“So I’m working on this site and when I originally met with the guy he like drew out the front page as a big block and broke it into sections and told me where to put things (basically he was playing designer for me). So I do the front page and I try to make it look nice and sort of edgy. This is the feedback I got from them a few hours later. ‘Please follow original instructions. We don’t want this page to look tricked out or computer generated…’ f***ing brilliant. Can anyone beat this comment?” Warning: This page is long and large.

“You know the old saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same holds true in dealing with clients. Oh sure, Atilla the Hun is out there, but he or she is an infinitesimal minority. In actual fact, most of those downright ugly client situations stem from a host of reasons other than the client themselves: lack of planning and communication, poor listening skills, over-promises and unmet expectations, over-confidence and lack of self-confidence, and lack of motivation — on either side.”

“When people ask me, ‘Should I start this business?’ my answer is ‘No.’ If you have to ask, you aren’t ready. You’re ready when you don’t need permission. You will be feverish about it. You will be like a little kid who gets a bicycle but has to wait until morning to ride because it’s too dark. An entrepreneur knows what it’s like to be made sleepless in anticipation of dawn.”

“Princeton professor Fred I. Greenstein has identified six qualities that play a big part in presidential job performance. Here’s how leaders outside the political sphere can follow a chief-executive example.”

“Did you know that when one person has a good online experience, he or she will turn around and tell 12 more people? By the same token, if that person has a bad experience, 12 others will also know about it. Opinion Research Corporation International (ORCI) found that users told an average of 12 other people about an online shopping experience. This is the dynamic that powers viral marketing.”

“According to several news accounts, many voters in Palm Beach, Florida, have claimed that they were confused by the ballot structure and may have inadvertently voted for Buchanan when in fact they intended to vote for Gore. The event prompted a discussion among several academic friends and colleagues about whether the results could be statistically detected, since Palm Beach county alone had the unusual ballot structure.”

“Peter Thompson clued me in to this plot. The data points are the counties in Florida. The plot with Bush’s votes along the X-Axis and Buchanan’s along the Y-Axis shows one big outlier. Click on it to see that it is Palm Beach. (You need Java on your browser to see the interactive plot. Otherwise, the plot is just a gif file.)”

“Bill Joos preaches the art of the pitch for Garage.com a venture-capital investment bank that’s helped more than 60 startups raise a total of $200 million since 1999. Joos, who learned to sell in IBM’s legendary training program, has adapted that experience to the new, faster world of Internet startups. The soul of his sermon? Brevity brings the best results. Following is Joos’s eight-point program for bringing your elevator pitch to new heights.” And here’s Part 2 and Part 3.