John's Music Blog

The truth is that this post is not about entrepreneurs or inventors.   If I really stretch it, maybe this post is for individuals who are looking for opportunities within startups.  It’s definitely for people who think they have spent too long working for one of the bigger systems companies and are now looking for other opportunities in faster-growing, more nimble environments.  It’s for people who were recently laid off, or who are about to be laid off. At any rate, it’s for people looking for the next career opportunity. 

Sometimes, I think I should be in the headhunter business, because I get almost daily calls from truly talented people, who for reasons that sometimes escape me are looking outside their current employer for the next career opportunity.  I guess the reason that I’m not in the headhunter business is that I don’t have as many companies coming to me with good jobs to fill as I do good people coming to me looking for jobs.  Maybe the Tycoon widget from Myndnet, that I added to my Facebook profile will help change that, but I’m not sure yet.  Check it out. (more…)

I can not stress enough the importance for startups of having a good web-hosting service and good web presence.  One mistake that I made in launching Walden Technology Partners, Inc., was in not first hiring a website designer (in our case, my niece), finding a good webhosting provider (in our case, HostMySite) and getting the site up and running from day one, when I changed my LinkedIn profile.

Evolving a blog from one that is a single orator addressing an audience of none into an interactive and supportive community of like-minded entrepreneurs requires some real work.  And I am getting a great deal of advice on the topic.  Here’s a sampling from my expert-in-residence, my brother, Ken.  I received the following advice from him today:

(more…)

The last two weeks have been a bit overwhelming.  As some of you know, I recently made the decision to leave IDC, after 11 very good years.  I gave my notice about six weeks ago, but kept it quiet for two weeks, so that the really-senior management team could work on transition and communication plans.  The announcement went out on Valentine’s Day, and since then, things have been rather frenetic. 

Since I haven’t had a chance to speak with everyone individually, I thought I should take the time in this first blog entry to answer the frequently asked questions.  This will be like the time I tripped over my cat and broke my toe, and the doctor decided that in order to preserve my avocation in hiking, he should cast my foot up to my knee.  Who knew? After repeating the broken-toe story 10 times, I thought it would be easier and I would get more work done, if I just typed up and passed out the answers to the frequently asked questions.  So that’s what I did.

(more…)