Blog Yes & Know

Who Owns Strategy? We All Do.

A couple weeks back, I was teaching a course at Santa Clara University for their high tech marketing program, when a bright young product manager asked me a question. In …

Making Money During Disruption

While failure for the high-tech entrepreneur is less likely to result in death, the parallels between the Gold Rush and the current Web-based economy are many. In both cases, participants must to adapt to a new way of life, with new rules. Or rather, no pre-existing, fixed rules.
Silicon Valley’s famous tolerance of entrepreneurial failure has its roots more than 150 years ago in the Gold Rush when more than 90,000 people made their way to California in the two years following John Marshall’s discovery of gold near Sacramento in January, 1848. By 1854, more than 300,000–representing more than one percent of the total population of the United States at the time–had come west in search of fortune.

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide – Professor and Speaker Amy Shuen Captures the Essence

In Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, author Amy Shuen demonstrates subject mastery from the first sentence. Steeped in her topic (she’s taught it at Wharton, Haas School of Business, CEIBS and École Polytechnique), the reader gets detailed information on the meaning of Web 2.0. This isn’t a book filled with hype–it provides theory, thoughtful detail and is practical. Chapters end with strategic and tactical questions. The illustrations and screen captures provide depth and clarity. Companies like Flickr, LinkedIn, and Facebook are used as case studies.

Interruptus Horribilus? Maybe not…

In Ars Technica, John Timmer has an interesting piece on effectiveness and work interruption. Turns out that having huge uninterrupted time to complete a task isn’t the holy grail after …

Can the iPhone be Apple’s next big thing?

Apple’s excellent April financial report — revenue up 43% and year over year and profits up 36% — masked the disturbing news that Apple’s iPod business has basically stopped growing. iPod units were up only one percent year over year. Most of Apple’s growth came from the Macintosh business.
Although Macs are on a roll at the moment, it’s risky for Apple to rely only on the relatively mature personal computer market for all of its growth. With the iPod now saturating, Apple needs its new iPhone business to provide a second growth engine.