Sat.Jan 26, 2013 - Fri.Feb 01, 2013

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Designing a Corporate Entrepreneurship Program – A Qualcomm Case Study (part 1 of 2)

Steve Blank

I ran into Ricardo Dos Santos and his amazing Qualcomm Venture Fest a few years ago and was astonished with its breath and depth. From that day on, when I got asked about which corporate innovation program had the best process for idea selection, I started my list with Qualcomm. This is Ricardo’s “post mortem” account of the life and death of a corporate entrepreneurship program.

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Seize the Power of Diversity in Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Many entrepreneurs think that diversity on their team just makes their job harder, since startups are all about making fast decisions, and executing efficiently. Often they assume that this is only a big-company issue, having more to do with the legalities of equal opportunity, hiring minorities, and moral imperatives. In reality, diversity in a startup can be your big competitive advantage.

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Small Tablets Are Further Atomizing Ubiquitous Computing

Agile VC

I’ve been enjoying my iPad Mini for a couple months month now. I thought seriously about getting a Nexus 7 (in fact gave one to my sister as a gift recently), but because I’m frequently on the go with intermittent WiFi I got the Mini which is still one of the few LTE-enabled 7 inch tablets currently on the market. As my partners & I have written about constantly, we think “mobile” is a terribly misleading term for what is a broad megatrend of ubiquitous computing.

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10 Steps To Stop Procrastinating – So You Can Be More Productive At Work

YoungUpstarts

By Jude Bijou MA MFT, author of “ Attitude Reconstruction – A Blueprint for Building a Better Life “ Everyone procrastinates. We usually do it to avoid a task that’s unpleasant or daunting. But when procrastinating starts to interfere with performance at work – by causing us to feel worried, fearful, and stressed-out, or by causing others to feel anxious because we’re holding up progress – then it’s time to stop putting the task aside and get on wi

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

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Designing a Corporate Entrepreneurship Program – A Qualcomm Case Study (part 1 of 2)

Steve Blank

I ran into Ricardo Dos Santos and his amazing Qualcomm Venture Fest a few years ago and was astonished with its breath and depth. From that day on, when I got asked about which corporate innovation program had the best process for idea selection, I started my list with Qualcomm. This is Ricardo’s “post mortem” account of the life and death of a corporate entrepreneurship program.

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How Reed Hastings’ Facebook Status Update Landed Netflix in SEC’s Crosshairs

Gust

Last month, the SEC announced it was taking action regarding Netflix’ (NFLX) securities compliance based on a Facebook status update posted by CEO Reed Hastings. The move came as a shock to many in the tech business community, in which we’ve become accustomed to real-time disclosure by company executives through social media. What could be wrong with more transparency?

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More Trending

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How to Use Social Media To Drive Sales

ConversionXL

According to a report by Nielsen on social media Americans spend three times more time on social media than reading their e-mail. 7.6% of online time is spent reading e-mail and 23% on social. The juicy bit of the study is that more than 70% of social networks users shop online. That’s ~12% more than the average person. These stats make a good case that if you and your brand is active on social networks, you can get rewarded – if you do it right.

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Qualcomm’s Corporate Entrepreneurship Program – Lessons Learned (Part 2)

Steve Blank

I ran into Ricardo Dos Santos and his amazing Qualcomm Venture Fest a few years ago and was astonished with its breath and depth. From that day on, when I got asked about which corporate innovation program had the best process for idea selection, I started my list with Qualcomm. This is part 2 of Ricardo’s “post mortem” of the life and death of Qualcomm’s corporate entrepreneurship program.

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Lean Business Tips: Hiring Contractors for Fun and Profit(ability)

crowdSPRING Blog

We write often about ways small business can reduce expense, increase productivity, and operate more efficiently through a lean approach to marketing, technology, and operations. Today I want to write briefly about a strategy we have used to very good effect when hiring new workers: outsource. When we hear that word, we typically envision massive call centers or bucket shops filled with developers writing code half-way across the world.

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Inside The New Microsoft Office App Store: One Developer’s Story

ReadWriteStart

How does a small app developer manage to distinguish itself on the new Microsoft Office app store? Work fast, track competitors and design a great icon. One of the features of the new Microsoft Office revision is the Office Store , where users can download plugins and other tools to supplement the core Office experience. Microsoft is rolling out its subscription service, Office 365 , to consumers on Tuesday, January 29 ; business users should receive it a bit later.

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Letter to Carmen Ortiz about Aaron Swartz

Andrew Payne

Stepping off my usual entrepreneurship topics, here’s a letter I sent to Carmen Ortiz, Stephen Heymann, and Scott Garland (the prosecutors in the Aaron Swartz case) earlier this week. I’m expecting precisely zero effect on anything here, but it captures my analysis of what happened. Apart from the sadness and tragedy, I think we all need to be very mindful of the growing gaps between technology and our laws.

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Goodbye Jody. You Really Were Awesome

Both Sides of the Table

Jody. You’re gone too early. We still had so many more times to spend together. I loved this image I saw posted by Andy Rankin. Because this is the one word that was not in your vocabulary. And it was the first word I muttered when I heard the news tonight. I remember when we met years ago. I think Michael Kantor introduced us. You were pitching me an online business selling other people’s baby food.

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The 5 Fastest Ways to Get More Referrals for Your Small Business

Duct Tape Marketing

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Andy Sernovitz – Enjoy! photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc. Most small businesses will tell you their new customers come through word of mouth, but very few can tell you how those referrals happen or where they come from. But, it’s not magic and it’s not an accident.

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Blackberry: Ring in the Old?

deal architect

It is a new day for Blackberry – the rebranding of RIM, the new 10 Smartphones But I am more struck by the management team that CEO (since last January) Thorsten Heins has been building.

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Letter to Carmen Ortiz about Aaron Swartz

Andrew Payne

Stepping off my usual entrepreneurship topics, here’s a letter I sent to Carmen Ortiz, Stephen Heymann, and Scott Garland (the prosecutors in the Aaron Swartz case) earlier this week. I’m expecting precisely zero effect on anything here, but it captures my analysis of what happened. Apart from the sadness and tragedy, I think we all need to be very mindful of the growing gaps between technology and our laws.

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We Need to Have Sympathy for Those With Depression. It is an Illness

Both Sides of the Table

Somebody commented that in 2013 I have done a lot more personal posts than usual. I didn’t set out that way. It just happened. Lots of tragedies in the past couple of months. Aaron Schwartz. Sandy Hook. Now Jody Sherman. And my friend Brad Feld & his wife had written a book on the importance of personal relationships which made me want to weigh in on that.

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Entrepreneurs Who Master Storytelling Win More

Startup Professionals Musings

The entrepreneur’s challenge is to effectively communicate their value proposition, not only to customers, but also to vendors, partners, investors, and their own team. Especially for technical founders, this is normally all about presenting impressive facts. But in reality facts only go so far. Stories often work better, because humans don’t always make rational decisions.

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Companies do not innovate. People do.

deal architect

Rob Preston at InformationWeek picks on an annual list of innovative companies from Boston Consulting Group: “Meantime, show us the seminal innovations in 2012 from the likes of No. 17 Coca-Cola (caffeine-free Diet Cherry Coke?), No. 18 Dell (a nice.

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A compass is not a map

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

An entrepreneur confided in me recently that he didn’t like Lean Startup; did I think that was OK? Or is he not cut out to build a startup? A founder uses “37signals does it” to justify every decision, even if he can’t explain why, or why it applies to his situation, or whether 37signals did that when they were still his size.

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Should Startups Announce Their Funding?

Both Sides of the Table

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. I think many board members (including VCs) were trained 10+ years ago when life was very different and their advice often comes from an outdated lens. One of the advantages of blogging, using social media, public speaking, etc as a VC is that you get a more nuanced view of these shifts by watching your own successes a

Startup 355
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10 Criteria for a Memorable Name for Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

First things first – your startup needs a name! This may seem a silly and frivolous task, but it may be the most important decision you make. The name of your business has a tremendous impact on how customers and investors view you, and in today’s small world, it’s a world-wide decision. Please don’t send me any more business plans with TBD or NewCo in the title position.

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The end of an era

deal architect

Jim Holincheck of Workday presented a slide last Fall which was to me was striking. He showed small planning and testing projects around Workday’s 3 releases a year superimposed around much bigger, longer IT and other projects at customer sites.

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7 Incredible Web Design, Branding, Digital Marketing Experiences

Occam's Razor

We are surrounded by incredible digital experiences. Masterful design, branding and marketing. Yet, it would be fair to say we are also drowning in awful digital experiences – or, at the very minimum, experiences that seem to be stuck in 1991. As a Digital Marketing Evangelist you can imagine how much that pains me. When I work with companies, I do my very best to bring my deep and undying passion for creativity and digital awesomeness to them.

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Should You Bother Targeting the Tech Blogs for Your PR Campaigns?

Both Sides of the Table

I’ve started a recent series on PR at startups since I get asked for advice on this topic so often. I will put the full list of posts here. The start of this series was, Should Your Startup Announce Funding ? 6 or 7 years ago when TechCrunch was at its peak market share (they are still strong but many more tech blogs have also popped up) there was a term for getting covered there called “the TechCrunch bounce.” If your company was featured there (in the early days of what peop

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What is the Primary Reason For Startup Failure?

Startup Professionals Musings

When I heard a friend make the statement “Your startup can’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt it as their mantra. Pivoting or dealing a new hand is not quitting. If we all repeat this mantra, perhaps we can improve the statistic that over half of new startups fail within five years. Nothing is more discouraging to future entrepreneurs than a failed startup.

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The end of the social enterprise?

deal architect

Peter Goldmacher at Cowen and Larry Dignan/Dennis Howlett at ZDNet have painted in the last few days a bleak view of the social enterprise. It is interesting to read their comments in a week which starts with the Connect event.

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Be Vulnerable

Feld Thoughts

We are told that leaders must be strong. They must be confident. They must be unflinching. They must hide their fear. They must never blink. They cannot be soft in any way. B t. Last night, after my first public talk on the new book that Amy and I just released titled Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur , a woman came up to me afterwards and gave me two pieces of feedback.

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3 Qualities Of Effective Store Signage

YoungUpstarts

by Scott Quinlan. In this world of social media, coupon websites, search engine optimization, and internet ads, it’s easy to see why most businesses seem to have forgotten one of the world’s most effective (and low-tech) advertising methods – the traditional store sign. Since time immemorial, signage is used by businesses and shopkeepers to promote their wares and services to the public.

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8 Key Processes Distinguish a Business From a Hobby

Startup Professionals Musings

Even when your startup is a one-man show and lots of fun, a “business” needs some discipline and controls to keep it from being defined as a hobby by investors, and assure some financial return. Like it or not, you are now entering the dreaded realm of specifying and documenting “formal business processes.” The right question is “What is the minimum that I need?

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Oracles expanding Cloud

deal architect

I am glad I was part of a (virtual) fireside chat yesterday with Mark Hurd and Thomas Kurian on the Oracle Cloud before I read Bob Evans’ indignant post on Forbes which has the tone of “when is the world.

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The Colorado PUC Trying to Shut Down UberDenver

Feld Thoughts

In yet another insane move by government against entrepreneurs and job creators, the Colorado PUC is proposing a new set of rules that would shut down Uber in Colorado. This is protectionism and misuse of power in an egregious form. Government supporting powerful incubants (the taxi industry) that are threatened by disruptive innovators through regulation.

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How Are Your New Year’s SEO Plans Going?

Rembrandt Communications

February is already here, and it’s time to see how your SEO and marketing plans for the New Year are going. If they are not going well… Find out what is happening. Is site traffic down because you have broken links? Perhaps, your target-market wants different copy? Look at your analytics and find out what [.].

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Top Floor Relationships Make For a Top Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

In the world of entrepreneurs and startups, high level relationships are everything. You can’t start a business alone. You need partners, team members, investors, vendors, and customers. But people don’t realize that all relationships are not the same. There are people you only recognize on the street, business friends, and then close friends whom you can always count on to help.

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Has social media salvaged the SuperBowl ad?

deal architect

For as long as I can remember, the ads are as much a reason to watch the game, as the game itself. USA Today is celebrating its 25th year of Ad Meter, its measurement of consumer favorite SuperBowl ads. One.

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I Am Enough

Feld Thoughts

I received a bunch of great comments and responses to my post Be Vulnerable. Several people asked if I was inspired by Brené Brown’s TEDxHouston talk in 2010. I hadn’t ever seen it so I watched it last night. After 20 minutes, it’s easy to see how it could have inspired my post – it’s absolutely wonderful. As a bonus, it’s an example of an excellent 20 minute presentation - Brené shows us how a 20 minute high concept talk is done.

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Ten Simple Things You Should Do This Data Privacy Day

YoungUpstarts

Data Privacy Day takes place today, 28 January 2013. It’s a good time for us digital natives to assess how we are sharing and managing our personal information online. For those of us who tend to live our lives almost exclusively online, it should also serve as a reminder for us to protect our privacy and to take charge of our digital footprint, and that keeping personal details safe should be a key priority in our connected world.

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