5 Reasons Why CapGemini Just Re-Positioned their Management Consulting Practice to Focus on Social Business
Don’t believe the world’s businesses are going social? Take this recent declaration from CapGemini’s Managing Director, Global Head of Practices, Didier Bonnet when discussing Social Business with me: “We’ve actually repositioned the entire practice around digital transformation. So for us it’s not just changing one service offering; it’s our entire focus globally for our teams [...]
Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?
There are certain topics that even some of the best journalists can’t fully grok. One of them is profitability. I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate [...]
Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?
There are certain topics that even some of the best journalists can’t fully grok. One of them is profitability. I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate [...]
How I Fixed Reader
I read a lot of news – ok, I skim a lot of news – and the stuff that I find interesting should be shared. Google Reader had a great feature called Share for just that. I had a Google Shared Items page, and also used its RSS feed to share on Twitter and other [...]
Getting to Know Maker Studios
A year ago I invested, along with Dana Settle at Greycroft Partners, in a startup company called Maker Studios. What excited me was that they had an immensely talented team that understood how to produce & distribute low-cost videos, initially via YouTube. It was founded by Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan & Ben Donovan (along with several creative [...]
Getting to Know Maker Studios
A year ago I invested, along with Dana Settle at Greycroft Partners, in a startup company called Maker Studios. What excited me was that they had an immensely talented team that understood how to produce & distribute low-cost videos, initially via YouTube. It was founded by Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan & Ben Donovan. They know this model [...]
The Amazing Power of Deflationary Economics for Startups
I’m often asked by people what investment areas interest me. It’s true that I have a functional focus on three areas: Performance-based marketing, digital television and mobile computing. I try to invest in things that I know and that I believe I might have better knowledge and relationships than the masses of VCs. I have [...]
The Amazing Power of Deflationary Economics for Startups
I’m often asked by people what investment areas interest me. It’s true that I have a functional focus on three areas: Performance-based marketing, digital television and mobile computing. I try to invest in things that I know and that I believe I might have better knowledge and relationships than the masses of VCs. I have [...]
The Law of the Handicap of a Headstart
In discussions about SAP’s new stealth weapon, HANA, I have come to become a wee weary. At SAP Inside Track NL we joked about it: @jonerp @dahowlett @ragtag @applebyj like we said at #sitNL “When lost for words, just end your sentence with HANA and you’ll be fine” What is HANA? In short, it uses [...]
When Did the Sun Set?
The story of Sun Microsystems is a great one. It has great characters (McNealy), great battles (open vs. proprietary, David vs. Goliath), incredible vision (the dawn of the dot.com), drama (the bust of the dot.com), and tragedy (the Oracle acquisition). Oh yeah, one of the best of tech logos. Well, the drama continues. Oracle reports [...]
Finding Relevance in a Commoditized World, APIs and Infrastructure
A few weeks ago I moderated a session at Defrag. As part of the session Sam Ramji from Apigee presented. The session got a little sideways due in part to some frayed nerves from a hectic travel schedule for a bunch of people and in part to a misunderstanding around a line of questioning. That [...]
Book Summary: "StandOut" by Marcus Buckingham
I’ve been a fan of Marcus’ work since his original breakthrough book, “First, Break All The Rules.” His core message of the importance of casting people in the proper roles has stuck with me.Where Marcus’ previous books focused on the role of managers,…
Privacy and Loyalty Clubs
Most of us don’t know when we’ve been hacked or how much of a trail we are leaving. But our corporate secrets may indeed be much bigger than a product protype and are risk of privacy invasion is much broader than a bar.
It’s All About Collaboration
Regardless of how you want to spin “social business,” “social enterprise,” “social collaboration,” “enterprise collaboration,” or any other new term that comes along, it always comes down to collaboration. At the end of the day that’s really what this is about, it’s not about being social it’s about being collaborative and applying collaborative technologies, strategies, [...]
Will You Pay 15% More For Converged Infrastructure?
As tech media goes in an overdrive highlighting the game changing nature of cloud computing, enterprises are embracing converged infrastructure at an increasing rate. Some predictions that came out at the end of 2010 claimed that 30% of the data centers will use converged infrastructure in the next 2-3 years. I am not sure how [...]
