Category: Business

  • Transmitting vs. Transforming Customer Dissatisfaction

    I've encountered several examples of customer dissatisfaction recently that prompted me to consider the various channels customers use to signal their dissatisfaction, and how well or poorly those channels serve to resolve the issue(s) in a satisfactory way. In reflecting on the word satisfy – which derives from the Latin satisfacere: satis enough + facere…

  • The Challenges of Location-Based Social Networking

    Meetro, the location-aware instant messaging application – and company – has failed (or as my entrepreneur friends often like to say in such cases, it has "run out of runway"). Peter sent me a link to an inspiring TechCrunch guest post by Paul Bragiel, Meetro's founder, in which Paul has courageously shared the lessons he…

  • Recommender Systems in Retail Stores: Bridging the Gaps between eCommerce and Physical Shopping

    Advertising Age posted an article yesterday on Olay Translates Killer Online App to Retail Aisles, describing some recent trial deployments of special kiosks in physical stores that give shoppers access to online recommender systems. These systems have access to online representations of offline inventories – or, at least, product lines typically carried – in the…

  • Entrepreneurial Karma: Call for Early-Stage Recommender System Startups

    This is pretty cool (though I’m admittedly biased): a mid-stage startup (MyStrands, the company I work for) that has recently secured funding now offering an opportunity to fund an earlier stage startup – a sort of entrepreneurial karma, where we keep the investment flowing in ways that will [hopefully] benefit us all. This initiative is…

  • The Coming Ad Revolution: Predatory vs. Participatory

    Esther Dyson wrote an insightful opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal on "The Coming Ad Revolution". I agree with many of her observations and prognostications about how advertising will (and will not) evolve – or, perhaps, revolve – but I had a strong adverse reaction to her use of "targeting" with respect to the…

  • Worst Speech Ever: Guy Kawasaki on Stupid Ideas, Indefensibility and Being a Mensch

    Guy Kawaski gave a great demonstration of and presentation on entrepreneurship in the Web 2.0 era at yesterday's PARC Forum. His new company, Truemors.com, is "a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site" that cost him $12,107.09. The site enables anyone to post, comment on, or rate any breaking rumors or news.…

  • Thanks for the Ad: Brand-Centered Sociality and Socioeconomic Networking on Facebook

    Facebook announced their social advertising tools this week, unveiling a new set of channels for advertising on the site: Facebook Pages: businesses can now be have faces on Facebook Social Ads: advertisements based on actions your friends have taken on the site Facebook Beacon: advertisements based on actions you have taken on other sites (e.g.,…

  • Blessed Unrest: Environmental and Social Justice for All … or Bust!

    In his latest book (and video), environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author Paul Hawken achieves a remarkable balance between breadth and depth in arguing that in order to restore environmental and social balance on this earth, we must strive for both, or we will achieve neither. Noting that "we are nature", and thus however we treat…

  • On Hineini, Team Spirit and Recognition

    I’ve been reading a soon-to-be-published book on Digital Dharma: A User’s Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere, by Steven Vedro, which proposes an integration of spirituality and technology based on the seven chakras. I hope to post an entry on the book after I finish it, but one of the many gems I’ve encountered…

  • Data “Mining” vs. Data “Oursing”: On the Integration and Integrity of Data, People and Organizations (Len Silverston)

    [The following article was written by my good friend, Len Silverston, founder of Universal Data Models, who is an inspiring thinker, writer and speaker, but not a blogger (yet). It weaves together many threads I’ve touched on about before — radical transparency, us vs. them and the business value of openness, integrity, vulnerability and compassion…