On a panel at NYU last month someone asked how to make sure that having VCs on the board actually adds value. Other than saying “make sure you have the right VCs,” I thought it might be a good idea to start a series of posts addressing this question more broadly, that is, how to make sure your board is effective (independent of whether there are any VCs on it). Without further ado, here is Tip #1: communicate with individual board members outside of board meetings. Groups have their own dynam...

On a panel at NYU last month someone asked how to make sure that having VCs on the board actually adds value. Other than saying “make sure you have the right VCs,” I thought it might be a good idea to start a series of posts addressing this question more broadly, that is, how to make sure your board is effective (independent of whether there are any VCs on it). Without further ado, here is Tip #1: communicate with individual board members outside of board meetings. Groups have their own dynam...

A long long time ago, when I was a management consultant, I did a strategy project for a large European IT company. At the same time this company was going through a “Culture Change” project with the idea of transforming itself into a fast and nimble “US like” culture, instead of its existing plodding and slow ways. The “Culture Change” project was huge and cost a small fortune. It involved a great many retreats, offsites, team activities, slogans, and so on. It went on for well over one year...

A long long time ago, when I was a management consultant, I did a strategy project for a large European IT company. At the same time this company was going through a “Culture Change” project with the idea of transforming itself into a fast and nimble “US like” culture, instead of its existing plodding and slow ways. The “Culture Change” project was huge and cost a small fortune. It involved a great many retreats, offsites, team activities, slogans, and so on. It went on for well over one year...

In the mid 1990s at MIT, I spent quite a bit of time with Michael Dertouzos because we were both doing some consulting for Siemens Corporation’s IT division. Michael was heading up the Laboratory of Computer Science at MIT, which combined with the AI Lab is now MIT CSAIL. Michael was great at many things that made LCS a big success, including fund raising and attracting and supporting top talent. He was also a very quirky thinker. If you want to know just how quirky, ask me some day about his...

In the mid 1990s at MIT, I spent quite a bit of time with Michael Dertouzos because we were both doing some consulting for Siemens Corporation’s IT division. Michael was heading up the Laboratory of Computer Science at MIT, which combined with the AI Lab is now MIT CSAIL. Michael was great at many things that made LCS a big success, including fund raising and attracting and supporting top talent. He was also a very quirky thinker. If you want to know just how quirky, ask me some day about his...

Yesterday evening, NY Tech Meetup and CEA LineShows organized an event to pick a startup that would receive a free booth at the next CES. I don’t know how the presenting companies were chosen, but whoever did the initialy seleciton did a wonderful job of representing the diversity and accomplishment of NY startups. There was both hardware (Peek and MakerBot) and software/service (Livestream, Aviary, drop.io). There were all levels of funding from bootstrapped ramen-fed MakerBot to double-digi...

Yesterday evening, NY Tech Meetup and CEA LineShows organized an event to pick a startup that would receive a free booth at the next CES. I don’t know how the presenting companies were chosen, but whoever did the initialy seleciton did a wonderful job of representing the diversity and accomplishment of NY startups. There was both hardware (Peek and MakerBot) and software/service (Livestream, Aviary, drop.io). There were all levels of funding from bootstrapped ramen-fed MakerBot to double-digi...

Fred posted on the weekend about giving Bing a chance. I am doing the same this week having set Bing as the default search engine in Firefox. My main reason is that I firmly believe in the need for search diversity. A search mono-culture would be bad for the Internet for several reasons:Too much power. Search is so central to the web experience that it provides a lot of power. That power should not be concentrated in a single player with a very high market share. I am not suggesting that Goog...

Fred posted on the weekend about giving Bing a chance. I am doing the same this week having set Bing as the default search engine in Firefox. My main reason is that I firmly believe in the need for search diversity. A search mono-culture would be bad for the Internet for several reasons:Too much power. Search is so central to the web experience that it provides a lot of power. That power should not be concentrated in a single player with a very high market share. I am not suggesting that Goog...

We love investing in small and scrappy teams, but I have noticed a distinct anti-pattern that has affected many of these teams: as their site or service grows they neglect ops and it comes back to bite them. I believe the source of this pattern is twofold. First, many folks today are perfectly capable doing a fair bit of ops themselves because they have had to do it and also because there is just a ton of information available on the web. I find myself doing that when I help Susan with DailyL...

We love investing in small and scrappy teams, but I have noticed a distinct anti-pattern that has affected many of these teams: as their site or service grows they neglect ops and it comes back to bite them. I believe the source of this pattern is twofold. First, many folks today are perfectly capable doing a fair bit of ops themselves because they have had to do it and also because there is just a ton of information available on the web. I find myself doing that when I help Susan with DailyL...

I have been thinking about how our past experience can blind us to the potential of new technologies to provide a breakthrough experience. My favourite example is 3D movies. I remember the early versions that required red and blue glasses and delivered a horrendous image quality. Then there were the ridiculously bulky and heavy glasses used in IMAX 3D. Each time there were two reactions. First, 3D is not working. Second, who needs 3D in movies anyhow? The early failures made a lot of people g...

I have been thinking about how our past experience can blind us to the potential of new technologies to provide a breakthrough experience. My favourite example is 3D movies. I remember the early versions that required red and blue glasses and delivered a horrendous image quality. Then there were the ridiculously bulky and heavy glasses used in IMAX 3D. Each time there were two reactions. First, 3D is not working. Second, who needs 3D in movies anyhow? The early failures made a lot of people g...

Starting the middle of last year, I thought it would be great to have a competitor to the iphone that would make it easy to create web based applications that can fully exploit the capabilities of a smartphone. I therefore started rooting for Palm as soon as they showed the Pre at CES at the beginning of this year. Well, the Pre is arriving tomorrow and the reviews by Mossberg, Pogue, Engadget et al suggest that it could actually be a contender. Of course there are some issues, such as the me...

Starting the middle of last year, I thought it would be great to have a competitor to the iphone that would make it easy to create web based applications that can fully exploit the capabilities of a smartphone. I therefore started rooting for Palm as soon as they showed the Pre at CES at the beginning of this year. Well, the Pre is arriving tomorrow and the reviews by Mossberg, Pogue, Engadget et al suggest that it could actually be a contender. Of course there are some issues, such as the me...

So I must be missing something big here, because it seems that this should not be an issue in 2009. Susan is fully on a Mac using the iCal app. When she sends me an invite, it shows up in Outlook on my end sort of looking like one, but when I click on the attached .ics file, the Accept, Reject, etc buttons are greyed out (for those of you wanting details, this is Outlook 2007, Service Pack 2 running under Parallels on a Mac). I did a bunch of searching around without finding an easy solution....

So I must be missing something big here, because it seems that this should not be an issue in 2009. Susan is fully on a Mac using the iCal app. When she sends me an invite, it shows up in Outlook on my end sort of looking like one, but when I click on the attached .ics file, the Accept, Reject, etc buttons are greyed out (for those of you wanting details, this is Outlook 2007, Service Pack 2 running under Parallels on a Mac). I did a bunch of searching around without finding an easy solution....

As part of Internet week, there is an event tonight organized by SoundCtrl to talk about music and the net. Here is what I am planning to say at the event: The other day my 9-year old daughter came up to me and said “Daddy, when you were a kid, what were your favorite web sites?" I had to tell her that when I was young there was no Internet. She looked at me as if I were putting her on. She simply could not imagine that all this information, all these web sites, just did not exist at all. I t...

As part of Internet week, there is an event tonight organized by SoundCtrl to talk about music and the net. Here is what I am planning to say at the event: The other day my 9-year old daughter came up to me and said “Daddy, when you were a kid, what were your favorite web sites?" I had to tell her that when I was young there was no Internet. She looked at me as if I were putting her on. She simply could not imagine that all this information, all these web sites, just did not exist at all. I t...