VCs Pitching Clean, Green Tech
“From the San Jose Mercury News, a report on venture capital honchos John Doerr and John Denniston’s push for investment in clean and green technology at last week’s Cleantech Venture Network conference…”
Survivor Bias and Improper Measurement: How the Mutual Fund Industry Inflates Actively Managed Fund Performance
“More bad news for actively managed mutual funds: A ’survivor bias’ in the Morningstar mutual fund data relied upon by most individual investors and financial advisors has the effect of ’systematically and significantly’ overstating the performance of actively managed mutual funds relative to their related indexes for the 10-year period from 1995-2004, according to a major new study to be released today by Savant Capital Management Inc., of Rockford, IL., and the Zero Alpha Group (ZAG).” (Thanks kottke.org!)
John Hagel and John Seely Brown: Friction can be good
“[T]he two Johns (who will be performing a duet at PC Forum) embody their own message: They are more productive as a team. Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox and long-time leader of Xerox PARC, has more of a philosophical, scientific bent, while Hagel, a long-time McKinsey consultant now working on his own, has a closer-to-the-metal appreciation of business realities and strategies.”
10 rules to manage your boss
“Manage her time: You may represent only 1% of her problems, don’t make it as if it is 100%. Yes, you have preoccupations, problems to solve and issues to tackle. However, while your time is entirely devoted to them, do not expect your boss’s time to be also.”
How to Kick Butt On a Panel
“Today I moderated a very good panel at a conference, and while this experience is fresh in my mind, I want to explain how to kick butt on a panel. At any given conference, there are about three keynote speakers and twenty five panelists, so the odds are much higher that you’ll be a panelist than a keynote speaker. Thus, I hope this entry appeals to a broader audience. Superficially, a panel looks easy. There are four or five other people on it–all of whom you think you’re smarter than–and it only lasts sixty minutes. How hard could it be? Herein lies the problem: everyone thinks a panel is easy so they don’t take it seriously.”
Stop your presentation before it kills again!
“Sometimes the best presentation is… no presentation. Ditch the slides completely. Put the projector in the closet, roll the screen back up, and turn the damn lights back on! Especially if the slides are bullet points. Or worse… paragraphs… The second you dim the lights and go into ‘presentation mode’ is the moment you move from a two-way conversation to a one-way lecture/broadcast.”
It’s a great time to start a business
“Caterina Fake has a peculiar list of reasons why starting a company today is a bad idea. I say it’s never been a better time to start a business. You know, the kind that develops a product or service and asks money for it.”
Why I’m not bailing on the Mercury News
“I just don’t feel like leaving. I should, because if there was ever a time to be updating one’s resume and exploring one’s options, this is one of them. So why am I standing pat? I’ve been a newspaperman for the past 20 years and I’ve always faced the same issue: Most towns have one newspaper that pays a living wage. If you want to stay in the newspaper biz, you either decide the town is nice enough to make up for the paper’s failings, or the paper’s nice enough to make up for the town’s failings.”
Management hack: The lost skill of tuning in
“If someone drops by your office and you’ve got a conference call starting in two minutes, give ‘em 30 seconds, but let them know you’ve got the call starting and that you’ll follow up with them. That’s a world of difference from pretending to listen, while straightening papers on your desk until the call starts.”
Overtime and Startups
“Startups typically attempt to compensate for this effect by hyper-motivating employees using stock options… Typically the managers enforcing the overtime have infinitely more to gain in terms of ownership, and find that the only way to keep the underlings working overtime is to dangle increasingly ludicrous stories of wealth in front of them. The eventual burnout and turnover is not worth the temporary gain given by overtime.”
RECENT WORK
Recent posts
- New project: The Carbon Economy
- David Allen releases The Ultimate GTD Workflow Map, designed by XPLANE
- Online Database of Social Media Policies
- Did You Know 4.0
- The Building Blocks of Social Media for Business
- 7 Things Your Startup SHOULD Copy From 37signals
- 37 Pithy Insights From Street-Smart Entrepreneurs
- New video: ‘Imagine Leadership,’ by XPLANE & HBS’s Nitin Nohria
- Why Business Plans Don’t Deliver
- Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them.
Recent comments
- Scott:Once again, a great example of
- George:As one of the world's greatest
- Andrew Angus:Really? Can we get a refere
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