Why blog?
Paul Kedrosky writes on his blog: Here is a puzzler: Why are there so many venture capital blogs? It is hard not to notice that there a host of such things out there, from Brad Feld’s to Fred Wilson’s, and everyone in between. Here are five possible hypotheses: 1. Professional service firms are highly branded by individual, so it makes sense to get out there and present yourself as a way of attracting deal flow. …
May 11, 2005· 4 min read
M&A Part II – A few thoughts on negotiating skills
This is the second in a series of posts on the art of mergers and acquisitions. See the first post in the series here. I think the most important part of being an effective negotiator is not being a persuasive talker (although that is a skill that is helpful) – but rather being a very good listener. Its tempting to spend your time in a negotiation thinking about all the great points you can make and concocting elaborate strategies for getting your views across to the other party, but one can’t really do that and effectively hear what someone else is saying at the same time. The best negotiators spend the time when someone else is talking to listen intently to what is being said, knowing that there’s always plenty of time to think about your response after the other side has made its point. Personally I like to take detailed notes ofthe points that are being made – it keeps me focused on the conversation (helpful in long negotiating sessions) and provides me with a record to later use in working on my responses. I also generally don’t like to take a combative approach in negotiating and listening to what people are actually saying lets me better understand what points are truly most important to them and, perhaps more importantly, the rationale behind their thinking. There’s a corollary to this idea that’s equally important. Silence can be your best friend in a negotiation. It’s a natural by-product of listening well (since you won’t necessarily be ready to respond the second someone else stops talking) and something that should be embraced. Interestingly, most people seem to be afraid of long pauses – particularly in rooms full of people. Their natural reaction to this is to try to fill the silence with words, which leads many people to just keep running on if you aren’t talking. This can be a huge advantage – I’ve sat across the table from people I was working on a deal with numerous times and watched them start to back off the positions they had just firmly stated without my ever having to say a word. I like silence in a negotiation – it gives me time to think, to size up what the other side is really saying and to look at their body language (I almost always look directly at the person I’m negotiating with in a pause – it tends to provoke them to keep talking, which generally works in my favor).
May 9, 2005· 2 min read
Factiva says ‘yes’ to RSS
Yesterday Factiva and Newsgator announced a deal that will allow Factiva customers to access their Factiva content via RSS (specifically through Newsgator’s Outlook reader and on-line system). This is a great milestone in the development and adoption of RSS – here’s my take on the deal: First, for those of you who are not familiar with Factiva, it’s a joint venture between Reuters and Dow Jones that provides their users with customizable content (from news articles to D&B reports to other types of company profiles). The idea is to allow their customers to stay up to date on news that is relevant to their business (customers, competitors, etc.). The deal with Newsgator marries specialized and proprietary content (Factiva) with a distribution platform (Newsgator) and is an example of where I think corporations are moving in how they consume information. Interestingly, the partnership came about in part because Factiva CEO Clare Hart was a user of Newsgator (and had been for quite some time) and she quickly recognized its power as a way to distribute information. …
May 5, 2005· 3 min read
The days of yore
Credit to Brad for this one – I had completely forgotten about it when he sent it to me (I waited for him to blog it, but he’s been out of town so I thought I’d put it up). Remember the wayback machine? www.waybackmachine.org. It lets you search for old versions of web sites. Want to know what Yahoo’s site looked like in October of 1996 – here you go . …
May 3, 2005· 1 min read
Taking 100% responsibility one step further
Sandy Hamilton (one of the key execs at Newsgator) did a nice follow-up post to the note I wrote about taking 100% responsibility. In it he talks about what that actually means – how we present ourselves and the importance of taking responsibility not just for what you are saying, but also for what other people are hearing. What a powerful concept. Thanks Sandy for taking this to the next level. In case the link above isn’t working, here’s the full URL of his post: http://sandyhamilton.blogs.com/sandy_hamilton/2005/04/did_i_say_that.html
May 1, 2005· 1 min read
One more reason to like Freakonomics
I forgot to mention this in my post on Freakonomics a couple of day ago. Hold on while I climb onto my soap box [clump] [clump] As if I needed another reason to really like this book, I was happy to note that the authors – Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner – correctly use the word data (as a plural, rather than singular noun). It’s used all over the book and their correct use of the word truly enhanced my reading enjoyment. …
May 1, 2005· 1 min read
Freakonomics
I picked up a copy of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything last night before jumping on a plane. I pretty much devoured it on my flight. While I don’t often write here about books (in fact this may be my first entry on the subject), if you liked Blink or The Tipping Point or are just curious about how the world works, I’d strongly suggest you check this one out. The basic idea of Freakonomics is to use statistical analysis to explore relationships and answer some pretty interestin questions about our world (are swimming pools more dangerous than guns; why do drug dealers live with their mothers; how can we tell if sumo wrestlers cheat; etc). I eat this stuff up (for me its in part the mix of my two college majors – economics and psychology). And, while you may not find every topic explored in the book riveting, I think the broader premise is an important one – by thinking about problems a little differently one can come up with interesting ways of testing theories that would otherwise seem untestable. Perhaps by turning problems slightly askew you can gain a perspective into something that you didn’t think was possible.
April 29, 2005· 1 min read
Your on-line world
Remember The Brain? It was a cool technology for people to map out linkages in their universe. Companies could use it to map out enterprise relationships; individuals could use it to keep track of who knew whom in their universe (a precursor to the social networking concept); they even had some search capabilities that allowed you to view your search results in terms of how they mapped to each other (they call this the WebBrain). Interesting stuff. …
April 29, 2005· 1 min read
What Is Love?
I’ve been asked a bunch what I’ve found most surprising about being a new dad. My wife, Greeley, and I have talked about this a lot as well. I’m thinking about it right now – on a flight and looking through some family pictures on my laptop – and the answer is actually really easy (and I think shared by a lot of parents – at least I know that both Greeley and I feel this way). The love you feel for your child is completely overwhelming – and for me the intensity of it was unexpected. Seriously – it’s totally different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I love my wife very much and in a way that is different from and more intense than I feel about anyone else. But the love you feel for your child is truly transformational. …
April 29, 2005· 2 min read
Catching Up
Nothing like a long, trans-continental flight to give me some time to think and write. I’m having a long travel week (first part of the week in CA and now a trip to Boston for a couple of days), but it’s a productive one. Apologies for being silent for a while – there’s been quite a bit going on. Here’s a quick round-up: Newsgator closed its Series C financing round led by Masthead Venture Partners. David Beisel from Masthead wrote a great post on it here. Here’s also a link to Brad’s post on the subject, which gives a nice background of how this round came together (which I won’t repeat here). Feedburner is growing like crazy (hit the 50,000 feed mark) and recently announced a partnership with 20six (a European blog hosting company) and is in the process of releasing enhanced stats to their site (I’ve been using these for several weeks – they are fantastic). …
April 29, 2005· 2 min read