Month: November 2008

Offer Scope for Employees to Exercise Their Vital Powers

Some post-Thanksgiving musings on my belief that most people want to do a good job. As you grow your startup find ways for everyone involved to work hard, see an impact, and improve. “Ancient Greeks defined happiness as the exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope” Edith Hamilton …

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Thanksgiving 2008

A quick note of thanks that even in the midst of a serious economic downturn for Thanksgiving 2008 I have my health, my family, my friends, and the opportunity to make a living.

Three Software Startup News Aggregators: Hacker News, Techmeme, Alltop

Here are three startup feeds that I use at last weekly (I am skmurphy on Hackers News and may check there two or three times a day) that represent three different models to generate a stream of topical links for folks in software startups. Hacker News http://news.ycombinator.com/ Techmeme http://www.techmeme.com/ Alltop http://startups.alltop.com/ What are your favorite …

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Unfamiliar Pain

I had an unfamiliar pain recently.  It was sharp, sudden, and unexpected: I ended up talking to my doctor about it. I have been trying to understand why it was more frightening, even though it was less painful than many other problems I have experienced.

Disruptive Tools Can Stall At Group Boundaries

Interesting web site demo at http://nextgenerationelectronicsdesign.com/ by the folks at Altium. Unlike any PCB demo I have ever seen and an interesting use of self-deprecating humor to talk about the challenges of linking FPGA, Board, and Mechanical design. Two time coded remarks at 2:25 “We did what any traditional EDA company would do, we denied …

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Conserving Trust in a Downturn

A lot of is written these days about how to conserve cash in a downturn. In particular the need to cut expenses by cutting headcount and unnecessary fill-in-the-blank spending. But conserving trust is equally important. If you have been bootstrapping and only increasing expenses in response to revenue (versus in anticipation of revenue) then your …

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Daniel Pink’s “Free Agent Nation” Worth Revisiting

In April of 2001, as the euphoria from 1999 started to fall to earth again (by October it would be accessible only by Deep Submersible Rescue Vehicle)  Daniel Pink wrote “Land of the Free” in Fast Company that was a teaser for “Free Agent Nation” as a hardback in May of 2001 and paperback in …

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6 Work Weeks (or Less) Until 2009

Nov-17: the last full week before Thanksgiving, if you are trying to close business it can get much harder between Thanksgiving and New Years Day [Full Week] Nov-24: a half week at best. [Half-Week] Dec-1: normally a good week [Full Week] Dec-8: normally a good week [Full Week] Dec-15: unless you are chasing end of …

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Tips For Handling Referrals

Nurturing Referrals Is Critical to Growth Nurturing referrals is a critical activity for every entrepreneur. A referral is an introduction to a prospect with an endorsement. They come from shared success with your customers or colleagues, someone who knows your potential and can vouch for you or your team’s ability to deliver. These individuals are …

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We Started With Two Empty Hands

“We started with two empty hands.” Icelandic expression It’s hard to believe the frugal and hardworking Icelanders have gone bankrupt. I re-read Njal’s Saga every few years and find new nuggets each time. In Letter from Iceland, Robert Jackson reported November 14, 2008 in the Financial Times on the complete meltdown of Iceland’s financial system. …

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Odd Jobs With an Even Temper

When you are very angry, think about how momentary a man’s life is. Marcus Aurelius I worked in the router software marketing group at Cisco in the early 90’s. I had left engineering and taken up residence in the marketing department. I was playing asteroid to a number of dinosaur protocols: we had realized that …

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Veterans Day

On Veterans Day 2008 we honor those who have served in the military and lived: thanks for putting your life on the line for all the things we hold dear.

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