Interrelativity: musings about interrelatedness
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Working with Angel Investors: It’s the Relationship, Stupid!
Susan Preston, Of Counsel at Davis, Wright, Tremaine, LLP, and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, shared her insights and experiences on how entrepreneurs can build and maintain successful relationships with angel investors at yesterday’s Northwest Entrepreneur Network Venture Breakfast. Sue started out by presenting a number of statistics on angel and venture capital…
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Advisors: Personal and Professional, Imaginary and Real
Last week, my friend, Mary, sent me a fabulous article on how to assemble and use a personal board of advisors entitled "Looking Out for Number One", by Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great". The article tied in with a number of related themes from pieces I’ve been reading — and hearing — about…
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Howard Schultz on Passion, Perseverance and Partnership
I had a remarkable Starbucks Experience yesterday, which prompted me to go back and review my notes from Howard Schultz’s inspiring book “Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time” (co-authored with Dori Jones Yang). It reminded me of my intention to start posting more summaries of…
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A Starbucks Experience
I’ve always liked Starbucks — the coffee, the stores and the company. Yesterday, I had an especially inspiring experience at a Starbucks store, with special coffee and personal service by a wonderful barista, while meeting with an extremely creative former Starbucks employee. I went to the Starbucks at Overlake Village to meet with Paul Williams,…
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Bridging the Gap between Game Worlds and a Games Conference
Interrelativity had the good fortune to work with Evergreen Events to facilitate interactions at the recent Seattle Games Conference. We deployed a proactive display at the one-day event, where it showed content from profiles created primarily by speakers and sponsors on a plasma display near the registration table in the lobby of the Highline Performing…
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Cancer be Gone: All Quiet on the Southern Front
Amy had a biopsy on Wednesday to search for traces of the anal cancer that was detected last May and treated last fall. Much to our delight — and more to our relief than we expected — the results were negative, i.e., there was no evidence of carcinoma in any of the samples taken. There…
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Input, Processing, Output (IPO): A Multi-dimensional Balancing Act
I often view life through a computer metaphor, and think about my range of actions in the world as some blend of input, processing, and output. This is due, no doubt, to previous career chapters in which I was a computer science student and then a computer science teacher … and then a computer science…
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Business is Good
Doug Rushkoff recently wrote an article for his Arthur Magazine column entitled "Business is Good" in which he articulates a very positive view of commerce, arguing that the problems with our current corporate culture are inherited rather than inherent, and inviting bizfolk to [re]orient themselves toward intentionality, integrity and passion. His title reminded me of…
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Everyone’s a Customer: The Importance of Empathy, Respect and Helpfulness
I increasingly see how a variety of roles in society might be viewed from a customer service (or customer care) perspective, and how all our interactions can be seen as manifestations of customer relationship management … and how we all might be better off if more members of society adopted this view, especially those in…