Tag: business

The Future of Work

The Future of Work: What happens when talent trumps capital? It will be interesting to watch as large incumbent businesses come to rely upon software more heavily. This short post considers how they’ll maintain a high level when “who” matters more than “how much.”

Ethical Coffee Chain. A coffee company that’s different. You’re investing in a specific farmer and can even buy early shares in the company. Interesting concept.

Skinnier

A newspaper can happily support a few reporters and an ad guy if it gives up the paper, the offices and the rest of the trappings.

Too often, we look at the new thing and demand to know how it supports the old thing. Perhaps, though, the question is, how does the new thing allow us to think skinnier.

Seth Godin – Skinnier.

“Somebody else will not let me do anything”

The assertion that “somebody else will not let me do anything” should always be suspected as a cover-up for inertia.

Peter Drucker – The Effective Executive.

Improving the worst experience

When we focus on our perfect customers and make sure they’re completely blown away from start to finish, it’s true that it generates grateful customers who love you through thick and thin, and cheerleaders bearing testimonials. But what happens when you improve the experience on the other end of the spectrum?

For example, instead of letting those ill-fitting customers hang around long enough to have bad experiences, you could figure out what they look like and reject them early and humanely, while also helping them find a better, happier solution.

Jason Cohen – Improving the worst experience.

The Costs of Bookmarking. Cool data released by Maciej from Pinboard about how much it costs to keep the bookmarking service running. It’s really awesome to see information like this made public.

What is going on?

The US Postal Service story is not a unique situation. It is the situation. And we are going to be living with this situation for many years to come. We are crossing a huge chasm from an industrial society to an information society. And there is immense pain in that transformation. Obama can’t solve the problem nor can any of his opponents. Time will solve this problem as new industries get built, people learn new skills and new jobs, and we dismantle entitlement systems that are not sustainable.

That is what is going on. I’d love to hear Obama tell the country that. But I doubt he will. But someone should.

Fred Wilson – What is going on?.

Startup Weekend pep talk: It ain’t the code

Customers don’t patronize companies on the basis of the difficulty of the code or the unit test coverage percentage or whether you used Bodoni instead of Times New Roman on the home page. In fact I’ve made millions of dollars on companies with hideously ugly websites and buggy code. Those things are actually not the most important things. Real life is a startup contest too.

Jason Cohen – Startup Weekend pep talk: It ain’t the code.

Just a myth

The key word, I think, is spiritual. Mythological brands make a spiritual connection with the user, delivering something that we can’t find on our own… or, at the very least, giving us a slate we can use to write our own spirituality on.

People use a Dell. They are an Apple.

Seth Godin – Just a myth.

Leading by Omission. A talk about management and what’s wrong with taking a traditional business approach by Ricardo Semler. The beginning has some wonderful examples of industry malaise and lack of innovative problem solving.