Category: business
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Summarising Joel on Software
Now that Joel Spolsky has ‘retired’ from blogging at Joel on Software (in the format the site has been known for, at least), Jan Willem Boer is reading the entire back-catalogue of entries and condensing the knowledge within each essay into a single sentence (or two). The result is a stunning list of tips on…
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The Benefits of Side Projects
The creation of 3M’s Scotch Tape, the Declaration of Independence and Metallica: just three of the stories Ben Casnocha retells to show the importance of innovation through side projects. Is giving away a day a week of your employees’ time worth it? Google executives seem to think so. They cite first the enormous goodwill generated internally:…
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When (and When Not) to Consider Venture Capital
On discussing why he and his co-founders are seeking venture capital funding for their programming question and answer site (StackOverflow), Joel Spolsky provides a number of scenarios for when a company should give consideration to VC funding: There’s a land grab going on. There is a provable concept that’s repeatable. The business could benefit from…
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Icon-Based Business Plans
Depending on who you listen to, a business plan is either a waste of your time or an essential document. A good compromise could be Peter Hilton’s idea to create a concise, icon-based business plan visualisation: Inspired by the simplicity and success of the Creative Commons icons, which condense pages of information that no one ever…
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Fostering Innovative Thinking
By interviewing and surveying 3,500 visionary entrepreneurs over a six-year period, a pair of professors believe they have identified the five habits and skills common to ‘creative executives’ that distinguish them from the rest: Associating: the skill of connecting seemingly unrelated questions, problems and ideas. Questioning, especially “questions that challenge the status quo and open…
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Systems for Innovation and Microsoft
Microsoft is a hugely innovative company, but the culture that has developed there has stunted or even thwarted its innovations, suggests former Microsoft Vice President Dick Brass. The ingredients of this culture are numerous, but it has flourished largely because of the company’s structure preventing the development of “a true system for innovation”. Not everything…
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Financial and Public Incentives to Perform: What Works
Large bonuses and salaries are in place to attract prime talent and as an incentive to improve performance, goes conventional wisdom and the bankers’ rhetoric. However recent research by Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational) and colleagues suggests that while large pay will attract the best talent, large performance-based bonuses may hinder superior performance. Interestingly big…
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What People Pay For
As a natural follow-up to his Monetizing Your Web App article [previously], Dan Zambonini looks at user needs and what people are willing to pay for: Time: Convenience, Efficiency, Immediacy Scarcity Comfort Esteem: Id, Desirability, Self-Image, Ego Belonging: Relationships, Sex, Affection Survival: Health, Safety, Wellbeing Financial Security: Wealth, Success, Career Entertainment: Emotion, Experiences Intellectual Stimulation:…