Blog Yes & Know

Lasso truth and clarity with good effective questions

Attractive, intelligent, strong, and an insightful persona. You might remember her. Throughout the 70’s, there was this superhero show called Wonder Woman. Her powers were derived from “Amazon concentration,” not …

Scandals rock the Valley; need for an ethical check up

Just when we thought the technology “depression” was over, we face another scandal that, if I’m right, will rock the general investor confidence in technology investments. You know what I’m talking about. Options backdating. This is a time for an ethical check up and discernment training.

Don’t be the Dinosaur Brought down by Mosquitos

Emerging Business Models can destroy your current business Working in Silicon Valley, there are a few hundred new acronyms and technologies introduced each year that need to be understood. Being …

The Valley depends on your Innovation!

Fred Smith. Know his name? Likely not, but he’s the founder and CEO of FedEx. The innovator who changed the concept of package delivery in our lifetime. When he came up with the idea of FedEx, he “borrowed” it from a different industry. Since telecommunications and banking both applied a hub and spoke system of dissemination, he thought that could be applied to delivery services to increase speed and efficiency and enable a new business concept. And you know what his undergraduate professor thought of this “innovation? ” Not much. He got a “C” and a bad peer review.

Out With the Old Process, In With the New – Completely

Remember Webvan? Those pretty brown trucks. We saw one all scuffed up and worn down by the side of the road today and it perfectly symbolized the promise of an Internet-based grocery company that never made it. Lots of theories on its failure have been created, but I am always amazed that most people fail to recognize one of the biggest factors that doomed Webvan. It is a lesson that too few people seem to recognize when running their own business units.

Metrics: Getting Rid of the Voodoo in Marketing

It’s time for marketers to get out of the realm of voodoo and spin, to create a more defensible position for budget dollars and develop a more secure “seat at the table” by being the business champions they are.
Sound too good to be true? I think not. The high-tech industry is finally catching up with more established consumer businesses in the areas of metrics and accountability. This is not a marketing trend per se, but a marketing “practice” trend, which is just as important. This is a must-have going forward. I believe marketing can be a data-driven, metrics-focused art.

5 Lessons As Entrepreneur

This week, Rubicon is about to reach a new economic threshold which represents another level of performance and scale. It’s a small milestone in the scheme of things, but a …

Yahoo Partners with Motorola: Should You Care?

Yahoo and Motorola recently announced a multi-year deal where Motorola will pre-load Yahoo Go for Mobile on “tens of millions” of mid-priced and high-end Motorola phones. The deal is similar to the deal Yahoo and Nokia struck in January. Currently, Yahoo Go for Mobile is available in US only from Cingular on a single Nokia phone (S60-based Nokia 8862) available since February. 5-10 models are shipping with the service in Europe and Asia.