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Showing posts from August, 2010

Internet wiping out printed Oxford Dictionary

(08-29) 06:23 PDT LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- via www.sfgate.com I've never owned one of these because I could never justify the cost. I've also never known anyone, other than a public library, who could justify it. I'm not sure it's the internet that killing this off.

More on investors and entrepreneurs

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Engage or not, part 1.5

Before we get into how one expands into your social network, Brian Solis  poste a video today about the myth of numbers that makes a good seque into what I want to say next.

Let's get engaged.... or not

I've been having some interesting conversations of late on the subject of engagement, including one short argument over whether the term was overused and understood within the context of social media.  I don't think it is overuse but neither do I believe it is really understood.  So I started pondering how I might help with that understanding.  Amazingly enough, I found my inspiration from a Ragan Report post on Ray LaHood (DOT Secretary) and his social media approach . You can read the entire report in the link, but let me summarize it for you:  Offer content readers can't get anywhere else, don't chase numbers, use other mediums other than just text, open the site to participation, learn the value of each medium, and give up control. Most of those points are anathema to marketing and sales people... maybe even to engineers.  But the spell the difference between success and failure in social media.  This is probably going to be come a...

Don't evolve! Legislate or litigate!

The hot weather must be making me cranky.  I'm stewing over the return of competitive litigation over competitive innovation  and then I read Bill Schweber's blog over at EE Life  about a potential mandate from Congress to put an FM chip in every cell phone. So I decided to do a little research and found   an article on Information Week  finding that this non-taxpayer funded bailout of the radio industry and the recording industry. In exchange for bumping up bogus listener numbers to boost ad sales, the NAB is promising to to pay the recording industry $100M annually for broadcasting music.  If the adage, The road to economic recovery is through innovation" I guess this means that we are recovered since we seem to be moving to an attitude of stopping people from doing something different and making sure the government and the courts are helping us do it. Really folks, isn't there something better we can be doing right now?

Video from yesterday is fixed

Vpype has been adding some new functionality this week and one of the things they were playing around with was the embedded player.   So if you were trying to watch it yesterday and couldn't I think it's fixed now.

What the "new" EE Times means to venture capitalists

I concluded a great week with a sit-down with Paul Miller, CEO of EE Times Group  for United Business Media, regarding what the new format and philosophy for the venerable publication will mean for entrepreneurialism and investment in the electronics world. To me, everything looks to be moving up and to the right.  This interview was sponsored by Magma Design and Vpype . Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

David Meerman Scott points the way on video

David Meerman Scott is one of my favorite social media gurus because he generally has the proof I need... or will create it... to demonstrate what I keep trying to get across to clients.  He posted a piece last week on video that I just caught up with today that did it again.  The post is about a documentary he did on The Grateful Dead  using a very inexpensive camera.  You can see the video on the post.   Video is a very powerful tool for social media programs, but the power comes from the content, not the technology used to create it.  The skill of the videographer, the editor and the outline (storyboard) developer) are the most important aspects.  But too many organizations and companies I talk to get hung up in getting "The Best" camera available with all the bells and whistles.  The top of the line video editing software, and the most powerful computer for editing.  By the time the assemble all that stuff they find t...

Burning bridges in 2010

Wow, lots of spectacular flame outs this month, employment-wise.  CEOs at HP and GM hit the road, flight attendants bailing out, and even apocryphal stories with white boards.  Then it comes close to home with the interception of a letter and presentation from a disgruntled employee aimed at Carl Icahn and his takeover attempt by Mentor Graphics.  And it demonstrates how so many people still lack understanding of how social media can work for you or against you. Got an email from a source on the presentation who was asking, what I thought about it.  At first, it looked like it might have been something that Icahn had put together to outline what his plans were for Mentor, including draconian layoffs and salary cuts.  But some of the descriptions of the company were actually quite inflammatory -- including phrases like "deadwood," "inflated salaries" and "coasting employees" -- so I figured it probably wasn't from someone in...

Investors and Entrepreneurs video series begins

Today I started a new series of interviews on my Vpype channel, Investors and Entrepreneurs, where we will be exploring, anecdotally, where venture investment is going as we come out of our recession.  We started with Piers Cooper, a partner at Point Bonita Partners , and a founder of a new type of venture capital organization called Nano Holdings.  We talked about where venture capital and innovation has been in the past couple of years (Piers called it "nuclear winter" ) and where it is going in the next couple of years (he says going up and steady).  Piers has been involved in early stage startup investment for some time and has made a good living at it, so he has something to say.  The first video is the interview, that got cut off before we could wrap up, the second video is my wrap up of what we missed. Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

Entering Mirkwood to talk to Venture Capitalists

Starting this week, my live video show on Vpype will be focusing on Investors and Entrepreneurs to talk about the arcane and mystifying process of fund raising for start ups.  It has never been a pleasant experience but it has never been nastier and more frustrating-- for both sides-- as it has in the past 5 years.  There are signs that it may be easing up, but that might just be the eternal optimist in me.  I'm going to find out by venturing into the world of the venture capitalist, live and unedited. Here's the thing.  I am going to be bound by my subjects schedule.  I'll give as much notice about the broadcast as I can.  It may be a day, ir just a few hours.  There will be archives of the interviews on Vpype and eventually on New Tech Press and right here so you can see what has happened.  if you want to get into the actual discussion, come with questions for the chat room and we'll try to get to them. First up in the...