Great article. Mine are pretty close to his. What are your contact rules?
When you want me to get back to you…
…in 30 minutes or so, then
» Please phone me.
…in around 2 hours, then
» Please send me a text message.
…later today or tomorrow, then
» Please send me an IM on Skype or Facebook.
…in a couple of days, then
» Please send me an email.
… whenever convenient, then
» Please send me a DM or a tweet.
These Are The New Rules For When To Email, When To Text, And When To Call
Just finished reading “Behind the Cloud” by Marc Benioff. It was a fast read and I like the way he broke up the story into lots of little “acts”, focusing each one on a lesson from Salesforce.com’s history.
I was amazed by some of the tactics he and his team employed (and often still do) to grow the company; some of the gonzo marketing tactics sound almost too crazy to have worked, like when they held fake protests outside of competitors’ conventions in San Francisco.
His lessons on how SF expanded internationally and the challenges they faced were particularly interesting, as was how intertwined the idea of corporate philanthropy is with Salesforce.com’s DNA. Their 1-1-1 concept reminds me a lot of what Microsoft does, and I hope that as we grow Contactive we can think about how to make social good a part of our business plan too.
In 2013 that sales of fake Twitter followers have the potential to bring in $40 million to $360 million to date and that fake Facebook activities bring in $200 million a year.
“Liar Liar: Faking Social Media Followers Is a Booming Biz, But Watch Out” via AlleyWatch
As a growing startup company looking to energize and grow our social media engagement, we are constantly bombarded with spam from companies trying to sell us ways to buy followers. We always shy away from it because we want our engagement to be viral and hopefully authentic. It’s great to see networks clamping down on fake followers and the emergence of tools that help make it simple to see how “real” someone’s followers are.
Just remember this: VCs need you as much as you need them. Level the playing field by becoming a man/woman of value. Find your swagger. Be memorable. Be insatiable. Let the world know why you are the best entrepreneur out there.
“How To Approach VC’s Like a Pickup Artist” via AlleyWatch
Even though I read the Pickup Artist book after I was married, it was still equal amounts hysterical and repulsive, with some very useful tips sprinkled throughout for how to talk to other people (not just women).
Microsoft has today launched the newly rebranded Office Online (www.office.com) suite of apps, succeeding the popular Web Apps. Today’s launch also paves the way for more usability improvements to make it easier for consumers to take advantage of available features, including easier collaboration and sharing with others. The original Microsoft suite of online Office apps were…
Awesome to see Office Online getting the branding, unification, and ease of access it sorely needed.
The tech/information sector supports 262,000 jobs in New York City, making it the second-biggest sector of the local economy. Hiring is definitely on the upswing and is there a company in the city that isnât screaming for tech help and even help in other areas? They may be screaming, but they just donât seem to be pulling the trigger and therein lies the rub. We come across articles all the time about how to hire your next employee, culture fit, and on and on.
The Goldilocks Syndrome: Why Startups Canât Find Employees
Working in small batches ensures that a startup can minimize the expenditure of time, money, and effort that ultimately turns out to have been wasted.
“The power of small batches” via StartupLessonsLearned.com
This came up in one of our team meetings the other day here at Contactive as we were talking about a processing workflow in our backend – should we go with small or large batches? Inaki (our CEO) shared this article and I was reminded again how powerful small, learning-based iterations can be for a startup.
Google Plus may not be much of a competitor to Facebook as a social network, but it is central to Google’s future — a lens that allows the company to peer more broadly into people’s digital life, and to gather an ever-richer trove of the personal information that advertisers covet. Some analysts even say that Google understands more about people’s social activity than Facebook does.
“The Plus in Google Plus? It’s Mostly for Google” via The New York Times.
I am mostly pleased (although sometimes caught off guard) whenever Google’s services help me out in a way I didn’t expect. My favorite scenario is a simple one: when I map an address on my Mac at work, and then 15 minutes after leaving the office I pull out Google Maps on my phone when I (inevitably) get lost getting to my destination. One tap in the search field and it pre-populates with the last search destination from my desktop, saving me a step. Again, nothing revolutionary but very helpful.
As a technologist and someone who wants to understand and make the most use of anything I sign up for, Google+ frustrates me because I don’t feel like I use it at all. This article is a good reminder that although many of us feel that way, G+ is becoming the key to Google’s service fabric and will likely have a big impact on the way you use their services (if it hasn’t already).
This part of the business — the lifestyle aspiration, further fueled by user content — is the next well to tap. As it becomes a challenge to differentiate at a hardware level, GoPro has an option not available to its competition: become a platform as well as a product.
“GoPro’s IPO isn’t about selling cameras, it’s about creating a media empire” via Engadget
A great read on some of the history of GoPro and how it has morphed from a pure hardware shop to an end-to-end ‘lifestyle experience’ provider. Given how much better prepared they are for an IPO than a few recent big technology companies (read = they have revenue and a sustainable business model), I’m very interested to see how they do this year.
Disclaimer: I do not own a GoPro camera. But I can’t stop watching that insane GoPro video of the Russian dudes climbing that crazy-tall tower in Shanghai.
Parcel brings even more convenience to online shopping by delivering your packages when you want them.
File this under #signmeupimmediately and #facepalm.
Parcel Delivers Packages After Hours, When You’re Actually Home
#neato 