I’ll admit that I have a bit of a complex about business schools. I never went (sorry – no “Seth J. Levine, MBA” on my business card . . . ) – probably because all of the schools I wanted to go to wouldn’t accept me for college, so I don’t see any reason to give them money for business school. Plus it was the rock and roll late 90’s and I still had dreams of getting rich in the internet bubble (which I did not, although I do continue to receive class action notices for various companies whose stock I owned at the time, much to my amusement). So with that as my clear bias, I have a pet peeve to share with you. I understand why many business schools are named after rich donors (in the same way that many cultural institutions have wings or buildings named after people who gave money in support of them), but why is it that someone tells you where they went to business school, they never actually tell you the name of the school the went to? I think it must be like a fraternity handshake – referring to schools in code. Personally, I think it’s annoying. No one went to Dartmouth – they went to “Tuck”; same is true for UVA (“Darden”); ditto Penn (“Wharton” – this one is even used by undergrads who studied business there); the list goes on. Even schools whose name is in the name of their business school name have to use code (does anyone say they went to business school at Harvard? No – they went to “HBS”). My all time favorite is Stanford. No one goes to Stanford business school – they went to GSB (which is short for Graduate School of Business – said in a way to indicate that really, this is the only graduate school of business in the country worthy of having gone to, so why identify the actual school – everyone will understand). I think I’m going to start telling people who ask that I went to BSOTDCB (business school of the dot com bubble), and then look at them with a blank stare when they ask me what that stands for (and in “DUH. Don’t you already know?”).

This post is part of my ongoing series about mergers and acquisitions. You can take a look at the rest of my m&a posts here. So – you have a term sheet/letter of intent/memorandum of understanding fresh off your e-mail from the other party (this could for be an acquisition, partnership,  join venture, financing, etc.). Now what? If you follow standard operating procedure you’l  call your lawyer, mark up the draft and send some kind of response back to the other side. Sounds logical, but you’re missing a key step. I wrote a post a few months back about the importance of listening when you are around the negotiating table.  The same is true before you even get to that step, however. Perhaps the most important step in any transaction is calling up the party you are dealing with and asking them to walk you through their term sheet. You’ll be tempted to start negotiating on this call, but don’t. Just listen to what they have to say. Sure they may position a little bit or try to get you to agree to certain terms (don’t do that, by the way – tell them you’re just here to listen so you fully understand the deal they are offering), but you’ll get lots of great information about what’s important to them and what is less important. Perhaps they’ll even give on some terms (a very common occurrence).

You will almost always be in a better position after this call to formulate your negotiating strategy. Remember – all information is power in a negotiation. And knowing where you are starting from serves as the framework for the entire process.

Here’s a different view of venture capital – from someone who has clearly seen quite a bit.  Very amusing!  Be sure to check out the worst ever VC names.

(from Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed)

Maybe this is the reason for so many amusing company names.

It’s funny that network news programs remain popular. Why get your news from such a limited source – and to boot, one that knows nothing about what you’re really interested in? Take, for example, the nightly reporting of the Dow and Nasdaq. Is that actually relevant to most people’s lives? The answer is no – but it’s a proxy for something more specific that you’d otherwise want but the new isn’t in a position to give you. Same thing with the news – you don’t really get what you want, but it serves a proxy for what you do.

Not for long . . .

I guess it was inevitable – the government started selling the long bond again today. First time since 2001. Guess that’s what deficit spending leads to . . .

I’ve put up a back page on my blog where I can play around with new stuff — called etcetera. There’s a permanent link to it just below the ‘e-mail me’ on the top of the left nav bar.

I’m just starting to put some things up (tag cloud, a swicki and my del.icio.us cloud). If you bump into stuff that looks fun, send me a note about it. I’ll put up some reminder posts as I populate the page with new ideas.

Check out the 10 mph project. I bumped into them when they passed through my neighborhood (attracted by its funky architecture and bright colors). They spent a couple of months traveling across the country on Segways and filming their experiences. Browsing their site is a kick. You can also check out a clip from their video by clicking on the big ‘trailer’ link at the top of the page.

It’s a great reminder that slowing down often gives you a completely new perspective.

I had a chance to sit through the practice session for a handful of the companies that are presenting at this year’s VC in the Rockies conference (not too late to register, by the way – it’s a great showcase of Colorado venture deals, not to mention world class skiing). Many of them had one common trait: they sucked at actually describing what it is their business does. Som  just seemed to forget to mention it, while others appeared to try, but either get bogged down in the complexity of it or just fell short of the mark.  This was surprising but amazingly consistent. Maybe they had all practiced their pitch too much or perhaps they were just too close to their company to be objective about how people hear their business description, but whatever the reason I found myself scratching my head and wondering how it could be that we were on slide 8 without any real idea of exactly what the presenting company did.

In the first minute of your presentation you absolutely, positively need to tell your listener what you do. This should be a description that your grandmother understands and should take you only a few sentences. Try practicing on the guy at the coffee shop or your neighbor.

For my complete view on venture presentations, see “How to put together a good venture presentation” from last January.

Newmerix CTO Niel Robertson has an excellent (and amusing) post that tries to decipher all the spin coming out of Oracle about their Fusion platform (they are 1/2 way to completing it towards a release date in 2008, although with the PR energy they are putting behind their recent Fusion “update” event in San Francisco you’d think they actually had some real news to share . . .).

Here’s a link to Niel’s post – I pity the fool.

Note: you know this because they are listed in the sidebar on my blog, but just in case – Mobius is an investor in Newmerix.