Art of the Executive Summary: ""

Also... blogging for change!

A simple post about leadership

A simple post about leadership: "

I'm reminded -- and I need to remind myself -- that leadership is made up of many things.' One component that I want to emphasize today is simplicity. Leadership is about making things simple. The world is a complex thing. In fact, the fourth law of business is that businesses tend to complexity.' The leader of a business must fight this complexity -- and communicate simplicity to the world, to customers, and to employees.'

"

The woeful story of Friendster, and lessons

The woeful story of Friendster, and lessons: "

Gary Rivlin, of the New York Times, has just written the best overview yet of the terrific bungle of social networking company, Friendster.

Jonathan Abrams, founder of Friendster, had a great initial vision, and sparked the social networking revolution by allowing friends to hook up with others. The company had an amazing lead, and potential.

But when he took money from high-profile venture capitalists, he paid a high price: These mostly ‘50-year-old white guys’ had their own ideas about how to run the company, and they got more heavy-handed when they realized how much Abrams was ‘over his head.’ In short, everyone was a fault, and it is a great lesson for entrepreneurs.

Here is the tragedy: Had one coherent vision won out, either Abrams’ initial vision for the more ‘closed’ version limiting people to communicate with profiles of their friends, or the more open model adopted by MySpace, the company may have succeeded. Had it forcefully implemented the ‘closed’ version, with conviction, it would have learned, like Facebook did, that gradual opening to others made sense. It could have evolved as it learned. Instead, it seems, the company was mired in indecision. Each executive change (happening every six months to a year) meant a new strategy, a change of course. And once Abrams was out — however arrogant he may have been — so was Friendster’s soul.

Aside from caution, the story also offers hope: If you’ve got a good idea and vision, you can succeed against a seeming formidable competitor that has all the money and best minds at its disposable.

"

(Via VentureBeat.)

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups is a good look at the pitfalls you face.

YouTube timeline

YouTube timeline: by Niall Kennedy

. Every wonder what it took to create a 1.6 B company?

snapz pro x movie capture from powerpoint

snapz pro x movie capture from powerpoint: ""

(Via .)

Secrets of an investor presentation

Ever wonder what investors are thinking when you make a presentation? Following are the questions to address.

1) WHAT IS YOUR VISION? - What is your big vision? - What problem are you solving and for whom? - Where do you want to be in the future?

2) WHAT IS YOUR MARKET OPPORTUNITY AND HOW BIG IS IT? - How big is the market opportunity you are pursuing and how fast is it growing? - How established (or nascent) is the market? - Do you have a credible claim on being one of the top two or three players in the market?

3) DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE - What is your product/service? - How does it solve your customer’s problem? - What is unique about your product/service?

4) WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER? - Who are your existing customers? - Who is your target customer? - What defines an "ideal" customer prospect? - Who actually writes you the check? - Use specific customer examples where possible.

5) WHAT IS YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION? - What is your value proposition to the customer? - What kind of ROI can your customer expect by using buying your product/service? - What pain are you eliminating? - Are you selling vitamins, aspirin or antibiotics? (I.e. a luxury, a nice-to-have, or a need-to-have)

6) HOW ARE YOU SELLING? - What does the sales process look like and how long is the sales cycle? - How will you reach the target customer? What does it cost to "acquire" a customer? - What is your sales, marketing and distribution strategy? - What is the current sales pipeline?

7) HOW DO YOU ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS? - What is your cost to acquire a customer? - How will this acquisition cost change over time and why? - What is the lifetime value of a customer?

8) WHO IS YOUR MANAGEMENT TEAM? - Who is the management team? - What is their experience? - What pieces are missing and what is the plan for filling them?

9) WHAT IS YOUR REVENUE MODEL? - How do you make money? - What is your revenue model? - What is required to become profitable?

10) WHAT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT ARE YOU AT? - What is your stage of development? Technology/product? Team? Financial metrics/revenue? - What has been the progress to date (make reality and future clear)? - What are your future milestones?

11) WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR FUND RAISING? - What funds have already been raised? - How much money are you raising and at what valuation? - How will the money be spent? - How long will it last and where will the company "be" on its milestones progress at that time? - How much additional funding do you anticipate raising & when?

12) WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION? - Who is your existing & likely competition? - Who is adjacent to you (in the market) that could enter your market (and compete) or could be a co-opted partner? - What are their strengths/weaknesses? - Why are you different?

13) WHAT PARTNERSHIPS DO YOU HAVE? - Who are your key distribution and technology partners (current & future)? - How dependent are you on these partners?

14) HOW DO YOU FIT WITH THE PROSPECTIVE INVESTOR? - How does this fit w/ the investor’s portfolio and expertise? - What synergies, competition exist with the investor’s existing portfolio?

15) OTHER - What assumptions are key to the success of the business? - What "gotchas" could change the business overnight? New technologies, new market entrants, change in standards or regulations? - What are your company’s weak links?

Here's a great ebook from Seth Godin on Really Bad Powerpoint (and how to avoid it)

Entrepreneurial Proverbs

I just read a great post from Marc Hedlund at O'Reilly on Entrepreneurial Proverbs.' 'Lot of great advice summarized here.

Starting

• It's good to be king -- being an entrepreneur is the best job I've had. Every day your job is new and different; you constantly have to push yourself in new directions. You no longer have to say, 'Well, I'm just an engineer, but...' -- you have a great excuse to take an interest in everything. Working in an environment you shaped to your own beliefs about how a company should be run is incredible (and humbling!). And of course there are sometimes financial rewards, although it's still a great job regardless.
• Losing sucks -- shutting down a company is unbelievably difficult. It affects your home life, your health, your job prospects, your financial stability. Professional investors are grown-ups, but it's still extremely disheartening to lose the money people invested based on belief in you. If your backers include friends or family, it's extremely difficult to have to tell them the company is closing and their money is gone. Most entrepreneurs fail several times before succeeding, too, so losing is both terrible and nearly inevitable. Fight as hard as you can against it.
• Building to flip is building to flop -- this is taken from Jason Fried, and he's right. People who start out with only one goal, to sell to a big portal, will find their options are too limited. Plan as many paths to success as possible for your company, and always have a Plan B when acquisition (or whatever path you choose first) doesn't work.
• Prudence becomes procrastination -- it's great to research your market and talk to potential buyers about your ideas. It's terrible to let an excess of this become a impediment to getting started. Too much prudence edges away from research and into procrastination.
• Momentum builds on itself -- just start. Do whatever you can. Draw a user interface. Write a spec. Make something, anything, that people can see and touch and try. A prototype is worth ten thousand words. Once you start moving, you will find that people start to carry you along.
• Jump when you are more excited than afraid -- lack of fear is irrational, and too much fear is debilitating. Make the jump into your business when you have considered the fear, and come out more excited than afraid.

The Idea

• Pay attention to the idea that won't leave you alone -- this is taken from Paul Hawken's Growing a Business. Sometimes an idea catches hold of you and you find you can't put it down. Pay attention to that! Just start working on it. Can't get yourself to do anything on it? Move on. Find yourself waking up out of bed to write down new ideas about it? That's a good one to choose.
• If you keep your secrets from the market, the market will keep its secrets from you -- entrepreneurs too often worry about keeping their brilliant secrets locked away; we should all worry much more about springing a surprise on a disinterested market (anyone remember the Segway?). To quote Howard Aiken: 'Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.'
• Immediate yes is immediate no -- does everyone immediately tell you your idea is great? Run away from it. If the idea is that obvious, the market will be filled with competitors, and you'll find yourself scrambling. One good test: when the New York Times Magazine puts out its annual 'Year in Ideas' issue, is your idea in it?' Then don't do it.' You're already too late.
• Build what you know -- this is the most basic advice of idea generation: scratch an itch you have yourself. To make a great company, stop and ensure that your need is broadly felt, and that your solution is broadly applicable -- not everyone spends their life in front of a computer, remember.
• Give people what they need, not what they say they need -- interviews are tricky. People will swear up and down that they would buy a product you describe if only it were available, and then fail to do so as soon as it is. Likewise, in conversation an idea can sound terrible, but in actualization the idea can become a compelling product. You have to sherlock out the truth of the interest people express, and 'yes/no' questions are usually less useful than 'how much' or 'how bad' questions.
• Your ideas will get better the more you know about business -- engineers hate to hear this, but you can generalize up quite far from here: the more you know about everything, the better all of your ideas will get! If you want to start a business and your strength is in development, learning about pricing, sales, marketing, finance, and yes, even HR, all of it will make your product ideas stronger and better.

People

• Three is fine; two, divine -- having too many co-founders makes decisions hard to reach; if you're on your own, you have to bear all of the stress and worry about the success of the company. In my judgment, three people can do well together, but having two founders is best.
• Work only with people you like and believe in -- I once heard Eric Schmidt say something along the lines of, 'The older I get, the more I think all that matters is working with people you like.' If you're smart and talented, you're probably going to like a lot of smart and talented people. Working with people you like is so much more fun, and often more productive, than fighting against someone who may be smart and talented but just isn't a great fit for you.
• Work with people who like and believe in you, just naturally -- maybe you are very persuasive, and can talk people into working with you against their better instincts. Especially for co-founders and early employees, don't try that hard. Find the people that naturally want to work with you, and nudge them into the roles where you need them. You'll have more fun and get more done.
• Great things are made by people who share a passion, not by those who have been talked into one -- a corollary of the last; you can spark a passion in someone, but you can't do it without some fuel to catch. Better to wait, and find the person who is already inclined to believe in your cause. You may talk someone into co-founding a company with you, but will they stick with it through ups and downs if they had to be persuaded that hard?

Product

• Cool ideas are useless without great needs -- this is the classic engineers' entrepreneurial mistake (or at least I'd like to think so, since I've made it). Techies love tech, and a new technology can produce a lot of companies that don't really meet a need. Better to start with the need, and then see how what you know can produce a better answer to that need. (Marketers tend to have the opposite problem: real, pressing needs with completely unworkable solutions.)
• Build the simplest thing possible -- engineers have the hardest time with this, with not overdesigning for the need they're addressing. Make the simplest possible product that makes a significant dent in that need, and you'll do far better than you would addressing two or three needs at once. Simplicity leads to clarity in everything you do.
• Solve problems, not potential problems -- you can waste a lot of money implementing solutions for problems you don't have yet, and may never have. Work on the biggest, most pressing problems today, and put aside everything else.
• Test everything with real people -- it's unbelievable how helpful this is. Go find civilians, real people who use computers because they have to and not because they love to. Find them in Starbucks, or at the library, or in a college computer lab. Give them $20 for 20 minutes, and you'll be paid back a hundred times over.

Money

• Start with nothing, and have nothing for as long as possible -- small budgets give big focus (probably another line I'm stealing from Jason Fried: it sounds like something he'd say...) Don't go out and raise a ton of money right away. Instead, give yourself just enough to get going, and use the limits that imposes to motivate yourself.
• The best investor pitches are plainspoken and entertaining (not in that order) -- think about what this implies. A plainspoken pitch is the surface of a very solid business. If you have to fudge and lie to get investors interested, why is that? If you're running a great business, it is not hard at all to lure investors into it; the worse your business, the bigger (and more odious) your fundraising task is. Entertaining implies a fun person to work with, and VCs like working with people they like as much as the rest of us do. If you don't bring the funny, bring the person who brings the funny.
• Never let on that you're keeping a secret -- telling an investor 'I don't want to talk about that' is terrible. It's the natural converse of being plainspoken. It's good to be aware, though, that some potential investors will listen to you and then share your information with your direct comptitors, and not always because they're invested in those comptetitors. Knowing that, you have to keep some secrets -- but be as diplomatic about that as possible. Respond to the idea behind the question, without giving away more than you feel comfortable discussing. Learn to steer the conversation in the way you want it to go. And then give up more information as you become more comfortable with the potential investor.
• No means maybe and yes means maybe -- you should never take a 'no' from someone you want to work with. Accept the no, ask for feedback, and then just keep sending them updates on how much butt you're kicking in the market. During one company, three of the five term sheets I collected came from VC firms that told me 'no' originally. Conversely, though, the only money in the bank is actual money actually in the bank. Everything else is just a possibility, and you have to treat it as such. Don't stop fundraising until you have a firm commitment for the funding you need, and don't accept halfway promises like, 'We'll fund you if another firm comes in.' Keep on driving until the wire transfer is complete.
• For investors, the product is nothing -- the classic engineer's VC pitch has ten slides about the product and two about the academic achievements of the founders. That's a terrible pitch. One slide should be about the product, while the rest cover the market, competitors, financials, funding history, and the relevant experience of the team. The product matters far less to most investors than the reactions of customers, the properties of the market, and the credibility of the team. Obsess about the product on your own time; present your business in all of its parts.
• The best way to get investment is not to need it* -- if you have a running business with real customers and you're paying all your bills, you are much more likely to get a funding round than if you need the round in order to survive or succeed. The pitch that goes, 'We could accelerate our growth with more money' is much more compelling than, 'I need your money or our doors will close.'

Here is a great followup article...

Top Signals of Success for Software Entrepreneurs:

 

1. You like to experiment:  You like to play with new software.  You’re one of the first people to try new software (like Google Desktop Search, Yahoo! 360 and Microsoft Live)) within a week of its introduction.  You end up using < 1% of these applications over the long-term, but still love to “play with new stuff”.

 

2. You like to read and learn:  You tend to read a lot.  A combination of blogs, books, magazines, etc.  You like to read on a variety of topics (marketing, technology, sales, strategy, etc.).  

 

3. You like to tinker and build:  You tend to want to solve problems in a better way than is out there.  You customize, you build extensions, you write scripts, you improve.  You like to build things.  You can start with nothing more than a computer and a compiler and create something that generally works.

 

4. You are opportunistic:  You’re always looking for leverage and an opportunity to create (and capture) value.  You measure ideas by their ability to create something meaningful.  Though you may not be obsessed with money, you’ve got a healthy recognition of the fact that money makes the world go round (and helps you have the resources to do what you love).

 

5. You are an artist:  You love having an audience (users).  You’re fanatically obsessed with delighting your audience (users) with software that surprises them in positive ways.  You like to continually improve.  You take pride in your work by investing in great design that will withstand the test of time.  

 

6. You Live On Email:  You tend to prefer email as your preferred communication vehicle.  Though you see the merit and value of in-person meetings (and in some cases phone calls), you would much rather have 90% of your communications over email as you believe it makes you more productive.  Your average response time on “emails that matter” is measured in hours, not days.

 

7. You are considerate, respectful and nice:  You tend to respect other people’s time, and show up on time for meetings.  When you meet with someone, you pay attention.  You don’t abuse the fact that you may have the upper hand in a given situation.  You are considerate and empathetic and generally have a high emotional quotient.  You tend to genuinely want to help people (even those from whom you are unlikely to receive anything in return).  You are kind to animals and children.

 

8. You have a proclivity for action:  You are more likely to act than analyze, plan and obsess.  You tend to “jump in” and do it and deal with consequences after the fact instead of figuring out precisely the right path, right product, right market, etc.  You’d much rather ship a product that’s not perfect than try and spend another two weeks perfecting.

 

9. You attract others like yourself:  You tend to have a great nose for talent and your passion is infectious enough to attract them to your cause.  You like to hang around other people that are as smart (or smarter) than you are.  The thought of feeling threatened never even crosses your mind.  

 

10. You are a realist:  You tend to look at most things objectively.  You see them for what they are.  You have ambitions, but not unrealistic ones.  When in contentious situations, you’re usually the voice of reason.  You keep things in context and tend not to over-react.

 

11. You are exceptionally intelligent:  Lets face it, software is a mind sport.  Software as a business even more so.  I’ve never met a successful software entrepreneur that I wouldn’t classify as being “well above average” in terms of intelligence. I’m talking about raw intellectual capability here (which may or may not have translated into great grades, exemplary test scores, or other “standard” measures – those these certainly don’t hurt).

 

12. You are fundamentally likable.:  People want to help you.  Customers want to buy from you.  Employees want to join you.  Generally, people tend to return your phone calls and emails and they tend not to avoid you at parties.

 

13. You exhibit “balanced frugality”:  You tend to have a reasonable and rational approach to expenses in your business.  But, its not frugality applied evenly across everything.  You’re not always looking for the lowest price or best deal in all cases.  In areas that matter (like the product!), you tend to spend what is necessary (and what you can).  You also tend to let other people make money too (something about the karmic startup cycle).  You avoid the temptation to “do everything yourself” using cost-savings as an excuse.  You place value on your own time (even though you may not be paying yourself out of the company yet).

 

14.  You work hard:  You’re an over-achiever.  You’ve never been satisfied delivering the “minimum”.  Though you understand the importance of work-life balance (you read about it in a book somewhere), you’re not frequently able to pull it off.  When in a group setting where work is divided you somehow always do a disproportional amount of the work.

 

15.  You just love the game:  You’re grateful to have the opportunity to do your own thing, create neat software products and serve customers.  You love the adventure and the thrill and are not hung-up on the rewards (though some of those would be nice too).

MySpace Messenger Coming

MySpace Messenger Coming: "

Update: So this has been something which has been whispered for a while, but Pete Cashmore has discovered actual screen shots of MySpace Messenger. Even though the screen shots have been around for a while (as pointed out by eagle eyed readers), MySpace is now asking people to sign in and activate their messaging accounts. This is the first time I think Yahoo, MSN and AIM have some serious competition, and I predict that this will change the market share equation.

From the looks of it, it is a Windows only app developed by a third party developer, called .IM, a NY-based company. Since the new IM is based on Sonork platform, it is not hard to imagine that MySpace will integrate IM right into MySpace pages. MySpace money machine is now about to hit the second gear as this IM can support banner ads, and inline commerce.

(Via GigaOM.)

SkypeMe Your eBay Bids

SkypeMe Your eBay Bids: "

When eBay bought Skype last year for a whopping $4.1 billion ($2.6 billion in stock/cash and rest as an earn out) my theory is that the first step in integration of the two companies would be adding a Skype Me feature for all sellers on the eBay system. Well, time to say, told you so.

It seems that eBay is already mash-ing it up Skype in some European countries. Switzerland for example, where, buyers can talk to sellers via Skype, and also with eBay customer service. Didier Durand has posted a lengthy french language post on his blog sent me the heads-up. Thanks DD. Didier says that since eBay’s European headquarters are in Bern, Switzerland the small size of the market, and its multilingual nature (4 national languages), it is often used for experiment like the one made by Ebay.

eBay has confirmed this on its Swiss website. Similar tests are going on in Belgium, Holland, China and Taiwan according to Ute Moritz which works for Ebay in Germany. Similar tests were conducted in Norway as well. It makes sense, especially as eBay starts to move high ticket items like cars, and expensive jewelry, as people would like to talk to each other before closing deals. But Skype calls when selling a phone power adapter… yikes!

I find it interesting that most of the tests are in countries that are not hostile to Skype. I think such a roll-out in the US would have the MSOs and the phone company(s) up in arms. Now if you are like me, then you are asking: this is it for $4.1 billion? There’s got to be more, right.

(Via GigaOM.)

The New Boom

Wired has an article on the boom and bust cycles of Silicon Valley in their latest article on the apparent bubble forming around Web 2.0 startups.


Technorati Tags: web2.0, business, vc

RIM Patent infringement case

Fascinating story about the Blackberry patent infringement case and the history behind the two inventors ptting their heads.  One just happens to be dead.

Great charts

Ever find yourself looking for a chart of major trends or aggregated data?  Check out Karl Hartig's site of charts for some pretty cool charts you can use in that presentation or hang on your wall.


Technorati Tags: charts, diagrams, information

How to be Creative

Great article on how to be creative.  Definitely worth a read either the long version or the shorter snippets.

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

Technorati Tags: creativity, business

Small Biz 101

Ryan Carson does a good job of introducing some basic on the ground insights into starting your own business, especially since he has a CS degree and not an MBA.  A good read through his series How to Get Started, Cash Flow Basics and No One Starts with a Masterpiece.  In the latest installment Tips for Increasing Sales he talks about ways to be passionate about what you are doing and eight good steps to take in order to bring in the customers to improve your cash flow.  Worth the quick read if you are trying to start your first business or even if you are a veteran, it never hurts to have a refresher.


Technorati Tags: business, startup, tips

Technorati Tags: business, startup, tips

Guy's Rules for Powerpoint

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

Found this entry from Guy Kawasaki on the rules for a powerpoint presentation.

However, I have another theory. As a venture capitalist, I have to listen to hundreds of entrepreneurs pitch their companies. Most of these pitches are crap: sixty slides about a “patent pending,” “first mover advantage,” “all we have to do is get 1% of the people in China to buy our product” startup. These pitches are so lousy that I’m losing my hearing, there’s a constant ringing in my ear, and every once in while the world starts spinning.

Before there is an epidemic of Ménière’s in the venture capital community, I am trying to evangelize the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I’m in the venture capital business, this rule is applicable for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc.

Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else’s money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business. The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:
   

1. Problem    
2. Your solution    
3. Business model    
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action
    

You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.

The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.

The reason people use a small font is twofold: first, that they don’t know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. Total bozosity. Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well. If “thirty points,” is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s you’re optimal font size.

So please observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. If nothing else, the next time someone in your audience complains of hearing loss, ringing, or vertigo, you’ll know what caused the problem. One last thing: to learn more about the zen of great presentations, check out a site called Presentation Zen by my buddy Garr Reynolds.

Technorati Tags: presentation, guy, kawasaki

Technorati Tags: presentation, guy, kawasaki

Quicksilver and Backpack

I've been just crazed lately with too many bits of data and projects on my plate so have reached out to try and find some solutions.  I'll probably be posting a series here on how I am living my digital life.  I think the first installment is going to be on two amazing tools that are now part of my arsenal.  First caveat, I work on a Mac OSX platform, but try to use Web 2.0 apps when possible to allow myself as much flexibility as possible.

The first tool in the kit is Backpack by the nifty folks at 37signals.  These folks are amazing and I think will be the hottest ticket on the Web 2.0 sphere this year.  Backpack is an amazingly easy to use organizer that allows me to keep my to do lists, my brainstorms, organize my projects, just about anything I can think of that needs to be documented.  I can quickly make updates via the AJAX implementation interface.  It is easy to read and I can even share certain pages with other folks.  You have to check this app out!

Now on my local machine I am also faced with organizing and manipulating my laptop with a whole host of files and applications.  Along came Quicksilver to solve my problems.  This nifty free application is just amazing.  It is hard to tell you the power of this application until you give it a try.  Install it and slowly begin to see the power it gives your fingertips.

I found out recently that I can combine the power of both applications.  I could try to explain both applications, but that would just be regurgiating what has already been written online.  Go check out both and it will soon change your life.


Technorati Tags: backpackit, quicksilver, web2.0

Technorati Tags: backpackit, quicksilver, web2.0

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers

Ok.. Long hiatus, but I am back and ready to blog again.  I am starting a new dot com and been reading like crazy, so thought I should at least post in case anyone is interested. 

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers

Good read on how to set up a good programming structure. "effective" being the
ability to complete projects in a timely manner with the expected
quality


Technorati Tags: programming, habits, effective

Technorati Tags: programming, habits, effective

What's Your Content Gathering and Filtering Workflow?

Beth has posted a very good tidbit on information workflow, especially when dealing with blogs, blogspheres, and posting information. Check out her post at: Beth's Blog: What's Your Content Gathering and Filtering Workflow?.

Calendaring Events

Ever try to set up a meeting with a couple of busy people living in different time zones?Pointment.com is an interesting looking new service that can help the dreaded task of setting up a meeting with multiple people.

Creativity at Work: Articles

Creativity at Work: Articles

The Top Ten Reasons to Play
1. Play is the path to fun and profit.

Play opens up new channels of creativity and increases the level of satisfaction we experience at work. How employees feel about their company is directly related to their level of productivity and creativity. Research shows that highly motivated employees are up to 127% more productive than averagely motivated employees in high complexity jobs.-Fortune Magazine, January 1998.

2. "Fun is the new status symbol." *

Studies show, if you want to attract and keep talent, you need to have a fun, challenging and creative workplace environment. It's your talent that sets your business apart from the competition.

3. "Non-stop work is for losers" *

Play is as important as work. The quality of our work suffers if we don't take the time to play. We live in a workaholic society in North America. Being addicted to busyness is a product of low self-worth.

4. Even God rested on the 7th day!

And universities have a tradition of offering sabbaticals.

5. We need time to be idle.

Taking time to do nothing lets problems incubate and allows for creativity to flow. Children who are allowed to daydream develop a higher IQ.

6. Play helps us find our genius.

Our childhood passions are the key to our genius. In the midst of play we experience unlimited possibilities.

7. Play is crucial to attaining a work/life balance.

A work/life balance (not money) is the number one concern of employees at all levels, in Canada and the U.S. The ability to achieve this is the top determinant in whether they are happy on the job, and whether they stay or leave.

8. The bow kept forever taut will break. - Zen saying

Play helps us relax and let go. Play generates joy. Play replenishes and revitalizes our human spirit. It clears the mental cobwebs that keep us from thinking clearly.

9. Play is smart corporate strategy for solving problems.

Play frees us from worry and stress, relaxing the brain and making it easier to be more creative. Solutions that seemed so evasive earlier now appear effortlessly in the midst of play.

10. Play keeps our passions alive in the workplace.

Studies show, if you want to attract and keep talent, you need to have a fun, challenging and creative workplace environment. It's your talent that sets your business apart from the competition.

Theory and practice of online learning

Theory and Practice of Online Learning has just been released as a .pdf book. Terry Anderson and Fathi Elloumi have made a PDF version of their book The Theory and Practice of Online Learning available online. The book covers so much more than the infrastructure and the technology. It looks at course development, teaching skills, supporting different forms of discussion, and copyright issues. I particularly liked the Value Chain Analysis that Elloumi presents as a strategic framework for understanding online learning.

Nine Rules for Good Technology

Nine Rules for Good Technology is an interesting article written to better understand academic technology and the evolution of technology needs for everyone.

Roger Clarke's 'Little Black Books'

Roger Clarke's 'Little Black Books' is a paper assessing the potential infringement on privacy of online rolodex type services (Plaxo) and peer to peer contacts (friendster) services. A good read referred by Jon Stahl.

Network-Centric Advocacy

Network-Centric Advocacy
blog by Marty Kearns is worth reading.... he gives some very great insights on online advocacy and information matrix.

Blog to k-log

Here's an interesting article discussing the use of blogging as a knowledge management (k-log) tool in corporations.