(empo-fioy) Startup supporter - guess the country!

If the hashtag didn't give it away, consider that one of the organization's incubators is called the Startup Sauna:

During the Startup Sauna, the selected teams work intensively to develop their business model, technology & its applications, and early market entry. The teams graduating will be prepared to seek for initial investments and first customers. Startups will go through blood, sweat and tears to become the next success story.

The sponsoring organization is Aaltoes:

Aalto Entrepreneurship Society is an independent, privately funded student and post-graduate led community initiative. We encourage high-tech, high-growth, scalable entrepreneurship, providing a tight startup community in Northern Europe. Founded in 2009, Aaltoes believes in grassroots action, self-initiative and lean practices.

The name "Aalto" comes from Aalto University, and since many of the business courses are taught in English (rather than Finnish), the organization is clearly aware of the meaning of the English word "toes." Presumably they help people dip their toes into the waters of the startup world.

And Aaltoes presumably supplies the sausages that startups need to get started.

Anecdotal evidence upon advertising effectiveness

I am going to make a blanket observation that you can't make blanket observations about the effectiveness of online advertising.

There are some who will say that Facebook or Google advertising is worthwhile, while others will say that it is not.

The truth? It depends.

Take this one story, which was offered as a comment to a SoshiTech post. Excerpt:

If were spending 250$/month for ads and each lead is a minimum of $1500 conversion, if 4/5 leads failed then even one is already making profit!

Lots of job interviews

What would you call it if Human Resources (HR) scheduled 68 job interviews to take place in the course of a week, and HR was charged to eliminate 52 of the candidates from consideration by the end of the week?

You would call it madness.

P.S. How many of you had Duke in your brackets? Me too.

The power of understatement

Some people are known by bombast. Once I saw Cal Worthington on the TODAY show (he was being interviewed as an automotive industry expert), and I almost didn't recognize him because he wasn't yelling and his dog Spot wasn't with him.

Others are known by a more quiet tone.

Others are known by both. While Monty Python is probably best remembered for its loud sketches ("THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!"), one of my personal favorites is the understated "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" sketch. Similarly, the Police adopted a somewhat quieter tone with their song "Walking on the Moon.". (Did you know that Sting played bass?)

This is also true in the business world. While Apple may be best known for its "1984" commercial, there are those who remember it for its earlier newspaper ad welcoming IBM to the personal computer business.

(A note to my younger readers: in the late 20th century, there were companies that were similar to the Huffington Post; however, instead of distributing data via apps or a web browser window, these companies actually printed the data on large sheets of paper. These sheets of paper, known as "newspapers," used to be very popular. And David Allen and Liset Márquez will probably never forgive me for this paragraph.)

Now the "Welcome, IBM. Seriously." had certainly had its share of bombast - after all, it was a full page ad. But at the same time, the ad was relatively simple - just some text. (This was before Steve Jobs imposed his calligraphic learning on the computer universe.)

But Seth Stevenson maintains that this understatement can go too far.

The most striking example is a commercial for the asthma medication Symbicort. As our spokeswoman prances around singing Symbicort's praises, she is almost completely obscured by shadows. We strain to make out her features even in the tight close-ups on her face. We're left wondering whether this woman is a wanted criminal or has some sort of jarring scar the director wished to hide....

In the Symbicort spot, the product—I'm not even sure what form it takes; a pill? an inhalant?—is never seen. The only clear, well-lit image in the ad is of icky bronchial tissue. I keep waiting for the woman to emerge into sunlight at the close of the ad, symbolizing the newfound happiness Symbicort has brought her. But it never happens. And I'm left wondering: Why would asthma sufferers aspire to an underilluminated lifestyle?

Of course, our sensibilities demand that some products be obscured from view. You're not going to see bombastic ads for any womens' product "with wings," for example.

Understatement doesn't always work, and it shouldn't always be used. But there are times when understatement is a good thing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to submit this post to ONE HUNDRED SEARCH ENGINES AND CONTENT AGGREGATORS TO ENSURE THAT EVERY SENTIENT BEING IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE SEES IT!!!!!!! Cue the angel gifs.

When Clients from Hell isn't in a joking mood

Clients from Hell is usually a lighthearted blog, but there are certain things that Clients from Hell takes seriously.

And based upon many of the entries in the blog (such as one that I previously discussed), it's probably no surprise that a serious issue at Clients from Hell is the nonpayment of freelancers by clients:

Freelancing isn’t free. When a client doesn’t pay, copious amounts of time and money are needed to chase that paycheck. Let’s change that.

The Freelancer Payment Protection Act – which would legally protect freelancers from non-paying clients – needs your help.

Over 1,000 freelancers are already a part the campaign. The bill recently pushed through the New York State Assembly and secured key Republican and Democratic sponsors along the way.

It is hoped that the New York legislation, if passed, will be a model for other states.

Trade Deadline Madness - what rightsizing does to your other employees

[CORRECTION: @teamkb24 is "the Kobe Bryant fans™ Official Fanpage." According to Bryant, he does not have a Twitter account.]

Before I continue, let me just say that I DON'T subscribe to the theory that everything good about the Lakers is performed by Mitch Kupchak, and everything bad about the Lakers is performed by Jim Buss.

And, let me also say that the Lakers' trade of Derek Fisher (and Luke Walton) can be a potential positive. A sports team is not charged to make people feel happy - a sports team is charged with winning games. And if the Lakers can win more games without Derek Fisher than they can with him, then Fisher should be moved.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, there are morale issues associated with any trade. I'm sure that Kobe Bryant [whoops, a fan of Kobe Bryant] knew exactly what he was doing when he tweeted this:

If someone will make me shed a tear, it's the Lakers. Derek Fisher, my man.

This is an appropriate time to revisit a December 2011 post on NBA Grapevine:

Stephen A. Smith is known for his brash opinions, but his recent prediction that Kobe Bryant will demand a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers is going to make him look like a fool....

Kobe has undoubtedly been dealing with a lot lately, being that he’s reportedly getting a divorce and he was already upset about Lamar Odom being traded.

I just can’t see the guy leaving L.A. though.

He’s won five championships with this franchise, and they’ve done everything they could to appease him in the past.

As of right now, they have regressed, but it won’t stay that way for long. I have a hard time believing that a franchise like the Lakers won’t be able to pull off a move that could bring in another big-time star to play with Bryant.

That post was written before Kobe spoke out in support of Pau Gasol, and of course was written before Derek Fisher left the Lakers.

Stephen A. Smith's Los Angeles radio show will presumably be pre-empted tonight for college basketball, but I'm sure that he's going to explode when he's next on the air.

March Happiness - financial benefits to universities from an NCAA tournament run

Academic weenies such as myself run around decrying educational institutions who allow their athletic departments to run the show, ignoring university/college presidents and those to whom they supposedly report.

But perhaps there's a method to the...um, madness, if this article is to be believed. Granted, author Kristi Dosh is writing for ESPN, who certainly has a bias in the matter, but it's something to be considered.

Butler’s 2010 run to the national title game resulted in $639.3 million in publicity value, including $100 million from the CBS broadcast of the national title game. Last year’s appearance was valued at more than $512 million. Neither calculation included the publicity value of radio broadcasts or talk shows, but instead focused on television, print and online news coverage.

OK, those are admittedly vapory numbers. But what about this?

The exposure cascades off-court, as experts point to a positive correlation between athletic performance and application rates. They call it the “Flutie effect” after quarterback Doug Flutie, who was credited with a 30 percent increase in applications at Boston College the year after his Heisman Trophy win.

A 2009 study by brothers and economics professors Jaren and Devin Pope showed that just making it into the men’s NCAA tournament produces a 1 percent increase in applications the following year. Each round a team advances increases the percentage: 3 percent for Sweet 16 teams, 4 to 5 percent for Final Four teams and 7 to 8 percent for the winner.

The only way to achieve similar application increases would be to increase financial aid or reduce tuition by 2 to 24 percent, the study said.

Now you have to run a return on investment study on the numbers - how much does it actually COST to develop a basketball team that advances in the NCAA tournament? But since this is a basketball team, rather than a football team, the costs probably aren't all that great.

And, for small public schools who see an influx of out-of-state students, the payouts can be impressive:

The impact of admitting more out-of-state students can be profound. For example, George Mason’s in-state tuition rate is $9,066 per year, while out-of-state tuition is nearly three times as much at $26,544.

Perhaps this is a way for California to solve its budget crisis - have UCLA, Berkeley, and other public schools spend the money to attract the talent to make it to the Final Four.

P.S. Speaking of Dosh - if you want to look at the business aspect of sports, don't read this blog - read her site, The Business of College Sports.

From each according to his ability, to each according to what he can get

A CNN blog recently printed an interesting fact:

For more perspective on their wealth, compare [China's National People's Congress'] six dozen richest members to U.S. politicians. This group earned more than the net worth of the six hundred top politicians and lawmakers of the United States.

That includes President Barack Obama, his Cabinet, the 535 members of Congress, along with nine members of the Supreme Court. Their average declared net worth in 2010 was just $4.8 billion - a pittance compared to the NPC’s $90 billion


This is especially remarkable because Communism was supposed to reduce the disparity of wealth, and China remains (in a political sense) a Communist country.

There are two possible explanations.

First, China's market economy is a relatively new one. Disparities in wealth can be expected when a few people figure out a capitalist economy before everyone else does. Presumably these income disparities will decrease over time.

Second, China and the United States have different ideas on government service. In China, government service is a noble calling. In the United States, most people - myself included - would rather be a businessperson than a politician. Perhaps we can get successful businesspeople to serve on advisory boards, but there are very few CEOs and company chairs who will actually run for political office. Can you imagine Bill Gates seeking the Congressional seat that his former employee Suzan DelBene (whom I've mentioned before) is seeking? No way - for Gates, joining the government would be a significant loss of power.

(empo-utoobd) On planning for viral videos

Don't:

Marketers often add viral videos to marketing plans as if “viral” is as predictable as the circulation in a coupon drop or the number of samples in a sampling event. What marketers forget is that no one can create a viral video. We can only create quality content that may or may not go viral.

Be sure to read the rest of Tom Fishburne's post to see how Orabrush got 46 million YouTube videos, even though you really can't make a viral video about a tongue scraper.

Dell, SonicWALL, and the end of the pure play

Remember when orange juice companies made orange juice, and consumer computer companies made computers?

I've talked ad nauseum about how Oracle has increased its stack so that it now offers everything from hardware to vertical enterprise applications. But Oracle isn't the only company that has ventured beyond its original business.

Eric Beehler alerted his Google+ circles to a TNW piece that references a Dell press release about its intent to acquire SonicWALL. I'm going to skip all the fake quotes and go right to the Special Note:

Special Note:

Statements that relate to future results and events are forward-looking statements based on Dell's current expectations. Actual results and events in future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements because of a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that projected benefits may not materialize as expected; that the transaction may not be timely completed, if at all; that Dell is unable to successfully implement the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations, including the execution of integration strategies; and other risks that are described in Dell’s Securities and Exchange Commission reports. Dell undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

That having been said, I'm not aware of any reason why this deal won't go through. There have certainly been enough of these types of deals that HAVE gone through.

Now I'll be the first to admit that these things go in cycles, but we're clearly in the cycle in which successful companies consist of a variety of products.

(DISCLOSURE: My employer is active in industries as diverse as automated fingerprint identification systems and aircraft engines, and my former employer was, at the time, involved in industries ranging from police radios to mobile phones to set-top boxes.)

How many companies are pure plays these days?

And when will Twitter be acquired by, or make an acquisition of, an orange juice maker?

Even the most pedestrian products come in a variety of styles

Whenever someone talks about innovation, they often talk about products whose names begin with the letter "i." (I wrote about this in 2010. Whatever happened to the iSlate, anyway?)

But innovation can be found well outside of the bounds of SXSW.

For example, this company offers a product that is pre-torn, and therefore does not have to be torn by a person. Ordinarily this is not a concern, but offering a pre-torn product ensures that the person does not have to work.

For this reason, Shabbos Toilet Paper is available for purchase.

Organist for hire at Association of Proposal Management Professionals events

I do not directly link to Facebook comments (there are probably still a few hundred million Facebook users who assume their conversations are private), but I will reproduce something from one of my comments.

In something I posted on Thursday evening, I said:

Tonight (Thursday) I didn't get home until after 8:00 pm because of a proposal.

One of my co-workers (who obviously knows what I do for a living) then said:

A proposal? Did she say yes? Oh, not that kind of proposal....

To which I replied:

Although we still hope that the recipient of the proposal will say "yes." :)

There certainly are some things in common between marriage proposals and business proposals. Alex Lickerman has discussed this:

Marriage is like a business but not all businesses are created equal. A marriage is more like a Partnership than an LLC, a partnership whose purpose is the management of a shared life. Partnerships are formed as a result of two companies merging. Mergers are always performed to improve the profitability of the two companies involved. Profitability is defined as net gain. Good partnerships result from a careful choosing of partners that have a shared vision for a company, complementary skills, and similar long-term goals. How each partnership defines these parameters will vary depending on the type of partnership in question and in general defines your partnership’s business plan....

However, my business proposals usually don't involve corporate mergers. Are there parallels between the types of proposals that I write and the proposals that Larry King has delivered several times? Let's look at something Michael M. Thomas said:

She's a woman. You're not. You'd probably be ok with something like a business proposal. Something like "Honey, I love you, you love me. Let's make this permanent. Please accept this ring as a symbol of my sincerity." While she would probably say yes, that's probably not what she wants.

Not only is that a crappy marriage proposal...that's also a crappy business proposal. How would one of my account managers or program managers react if I wrote a proposal letter like this:

March 12, 2012

Public County Sheriff's Office
Anywhere, USA

Attn: Ms. Natalie Procurement

Dear Ms. Procurement:

We love providing an automated fingerprint identification system to you.

You love using our automated fingerprint identification system.

Let's continue the relationship by having you buy a new system from us.

Please accept this latent workstation as a token of our sincerity.

I suspect that if I submitted such a proposal letter for approval, the next proposal I write would be a "Please hire me at your company because I'm unemployed" proposal.

In truth, both business proposals and marriage proposals have to offer mutual benefits to both parties in order to be successful.

For example, let's take look at the woman who married a man because the man owned a rocking chair. Similarly, that man wanted to marry the woman because she had a purse in which the man could throw things. Over twenty years later the man has long since gotten rid of the rocking chair - and the woman has been through many purses - but the two are still married.

(At least as long as the man doesn't do a bonehead move that endangers his job.)

Would you use a content scraper such as the Cascade Team as your real estate broker?

As you may know, I recently started a new blog called tymshft. (It's now on its own domain, by the way - tymshft.com.)

On Thursday, March 8, I wrote a...um, timely post on that blog entitled Benjamin Franklin’s Daylight Saving Time joke is taken seriously.

Imagine my surprise to find this post on the Cascade Team's blog. This March 11 post is entitled "Benjamin Franklin’s Daylight Saving Time joke is taken seriously!" (Yes, an entirely different title - note the exclamation mark!) The post begins with these words:

I have written about Daylight Saving Time in the past, and since we’re about to start Daylight Saving Time here in (portions of) the United States, it’s fitting to look at the practice.

The words "in the past" include a link to a post in my Empoprise-BI blog.

Yet the post itself does not include any link to the original post in the tymshft blog, nor any mention of the tymshft blog, nor any mention of myself (John E. Bredehoft a/k/a empoprises) as the original author.

Instead, the post includes the words "By The Cascade Team."

I am not a member of the Cascade Team, by the way.

Who is the Cascade Team? According to its profile:

Broker/Owner for The Cascade Team Real Estate January 2006—present
Full Service Real Estate Brokerage with over 100 agents and 5 offices in WA and CA.

Oddly enough, this post by the Cascade Team includes attribution, but for some reason my post didn't merit attribution.

We'll see how quickly this is corrected.

On the funeral industry (or when you want to rock and roll EVERY night)

Sometimes we refuse to recognize that certain things in life have a business impact. Take funerals. When we're grieving over the loss of a loved one, we don't necessarily think much about the return on investment within the funeral industry. But BusinessWeek wasn't afraid to note an important point:

It's a good time to deal in death. The first baby boomers are entering their mid-60s, and the death rate in the U.S. is expected to rise from 8.1 people per thousand in 2006 to 9.3 in 2020, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

And there are competitors:

Some 44% of funeral home directors, up from 28% in 2006, blame the increasing popularity of cremations and alternative burials for sinking profits, according to consulting firm Citrin Cooperman.

And (at least as of June 2008, when the BusinessWeek article was written) the industry is dominated by small players:

[M]ulti-generational family and private companies [command] 89% of the business. A few major vertical corporations, which control everything from choice in caskets to burial services, and often provide products to small mom-and-pops, make up the rest.

The focus of the BusinessWeek article, however, is on new firms that are introducing new products that probably horrify not only the old established firms, but also a good part of the traditional firms' customer base. One example cited is Eternal Image. BusinessWeek describes its 2006-2008 product line:

In 2006 [Eternal Image] introduced the country's first licensed urn—a twisted bronze spire topped with a cross, licensed from the Vatican Library Collection. Mytych has since signed licensing agreements with the American Kennel Club, Major League Baseball, more than a dozen universities, and most recently, CBS Corp., for the rights to the Star Trek brand. His urns cost about $800, compared with $3,000 for a traditional marble one.

Eternal Image now offers licensed products from KISS, Precious Moments, and the University of Nebraska, among others. Traditionalists will be pleased to know that they will soon offer U.S. military products, as well as Boy Scout products.

Regardless of how I, as a theist, personally feel about some of these products, I cannot deny that these items are extremely important to some people. And if the most important thing in your life is your alma mater or your favorite band, why not remember that after you have passed away?

The substantive cosmetics of corporate takeovers

Let me start with the disclosure. I originally found this boardmember.com post because it mentions 3M's acquisition of Cogent Systems. Both 3M and 3M Cogent are competitors to my employer. Now you know.

The bulk of the boardmember.com post, however, discussed other examples of corporate takeovers, and specifically addressed the question - if you are a member of the Board of Directors for a company that may be acquired, what are your fiduciary duties? Craigh Leonard states some legal guidelines:

When a sale of a company becomes inevitable, the duties of the board change from managing and preserving the corporate enterprise to maximizing the company’s value at a sale for the stockholders’ benefit. And once directors decide to sell their company, they must seek the highest value deal that can be secured for the stockholders regardless of whether the deal is in the best interests of other corporate constituencies such as the corporation’s employees, creditors and suppliers. These duties of a board in a sale of control context are often referred to as “Revlon duties” after the 1986 court case dealing with the takeover of the Revlon cosmetics company.

The post provides an example of what NOT to do:

As part of their duty of care, directors must take an active and direct role in a sale process. The board of the Macmillan publishing house, for example, was found to have breached its oversight duty by allowing Macmillan’s investment bankers to report directly to Macmillan’s CEO despite the fact that the CEO was known to be a participant in one of the two groups bidding to acquire the company. This allowed the CEO’s bidding group to learn what the rival group had bid and to submit a topping bid that may not have been as high as they were willing to go.

More here.

Friends FOR Benefits

I ran across a comment to a SoshiTech post that was certainly illuminating. Here's a portion of roadwax's comment:

For some months now, copy writing websites have openly advertised ‘jobs’ aimed at people who wish to earn money by ‘adding friends’ to particular pages on Facebook. The rate in November 2011 were approximately $1 per 5 added or linked profiles or higher.

This could explain some of the unusual friend requests I (and probably you) have been receiving.

It's OK to take your iPod into the bathroom. Really.

Jonathan "Jony" Ive did not join Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the garage. He joined Apple decades later, as an emigrant.

The manner of [Ives'] departure for the U.S. is particularly galling to Clive Grinyer....

‘We lost a great talent,’ says Grinyer. ‘We virtually created our own consultancy, Tangerine, just so that we could employ Jony (as Ive prefers to be called). And if I had to put my finger on why and where we lost him it would have to have been one day at Ideal Standard in Hull.

'Tangerine had a consultancy contract with the bathroom-fittings company to design a toilet. I was there when Jony made an excellent presentation to this guy who was wearing a red nose because it was Comic Relief day. This clown then decided to throw his weight around and pulled apart Jony’s design. It was ridiculous. Britain lost Jony Ive then and there.’

So Ive left the bozo and went to work for Steve Jobs.

Several years passed, and this episode occurred.

One morning, a designer sprang into the frog studio. “I know why everyone says the iPod looks clean!” he exclaimed. Ask anyone what’s so appealing about the design of the iPod, and, almost without exception, they answer, “I like it because it looks clean.”...

“So,” the visiting designer said, “as I was sitting on the toilet this morning, I noticed the shiny white porcelain of the bathtub and the reflective chrome of the faucet on the wash basin, and then it hit me! The iPod is ‘clean’ because it references bathroom materials.”

There were a few seconds of silence, followed quickly by laughter. We were laughing because we knew that Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod, came to Apple from a London- based design consultancy where he worked on a lot of lavatory basins.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But at the very least, it’s an example of how anything, no matter how unconnected, can spark new perceptions.

H/T Things do not change, we change for the second story.

End of a mini-era (my ORACLE Magazine subscription)

Not really a tymshft, so I'm sharing it here instead.

This week, in response to a telephone call, I informed an Oracle representative that I was no longer qualified to receive ORACLE Magazine. I explained that my job change removed me from any decision-making authority regarding my employer's use of the Oracle database for its software products.

I really can't call it an "end of an era" - after all, my direct involvement with Oracle only lasted for about 5-6 years or so.

But it's still kind of sad.

Next slide, please.

On "lessons learned" (from Organizational Communications Inc.)

Lessons Learned aren't worth the paper they're written on UNLESS they are manifested as "Lessons Applied."

More here, including questions you can ask yourself to help ensure that the lessons are actually applied.

Forget about intersections. What about traffic cameras on school buses?

Back in March 2009, I wrote about Redflex Traffic Systems, an Australian company that has a worldwide business installing traffic cameras at intersections to catch people who run red lights. It turns out that a nearby city, Upland California, pulled out its Redflex traffic cameras because of a negative return on investment.

Redflex has continued to develop its technologies, and will introduce two new products in 2012:

Student Guardian™ is a photo enforcement solution designed to make school bus stops safer for children by helping police enforce laws against driving past a stopped school bus.

Halo™ – one of our greatest innovations yet – saves innocent drivers and their passengers by holding cross traffic when it senses a driver is about to run a red light.

More information about Student Guardian is provided in a Traffic Technology Today piece (apparently copied from a press release, the original of which I was unable to locate on Redflex's website).

Redflex Traffic Systems is introducing ‘Student Guardian’, which it hopes will make school bus routes safer for children. Every day in the USA, thousands of motorists break state laws by driving around stopped school buses. The new system provides schoolchildren with an extra layer of protection as they enter and exit the bus, by capturing images and video of violators who put their lives in danger. In 2011, the Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services conducted the first national survey of this dangerous activity. The study monitored stop-arm passing incidents on nearly 112,000 buses in 28 states and found that in just one day, bus drivers recorded more than 76,000 illegal passes, which equates to more than 13 million illegal maneuvers nationally in a typical school year.

The Student Guardian system has been designed to curb dangerous driving and enforce traffic laws on school bus routes. The safety camera system is installed on the front and rear driver’s-side of a school bus. It monitors traffic while the bus’ stop arm is displayed, leaving the bus driver free to focus on students. Data supporting possible violations, including high-definition video and high-resolution images of license plates and drivers, is submitted to local law enforcement agencies to determine whether a citation is warranted. The system can be operated at no cost to taxpayers, as it is fully funded by violations. Two cities in Connecticut are currently running pilot programs, which will provide guidance to other cities and school districts on the effectiveness of the system.

Karen Finley, president and CEO of Redflex, said, “The threat of injury or death is very real for the 26 million students nationwide who rely on school bus transportation. Student Guardian will serve as a constant reminder for drivers to stop behind every school bus and make sure those students are safe. I cannot think of a better use for our enforcement technologies than student safety.”

So for civil libertarians who are worried about the increasing number of cameras cropping up everywhere - there will be more of them.