Amplify’d from blog.amirkhella.com

22 38 Comments

The year is 2007, and I had just left Microsoft to dive into the startup world. Like many first time entrepreneurs, I was very excited about the adventure. And like many first time entrepreneurs, I didn’t know where to start.

So I attended events, meetups, conferences, and mingled with the local startup community in Seattle. When time came to move to the Bay Area, I found even more events, more meetups, and more conferences. The startup ecosystem was so busy and alive, and I found a wealth of knowledge and experience being shared, which I consumed eagerly.

There were also blogs, videos, interviews, and books that I ingested with passion. They made great conversation topics during the events, the meetups and the conferences.

I even joined a startup incubator!

It wasn’t until I decided to launch my own startup that I realized that nothing I’ve read, watched or attended really prepared me for it. And I mean it. Absolutely NOTHING. I had forgotten most of what I’ve learned, and what I remembered didn’t apply much to my situation. I’ve been snacking on other people’s experiences and successes, and like good junk food, it made me feel bloated and satisfied. Read more at blog.amirkhella.com

Amplify’d from www.zurb.com

Critique a Web Page in 30 Seconds or Less by Bryan

May 11, 2010 in Notable, with 32 Comments

When you're ready to launch your website, you'll want to give visitors the best user experience possible. Learning to evaluate a website effectively is part art and part science, but it's a skill that can be learned. To develop an eye for what works on a website and what doesn't, there are few simple techniques that help you critique your website in 30 seconds or less.

Note where your eyes go first - Type in your URL, then close your eyes before the page loads. What's the first thing you see when you open your eyes? Does it explain the page instantly, or do you have to look around a few more seconds before grasping its meaning?

Squint your eyes - By closing your eyes almost completely as you look at the screen, its content will become blurry. Note the path your eyes travel and what your brain is trying to reason out from the limited information it's getting. Can you make out what's happening on the various section of the page? You're looking for good contrast among the various sections, and your eye will naturally go to the areas that create the most contrast.

See more at www.zurb.com

Amplify’d from gapingvoid.com

the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.

See more at gapingvoid.com

Amplify’d from gapingvoid.com

the hughtrain mkii

THE HUGHTRAIN MkII

1. The market for something to believe in is infinite. We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary. We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.

2. The most important word in marketing is “complicity”. It’s not enough for the customer to love your product. They have to love your process as well.

3. Your customers are becoming smarter about your market a lot faster than you are. Thanks to the internet, your customers are able to talk to each other. They are able to find better information about your product than you are able of willing to give them, much quicker than you are capable of giving them. The conversation will happen with or without you, you’re better off joining in. Read more at gapingvoid.com

Timeless classic from @gapingvoid

Amplify’d from gapingvoid.com

smarter conversations: “how do i want to change the way i talk to people?”

[The "Life Is Too Short" print...]

I first started playing with the idea of “Smarter-Conversations” way back in 2004, the same year gapingvoid really started getting traction in the blogopsphere.

Though not something I talk about day-in-day-out, it’s always been there somewhere in the background, informing everything I work on. Here are some notes:

1. In the seminal book, “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, the great Doc Searls famously declared, “Markets are conversations”. If you buy that premise (and I do, wholeheartedly), then quod erat demonstratum, if you want your marketing to be smarter (i.e. more effective), you need to be having a “Smarter Conversation”. Read more at gapingvoid.com

via @outspokenmedia. good stuff about what makes a team.

Amplify’d from outspokenmedia.com

4 Things I Learned About Team in 2010

The Troy Outspoken Media office was bustling here on Monday. It was a late night for Rhea, Sabre and myself and we decided to take a break around 9pm to order some Chinese. We gathered around an office table to chow down and chat about what we were all working on and the state of our holiday shopping (I don’t even want to talk about). We ate, we chatted, and we laughed. I’ve been part of a lot of teams in my life – sports, academic, professional, coupled – but this continues to be a team I am increasingly proud of. If I had my way, we’d convince our remote employees to move to Troy so we could see and laugh with each other every day. But then I remember that we live in Troy, NY. And well, it’s not exactly a hotbed. We’re working on that.

When you talk about what makes a company great, I think we often focus on the wrong aspects. It’s not the clients, the specific skillsets, or even the personal or collective brands on board. It’s the team that exists behind all of that. The people that show up and fight every day. And there are some things that are important to building and nurturing that team. Here are a few things I’ve re-learned about team in 2010. Read more at outspokenmedia.com

The sad truth of our archives of data (including music)

Amplify’d from www.zeldman.com

We Didn’t Stop The Fire.

OUR LIBRARY IS BURNING. Copyright extension has banished millions of books to the scrapheap. Digital permanence is a tragically laughable ideal to anyone who remembers the VHS format wars or tries to view Joshua Davis’s 1990s masterpieces on a modern computer. Digital archiving is only as permanent as the next budget cycle—as when libraries switched from microfilm to digital subscriptions and then were forced to cancel the subscriptions during the pre-recession recession. And of course, my digital work vanishes the moment I die or lose the ability to keep hosting it. If you really want to protect your family photos, take them off Flickr and your hard drive, get them on paper, and store them in an airtight box.

Though bits are forever, our medium is mortal, as all but the most naive among us know. And we accept that some of what we hold digitally dear will perish before our eyes. But it irks most especially when people or companies with more money than judgement purchase a thriving online community only to trash it when they can’t figure out how to squeeze a buck out of it. Corporate black thumb is not new to our medium: MGM watered down the Marx Bros; the Saatchis sucked the creative life and half the billings out of the ad agencies they acquired during the 1980s and beyond. But outside the digital world, some corporate purchases and marriages have worked out (think: Disney/Pixar). And with the possible exception of Flickr (better now than the day Yahoo bought it), I can’t think of any online community or publication that has improved as a result of being purchased. Whereas we can all instantly call to mind dozens of wonderful web properties that died or crawled up their own asses as a direct result of new corporate ownership. Read more at www.zeldman.com

Core to why your company sucks, by @rhappe.

Amplify’d from www.thesocialorganization.com

The Alignment Gap Between Organizational Structure & Organizational Priorities

Large companies have necessarily needed a functional structure in order to manage the vast number of people they employ. Somewhere it was decided that any one individual cannot be responsible for more than 7-10 direct reports...and consequently you get functional hierarchies.

The big issue? Whether functions are determined by job type(engineering, sales, etc.) or by market segment (consumer, channel, etc.), corporate priorities and initiatives typically cross function. That may not seem so bad, except that each functional head understands the priorities just a little bit differently. One function may see the number 1 priority as 10x more important than the number 2 priority while their colleague may see them as roughly equal in importance.  That has huge implications on how many and which resources get assigned to different initiatives.  Below is my simplistic graphic of this problem:

See more at www.thesocialorganization.com

URL:  http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/the-way-i-work-mat...

Amplify’d from www.businessinnovationfactory.com

Business Innovation Factory

Creating a Passion Economy

Posted by Saul Kaplan on January 5, 2009

How many times since President Kennedy rallied the collective passion of our nation to send a man safely to the moon, have you heard someone say, “Where is our moon mission? Where is our passion?" We commit to our passions. We invest our minds, our time, and our resources in passions and passionate people.

We will create a more prosperous economy and stronger communities when we enable connections between passionate people and create an environment where innovators can more easily pursue their passions. Knowledge and networks are important enablers but passion is the secret sauce.

We need to move from a knowledge-based economy to a passion-based economy. Who gets excited about a knowledge-based economy? Where is the passion? I have spent a ton of time and effort to rally the troops. If I am honest, people just haven't connected emotionally. The knowledge-based economy has given us the tools we need but has fallen short in solving the real issues of our time including health care, education, energy independence, public safety, and quality of life. These are all systems issues that will require systems solutions. Systems level innovation requires passionate leaders and organizations that are committed to a cause. Passion-based organizations stop at nothing to accomplish their goals and are able to attract people and resources to their causes. A passion economy can arise that unleashes both a new era of prosperity and solutions for the big issues of our time. Read more at www.businessinnovationfactory.com