Mon 12 Nov 2007

Of Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Gmail, and Startups

Posted by jtmcarthur under Startups, Technology
[2] Comments

I received the following message this weekend:

I received a failed delivery message because your mailbox was full. Here’s the email again. 

Mike

The failed delivery message to my potential client was courtesy of my internet service provider that provides my corporate email. Luckily this potential client also knew my personal gmail address and forwarded his company overview to that address for my review.  Shame on me.  I had not cleared Outlook or my corporate email service from the last 3 months of emails.  Yes, that’s right, 3 months. (more…)

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Fri 9 Nov 2007

The Challenging Road: Tomorrow Will be A Better Day

Posted by jtmcarthur under Startups, Storage and Data Management, Technology
1 Comment

I just finished re-reading “The Challenging Road, Nidec Policy and Nagamori-ism.”  Unfortunately, you probably can’t find a copy, at least not in the U.S.  I’ve checked eBay, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and there are no copies available.  I got my copy from Crawford Del Prete, who befriended Yoichi Ichikawa, the former Executive Advisor to Shigenobu Nagamori, the CEO of Nidec Corporation, over the course of numerous trips to Japan. I assume that Crawford must have received several copies of Nagamori-san’s book,  because I know Crawford kept at least one, and I and several of my former colleagues each received a cherished copy from Crawford.  As I’ve started my own company, many of the policies and much of the philosophy have been very helpful.  But I would also like to share the ideas with the founders of some of the startups that I meet. So, Nagamori-san, if you are reading this, please let me know how I can get additional copies. (more…)

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Thu 8 Nov 2007

Business Networking: I Forgot about Xing

Posted by jtmcarthur under Communities, Security, Startups
Comments Off on Business Networking: I Forgot about Xing

In all of my excitement about Facebook, I forgot to mention Xing, to which I was introduced by Billa Bhandari, who is CEO of Akoura.  Akoura offers some interesting security software.   If you use Akoura’s DataSecure product, you get a perfect excuse to use the word “obfuscation” in polite conversation.  DataSecure is a software product that, in the company’s words, “protects information through the use (of) unique obfuscation technology and strong authentication that transforms any sensitive information into plausible covers.”   Personally, I’m interested in both obfuscation and plausible covers.  I have a feeling that there are some government agencies similarly interested.

I first met Billa, when he and I worked at State Street Bank.   I’ve posted a profile on Xing, and I like the way in which it visually shows you how you are connected to other people, but I am a long way from being a heavy user.  OK, I only have one connection, which is Billa.  But Billa is connected to over 2000 people at last count, so Billa’s a good person to know.  Which reminds me, I owe him a call.

Are any of you using Xing?

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Wed 7 Nov 2007

Look Who's on Facebook!

Posted by jtmcarthur under Communities, Startups, Technology
1 Comment

I was an early user of online business-networking sites, but have until recently avoided the social-networking sites.  So what exactly would induce a 50-something, former storage analyst to join Facebook?  To hang out with some storage geeks, of course.  Turns out there are several storage-related groups on Facebook.  Here are a couple: 

The names are pretty familiar to those of us who have been around the storage industry.  What surprised me most about joining Facebook was to see who else was already there.  Sure, I found the storage geeks. But I also found some stoggier investor types and business executives mixed in with the edgier and younger folks I expected to find.  Finding my 20-something nephews in Facebook was not a surprise. (more…)

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Sat 3 Nov 2007

The World's Leading Expert or The Best Expert Money Can Buy

Posted by jtmcarthur under Funding, Marketing, Startups
Comments Off on The World's Leading Expert or The Best Expert Money Can Buy

Back-of-the-napkin analysis isn’t good enough for some people, as one friend illustrated, when after my last post he sent me this link to an available research report on Ice Cream in the USA to 2011.  This report, which provides volume, value, share and per-capita consumption analysis across four categories of ice cream, confirms once again what my brother, Ken, has said, “If you focus narrowly enough, and study intensely enough for a few weeks, you can become the world’s leading expert on a topic.”  If the availability of this 120-page, 530 Euro report isn’t enough to prove Ken’s claim, note on the weblink the assertion that “Customers who bought this report also bought Ice Cream in Pakistan to 2011 and Ice Cream in Argentina to 2011.   Having been to Argentina and observed the beauty of the country, I had been hoping to become the world’s leading expert on ice cream consumption in the country. Alas, the job has been taken.  I guess I will need to focus more narrowly.  Perhaps I’ll focus on the per-capita consumption of 18 oz. Porterhouse steaks.  You wouldn’t believe how much meat they eat in Argentina. In the meantime, I’m wondering, if I can get a discount on a three-country ice cream report bundle. (more…)

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Fri 2 Nov 2007

Back of the Napkin Analysis

Posted by jtmcarthur under Product development, Startups
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When I was interviewing candidates for analyst positions at my former employer, I would often engage in a friendly exercise of “cognitive estimation.”  We all use cognitive estimation  to answer a question, when the exact answer is unknowable, or difficult to know without expensive or difficult measurement.  Clinical neuropsychologists use normed tests of cognitive estimation to evaluate the impact of brain injury, dementia,  and Alzheimer’s disease in patients.  Back at the market research company, I made up my own examples to assess the “common sense” and thinking process of applicants. Here’s an example: 

“How many gallons of ice cream were sold in Massachusetts in the month of July, 2007?”  

You could spend a lot of money with research houses, point-of-sale tracking systems, or field observers, and come up with some rather precise numbers.  Or you could take the total number of Massachusetts residents, multiply by some reasonable estimate of daily ice cream consumption on warm days (something more than a spoonful and less than a quart, I’d guess) and multiply that by 31 days, and get to a good-enough, back-of-the-napkin answer.  This back-of-the-napkin analysis is exactly what seems to be missing in some startups, and it’s exactly the kind of analysis that marketing needs to be doing before product development engages too much engineering talent.

(more…)

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Tue 30 Oct 2007

Immutable Marketing Laws

Posted by jtmcarthur under Marketing, Storage and Data Management
1 Comment

I ran into one of my acquaintances at Storage Networking World, and as we talked about the marketing needs of one of my clients, he suggested a book called “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.”  He promised it was a quick read, so, on his recommendation, I ordered it from the local Barnes and Noble.  It’s got a 4-stars reader ranking on Amazon, but in keeping with the theme of “you can’t please all people,” the 100+ comments range from, “If an entrepreneur or sales person reads only one book on marketing, this would be it.” to “…there are a few small pearls to be gathered, but digging through the muck to find them makes them difficult to spot.”  The book was published in 1994, so some of the examples are a bit dated, but it is interesting to see how the authors’ predictions played out.  My favorite was the decline of Sears, which in a bit of irony merged with Kmart.

(more…)

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Wed 24 Oct 2007

And Still More on Product Development

Posted by jtmcarthur under Product development
1 Comment

My early-October blog entry on market development has sparked a good number of responses, but all through e-mail.  Again, I’m going to pass along an anonymous comment that came in last week, while I was in Dallas at Storage Networking World.  Here it is, unedited… (more…)

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Tue 2 Oct 2007

Point-CounterPoint: A Reader Responds on Product Development

Posted by jtmcarthur under Product development
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Thanks to the miracle of RSS readers, one of my readers was alerted to and then responded to yesterday’s post.  Though it would have been nice to have him post it directly in the comments section, he did give me permission to republish his comments.  So here it is, name withheld, formatted, but otherwise unabridged: (more…)

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Mon 1 Oct 2007

Who Should Drive Product Development?

Posted by jtmcarthur under Product development
1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about this question more and more lately.  Who should drive product development?  Personally, I see three possibilities, and, in my opinion, only one is correct:

  1. Sales
  2. Engineering
  3. Marketing

For the most part, I tend to think of these issues for technology companies, since that’s the area where I work. But I could as easily ask this question in the restaurant business, though I would substitute “the chef” for “engineering.”   In fact, let me do that, just in case one of my technology clients, through their own self evaluation, thinks they recognize themselves in the example and mistakenly thinks I’m criticizing them personally.

(more…)

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