Archives for 2006

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The Day I Flew The Enron Corporate Jet to Meet Jeff Skilling

Posted on April 11, 2006 ·

Actually I didn’t.  But Ken Norton did, and he provides a fascinating account of the “due diligence” trip to Enron’s facilities. 

In his own words: “I was a 28 year-old kid from Buffalo, New York.  I’d never been on a private jet.  I couldn’t contain my excitement.” As CTO of NBCi he met Jeff Skilling and other Exec’s who put up a dazzling dog-and-pony show to impress their visitors with just how powerful their broadband brokerage business was.

There was only one problem with the business: it didn’t exist. Yet it was fluffy enough to double Enron’s market valuation in six weeks.

A fascinating piece to read the day after Jeff Skilling’s Day at Court.  (Ken, you owe me half an hour of my life spent on unplanned reading )

Also read:

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Filed Under: Business, Misc ·
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SVASE VC Breakfast Club with Cardinal Venture Capital

Posted on April 10, 2006 ·

I’ll be moderating another SVASE  VC Breakfast Club session on Thursday, April 13th in San Jose.  It’s an informal round-table where up to 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.

Thursday’s featured VC is Joyce Chung, General Partner, Cardinal Venture Capital. The Zvents post  has all the info and a map, but please remember to click through to register either from zvents or directly here.  

These sessions are an incredible opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to a VC Partners.   Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:

  • It’s a pressure-free environment, with no Powerpoint presentations, Business Plans…etc,  just casual conversation, but it does not mean you should come unprepared!
  • Bring an Executive Summary, some VC’s like it, others don’t.
  • Follow a structure, don’t just talk freely about what you would like to do, or even worse, spend all your time describing the problem, without addressing what your solution is.
  • Don’t forget “small things” like the Team, Product, Market..etc.
  • It would not hurt to mention how much you are looking for, and how you would use the funds…
  • Write down and practice your pitch, be ready to deliver a compelling story in 5 minutes.  You will have more time, but believe me, whatever your practice time was, when you are on the spot, you will likely take twice as long to deliver your story.
  • Last, but not least, please be on time!  I am not kidding… some of you know why I have to even bring this up.

See you on Thursday! Zbutton

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Filed Under: Bay Area, Business, Social Networking, Startups ·
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May Rossfield on Manage Knowledgement

Posted on April 10, 2006 ·

.setis MK eht lla pu gnirb ti ees dna ,tnemegdelwonK eganaM elgoog tsuj tub ,mret eht denioc eh eveileb yam ssoR

.sevitnecni laicos no desab ,etubirtnoc ,erahs ,etaroballoc :ytivitca tuo fo trap tnerehni na s’ti )egdelwonk tcartxe ot IA gniylppa ,smrof gnillif ( thguohtretfa na fo daetsnI .skrow tey sdrowkcab s’taht )tnemeganaM egdelwonK( MK fo yaw a sa tnemegdelwonK eganaM tuoba sklat dleifyaM ssoR.

.noitalsnart eht s’ereh ,siht gnidaer ytluciffid evah uoy dluohS

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Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Humor, Personal Productivity, Social Networking ·
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If You Thought Your Phone Bill Was High …

Posted on April 10, 2006 ·

… then what should the recipient of 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) Telecom Malaysia bill think?

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Filed Under: Misc ·
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What’s the Big Fuss About the Exit Exams?

Posted on April 10, 2006 ·

(Updated)
From the Merc: “In what could become the first school-based rebellion against the state’s high-stakes high school exit exam law, one of the Bay Area’s largest school districts is considering awarding diplomas to seniors who have failed the exam but are otherwise qualified to graduate”   

  • What exactly does “otherwise qualified” mean? 

“There’s a whole group of kids who are working really hard and, for whatever reason, can’t pass this exam,” 

  • Working hard is nice but not enough …

“Most of all, students realize that having a diploma is key to better job prospects. If you want a decent job, the diploma opens doors.”

  • So it’s about entitlement?  We deserve a diploma so we get better jobs.. even if we can’t pass a very basic exam?

I just don’t get it.  There is a competitive world out there, at the end of High School it’s about high time (pun intended) to learn that achievement is what gets rewarded, not sitting through all these years.

Related posts:

Update (4/12):  Why Johnny cannot get a tech job – a good example by Vinnie on what happens when we “pump out” high school graduates without proper educational achievements.

Update (8/11):  Appeals court refuses diplomas for 20,000 who failed exit exam (SFGate, hat tip: Jeff Nolan). Justice Ruvolo:  “A high school diploma is not an education, any more than a birth certificate is a baby.’’

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Filed Under: Business, Misc, Politics ·
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I’m Topping Yahoo News (?)

Posted on April 9, 2006 ·

No way .. that can’t be  – that’s what I thought when my visitor log showed Yahoo News as referrer. 

Clicking the link explains it all:  Yahoo News Search also displays relevant blog posts in the sidebar.  I wrote a piece about the elections in Hungary – not so much about the elections or the political situation but the fact that the incumbent Premier blogs daily.. for all I know he could be the first Head of Government doing so. 

Apparently the Hungarian elections are not the most talked about topic in the blogosphere, so my obscure little piece got listed right next to AP, AFP, UPI  … so there’s my 5 minutes (1 hour?) of fame.  

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Filed Under: Blogging, Misc, Politics ·
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The Blogging Prime Minister

Posted on April 8, 2006 ·

How many Heads of Government are known to be bloggers?    Hungarian Premier Ferenc Gyurcsany may be the first one.  The country is preparing for parliamentary elections this Sunday, and the incumbent’s move to start his blog several months ago turns out to be smart in many ways.

It’s all about getting close, personal: the occasional TV-interview at their private home, with kids running around always boosts politician’s ratings, but how often can they do it?   Gyurcsany talks to tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users every day on his personal blog.  His readers now know his family, they know about his son’s football accident, about his dog breaking expensive china ..etc – considering that polls show this election to be extremely tight, for the undecided voter it may just come down to this level of “personalization”.

Starting the blog was a perfect coup, putting his opponent in a rather inconvenient situation: if he starts his own blog, he’s a copycat, if he doesn’t (which is what he chose), he clearly sends at least tens of thousands of undecided voters to the incumbent’s way.  

Tomorrow we’ll see how it worked.  I certainly hope the blog will not die after the elections, independent of the results – in fact I hope this will set a precedent for other Heads of Government.

Update (4/13):  The Premier’s party won the first rounds in the elections.

Update (9/20): German Chancellor Angela Merkel started videoblogging.  Btw, the Blogma post incorrectly identifies Merkel Head of State.  Germany has a (largely ceremonial)  Head of State, the Chancellor runs the Government.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Politics ·
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Re: Censoring Blog Comments

Posted on April 7, 2006 ·

Nick Carr  received an offensive comment which another reader asked him to remove. His response:
“My policy is to let idiots speak freely. It makes them easier to spot.” 

I like that policy. Vinnie further laments on the ethics of deleting / censoring comments, and  invites reader feedback on what the right approach is:

  1. Avoid blogging about political or controversial topics in first place
  2. Moderate comments and delete the offending comment
  3. Email back to commenter to re-post using cleaner language
  4. Delete the offending comment when the second reader protested
  5. Let comment stay and react like Nick did

I generally favor #5, the only comments I delete are the obvious spam, of which I have my fair share.  As a matter of fact the only truly hateful comment I’ve received was such a “masterpiece” that I elevated it to the rank of a post: Anonymous Hate Commenter.

That said, while 5 is my choice, I think 2,3,4 are equally acceptable.  We’re not a public service, but individuals who decided to share our views via blogging, and it’s perfectly right to try and maintain a certain standard – again, what that standard should be is up to the author.

#1 is a bit different in my mind.  I would not avoid blogging about political or controversial topics only to avoid conflict.  But it may be advisable to maintain a certain professional or other focus.  It’s an editorial choice.  Personally I mix software, politics, humor, and whatever I feel is interesting, although I try to stay close to software.  I actually believe this “mix” brings me closer to my readers, revealing some of my personality. I definitely enjoy reading these tidbits on other blogs.    For many “pro” bloggers staying focused is the right way though, but again, this is a business / content decision, not conflict avoidance.  Some of the focused pro bloggers decided to create sidekick blogs, specifically for these random musings, without clobbering their main blog.

Update (4/15): Robert Scoble decided to moderate comments from now on.  The Blogosphere reacts:  Kent Newsome, Eric Eggertson, Mini-Microsoft, Damien Mulley …etc. 

 

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Filed Under: Blogging ·
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New Trackback Spam Tactics?

Posted on April 7, 2006 ·

So new, I don’t even understand it. Here’s a trackback I received to one of my posts several months ago:

this is very good
Posted on this is very good  on Fri Apr 07 00:46:58 PDT 2006

good related article

As you may have noticed, the URL points to www.yahoo.com.  There is no other hidden url or any other code – so what’t the point?  Who benefits from this? 

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Filed Under: Blogging ·
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Software 2006: Questioning the McKinsey Study

Posted on April 7, 2006 ·

(Updated)
McKinsey and Company in collaboration with the Sand Hill Group, organizer of the Software 2006 Conference released their Industry Study (pdf) that I have to take issue with. (yes, I know, who am I to disagree with McKinsey?)

“Business Model Discontinuity: Software as a Service (SaaS) and Open Source. Two major business models are vying for an growing share of software spend: Software as a Service and Open Source. …SaaS has already gained traction in number of application areas – such as payroll, human capital management, CRM, conferencing, procurement, logistics, information services, and e-commerce) – and should make gains across a much broader cross-section of applications over the next 3 years. Out of 34 application areas we have examined, only nine are unlikely to see some SaaS adoption over through 2008”

Apparently McKinsey tells us that Financial Applications are the back-office function most unlikely to see SaaS adoption for years to come. Hm … I know the trendy app now is CRM, but there were widely-used web-based packages long before CRM. Intuit, NetSuite (originally NetLedger), Intacct, 24SevenOffice, WinWeb ..just to name a few.

Perhaps these companies can jump in here, and tell us what they think of McKinsey’s prediction that SaaS will not take off for financial apps?

Update (4/7): Dennis Howlett has a really good point bringing up Document Management, the other “unlikely” area per McKinsey. As to confidentiality concerns: the numbers in the financial apps are the result of real business activity that may very well have been in other hosted systems, e.g. CRM, Procurement..etc. Document Management? Oh, well, our external interaction is often on hosted platforms (email), sales contracts are largely in hosted systems (CRM)… I could go on.
Interestingly enough businesses lost more confidential data stored “safely” inside the firewall due to disgruntled ex-employees than due to “exposure” to SaaS providers.

But the point I made about Accounting systems, that this isn’t subject to predictions, it’s already happening, or has happened largely: accounting was available On-Demand before CRM was “born”.

Update (5/31): New McKinsey paper bullish about SaaS model. (hat tip: Nick Carr. Free registration required to read).

Update (8/17): Dennis points us at Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Software as a Service.

“On-Demand Financial Management Applications and On-Demand Sales Force Automation are said to be at the peak.”

Interesting. McKinsey says it’s not coming for years, Gartner says it’s already at the peak. Go figure …

Related posts:


Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, SaaS, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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