Content tagged business
delicious
The Bureau of Communication - Fill-in-the-blank Correspondence
Inside the secret world of Trader Joe's - Aug. 23, 2010
How to Minimize Politics in Your Company // ben's blog
High-level office politics (CXO level), and how to deal with it.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Sabotage! Or How “Dilbert” Won The War
"There, we learn that our secret weapon against the Nazi war machine was . . . bureaucracy."
If you can't buy your investor a beer, don't take their money - Sachin's Posterous
Gamasutra: Nicholas Lovell's Blog - Four Reasons Why VCs Won't Fund Game Companies
"Traditional games developers are really difficult for any investor to fund. They look like quite late-stage businesses: they may have hundreds of staff, millions in turnover and a proven track record. But fundamentally, they are always just one deal away from bankruptcy. They look like startups from a risk perspective but are like late stage investments from a reward perspective."
RIP Palm: it's over, and here's why
The Way I Work: Paul English of Kayak
A lot of surprising statements in this piece by the co-founder of Kayak: "When I am hiring, I try to get people to accept the job before I tell them about salary or title. I promise to make that person dramatically more productive, and that working for Kayak will be the most fun job he's ever had."
What analysts should ask Apple | Mac | MacUser | Macworld
"Since you’re analysts, you might think you could sneak something in by asking about how the January 27 announcements—whatever they turn out to be—will affect Apple’s bottom line in the March 2010 quarter. Nice try, but I can tell you right now what Peter Oppenheimer and Tim Cook will say to that: “Our announcements on Wednesday have been factored into the guidance we gave you for the March quarter.”"
A Little Less Conversation
"And on every project, assign one person to make sure that communication happens -- but only the right communication. Otherwise the team will just start having long meetings with everyone there and, frankly, people will socialize, and bloviate, and speechify, and argue about things they don't really care about just to hear their own voices." One of the rules in Roberts Rules of Order is that everyone gets a chance to speak once, before anyone speaks twice. That might help as well.
You've Been Yelped
"Yelp, the rambunctious and burgeoning customer-review website, can make or break a small business. It can also drive a business owner slightly insane."
Half an Hour: What Not To Build
"So, here is my advice on what not to build. Actually, it's a bit more than that: it's a list of what not to build, a list of some things that people are working on now, some fads to avoid, and some indication of what's out there for the taking, if you can get your act together in a hurry. And what lies beyond that? The domain of real innovation and progress."
Yelp Extortion Allegations Stack Up | News | East Bay Express
"The story ... detailed the accounts of local business owners who said that sales reps at the popular user-generated review site offered to move negative reviews of their businesses if they advertised."
Why cable companies bundle their channels : The New Yorker
"Bundling eliminates the problem of fretting about small expenditures, which may be one reason that flat-rate pricing is very common in the vacation industry (cruise ships, all-inclusive travel packages, and so on). It also offers what economists call option value: you may never watch those sixty other channels, but the fact that you could if you wanted to is worth something. Many consumers also perceive bundles as bargains; getting a bunch of things for one price feels like a deal, even when it’s not."
John Mackey and Whole Foods : The New Yorker
"Whole Foods’ claim to righteousness is, in many respects, its unique selling point. If the mission is sincere, so is the commitment to making money. Mackey is adamant, and not merely unapologetic, that his company—any company—can and should pursue profits and a higher purpose simultaneously, and that in fact the pursuit of both enhances the pursuit of each. “Whole Foods itself is a market-based solution,” he said. “We’re a corporation. We are in capitalism. We have to compete with Safeway and Wal-Mart and Kroger and Wegmans and Trader Joe’s. What’s odd about it is that that’s what we’ve always been. We’re not a co-op.”"
The Economics of Pinball « Cheap Talk
"Eventually, to keep the pinballers playing, the games became so advanced that entry-level players faced an impossible barrier. High-schoolers in 1986 were either dropouts or professionals in 1992 and without inflow of new players that year essentially marked the end of pinball. In 1992 The Addams Family was the last machine to sell big. By this time, pinball machines used a free-game system called replay boost. After any replay, the score required was increased by some increment. Apparently, only hardcore pinballers were left and this was the only way to prevent them playing indefinitely for free."
Rupert to Internet: It’s War!
"News in penny-newspaper or broadcast (or bundled cable) form has always been either free or negligibly priced. In almost every commercial iteration, news has been supported by advertising. This is, more than the Internet, Murdoch’s (and every publisher’s) problem: the dramatic downturn in advertising."
Stackoverflow, Advertising and the Ethics of a Free Lunch ~ C for Coding
Really nice, reasonable overview of the various questions surrounding advertising-supported websites: why it works better than registration, why people might want to install plugins to subvert ads, what's ethical behaviour, how people feel about such things.
Six Great Ways to Ruin a Brainstorm - Associated Content
"The most important rule of brainstorming is - suspend judgment. In order to encourage a wealth of wacky ideas it is essential that no one is critical, negative or judgmental about an idea. Any idea that is uttered - no matter how stupid - must be written down. The rule about suspending judgement during the idea generation phase is so important that it is worth enforcing rigorously. A good technique is to issue water pistols; anyone who is critical gets squirted."
Netflix: Culture
100+ slides that outline netflix's approach to business, hiring, rights and responsibilities, and so on. good!
Preoccupations - Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time - NYTimes.com
"This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones."
List of acquisitions by Google - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Building a Software Company: How to sell your software for $20,000
If Microsoft goes fully hostile on Yahoo
Why The Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Will Be a Disaster - Silicon Alley Insider
Prosper: The online marketplace for people-to-people lending - Prosper
person-to-person microfinance lending
redesigns of the bloomberg terminal
conceptual redesigns (some quite radical) of the bloomberg terminal from ideo, happy cog
The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Entertainment
ceo of tower books responds to letter from angus and robertson demanding that they sell a&r books at cheaper prices
It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World - New York Times
rebelutionary: Where are the Aussie startups?
Stay Free! Daily: Abbott to AIDS Patients: Thank you for not dying
news @ nature.com - Simple sounds make for sound investments - Easily pronounced stocks do better on the market.
companies with pronounceable names do better with pronounceable. note that this applies to english only!
Sushi and Rev. Moon | Chicago Tribune news | Special reports
Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki - Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki