January 2008
24 posts
Michael Franti and Spearhead - Stay Human
The Coup - My Favorite Mutiny
WatchMahalo Daily interviews Stan Lee.
Stan suggests that writers should write stories that interest them, which matches many entrepreneurs advice that you should solve your own problems. Great advice.
The Power Paradox →
“This leaves us with a power paradox. Power is given to those individuals, groups, or nations who advance the interests of the greater good in socially-intelligent fashion. Yet unfortunately, having power renders many individuals as impulsive and poorly attuned to others as your garden variety frontal lobe patient, making them prone to act abusively and lose the esteem of their peers. What...
Is the Tipping Point Toast? →
“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one—and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” Watts concludes. To succeed with a new product, it’s less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public’s mood. Sure, there’ll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into...
Put Buyers First? What a Concept →
“And it also helps that his dogged pursuit of a better customer experience has turned out to be exactly right. Yes, it’s true that its international business has been growing rapidly, but that’s not the only reason Amazon is back in high-growth mode. Amazon says it has somewhere on the order of 72 million active customers, who, in the last quarter, were spending an average of $184 a year on...
The "Google generation" not so hot at Googling,... →
“It’s true that young people prefer interactive systems to passive ones and that they are generally competent with technology, but it’s not true that students today are “expert searchers.” In fact, the report calls this “a dangerous myth.” Knowing how to use Facebook doesn’t make one an Internet search god, and the report concludes that a literature...
Viral app objectives, strategies, and benchmarks →
The 4 objectives:
Increase the % of members who invite people to join
Increase the average number of people each member invites
Increase the length of time each member uses the app
Increase the likelihood that people who are invited join
In general it’s most effective to focus on increasing the average number of invites per member and the length of time people use the site.
“Here’s what introverts are not: We’re not afraid, and we’re...”
– Happy Introvert Day - Yahoo! News
Couldn’t have said it better myself. People often have very weird theories about why other people are introverted. Hopefully this sheds some light.
(via Kareem)
“Mr. Hamel argues that these innovative companies realize that employees should...”
– The Future of Management - Gary Hamel - Book Review - New York Times
(via Kareem)
It's official: follow your interests and money... →
“A study of business school graduates tracked the careers of 1,500 people from 1960 to 1980. From the beginning, the graduates were grouped into two categories. Category A consisted of people who said they wanted to make money first so they could do what they really wanted to do later. Those in category B pursued their interests first, sure that the money would follow eventually.
What percentage...
The real world is a wildly unpredictable place →
“One of my favorite TATWTESBTISBAs — Truths About The World That Everyone Should Be Taught In School But Aren’t — is that the real world is a wildly unpredictable place, and that most interesting or important things that happen aren’t predictable, because there are simply too many moving parts and unknown factors at play.”
This is one of the reasons macro...
The Falling-Down Professions →
“Applications to law schools and medical schools have declined from recent highs.
In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward — where professional heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites — some doctors and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It’s not just because the professions...
