Personal and professional development for technology professionals.
» Bringing Ideas To Life. With Love!
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 16 Jun 2005, 9:22 PM - Leave Comment
What are Google and Microsoft upto next?
Here are two links where they provide sneak previews of their upcoming innovation initiatives
1. Google Labs
2. MSN Sandbox
Have fun!
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 16 Jun 2005, 10:45 AM - 3 Comments
I talked about the topic of Social networking on June 4. David Batstone provides an interesting perspective on this topic on his blog today (link: I don’t want to be your friend-ster)
David explains why it’s hard to be “linkedin” to every friend. It is a
delicate balance who you get “linkedin” to. If you don’t get linkedin
to someone, does it mean they are less of a friend – may be not. There
is no one right answer. You have to find your own balance.
One thing is sure – if you are big on social networking, never take
unfair advantage of it. It won’t last long. It has to be GIVE and take.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 16 Jun 2005, 6:47 AM - Leave Comment
Yesterday I attended the SDForum Visionary Awards celebration (happens every year)
Every time I attend this event, I come back charged up and inspired. The event was held at the home of Heidi Roizen and David Mohler.
This year’s award recipients were:
1. Carol Bartz, CEO of Autodesk (intro: Scott McNealy)
2. Bill Draper, Partner at Draper Richards (intro: Ann Winblad)
3. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP (intro: Larry Sonsini)
4. Ray Ozzie, CTO of Microsoft (intro: Bill Gates and Esther Dyson)
It was great to hear all of these people talk passionately about why they did what they did and about the Valley. Kudos to SDForum team
(especially Laura Merling) for putting together this phenomenal show. I
think these are the kinds of things that make the valley a special
place to live.
Posted under Leadership, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 15 Jun 2005, 2:21 PM - Leave Comment
What a coincidence – I wrote about this yesterday and I go over to Tom’s blog and he is providing a ringing endorsement to the same article over here.
Once again, don’t miss reading it! This may be the way organizations will get their competitive advantage.
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 14 Jun 2005, 9:00 PM - Leave Comment
This week’s feature article in Business Week is titled “The Power of Us”
and talks about how companies are collaborating with users to create
more powerful offers. When users become your partners, the world is
your R&D unit.
Of the example companies that are covered in the article is Skype.
Skype lets users make use of the power of internet to talk to other
skype users or other phone users (via SkypeOut). As of today there were
121M+ downloads of Skype software. The interesting thing about Skype is
that every person that is using Skype is allowing Skype to utilize some
spare computing resources for the benefit of all. So, the more users
jump into this bandwagon, the more computing power there is. What an
amazing example of “leverage”
There are many more examples highlighting open innovation in the article. Don’t miss reading it.
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 11 Jun 2005, 11:54 PM - Leave Comment
Joe Wikert blogs about why google adsense does not make any sense. This follows a story last month about a secret army of clickers trying to fool google adsense program.
Interesting articles – both of them. Google Adsense is probably one of
the most popular of google offerings (apart from search) and now it’s
under fire.
Lessons learnt: What worked
yesterday may not work tomorrow. This means that we should be ready to
embrace change. Not only that, we should be ready to adapt to faster
rate of change than ever before in the history.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 08 Jun 2005, 9:20 PM - 2 Comments
In this short but profound quote, Gandhiji reminds us to take action
and cause change rather than sit on the sidelines and wish for change
to happen.
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 06 Jun 2005, 10:01 PM - 2 Comments
I have learnt so much from Seth that it’s sometimes scary to disagree with him. Seth posted two great articles in the last two days on his blog. Here they are:
1. 6/5/05 – Small is the new big
2. 6/6/05 – more on small
There was a lot of great insight there however, while I agree with many
things over there, I have to disagree on the overall theme. I had to
write this as there are probably thousands out there that take Seth’s
word as gospel and may take some action based on this advise.
Seth talks about how it is better to be small rather than big. He talks about his own experience
———–
1. the kind of project that’s “interesting” is now very different. It
doesn’t have to be strategic or scalable or profitable enough to feed
an entire division. It just has to be interesting or fun or good for my
audience.
2. the idea of risk is different as well. I can write an ebook and
launch it in some crazy way and see what happens. I can build a dot com
enterprise with a questionable business model and just see what
happens. Because my costs are a whisker compared to a large
organization, there’s just no comparison in the way I can approach
something (compared to, say, a publisher).
————
My $.02 on the small vs big is that there is no one right answer. It
depends and the strategy has to be different based on the situation.
While being small may work for Seth, for a common man it may be an
impediment to grow. Not everyone may have the brainpower of Seth – to
be creative and resourceful. Not everyone may have the connections and
reach that Seth has. Not everyone has the brand power that Seth has.
So, blindly thinking that if it works for Seth, it will work for me may
be a recipe for disaster.
My take is that if you really want to be small, you need some skills
and you should already be “remarkable” in your mind, in your thought
process, in your way you build your relationships and so on.
I was part of the team that bootstrapped our company CIGNEX.
When we founded the company in 2000, we were small and it was not easy.
It was hard to find a customer, to find a partner, to get a credit
line, to market, to get a speaking slot and to get some buzz going
around. What seems easy now was very hard. One keyword – there was
limited “leverage” when we were small. As we started growing, we
started getting higher leverage out of everything we do.
Seth has so many examples demonstrating the advantages of being small.
Those are inspiring but it should be your call as to whether you are
that “kind” of person to repeat what some of the folks in Seth’s
examples accomplished.
Here is the summary of my thoughts:
a) Every situation is different. Sometimes being small is good sometimes it may not be good. There is no one right answer.
b) You need to be “remarkable” as a person if you want to succeed being small.
c) If you choose to be small, have a great personal brand or be willing to work VERY hard to build one.
d) Big or small – the keyword is “leverage” If you know how to
“leverage” your assets, relationships and skills, the chance of success
in either case (big or small) is the same.
e) Big and small both have their own advantages and disadvantages. What
may work for someone else may not work for you and vice versa.
Seth, I am one of your humble students. You are great. But, I had to disagree with you here.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 06 Jun 2005, 10:20 AM - 2 Comments
Picked this up from Harry Beckwith’s newsletter. Amazing insight that might help you build lasting relationships.
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 06 Jun 2005, 9:57 AM - 1 Comment
People are innovating like crazy and it’s getting exciting everyday. I saw this great piece about a SF based startup Current taking citizen journalism to TV (link: San Francisco Chronicle) this august.
Citizen journalism is the new wave where the general public participate
in creating news and also participate in selecting the news (by voting)
that they want to see.
The company Current is now seeking public to upload news videos that
they can air on their satellite channel once it goes live in August.
The company plans to pay about $250 for every video that is aired.
Former Vice President Al Gore is the chairman of Current.
It is hard to predict how successful Current will be but I am sure
other news networks (with traditional crew) are watching this closely.
This is a game changing move and will set higher standards for everyone
in this business.
All the best to Current!
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
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