Rants

Copromotion Rant: Do Your Homework First, or Why Content is Like Children

May 23, 2012

Please: before you send somebody an email about bundling your product with theirs, do your homework. Look at that target product’s specifications. Look at how and where it sells. Go to the company website. Look for ways that your product can enhance their product. Figure out ways that both sides can win with what you’re [...]

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Truth About Women in Startups

December 12, 2011

Yes. I couldn’t agree more. I just read Alexia Tsotsis’ Stop Telling Women Not To Do Startups on TechCrunch. The key moment: Because nothing says link bait like “taking on a controversial topic” stupidly, using gross generalizations. The latest in this series is a post by Penelope Trunk, who is either a master at extrapolation [...]

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Who Took Sports Out of Spectator Sports?

January 12, 2011

Monday night I watched the college football national championship game with great interest. My home town team, the Oregon ducks, was in the championship game for the first time ever. And to say “with great interest” is an understatement. I was glued to the couch. Tuesday morning a 7-year-old grandson asked me about the game. [...]

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Facts, Facts, Everywhere, But Truth is Scarce

November 16, 2010

I’ve got a new business idea for anyone who wants it: become a paid data liar, by offering to find facts to fit any point of view your clients want to put forth. Call it facts for hire. It would be a bit like the hired gun in the old west, but more suited for [...]

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I Hate the Small Biz Political Sleaze

September 8, 2010

Damn, elections are heating up again. So we’re going to listen to an endlessly insulting harangue of politicians claiming to speak for “small business.” As if anybody could speak for small business, given that just about the only thing business owners have in common with each other is that they have nothing in common with [...]

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Is Personal Branding Really Impersonal Faking?

August 27, 2010

Don’t get me wrong: I think the thinking behind it, the advice wrapped around the idea of personal branding, is excellent. I’ve recommended, for example, Dan Schawbel’s personal branding book Me 2.0 and I’m sticking to it. Dan has a great collection of real-world suggestions in that book. But I’m beginning to think I hate [...]

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The Problem With Crowd Sourcing is Crowds

June 2, 2010

Crowd sourcing sounds good to me, but then I remember, we humans are a difficult bunch. We like complaining more than praising. We post nasty, negative, and aggressively personal comments on blogs. We’re easily swayed by a few bad apples. Anonymity makes us really mean. Revenge makes us happy. And we behave particularly badly in [...]

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Rejecting Rationalizations for Racism

May 11, 2010

I rarely post about politics or current affairs on this blog but today I can’t resist. Yesterday I read a column in the Wall Street Journal highlighting how a group of religious fanatics, all ethnically Arabs, threatens our country. And last month Arizona enacted a law that openly discriminates against Hispanics. Rationalizations run rampant. It [...]

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Why I Hate Those Huge Market Numbers

March 8, 2010

It happens way too often: entrepreneurs proud of some huge completely unattainable market numbers. They show us billions of dollars. They think that’s a good thing, like it’s important. I hate it. As an investor, as a business plan contest judge, or as a teacher, I don’t really care how many billions of dollars are [...]

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Immigrants, Job Creation, Good and Bad Politics

February 26, 2010

It’s about time. In the midst of cloudy partisan politics and shouting on both sides, with small business often in the middle like the foil for the arguments, here’s a federal government move that makes sense. TechCrunch has a good summary, called The Startup Visa: Create Jobs, Get A Green Card. As we used to [...]

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