You may be familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It's a theory Abraham Maslow proposed in 1943, that provides a pecking order of human needs. At the bottom of the pyramid are physiological needs: breathing, food water, etc. The fundamentals needed for basic survival. The needs then climb the pyramid, becoming more intangible as one goes along: safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization.
The theory's structure of moving from tangible/tactical needs to those that are intangible and more impactful is actually well suited for another purpose. That of the software decision-maker inside companies...
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Enterprise 2.0 ROI
The decision
When you really think about it, collaboration is at the very heart of every business on the planet. It’s very rare that you find someone that is isolated from the rest of the company. Most people are a part of a team that needs to work together to achieve the best possible results; that team is a part of many teams that all need to work together to help grow an enterprise. We collaborate in pretty much everything we do at work, it’s not always efficient and it’s not always effective, but what if it were?
Frost & Sullivan along
Today we announced Launchpad LA V2.
Full press release with more details is here. We will be selecting 10 startup companies to participate. There is no cost but you must physically be based in or move to Los Angeles for the 6 months of the program. Applications are due April 6th, 2010, the form is on the website and the Twitter address is @launchpadlad
When I kicked off Launchpad LA a year ago I had a few objectives:
Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.
If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little
FastCompany has a great article this week on the results of the 1830 census, and the hand-made graphics (“BI –2.0”?) that were made from the data (thanks to RadicalCartography.net and the Library of Congress).
Here’s a selection of my favorites:
Continuing my series of podcast conversations with interesting people, this week I spoke with David Siegel in New York. David is the author of several best-selling books, and has just published Pull: the power of the Semantic Web to transform your business [Amazon US
During our conversation, we mention the following resources;
Los Angeles. People either love it our hate it. All the stereotypes and caricatures are overblown. And we’re left with a city with idyllic weather, major commerce, the media center of the world, and a great emerging technology scene. We have an abundance of ethnicities, culinary options, music and culture. Randy Newman said it best, “I love LA” (Worth a 2 minute watch for pure nostalgia. Go on, have a bit of fun down memory lane!). I was raised in NorCal (born in Philly – go Eagles!) so I feel I have an unbiased appreciation for BOTH Californias.
I
I wrote almost a couple of years ago now about MYOB’s (see disclosure statement) first foray into the world of SaaS. I wasn’t overly impressed, saying at the time that:
MYOB has the experience, the money and the clout to bring a product to market with the features that users need. Under this measure MYOB has failed, if it’s true that this has been a five year project, BBO is a failure.
Since then lots has happened – MYOB has been sold to a private equity firm. The product head for BBO, Stuart Bale was poached by (and
This is what remote controlled toy cars looked like when I was a kid. Yes, the control box was connected to the car with a 3-4feet cable… not exactly the level of freedom you get with today’s wireless models.
But it was fun, nevertheless. I wonder if 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez had a toy car when he was a kid. He seems to have found one now.. let me correct that: he seems to have found over 100 remote controlled cars to play with.
The laid-off employee of Texas Auto Center sought revenge and he found it in the Webtech
I was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and was asked what the three most important things are for small businesses as they pertain to Social CRM (this applies to large businesses as well). My response focused on listening, acting, and integrating the customer into the business. Here’s a quick high level run-down of what these are.
Nothing new here right (I hope)? The entire starting point for SCRM is being able to listen to what your customers have to say about your product, your brand, and your competition. This is where tools such as Biz 360,
The Enterprise 2.0 sector draws heavy inspiration from innovations in the Web 2.0 world. Indeed, the name itself, Enterprise “2.0” reflects this influence. From a product management perspective, Web 2.0, and its derivations social networking and social media are great proving grounds for features before coding them into your application.
A fruitful area to review is how long it takes for a feature to go from some level of decent adoption in the consumer realm to becoming part of the mainstream Enterprise 2.0 vendor landscape. The list of features that have made the jump – forums, wikis, blogs, tagging, social
Coming from a manufacturing background, and having an understanding of the pressures and imperatives facing manufacturing, I’ve long been excited by Ponoko’s attempts (more on ‘em here) to reinvent manufacturing. The other day I received a note from HubCast who’s seeking to do something similar for printing. According to their PR. HubCast:
changes the way premium-quality print is bought, sold and delivered. HubCast completely automates printing with a simple cloud application that delivers premium print production, competitive pricing, global reach, and the speed of next-day delivery around the world.
Essentially HubCast is both cloud content storage and distributed
Need more proof that being co-CEOS is an awkward situation? Watch this SiliconAngle video between 0:20 and 0:35 :-)
Of course you can watch the whole thing… and read these reports of the press event:
Meanwhile I’m just waiting for the promised mid-summer new release of Business ByDesign .. and what the company does about marketing
Cloud Connect
is in full scale today. Yesterday, there was the
Cloud Business Summit
where top industry executives spoke about the impact of Cloud Computing on today's business. I had a chance to talk to many leaders in the industry and I could feel the cloud in the air. People are pretty excited about how cloud computing is going to change the entire business landscape in the coming decade. The sessions ranged from discussions about which business models are winning to exploring different challenges and opportunities in the enterprise market to the investment scene and go to market
How do I know, when I’m not even there? By reading what others say. For starters, here’s Jolie O’Dell who attends this year’s conference:
Too many people, not enough tech.
…non-technical people aren’t here to learn; they’re here for self-congratulation and mutual masturbation. People I’ve never heard of are referring to themselves as Twitter celebrities and generally making me ill.
This show isn’t fun, and I won’t be coming back.
For contrast, non-attendee Danny Brown says: Why I’m Not Missing SxSW. Dennis Howlett chimes in: The not attending SXSW grump report Yes, Dennis is a self-proclaimed curmudgeon,
