“Healing Hands,” the latest from Citizen Cope.
"I’d turn people into C.E.O.’s. One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.” And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective. People liked it. And there was nowhere to hide."
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Corner Office - Mark Pincus - Every Worker Should Be C.E.O. of Something - Interview - NYTimes.com
Great quote, great lesson. As a manager you need to empower people and make them accountable. Don’t half ass it, but go all the way. And as an employee, this has got to be the kind of organization you’d want to work in. If not, then go work for the phone company.
Seems to me that Mark deserves his success.
"Lucy trying to convince Noni that she should watch Star Wars with her and Evie tonight: “Noni, there’s even a princess in it! Princess Leia. She’s just like Snow White… only with a gun."
Noni had a breakthrough day today skiing. For the first time she was actually going up and down the mountain, holding herself up (with her mom holding the harness).
All the girls have done great in this their first year of skiing. And with Noni rolling now, many good ski days on the horizon.
Way to go Noni!
Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: toby
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2010/01/29
date added: 2010/01/29
shelves: contemporary, fiction
review:
Superb!…
Ross Perot Obama
Great column today from David Brooks.
He suggests that Obama bail on the Washington political system. In Year 1 he tried to work inside it … and it was a total disaster. “You need to detach from all those deals with pharmaceutical lobbyists and earmark champions” Brooks says.
Instead, position yourself as the outsider and evangelize the truth the the country. Do non-stop speeches with real clear charts and graphs showing how screwed we are on things like health care, the environment, the national debt.
During the campaign Obama kept saying how real change comes from the people, not Washington. But in Year 1 he just tried to work within Washington. Forget it. Go around the country, stir up the revolution. Then maybe we’ll actually get something done.
Sometimes, Even Risk-Takers Need A Way To Hedge Their Risks
First Round Capital yesterday announced that they are allowing their entrepreneurs to place some equity in a cross-portfolio pool that they can all share in.
You have to hand it to FRC: they treat entrepreneurs like their customers, are turning the industry on its head, and are killing it as a result. Bravo.
"
I support the broad proposals President Obama put forth last week to prevent banks from becoming too big to fail and to protect taxpayers from banks that get in trouble by speculating and then expect us to bail them out. But the way the president unveiled his proposals — “if those folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have” — left me feeling as though he was looking for a way to bash the banks right after the Democrats’ loss in Massachusetts, in order to score a few cheap political points more than to initiate a serious national discussion about an incredibly complex issue.
President Obama is so much better when he takes a heated, knotty issue, like civil rights or banking reform, and talks to the country like adults. He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier.
"
Entrepreneurship and Inches
Mike and I named our most recent company Daily Inches (the corporate name, not the brand name). In our last company, whenever we had a big event like pitching a VC or a partnership or something, we had a habit of playing Al Pacino’s speech from Any Given Sunday before hand. He says:
life is just a game of inches. So is football…
The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game, every minute, every second…
On this team, we fight for that inch … We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Please understand that we are not as cheesy as this appears … we did it a good part in jest. But I do find that entrepreneurship is all about relentlessly going after each of the inches, each of the little things, just as Pacino talks about. It’s about writing up that one last bug just right to make sure it gets fixed right. It’s about pushing for that extra contact as you network (past comfort and into awkwardness) and then relentlessly following it up and getting the meeting. It’s about spending the extra time with the user, hearing out their issue and getting the feedback.
Unfortunately most of those little inches lead to nowhere. They simply are time and effort thrown into the incinerator of the past. But for every 9 that do not, 1 does and often is crucially helpful. And the funny thing about start-ups is that you never know how that 9-1 ratio is going to be distributed. You can go on long, long cold streaks. But you have to keep scraping for those inches.
You don’t know from where or when the inches will pay off, but they eventually do. The idea from the user turns into a great new feature. The contact leads to a new deal or a new customer (probably about 3 months later—which feels like 3 years).
When you are on a cold streak with your inches it can get pretty discouraging.
But when some of the inches pay off, it’s extremely satisfying. It’s not just that you’ve expended the effort and received the reward (the idea, the customer, etc.). More broadly, you sense that you are in the right rhythm, the right pattern of relentless persistence which is the essence of success. You are throwing your venture out there and the universe is agreeing. You are on the way.
"
Well, here’s my free advice to Obama, post-Massachusetts. If you think that the right response is to unleash a populist backlash against bankers, you’re wrong. Please, please re-regulate the banks in a smart way. But remember: in the long run, Americans don’t rally to angry politicians. They do not bring out the best in us. We rally to inspirational, hopeful ones. They bring out the best in us. And right now we need to be at our best.
Obama should launch his own moon shot. What the country needs most now is not more government stimulus, but more stimulation… We need to make 2010 what Obama should have made 2009: the year of innovation, the year of making our pie bigger, the year of “Start-Up America.”
Obama should make the centerpiece of his presidency mobilizing a million new start-up companies that won’t just give us temporary highway jobs, but lasting good jobs that keep America on the cutting edge. The best way to counter the Tea Party movement, which is all about stopping things, is with an Innovation Movement, which is all about starting things. Without inventing more new products and services that make people more productive, healthier or entertained — that we can sell around the world — we’ll never be able to afford the health care our people need, let alone pay off our debts.
"—
Amen. Obama’s campaign was so great because it was so inspirational. Dealing with the economic crisis wasn’t inspirational (it really couldn’t have been). And health care … yikes.
Friedman is right on here. As a country we need to re-focus on innovation, which is our core differentiator. Come on Obama! Year 2 rebound!
