2009 Jun 18

Finance and politics - navigating the waters of success

Despite the title of this post, we will not be discussing the current or previous administration's involvement in the financial sector, the federal reserve bank, or any of a myriad of acronyms from TARP to TALF to PIPP. Rather, we will examine the pitfalls of successful initiatives within organizations due to politics. This article could have been titled, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I recently had the pleasure of lunching with a colleague, who has a great idea for a way to significantly increase business in his division.

2009 Jun 17

Destruction of newspapers and the creation of wealth

Business Insider had a fascinating short article on the inverse relationship between Craigslist and newspaper classified advertising revenues. The primary image is shown below. It is well-known that the newspaper industry, which exists largely based on advertising revenue, with a supplement from circulation, including newsstand and subscription sales. For example, in 2008, the New York Times Co. earned $910MM in circulation, and nearly double that amount, $1.78BN, from advertising. If one goes back two years, the differential is even more dramatic, with $890MM from circulation and $2.

2009 Jun 15

Is the canary really dead? Success and failure of Venture Capital

Last fall (2008), a presentation was given at Harvard Business School, and reposted on SlideShare and TheFunded.com. The primary argument was that the Venture Capital (VC) model is broken, because it does not achieve its primary objectives of "funding growing companies in innovative technology sectors that generate significant shareholder returns." The entire slide show can be seen here. Indeed, many elements of the VC model are broken. Primarily, it has the following shortcomings:

2009 Jun 15

Moses as Venture Capitalist?

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines humiltiy as "the quality or state of being humble." Interestingly, it does not require self-effacement, turn the other cheek, or self-flagellation (let alone that wonderful term, defenstration). These are not attributes of being humble, or, by extension, humility. The most famous, and probably earliest recorded, humble person is none other than Moses in the Bible. Whether the Bible is history or fiction for you, the Bible's author clearly states that Moses was more humble than any person on the face of the earth.

2009 Jun 15

The Value of Scalpers - Why Ticketmaster Has It All Wrong - Part I

Ticket sales agencies, ever protective of their exclusive right to sell (and profit by the sales of) tickets to sporting, cultural and other events, have waged war against "scalpers", i.e. ticket resellers, for years, if not decades. Many states have on the books, either now or at some time in the past, laws against scalping, especially if the resale price is above the ticket's face value. On June 8, 2009, the Wall Street Journal published an article how Ticketmaster is using paperless technology, familiar to many from airline e-tickets to thwart scalpers.

2009 Jun 14

Lowering the Flag(s) - Not To Say "I Told You So"....

On Saturday, June 13, 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According the to the article, Six Flags is yet another victim of the deteriorating economy. I beg to disagree. Just under a year ago, in early August 2009, the same newspaper reported that Six Flags management had a turnaround plan. I argued at the same time that the plan was poorly constructed and ignored too many of the economic realities of the parks and, especially, their patrons.

2009 Jun 10

Google Apps - the End of Exchange?

Over the last two days, a mailing list of which I am a member had an interesting - and sometimes sharp - exchange (pun intended) about whether or not the mass availability and advanced feature sets of Web-based, corporate-focused mail services, like Google Apps for Your Domain, are a threat to, and possibly the end of, internally managed collaboration products like Microsoft Exchange. This article will provide a short analysis of the arguments in both directions and a framework for analyzing when CaaS, or Collaboration-as-a-Service, makes sense .

2009 Apr 1

The psychology of entrepreneurs - managing for profit

In my experience, I have come across countless entrepreneurs who are street-smart with a real flair for sales. Yet many of them (I would not go so far as to say most, but I am tempted) regularly run into financial difficulty within their ventures. A question I have been asked time and again, as I have helped these owner/managers fix their businesses, is why so many of these talented people can start a business, actually know how to sell and recognize its importance, yet so very few can operate towards profitability?

2009 Mar 18

The Big Blue Sun?

According to press reports making their way around mainstream news organizations as well as the blogosphere, IBM is making a play to acquire Sun Microsystems. The initial advantages appear to be straightforward. IBM rules in the East, old-school; Sun is a major player in the West (although their Silicon Valley neighbours, H-P, sell far more hardware, especially since the Compaq acquisition). IBM's strength is mostly in big, heavy, hardware, with proprietary systems around them, including mainframes and its distributed systems (which, for those of us who have worked with them, look and behave suspiciously like repackaged mainframes) and its huge consulting arm IBM Global Services (IGS).

2009 Mar 18

Security vs. Convenience - Trade-Offs in Operations and Business ImpactP

In any business, in any setting, security is about trade-offs. It is about trading the inconvenience of process for the (supposedly) improved security that is necessary. For example, even the President of the United States is undoubtedly annoyed that he cannot go out for a walk without having the Secret Service clear it, but accepts the inconvenience as necessary to protecting his life. On the other end of the spectrum, everyone who has travelled in the United States in the last eight years is painfully aware of the inconvenience of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents performing scans ranging from metal detection to show removal to full-body searches; whether or not this actually improves security is subject to debate.