Keeping Great People with Three Kinds of Mentors

Who is your mentor?  The follow article from HBR is a terrific reminder that mentorship is alive, well and necessary...

To attract and retain great people, several things need to coalesce. From the extrinsic reward of a salary to the more nuanced (and more important) intrinsic reward of people feeling that they have a meaningful role, it requires thought and a proactive approach to keep talent once you've got it.

One of the most critical elements in retaining great people is effective mentoring. But what does that really mean? The word "mentoring" is too general to capture the specifics of what people need through the different stages of a career. It is akin to saying that people need to be educated — and then implementing a teaching curriculum that is the same every year for everyone. Like education, mentorship requires different things at different stages, including different types of skills and advice, and different types of teachers and learning styles.

Few firms think as carefully about mentorship as they should. So for most companies, a wake-up call on the basics of mentorship is in order. The first step, of course, is just having mentorship as part of your people development strategy. This does not need to be a complex, bureaucratic HR-department process. It should be something people know is embraced as part of the ethos of a firm. It can start simply by having existing employees volunteer to be mentors to newer staff members. And while it can and probably should be communicated out to staff and emphasized top down from leaders, people will believe it more when it is a "show, don't tell" process.

Mentorship, delivered in an authentic manner, shows that you care about employees' professional progression. This basic "I care about you" culture is the foundation for effective mentorship. It requires knowing a mentee's ambitions and capabilities, their successes and challenges towards, and the ways you can help push their ball forward. I've already written about how the best mentors are able to get a mentee snap-shot in five questions. But to put in place a more systematic and thoughtful mentorship program across any size company, it is helpful to differentiate among three types of mentoring:

1. Buddy / Peer Mentoring
2. Career Mentoring
3. Life Mentoring

1. Buddy / Peer Mentors This is the starting point for mentoring, where it is less about mentorship and more about an apprenticeship. During the entry-level, early stages of a career, or when "on-boarding" to a new job, what really benefits someone is a "buddy" or peer-based mentor who can help one get up the learning curve faster. This type of peer mentor is focused on helping with specific skills and basic organizational practices of "this is how it is done here." This can happen to some extent informally, through social and professional networks online and offline. But assigning a buddy day one on someone's new job is a great "I care" practice. This is a high frequency mentor who interacts as needed in those first couple of years.

2. Career Mentors After the initial period at a workplace, employees need to have someone who is senior to them to serve as a career advisor and internal advocate. A career mentor should help reinforce how the mentee's job contributions fit into the bigger picture and purpose of the firm. People don't contextualize the purpose of one's career enough. When people feel that they understand their current role, its impact and where it can take them next in a company, it leads to higher levels of satisfaction and motivation. Note that a career mentor is not necessarily the manager who may be doing the mentee's performance evaluation reviews. In fact, it may be better if it is not. Think of your most respected managers and rising stars — your real people people — who enjoy and are willing to spend the extra time to provide counsel as go to career mentors. In a career mentor, an employee should feel that they have an "I've got your back" advocate and advisor inside the company. Career mentors should look to meet with their mentee semi-annually or quarterly.

3. Life Mentors These may be the most important mentors to have. They can be people inside the mentee's company, but also outside. As people reach mid- and senior stages of their careers, they need to have someone in whom they can confide without feeling that there is any bias. This is someone who can be a periodic sounding board when one is faced with a difficult career challenge, or when is considering changing jobs. A company's alumni network is often a good place for life mentors, but employees should be encouraged to find these mentors outside of a firm's affiliation as well. The senior folks at a company should make it a part of their objectives to be a life mentor to rising stars, and to put younger associates in situations where they can meet some of the firm's institutional relationship network. Most of the better strategic consulting firms do a decent job of this as they make regular efforts to expose current employees to their firm's alumni and other relations. Retention would likely go up in many companies if employers demonstrated that they openly and fearlessly tried to do what is best for the employee — that they saw their employees as being as important as their customers. Companies should want to do what is best for their employees even if that means helping look for a job elsewhere. Life mentors do not supplant career mentors or peer mentors (and in some cases may be one and the same), but they are there to impart career wisdom. And whatever your employer does, you should look for at least one life mentor (if not a small council of them), and ideally set an annual dinner meeting with her, him, or them.

Beyond this mentoring taxonomy, there are many other aspects of mentoring, people development, and retention that could fill a book. In future blog posts, I'll touch on other key people themes and strategies. But start by making mentoring a priority in your company culture, and consider this simple three-part structure to help match the right mentorship to the right stage of professional development. 

ANTHONY TJAN

Anthony Tjan is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball. An entrepreneur, investor, and senior advisor, Tjan has become a recognized business builder.

"Groupon Doomed by Too Much of a Good Thing" via @hbr

"Alright, you caught us. We're actually not making any money. In fact, we are really losing a lot of money."

This is the essence of Groupon's declaration last week that it will remove the controversial accounting metric calledAdjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income (ACSOI) from its financial statements. ACSOI essentially measures Groupon's profits before subtracting its subscriber-acquisition costs and stock option-based compensation. The metric was an attempt to put a thin veneer of respectability on what are extremely disconcerting profitability numbers for the company. In the first quarter of 2011, Groupon posted a net loss of $113.9 million. Yet, the company reported ASCOI of positive $80.1 million. In most recent quarter, Groupon's losses continued to mount as it begrudgingly abandoned the ACSOI metric amidst criticism and incredulity from the SEC.

But what is most interesting about its emphasis on the ACSOI metric is that, deep down, Groupon knows what we all know: good investments are profitable investments. It was simply not enough for the firm to report earnings and explain that it was investing for growth. Rather, Groupon felt the need to include a metric of profitability, no matter how contrived, that was actually positive.

Clayton Christensen would agree with the intuition that Groupon displays but ignores: businesses should become profitable before they become big. The best way to manage a fledgling business is for managers to be impatient for profit but patient for growth. Such a strategy limits an early venture's funding in order to force the business to develop a profitable business model and then invests heavily in growth once such a model is identified — Christensen terms such investments"good money" for incubating growth businesses and extols the strategy for three reasons.

• First, when a business is impatient for profit, managers are forced to validate their assumptions and demonstrate that customers are fundamentally willing to pay an acceptable price for the company's offering.
• Secondly, expecting a business to be profitable quickly forces it to keep its fixed costs low. Because a business's cost structure determines which customers it finds profitable, keeping these fixed costs low preserves strategic options for the company when it is choosing which customers to target.
• Finally, reaching profitability quickly ensures that when outside financing dries up, the venture can succeed on its own.

Groupon's fundamental problem is that it has not yet discovered a viable business model.The company asserts that it will be profitable once it reaches scale but there is little reason to believe this. The financial results of Groupon's traditional business continue to deteriorate, especially in mature markets, and new ventures such as Groupon Now also have failed to drive profits. And unlike the very few successful companies that scaled before they were profitable (think Facebook or Amazon), Groupon's business model does not benefit from significant network effects. The company's product is not more valuable to users as more people adopt the platform. If anything, the fact that Groupon is witnessing decreasing revenue per merchant and fewer Groupon purchases per subscriber in its maturing markets suggests that growth may actually decrease Groupon's value to its customers. Yet, Groupon maintains a blind faith that growth will be its salvation. As Pets.com learned in the last bubble, such a strategy works just fine until you run out of other people's money to spend on growth.

The real cause of Groupon's problem is that it had too much of a good thing. With over $1 billion of venture capital money to invest in growth, what manager has time to worry about profitability? Groupon's "bad money" — investments that were patient for profit but impatient for growth — did not instill the discipline needed to enable the company to emerge as a successful standalone venture. Now, the venture capital markets cannot supply more capital and the company must depend on the IPO market to finance its money-losing operations. Eventually, investors will be unable to sell their shares to a greater fool and Groupon will be added to the list of companies that had immense potential but died because they did not find a successful profit formula in time.

The story would be much different if Groupon did not have nearly unlimited access to funding so early in its corporate life. A successful financing strategy would have provided Groupon with incremental investments to enable the development of a profitable business model around a product that had obvious appeal to customers and merchants. In such a world, Groupon would have stuck to its home market of Chicago until it developed a business model that was profitable at scale in one market. Armed with a viable profit formula, Groupon could have scaled aggressively — confident that much larger profits awaited it.

But it is now too late. Groupon needs another $750 million to keep the lights on and to keep growing while it prays for profitability that will perpetually lay just one funding round away. Groupon's venture investors and executives need a way to cash out before everyone realizes that the emperor has no clothes. I will probably buy a Groupon every now and again — I have no problem letting investors finance my cheap consumption. But as far as an investment goes, Groupon is looking about as profitable as giving away your merchandise for 90% off.

Bring it! "Apple Developing New iPad" via @wsj

By LORRAINE LUK

TAIPEI--Apple Inc. is working with component suppliers and its assembler in Asia for the trial production of its next generation iPad from October, people familiar with the situation say, as it looks to stay ahead of the competition in the fast-growing tablet computer market.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has ordered key components such as display panels and chips for a new iPad it is aiming to launch in early 2012, said the people.

The next generation iPad is expected to feature a high resolution display - 2048 by 1536 compared with 1024 by 768 in the iPad 2 - and Apple's suppliers have already shipped small quantities of components for the sampling of the iPad 3. Suppliers said Apple has placed orders for a 9.7-inch screen device.

Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu in Beijing declined to comment. 

One component supplier to Apple said the company has already placed orders for parts for about 1.5 million iPad 3s in the fourth quarter."Suppliers will ramp up production and try to improve the yield rate for the new iPad in the fourth quarter before its official launch in early 2012," said a person at the supplier.

Apple, like many other big personal-computer and consumer-electronics brands, doesn't actually make most of its products. It hires manufacturing specialists - mainly companies from Taiwan that have extensive operations in China - to assemble its gadgets based on Apple's designs. They use parts from other outside suppliers, many of which also are from Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. The arrangement frees Apple and its fellow vendors from running complicated, labor-intensive production lines, while the ability of Taiwanese companies to slash manufacturing costs helps cut product prices over time.

Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. assembles the iPad. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Apple reported blowout earnings for its fiscal third quarter ended June 25 in part due to the popularity of its iPad. The company sold 9.3 million units in the quarter, nearly triple what it sold a year earlier. Together with the robust sales of the iPhone smartphone and other electronics devices, Apple's net profit for the period more than doubled to $7.31 billion from $3.25 billion a year earlier.

Still, the next-generation iPad would be coming at a time when there's more competition in the market. Companies from Samsung Electronics Co., Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., ZTE Corp. and Toshiba Corp. have launched similar devices using Google Inc.'s Android software. Apple is also embroiled in several lawsuits spanning various countries with Samsung Electronics over alleged patent infringement.

If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business

100% of customers, employees and leaders... are people 

Simon Sinek: If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business

Not sure what there is the be angry about... "Angry Birds Maker Rovio Worth $1.2 Billion"

via @mashable
Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, is set to receive funding that would give the company a $1.2 billion valuation, according to a report.

Citing “people with knowledge of the discussions,” Bloomberg is saying that Rovio is considering taking the funding from a “company in the entertainment business.” Rovio rejected similar offers from other investors, according to the report.

Michael Pachter, managing director of research at Wedbush Securities, speculates in the article that the investors may be Electronic Arts, Zynga, News Corp. or the Walt Disney Co.

The latest round of funding follows a $42 million round in Series A investment from venture capital firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures in March.

Though Rovio seems to be a one-trick pony, it is fully exploiting Angry Birds‘s potential. A movie and TV showare on the way. Just recently, a line of baby clothes hit the scene, and the game itself was one of the first to show up on Google+.

Are CEO's 'Out to Lunch'?

The phrase, "It's lonely at the top" can definitely be applied to CEO's and business owners.  My experience is that it's tough to find someone to open and talk to when everyone is looking to you.  Your employees, your customers, your investors, your board and even your family look to you as the leader to make things right.  It's no wonder that half of key executives are somewhat disengaged and fully 1 in 10 CEO's are 'out to lunch' according to a USA Today article.

Business leaders need peers and an opportunity to be inspired, educated and held accountable.  The concept of "peer based" executive groups is growing.  How does this work?  This short video illustrates the concept...

Vistage is the world's leading chief executive organization.  I chair a group in San Antonio of CEO's and business leaders committed to becoming more engaged, educated and delivering better results.  Let me know if you'd like more information.

The iPad Hot Spots

According to Men's Health rankings, Plano and San Jose are addicted to tablets, while Toledo is probably still running Windows 2000

Where do early adopters of consumer tech congregate in the U.S.? Not where you might expect, according to a survey appearing in the September issue of Men’s Health, which hits newsstands Tuesday.

Plano, Texas, beat out both San Jose (2) and San Francisco (3) as the most tablet- (or at least iPad-) friendly city in the U.S. And despite its high concentration of both Apple and Best Buy stores, New York City landed in the middle of the pack at 42.

Toledo, Ohio, ranked dead last.

To determine the rankings, editors looked at tablet use based on ad impressions from mobile ad network Chitika, the number of Apple and Best Buy stores per capita, and the percentage of households that own tablets, notebooks or laptops according to Mediamark Research.

Why did Plano end up on top? Texas’s ninth-largest city happens to be home to a number of corporate headquarters of prominent technology companies, including Dell Services, Ericsson, HP Enterprise Services, Siemens PLM Sotware and Alliance Data, David Zinczenko, Rodale EVP and editor in chief of Men’s Health, points out. (J.C. Penney, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Frito-Lay and Pizza Hut are also headquartered in Plano.)

But iPad adoption isn’t just concentrated in high-tech centers; it also appears to be correlated to education levels, Zinczenko suggests. After all, California has the largest state university system, and many other college towns appear toward the top of the list as well.

“Let’s look at who was in line when the iPad 2 went on sale: affluent, well-educated people who had $800 bucks to throw around in the middle of a deep recession,” he says. “It’s not that [college-educated people are] smarter than the people in Toledo, it’s just that they were fortunate enough to have the dough to attend college. As their educations progressed, their choice of leisure interests migrated toward words, narratives and research-driven pastimes,” all of which the iPad accommodates, he argues.

“But if my car broke down, I’d prefer for it to break down in Toledo; I’d probably be able to find somebody to help me get it started, or help me push it to the service station,” he jokes.

---

Most Tech-Friendly

---

1. Plano, TX
2. San Jose, CA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Boise, ID
5. Austin, TX
6. Oakland, CA
7. San Diego, CA
8. Durham, NC
9. Chesapeake, VA
10. Colorado Springs, CO

---

35. San Antonio C+

Least Tech-Friendly

---

91. Laredo, TX
92. Norfolk, VA
93. Milwaukee, WI
94. Cheyenne, WY
95. Stockton, CA
96. Cincinnati, OH
97. Baltimore, MD
98. Detroit, MI
99. Fort Wayne, IN
100. Toledo, OH

For the complete list, see here.

Depression in Command via @wsj

Without a doubt the phrase, "lonely at the top" can be true for any leader, in any organization.  
This article from the Wall St. Journal highlights how weakness can be a strength. 

By NASSIR GHAEMI

Getty Images

Winston Churchill

When times are good and the ship of state only needs to sail straight, mentally healthy people function well as political leaders. But in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even ill, become the greatest leaders. We might call this the Inverse Law of Sanity.

Consider Neville Chamberlain. Before the Second World War, he was a highly respected businessman from Birmingham, a popular mayor and an esteemed chancellor of the exchequer. He was charming, sober, smart—sane.

Winston Churchill, by contrast, rose to prominence during the Boer War and the first World War. Temperamental, cranky, talkative, bombastic—he bothered many people. During the "wilderness" years of the 1930s, while the suave Chamberlain got all the plaudits, Churchill's own party rejected him.

When not irritably manic in his temperament, Churchill experienced recurrent severe depressive episodes, during many of which he was suicidal. Even into his later years, he would complain about his "black dog" and avoided ledges and railway platforms, for fear of an impulsive jump. "All it takes is an instant," he said.

Aristotle was the first to point out the link between madness and genius, including not just poets and artists but also political leaders. I would argue that the Inverse Law of Sanity also applies to more ordinary endeavors. In business, for instance, the sanest of CEOs may be just right during prosperous times, allowing the past to predict the future. But during a period of change, a different kind of leader—quirky, odd, even mentally ill—is more likely to see business opportunities that others cannot imagine.

Abraham Lincoln famously had many depressive episodes, once even needing a suicide watch, and was treated for melancholy by physicians. Mental illness has touched even saintly icons like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom made suicide attempts in adolescence and had at least three severe depressive episodes in adulthood.

An obvious place to start is with depression, which has been shown to encourage traits of both realism and empathy (though not necessarily in the same individual at the same time).

In looking back at historical figures, I do not speculate about their relationships with their mothers or their dark sexual secrets, the usual stuff of "psychohistory." Instead, I base my diagnoses on the most widely accepted sources of psychiatric evidence: symptoms, family history, course of illness, and treatment. How, then, might the leadership of these extraordinary men have been enhanced by mental illness?

"Normal" nondepressed persons have what psychologists call "positive illusion"—that is, they possess a mildly high self-regard, a slightly inflated sense of how much they control the world around them.

Mildly depressed people, by contrast, tend to see the world more clearly, more as it is. In one classic study, subjects pressed a button and observed whether it turned on a green light, which was actually controlled by the researchers. Those who had no depressive symptoms consistently overestimated their control over the light; those who had some depressive symptoms realized they had little control.

For Lincoln, realism bordering on political ruthlessness was central to his success as a war leader. Few recall that Lincoln was not a consistent abolitionist. He always opposed slavery, but until 1863 he also opposed abolishing it, which is why he was the compromise Republican candidate in 1860. Lincoln preferred a containment strategy. He simply wanted to prevent slavery's expansion to the West, after which, he believed, it would die out gradually.

Getty Images

Rev. Martin Luther King

When the Civil War came, Lincoln showed himself to be flexible and pragmatic as a strategist, willing to admit error and to change generals as the situation demanded. He was not the stereotypical decisive executive, picking a course of action and sticking with it. He adapted to a changing reality and, in the end, prevailed.

As for Churchill, during his severely depressed years in the political wilderness, he saw the Nazi menace long before others did. His exhortations to increase military spending were rejected by Prime Minister Baldwin and his second-in-command, Chamberlain. When Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938, only Churchill and a small coterie refused to stand and cheer in parliament, eliciting boos and hisses from other honorable members.

At dinner that night, Churchill brooded: How could men of such honor do such a dishonorable thing? The depressive leader saw the events of his day with a clarity and realism lacking in saner, more stable men.

Depression also has been found to correlate with high degrees of empathy, a greater concern for how others think and feel. In one study, severely depressed patients had much higher scores on the standard measures of empathy than did a control group of college students; the more depressed they were, the higher their empathy scores. This was the case even when patients were not currently depressed but had experienced depression in the past. Depression seems to prepare the mind for a long-term habit of appreciating others' point of view.

In this we can see part of the motivation behind the radical politics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Their goal was not to defeat their opponents but to heal them of their false beliefs. Nonviolent resistance, King believed, was psychiatry for the American soul; it was a psychological cure for racism, not just a political program. And the active ingredient was empathy.

Gandhi and King succeeded to a degree, of course, but they also failed: India was fatally divided because Hindus and Muslims could not accept each other; segregation ended in the U.S., but it happened slowly and at the cost of social traumas whose consequences still afflict us. The politics of radical empathy proved, in the end, to be beyond the capacity of the normal, mentally healthy public.

Great crisis leaders are not like the rest of us; nor are they like mentally healthy leaders. When society is happy, they toil in sadness, seeking help from friends and family and doctors as they cope with an illness that can be debilitating, even deadly. Sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down, but they are never quite well.

When traditional approaches begin to fail, however, great crisis leaders see new opportunities. When the past no longer guides the future, they invent a new future. When old questions are unanswerable and new questions unrecognized, they create new solutions. They are realistic enough to see painful truths, and when calamity occurs, they can lift up the rest of us.

Their weakness is the secret of their strength.

—Dr. Ghaemi is a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center. This essay is adapted from his new book, 

Austin, San Antonio once again make Forbes “top” list

Austin, San Antonio and other cities in Texas have ranked high on numerous lists for places to do business and quality of life in recent years. A June 6, 2011 Forbes article ranks Austin as the top city in the country for future population growth. San Antonio is ranked forth, Houston fifth, and Dallas seventh.

Several months ago, ABC News reported that Texas has been responsible for 40% of all new jobs grown in the U.S. since the recession began in late 2007. Clearly those of us who commute interstate 35 at rush hour know how popular Austin is becoming. The U.S. Census department reports that Austin has sustained a 20.4% growth rate since 2000.

For several decades Texas has been pro-growth and pro-business. Dallas is the home for more large company headquarters than any other city in the country. Texas is responsible for 8.09% of the nation’s gross domestic product as of February 2011.

Geography, demographics, quality of life, weather, regulatory climate, and aggressive recruitment of businesses to move to the lone star state have all contributed to our state’s growth.

Geography

Austin and San Antonio sit on Interstate 35, one of the nation’s busiest highways for moving goods from Mexico and Texas to all points north including Canada. San Antonio and Houston sit on Interstate 10 which is a major highway from Florida to Los Angeles, while the Dallas/Ft. Worth area have Interstate 20 and 30 running east and west through them. When you look at a map of the U.S. Texas is pretty much centered strategically to locate distribution centers. Ports along the Texas Gulf Coast are responsible for approximately 15% of the nation’s imports and exports flowing through them, and Texas has more oil and natural gas pipelines moving through it than any other state in the country.

Demographics

Austin has a highly educated workforce as many University of Texas students have found Austin the city they want to live in after graduation. As a result, wages for many fields are lower than the national average but there is a bountiful supply of knowledge and technology workers here to satisfy companies desiring to settle here. San Antonio also has an increasing supply of knowledge workers as well as tradesman and craftsman that work in the aviation and aircraft maintenance industry.

Quality of Life

One of the first things people think of when they think of Austin is quality of life. We have six major lakes within an hour of the city. Austin is a 3 ½ hour drive to the beaches on the Gulf of Mexico and the Texas Hill Country divides Austin in half. During the last ten years, the Austin Chamber of Commerce and Visitors and Convention Bureau have made Austin a destination for many large national and international conventions. Austin’s live music and nightlife are known worldwide for their homegrown eclectic variety of entertainment. 80 miles south, San Antonio sports a different but equally attractive quality of life. San Antonio is one of the America’s top vacation and convention spots because of its history, a quaint downtown tourist district, and the San Antonio river walk. Like Austin, much of San Antonio is built in the Texas hill country. It is hard to find two better cities to live, visit, and do business in.

Weather

Most of Texas and especially Austin and San Antonio experience sun and a mild climate most of the year. Austin and San Antonio both average about 300 sunny days a year. Weather is a major draw for population growth and commerce.

Regulatory Climate

Some sources claim it costs about 20% more to do business in California than the rest of the country. At the other end of the spectrum Texas has one of the lowest costs of doing business. We have no individual state income tax. Business franchise taxes are collected but there are enough loopholes in the franchise tax law that many companies don’t have to pay them. Many businesses that relocate to Texas do so citing the low regulatory cost of doing business here, the lower average wages, and the pro-business climate.

Business Recruitment

During the last ten years, Texas has spent hundreds of millions of dollars recruiting businesses to move here. The focus has been on high technology, information workers, and those industries that planners view as desirable and adding to the tax base by employing higher paid, educated workers. Some outside the state have criticized Texas for “poaching” but the truth is every state and major city lobby businesses to move to their jurisdiction. Texas has simply been better at it than other states.

All of the factors mentioned above have helped Austin and the rest of Texas grow larger and smarter while mostly preserving the reasons why many of us who have been here our whole lives. As long as planners and regulators don’t forget what attracted us here, the future should be bright for Austin, San Antonio and Central Texas.

Leslie Thacker is a partner in Austin Texas based Business Finance Solutions

OS X Lion Wants You To Never Press "Save" Again. Here's How It Works.

"Why People Still Subscribe To Newspapers" via @chartoftheday

Over a year ago I wrote about the future of newspapers.  Let's just say my conclusion would be best described as "dum dum da dum da de dum de dum de dum".  The chart below reveals why some people (ok, like seven people) still subscribe...

Why People Still Subscribe To Newspapers 

Jay Yarow

People are still subscribing to newspapers for two reasons, according to a survey from AdAge: they want local news, and they want coupons. 

Local news hasn't really worked online, so newspapers are okay on that front for now. But if Groupon and LivingSocial continue their successful runs, it could be yet another reason for people to cancel their subscriptions.

VC legends give their best advice for founders and CEOs via @venturebeat

By Amanda Maksymiw

View Comments

We tracked down some of the brightest minds in venture capital to learn more about what makes great companies tick. We asked Phin Barnes, Brad Feld, Rob Go and Alex Taussig to share the advice to they most often give to (and the mistakes they most often see from) the CEOs and founders in their portfolios.

Here’s what they had to say:

Phin Barnes, principal, First Round Capital – Recruit and hire a team you would be honored to work for, and create a culture of “no ego” where the best ideas win.

A startup is a race against time in a world of extremely limited resources and imperfect information. I worry when founders take too long to make a decision and work to collect more information rather than trusting their instincts and being decisive about strategy, staffing, or fund-raising.

Brad Feld, managing director, Foundry Group LLC – Be honest and direct all the time, both with good news and bad news. View me as a partner, not someone you need to manage. If you ever start wondering whether I’m doing everything I can to help you win, just ask me.

The biggest mistakes I see involve freezing or thrashing. Startups are really hard. You are going to make mistakes — a lot of them. Don’t freeze. When you screw up, you have to own it, fix it, and move on.

Rob Go, Co-Founder, NextView Ventures – It’s easy to confuse forward movement with meaningful progress along the dimensions that really matter. This is especially true at the earliest stages where resources are constrained and the goals are unclear.

As for common problems, one challenge involves knowing when to scale. Many companies scale too quickly and suffer from over-staffing and over investing before a repeatable model is established. If an entrepreneur has access to lots of capital, it’s tempting to scale the operation too quickly. On the flip side, when a repeatable model is established, it’s time to invest aggressively in growth, even if it means dipping into the red. Knowing when to do this is hard, and can be tough to see as an entrepreneur that is engrossed in the day-to-day of running a company.

Alex Taussig, Highland Capital – First off, CEOs and founders are like snowflakes: no two are identical, and, as such, advice for one isn’t necessarily applicable to another. Some are starting their first company and aren’t old enough to drink alcohol, while others have exited three or four times and are building their magnum opus.

That said, one simple recommendation we find ourselves giving time and time again is to focus.

In good times, CEOs see opportunities everywhere – product extensions, acquisition targets, and unplanned hires. In bad times, CEOs may want to change course – slow the ramp, delay new product releases, and respond reactively to competitive threats. While we will occasionally advocate for dramatic changes in the business, the majority of the time our advice is to stick to the plan and focus on the true value drivers in the business.

Focus isn’t easy when you’re in the trenches, constantly responding to opportunities and threats. That’s why it’s the most frequent piece of advice we give.

As for problems, first-time founders can make the mistake of hiring for short-term needs, not long-term fit. With a small business network and no caché of multiple exits, it can be hard to attract top talent. It’s tempting to fill in holes on a team with whoever is around just to get on with things. These sub-optimal hires are a problem for two reasons: First, you never get rid of them fast enough, and second, they themselves will hire even less optimal people. It can take time to find the right early employees, but I generally believe it’s worth it.

At the other extreme, experienced founders can make the mistake of assuming their past experience is indicative of the future. Sometimes they are right, but an over-reliance on out-of-date information can guide even an experienced executive down the wrong path. That said, experienced founders are pretty good at discovering they have made the wrong choice and have the conviction to fix things quickly and decisively.

Ideas That Spread via @sethgodin

Seth Godin discusses the greatest invention ever, sliced bread!  

His point is right on target, no idea is a great idea unless your idea can spread... worth 8 minutes.

Get Ready for Facial Recognition Apps

via @9to5Mac

 In 2010 we reported that Apple snapped up a Swedish company called Polar Rose that specializes in face detection algorithms. Less than a year after this purchase, we have discovered what Apple actually intends to do with this software. Besides the fun Photo Booth effects that are now found in the OS X Lion implementation of Photo Booth – Apple will take their new face recognition knowledge to the next level with iOS 5.

Apple is not specifically planning to launch an iOS 5 application that relies on their face detection technology, but plans to do something much more important. Open up facial recognition as a public developer API for iOS 5 applications. The implications of this are obviously vast. Most importantly, an easy way for developers to integrate the sought after technology, with vast amounts of uses, into their App Store applications.

So what is Ad Analytics?

Business Owners Are Getting Sick Of Groupon And Groupon Clones' Pitches

I think we all saw this coming...

CEO's Foresee Stagnating Pace of Economic Growth via @vistage

Click here to view the report

Interview With The Agent: Tony Dutt (NBA)

via Sports Agent Blog

Tony Dutt is the President of Dutt Sports Services, Inc. (DSSI), a basketball agency based in The Woodlands, Texas.  DSSI’s website’s catchy phrase states, “With Dutt, it’s a done deal.”  Dutt has negotiated deals for many NBA players, including Marcus Camby, Rashard Lewis, Raymond Felton, and Brandon Bass.  Throughout his career, Dutt has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts on behalf of his clients.  Dutt represents three players selected in the 2011 NBA Draft – Markieff Morris, Marcus Morris, and Tyler Honeycutt.  Interestingly, he represents them in conjunction with a new company named Rival Sports Group.  I recently interviewed Dutt about his relationship with Rival Sports Group, his start in the industry, and many more topics.  The result of that interview is below.

Darren Heitner: What enticed you to become a basketball agent, and where did you originally get your start?

Tony Dutt: I started in 1985.  I worked with Bill Blakley in Dallas.  We signed Karl Malone, Joe Dumars, and Spud Webb.

Darren Heitner: At what point in time did you create your own agency, Dutt Sports Services?  What has been the most rewarding and toughest part of running your own company?

Tony Dutt: I started Dutt Sports Services, Inc. (DSSI) in 1990.  A really good friend of mine and one of the founders of DHL, Bill Robinson, was discussing what I did and he asked me how much money I would need to start my own company. We agreed upon an amount and he loaned me the money to start DSSI, and I’m proud to say I was able to pay him back. Bill Robinson is still a very close friend and is the Godfather to my two kids.

The most rewarding part of building a company for me is the relationships with the clients and their families, and watching the clients grow not only as professional athletes but as good citizens.  I tell every client that you may be a great athlete and make a lot of money, but you can’t buy respect of your teammates, family, etc. – you have to earn it.  The hardest part of running a business is finding people who you can truly trust.

Darren Heitner: Have you ever represented any professional athletes in anything other than basketball?  Do you have any future plans to expand your agency to include other divisions?

Tony Dutt: Yes, with the first firm I worked with I was able to do football and baseball as well.  Mark Adicks was an offensive tackle from Baylor who we worked with.  He told us he wanted to be a surgeon.  Fast forward to about a year ago and I was talking to a doctor friend of mine, and he told me about an orthopedic surgeon that was working in the medical center.  Well it was Mark Adicks, who is now the person I use for myself and my clients.

I am working on expanding DSSI.

Darren Heitner: I noted that you are working in conjunction with a start-up agency titled, Rival Sports Group, to represent the Morris twins from Kansas and Tyler Honeycutt from UCLA.  How did you form a relationship with Rival Sports Group?  What does the relationship entail?

Tony Dutt: I am working with Rival Sports Group as a Consultant.  I handle all basketball contracts for the company.  I must say that so many people try to get into this business and spend alot of money and usually do not succeed for one reason or another, as it is extreamly competitive.  I have spent 25 plus years building relationships with owners, general managers, coaches, etc., and I go back to TRUST – it’s developed over time. Rival Sports Group has a lot of business success along with really good people working with them, and I’m really excited about the relationship going forward.

Darren Heitner: Marcus Spears of Yahoo! Sports first reported that the Morris twins were close with a man named Jason Martin.  Who is Jason Martin, and how are the two of you connected, if at all?

Tony Dutt: Jason Martin works for Rival Sports Group and has been involved in basketball his whole life.  He truly cares for the clients he works with, and has been successful in business outside of working with players.  Jason and I are getting to know each other better as we spend more time together.

Darren Heitner: Let’s talk about another one of your clients – Rashard Lewis.  A lot of people are talking about how he has the worst NBA contract (which means that you actually did a great job in the negotiation).  What do you say to anyone who is calling Lewis’ contract atrocious?

Tony Dutt: First let me say that I really feel Rashard is worth every penny.  In doing any deal, the one thing that I try to do find is a “fit,” meaning, where can a player have the biggest impact if a free agent is considering leaving his current team, and I do a really in-depth calculation as to where a client will fit.  Rashard was a perfect fit in Orlando.  If you look back, when you have someone like Dwight in the middle, they needed someone to spread the floor and someone who could shoot the three and drive to the basket and create his own shot.  Orlando had given up two first round picks to Detroit for a big man, so I knew I had to be well prepared to give them an option in Rashard.  And don’t forget, they did get to the finals.  I think sometimes teams forget the importance of keeping a team together, but it’s also hard for GMs under the cap to keep players together. And I personally would rather be overpaid than underpaid.

Darren Heitner: Other than Lewis and the 2011 Draft class, you have a lot of big name players with very large contracts.  Do you also handle your clients’ marketing in-house or do you work with particular marketing agencies out of house?  What are some of the more creative deals you have negotiated?

Tony Dutt: I would like to think that all my deals are creative.  We do a lot of marketing in-house, but we also use outside marketing groups as long as it benefits the player.

Darren Heitner: Are any of your clients considering playing overseas based on the presence of an NBA Lockout?  If so, which players and where are they thinking about playing?

Tony Dutt: We are always looking for jobs overseas, again by having years of experience, we know the market, but there are so many issues overseas that have to be considered because of players having problems getting payed, the city, etc.  You have to look at it as a case-by-case situation.

Darren Heitner: What piece(s) of advice would you give to someone who is looking to break in as a basketball agent or break into another part of the basketball industry.

Tony Dutt: It has always been a tough business to break into.  Getting an internship or working in a certain area like local marketing deals – anything to get your foot in the door – is important.  And it’s important to know that it’s a lot harder than people think, but if you have the right game plan and are willing to work long hours and do it the honest way, you can succeed.  There are no shortcuts.

A lot of new agents might have one or two clients, and I know are afraid to give up any possible income.  But I will say I have spoken to a lot of agents when I hear a certain player might be looking for a new agent.  I would go to the agent to try and help, but they always say, “my guy is not leaving me.”  Then, prior to a kid’s free agent year, he leaves and the small agent/friend of the player does all the work for nothing.  So young agents should remember that in the end, players want to get paid.  Rival Sports Group is an example of doing it the right way and everyone wins.

Read more posts on Sports Agent Blog »

Colin Powell's Rules for Leadership

I found these to be quite useful...

General Colin Powell's Rules for Leadership

  1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. 
  2. Get mad, then get over it. 
  3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your
      position falls, your ego goes with it. 
  4. It can be done! 
  5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it. 
  6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. 
  7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone
      else make yours. 
  8. Check small things. 
  9. Share credit. 
10. Remain calm. Be kind. 
11. Have a vision. Be demanding. 
12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers. 
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Game Changer: Everything You Need to Know About Google+

By Benjamin J. Garber

Seeking Alpha

Three weeks ago Google (GOOG) launched a new social networking product, Google+, on a limited invitation only basis. In this article I am going to discuss the implications Google+ will have for Google’s future business and provide some key insights into why it is important.

During Google’s earnings call last Thursday 14 July, Larry Page announced that in its first two weeks of limited release 10 million people have joined Google+ and have been sharing over 1 billion items per day. Incidentally Larry Page, who is enjoying a stupendous first quarter as the company’s new CEO, also posted a transcript of his announcement on Google+ which has subsequently been shared by Google+ users 1,000 times and +1’ed nearly 10,000 times (more on that in a minute). For the quarter Google’s revenue is up 32% year over year and has set a new record for quarterly revenue at over $9 billion. On the news Google shares shot up nearly 13%.

According to Page, “[Google’s] goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience.” While a lot of press has been devoted to Google+ as a challenger to Facebook and Twitter, Page had additional words that may indicate that the company hasn’t lost any competitive focus on Apple either. “Google+ is also a great example of another focus of mine--beautiful products that are simple and intuitive to use and was actually was one of the first products to contain our new visual redesign,” he said.

Preceding the launch of Google+, last quarter the company also launched the +1 button in search results and ads -- enabling users to recommend stuff they liked, and have those recommendations show up in the search results of people they know. The +1 button is often compared to the Facebook “Like” button however the message is intended to be slightly different. This quarter, the +1 button was launched to the entire web, and many sites like Huffington Post, the Washington Post (WPO), and Best Buy (BBY) have added +1 buttons. Today the +1 button is all over the web and is being served 2.3 billion times per day.

(Click to enlarge)

Soon enough I imagine the SeekingAlpha webmasters will add the +1 button right alongside the LinkedIn Share button at the top of each article. You can also follow me on Google+ to stay up-to-date on the latest market news and innovations.

Beyond the extension of Google’s service offering, Page also announced that the company has 550,000 Android Devices activated each day. The Android platform has quickly caught pace with the Apple (AAPL) iOS platform on smartphones, although it still holds less than half the market share of iOS when you include tablet and iPod sales. These growth numbers are nothing to be scoffed at however, especially when you consider that Android’s market share has risen from around 5% in January 2009 to 20% in May 2010 while iOS has drop from 75% to 59% in the same time period. Additionally, Google’s Chrome browser is also the fastest growing browser on the market now with over 160 million users.

Source: BrightEdge Research, "Social Share Report," July 2011.

What this means for Google and Google users is:

• Growth – Google’s reach of influence is rapidly expanding and becoming increasingly integral to a greater scope of even more people’s lives. Their user base is increasing and Google has a proven track record of monetizing their users.
• Personalization – as users and those in their network use Google+ and the +1 button search will become increasingly personalized. This means that my search results will not always match your search results eventually creating a significant product advantage that is not easily replicated by competitors. This is already happening.
• Integration – the ties that connect the user experience between Google search, Gmail, Google+, and Android as well as Google’s other products will become more seamlessly bound. This is already apparent for users of the Android OS. Integration creates brand loyalty and stickiness which drastically increases switching costs.

(Click to enlarge)

Footnotes: 1.) The figure for Google users refers to the number of unique monthly search users, which doesn't reflect all the people that see its ads and use its services. 2.) The figure for Groupon users refers to reported "cumulative customers" in 2010. 3.) The figure for active Zynga users refers to "monthly unique users" from October through December 2010. 4.) The figure for active Twitter users refers to a recent report from Business Insider that found that only 21 million Twitter users follow 32 or more accounts. Twitter considers an "active" user to be someone who is following 30 accounts, with a third of those accounts following back. 5.) Revenue figures for Facebook and Twitter are based on estimates from eMarketer, a research firm. 6.) Revenue figures for Zynga and Groupon come from their IPO filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: “How much is a user worth?” Technology Review India, MIT, 12 July 2011.

Furthermore, as Google stampedes down the road of expansion their M&A activity is going to increase. Earlier this month at the Sun Valley conference in Idaho, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt explainedhis expectation for an explosion of startups built around the Google+ platform:

“You could image the scenario where the social platform is so successful that you’ve got startups that are building on top of Google + that are so incredibly sexy and exciting that we would pay top dollar very fast … That’s a great scenario because then you know you’re winning.”

According to Schmidt, Google M&A made the decision last year to accelerate the acquisitions of companies below the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act threshold, or the amount that is subject to FTC notification requirements and a waiting period (currently $66 million and 30 days). Google is targeting companies such as Punchd that they are acquiring for around $10 million, versus AdMeld for $400 million, in order to fill gaps in their broader development strategy. Schmidt emphasized that M&A at Google is driven from the bottom up, “A product manager that has a problem and [needs to] solve that problem” is the impetus for many potential acquisitions.

All signs point to an increased rate of growth. As Google continues to propagate a progressively more dedicated, integrated, and subsequently monetized customer base, Google+ is going to provide the fuel for rapid acceleration. To anyone standing in their way: look out.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.