Blog Yes & Know

Capturing Ideas = Yes!

Paper + Organization — ways to capture ideas… Love it! I’m always looking for new paper and organization books. When I give one to a friend, I’m saying something to …

Video, video — oh how you’ve changed

Most consumers don’t want to become near-professionals to produce a simple home movie or better capture a moment of our lives. Consumers don’t want to master Studio 10 by Pinnacle …

Video, video — oh how you've changed

Most consumers don’t want to become near-professionals to produce a simple home movie or better capture a moment of our lives. Consumers don’t want to master Studio 10 by Pinnacle …

Truth in Business

Truth in business. Is that possible? The spirit is nourished by truth, and goodness. So if in business, we don’t have truth, then does that mean business is soulless? I …

Travel

I’m about to go on vacation for a bit. When I travel, I become invisible, if I want. I do want. I want to stay in my room and read …

Demotivating things need to get tossed first

Questions for all of us leaders of organizations and teams, inspired by my CEO coach. I am sometimes asked about the latest techniques to motivate employees, customers, partners. Sometimes it …

American Apparel in Los Gatos

There’s been some flack in Los Gatos about whether to allow an American Apparel store to open up in downtown. The primary concern is that a big mall-type outlet store …

Marketing is Reality

In a recent meeting with a client, we brainstormed on what to do about an upcoming product announcement by Microsoft. The new Microsoft product will substantially increase the competitive pressure on our client, and in typical Redmond fashion the press and analysts have been briefed about it for months. Even though the product won’t ship until this summer, our client is in effect already competing with it.

Software as a Service: The New Cargo Cult

The big buzzword at April’s Software 2006 conference was Software as a Service. What does it mean, what impact will it have, and what should companies do about it? Former Oracle exec Ray Lane, now a venture capitalist, listed the key attributes of hot new software companies. They included software that’s viral (anyone can download it and try it out), that generates value for an end user (so they’ll have an incentive to install it), that doesn’t require any data entry or training (so users can work with it instantly), and that generates immediate value (he called it "value first, pay later").