“How many times have you been in a meeting with someone who felt compelled to contribute, even though he obviously had no idea what he was talking about? In those circumstances, silence is golden. As a CEO, you know that everyone wants to impress you, so I sometimes ask a question to which I already know the answer as a way to test someone’s character. Confident people know their strengths and weaknesses, and they don’t try to b.s. you. You are not expected to know the answer to everything. Smart people simply say ‘I don’t know’ — and go get an answer.”

“Crisis communications is one of the most important and highly visible areas in the entire PR profession. While a solid media visibility campaign can help put a new company on the map (or put a company that’s been declining or stalling out back on the right track), the lack of crisis communications skills can literally kill a company of any size.”

“If I told you lying was good for you, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But trust me–I’m not lying. Simply put, we lie because it works. When we do it well, we get what we want.”

“‘Bootstrapping’, when it comes to starting your own business, refers to getting yourself up and running with as little outside help as possible. This means not borrowing much (if any) money, not taking on outside investment and relying solely on your own skills, money and efforts to get things done.”

“The work in using and writing patterns began with Christopher Alexander who wrote A Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language in the 1970s. When the software community began studying his ideas, interest in patterns began to spread throughout the software development industry in the 1990s. However, efforts to introduce patterns into organizations have had mixed success. The patterns presented here are the beginning of a pattern language whose focus is the introduction of a new idea into an organization.”

“I don’t really want to stick my neck out for nothing, and I guess this is better than a few years ago when he had someone print everything out for him, but still…something needs to be said.”

“A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document. The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known. ‘We’ve found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer,’ said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.”

“…if you’re an entrepreneur you shouldn’t trust your instincts on something so important as your company’s name. The right name could cost you thousands of dollars, but it’ll be worth it. Just think: naming companies brought you such classics as Zobmondo, Activant, Jazelle, and Omniva…”

“It is now clear that successful Web 2.0 companies will be the ones managing to reach ‘escape velocity’, which basically means attracting millions of users, with a big zero cost of acquisition, at a rate of tens of thousands new users signing on per day. These “must join” networks (MySpace, Skype, potentially the Facebook) have risen to levels of usage and popularity that created strongholds very difficult to duplicate. Interestingly, technology had nothing to do with the differentiation at all, and sort of proves Ross Mayfield’s statement that Wed 2.0 is made of people (or the network thereof) — at least as a valuation metric.”

“The first Summer Founders Program has just finished. We were surprised how well it went. Overall only about 10% of startups succeed, but if I had to guess now, I’d predict three or four of the eight startups we funded will make it.”

We’re going to take a short break to do some backend upgrades and watch post-season Cardinals baseball. We’ll be back shortly. In the meantime, check out XPLANE CEO Dave Gray’s weblog, COMMUNICATION NATION.

“According to [Rajesh] Setty, ‘being part of the commodity crowd erodes your value.’ You need to rise above the crowd by following Setty’s 25 ways.” (MORE)

“A book I read recently has prompted me to try a rather unconventional filing system, the system proposed and used by Noguchi Yukio, an economist and writer of bestselling books about such things. Implementation of the system requires the user to discard many conventional notions about how to store paper documents.”

“…sometimes wonder why anyone would be interested in owning a PC. It’s not so much the hardware, which has steadily gotten cheaper. You can buy a decent 32-bit system based on an Intel, Motorola, or Zilog processor for only a couple thousand dollars these days…”

“So, you’re experienced? Before you advertise this in your resume, be sure you can prove it. Often, when job seekers try to sell themselves to potential employers, they load their resumes with vague claims that are transparent to hiring managers, according to Scott Bennett, author of ‘The Elements of Resume Style’ (AMACOM). By contrast, the most successful job seekers avoid these vague phrases on their resumes in favor of accomplishments.”