Power Pal

I found this opinion piece ( Democrats aren't innocent bystanders ) interesting on how both Democrats and Republicans share responsibility for polarizing the electorate and undermining some of its faith in democracy. It references two other posts that were pretty good as well: The Disease of Delegitimization The Weimarization of the American Republic The second article is really long and heavy on history.  But given all of the comparisons people make between the current times and those of post-WWI Germany, I found it interesting to dive in to understand where the comparisons are coming from and how close we really are.  The short answer is that we aren't that close (phew). Seems like post-WWI Germany was incredibly fragile.  This was a good excerpt that summarized it: So, unlike the 60s, you have a dynamic in which both sides are behaving like radicals, in which the establishment isn’t yelling “stop,” and in which oikophobia is more evenly distributed, relative to its Boo...

I read the book The Four Steps to the Epiphany about two and half years ago and was convinced that I would revisit the book in the coming years (see my earlier post  where I summarized my initial thoughts on it).  Based on some current thinking I'm doing about new market entry, it seemed like the right time to do that.  As I'm re-reading the book, I'm taking some more detailed notes and thought I'd post them here for reference.  Apologies for them being a bit terse. So, to start, why the customer development model instead of the traditional product development model ? Primary risks in entering any market: do you understand the customers’ needs? do you understand the basis for competition in this market? will those customers purchase and adopt? Traditional approaches are terribly inefficient and often lead to disaster traditional product development model concept/seed vision what’s the product? (features, feasibility) who are the customers? (mark...

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an...

I just finished a great book on product design called The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper . Computers have really reached into every aspect of our daily lives. Whether in the bedroom, kitchen, automobile, office, or on the go in our cell phones, a computer is present behind the scenes. The problem, Cooper argues, is how horrible the interactions are with the vast majority of those devices and software programs. Not just the interfaces, but the entire interaction. And it's these horrible interactions that are generating a digital divide across the world between those that put the time in to accommodate and learn the poor design ( apologists ) and those that just suffer silently ( survivors ). I'm certainly not a stranger to some of the concepts around design. I studied human computer interaction while I was at Berkeley, tasking several classes in user-centered design, UI design, and usability and even did a research project on an alternative handwriting reco...

When I visited FlightCaster over spring break as part of the Duke Week-in-Cities trip, Jason Freedman (founder and CEO) suggested that we all read The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank . FlightCaster went through the YCombinator program in 2009 and from what I gathered the book was required reading. I had never even heard of it and it was required reading! I just finished it and I certainly understand why that's the case now. I have to admit the book wasn't necessarily what I expected. It certainly wasn't product management 101. It turned out to be much more about navigating the start-up process rather than specifics about how to design great products. But I can't believe I almost missed out on this one. The book outlines the Customer Development model, a parallel technique to product development that is meant to guide you in the process of iterating and testing each part of your business model until you find one that is repeatable and scalable. The m...

In my continued efforts to learn about the advertising industry, I read a great textbook called Advertising and Promotion, An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective . There are far too many topics to summarize here, so I'll cover my main take-aways. The book covered the integrated marketing planning process and aspects of the promotional mix, including: advertising, direct marketing, interactive and internet marketing, sales promotion, publicity and public relations, and personal selling. The book was well-written, interesting, and included up-to-date anecdotes and stories. It definitely reinforced much of what I learned in brand management and other marketing classes, particularly the marketing planning process. It was a great overview text. A couple of the things I found most interesting (major take-aways): Companies spend an unbelievable amount on advertising and promotion . If you add it all up, companies spend in excess of $1 trillion. U.S. media expenditures al...