Feeling Less Like a Luddite: Welcome, Lijit! As I’ve written about a few times (here, here, and here), it’s easy to feel like a Luddite with the rapid pace of change of the web these days. Anyway, I’m feeling slightly less like one today with the addition of Lijit to my blog. You’ll notice that I changed the search box from Google to Lijit on the right hand side of the page on OnlyOnce. Lijit seems like it’s a better way to search a blog, and maybe other things as well. Using Lijit, you can search not just the text of the blog itself (which is what Google allowed), but Lijit also goes out and searches a few other buckets…
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Leaders Discredited from Leading?
Leaders Discredited from Leading? In Bill McCloskey’s Email Insider column on Mediapost today (hopefully the link will work; sometimes Mediapost isn’t open if you’re not a subscriber), he decries the lack of passion and industry evangelists in the email marketing space and compares it to the search world with at least one example involving Dave Pasternack, co-founder and president of Did-It. He then goes on to say that there are a few evangelists in the email world, but that two of us — myself and Rich Gingras, CEO of Goodmail, don’t count because we “have a vested interest in being passionate.” While I appreciate Bill’s main point and appreciate his recognizing that I do evangelize our space and am passionate…
Staying Power
Staying Power I interview a lot of people. We are hiring a ton at Return Path, and I am still able to interview all finalists for jobs, and frequently I interview multiple candidates if it’s a senior role. I probably interviewed 60 people last year and will do at least that many this year. I used to be surprised when a resume had an average job tenure of 2 years on it — now, the job market is so fluid that I am surprised when I see a resume that only has one or two employers listed. But even the dynamic of long-term employment, as rare as it is, has changed. My good friend Christine, who was a pal in…
Whiplash at Google, Part II
Whiplash at Google, Part II My former colleague Brian Westnedge points me to this article that gives more detail on my earlier notes about Google’s very large NYC-based engineering team. The article also provides a good general assessment of NYC as a location for tech companies. Thanks, Brian!
Stuck in the Middle
Stuck in the Middle I was trying to explain the current state of Return Path’ Postmaster Network online advertising business (email lists, lead gen, RSS) to someone from outside the industry the other day, when it occurred to me that many online marketing vehicles are still split between running on the offline paradigm and running on the online paradigm. I don’t have a lot of detailed stats on all of this at my fingertips, but bear with my observations. To me, the offline paradigm has always been characterized by big agency buys, driven by thematic/brand oriented creative campaigns that cost a fortune to develop. This is even true to a large extent for direct marketing, although the mechanics are different. …
links for 2006-10-06
Feld Thoughts: Falling Down and Getting Back Up Brad’s colorful, quick posting on “how running is like entrepreneurship.” (tags: Entrepreneur VC)
links for 2006-08-17
Fractals of Change: Are You an Entrepreneur? Tom Evslin’s entertaining Top 10 Ways You Know You’re an Entrepreneur. Some may dovetail nicely if I ever write up my read of The Fountainhead through entrepreneurial lens! (tags: Entrepreneur VC)
The Same, But Different
The Same, But Different Mariquita and I spent several hours on the dueling laptops this evening. It turned out, we were both working on OD things (Organization Development). Mariquita’s project, for her Masters’ Program at Amercan U — was writing a lengthy paper on data collection and feedback as a major function of OD, as applied to a specific case of a startup going through growing pains (not Return Path…a case given by the teacher). Her main comment — “they’ve got problems, man.” I was working on an overhaul of Return Path’s management structure and what I call M/O/S (management operating system), based on the results of this year’s 360 Review process. My main comment — “we’ve got problems, man.” …
links for 2006-07-29
Techdirt: India Says No Thanks To The $100 Laptop It’s kind of a “Let Them Eat Cake!” response — which kind of makes sense, given our recent trip to India. (tags: india Technology)
links for 2006-07-27
The dangers of relying on collective intelligence revealed! Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored (From The Onion — hilarious) (tags: Humor Social_Networking wikipedia Technology history onion)
links for 2006-07-25
A VC: Scars From The Last Bubble Fred has a good posting on some of the downsides of having managed through the bubble bursting. I wrote about this (a little bit) last year in Ratcheting Up is Hard to Do (/2005/01/ratcheting_up_i.html), but Fred’s posti (tags: Entrepreneur VC Management)