Category: Business

  • Marketing, Monitoring, Mattering

    USA Today ran an interesting front-page article on Monday about Marketers Take a Close Look at Your Daily Routines, detailing some of the ways and means that companies have employed to better understand the everyday use — and potential use — of their products. Much of the article focused on the monitoring tools and techniques…

  • Radical Transparency: Revelation, Reputation and Reciprocity

    The current issue of Wired has a great feature on radical transparency, highlighting the benefits that accrue to CEOs who are open to revealing their shadows, and exposing the risks to the reputations of those who continue to embrace secrecy and/or duplicity in their self representations. As with many Wired features, it is provocative ……

  • Work, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pleasure

    I blogged a bit about Living Without A Goal recently and went down a path I didn’t originally anticipate, focusing on utility and value and appreciation in life. I’d intended to say more about James Ogilvy’s views on work, but once I was plumbing the depths of what makes life meaningful, valuable and worthwhile, I…

  • Web-2-Mobile Business Plan Competition

    I was surprised that Nokia was not among the sponsors of the recent Under the Radar Mobility Conference I attended, at which 32 entrepreneurs pitched their mobile products and services. A number of other major players in the mobile web space were represented at the event as sponsors and/or panelists, e.g., Motorola Ventures, Intel Capital,…

  • Under the Radar Mobility Conference

    I attended the IBDNetwork‘s Under the Radar Mobility Conference at the Microsoft Conference Center in Mountain View yesterday. Being rather new to the mobile technology space, it was an informative and enlightening experience for me, helping me better appreciate the challenges in creating successful mobile products and services. And although the presentations were informative, relatively…

  • Great Customer Care from United Airlines and Enterprise Rent-A-Car

    Yesterday morning, I was dismayed to hear the voicemail of the United Airlines‘ automated flight change notification service telling me my flight to San Francisco was cancelled. The message said I’d been rerouted, and would not arrive until much later in the day. I called United Reservations, but the human operator I finally got through…

  • Blogging for Better Business: In Community with Customers

    The central message of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel is best summarized in the following quote: The revolution is about the way businesses communicate, not just with customers but with their entire constituencies — partners, vendors, employees, prospects, investors and the media.…

  • Love is the Killer App, Blogs are the Killer Platform

    Tim Sanders, author of the book Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends, has a new blog, Sanders Says.  I was reminded of Tim’s lovecat way (or what I call bizlove) several times while reading the book I just finished (and blogged about), Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the…

  • Blog Early, Blog Often: Naked Conversations in the Morning

    Starting a regular practice of blogging sooner rather than later can bring benefits to businesses large and small, according to Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.  Being the first kid on the block to start a blog makes your blog remarkable, whether your…

  • Passion and Purpose in Living, Loving, Learning and Leaving a Legacy

    A news item appearing in my Google Desktop Sidebar this morning about the death of Enron founder Ken Lay immediately reminded me of Stephen Covey‘s book, First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy.  I don’t know much about how well Lay lived, loved or learned, but I have a…