Wed 9 Jan 2008

The Harvard Business Review on Followers

Posted by jtmcarthur under Leadership, Startups
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I wrote earlier today on leadership and The Five Temptations of a CEO, so it seemed an appropriate follow on to comment on an article about “followers” (as opposed to leaders) that I found in my morning newspaper.  The article, written by Barbara Kellerman, was a summary of her article  published in the Harvard Business Review and available here. 

She classifies followers into five types:

  1. Isolates
  2. Bystanders
  3. Participants
  4. Activists
  5. Diehards

If you are the CEO of a startup or a business unit, you know the importance of picking the right leadership team.  But I wonder how much time you think about hiring the right kind of follower.  You might find a useful resource in this article.

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Wed 9 Jan 2008

Confronting Temptations, Avoiding Disaster

Posted by jtmcarthur under Leadership, Startups
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I just finished reading The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni.  If you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you might be confused, because my reading-list widget on Facebook tells you that I’m reading The Black Swan.

I actually didn’t know about Patrick’s book, until it was handed to me by my co-founder, David, who bought it as a present for a CEO we know pretty well. And I was totally prepared not to like it. After all, it’s only 132 pages and priced at $22.95. It seemed like a bit of pricing arrogance to me. But, hey, David bought the book. It was no skin off my back, if he wanted me to read it.  And sure, he could have bought it used for a couple of bucks, but whatever. (more…)

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Tue 8 Jan 2008

A Perspective on Prediction Markets from Kent's Imperative

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

I’m a regular reader of Kent’s Imperative.  I don’t know how many of you read the blog, but I found this perspective  on Prediction Markets interesting. The notion of Predictions Markets has been getting a lot of attention lately.  And I wonder how many of today’s startups might be considering Prediction Markets as a way to determine which way the wind is going to blow.

About two years ago, I agreed to participate in a trial of a Prediction Market in the area of storage.  After a month of watching people trade on opinions, I began to wonder how they would validate the results.  Turns out they validated the results from the first published report of a top market research company.  (more…)

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Sat 5 Jan 2008

Comparing Software Models to Appliance Models

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

I had a call yesterday with a guy (I’ll call him Julio, because that isn’t his name) that is responsible for storage decisions at a very big company (I’ll call the company Acme, because that isn’t the company’s name).  I can’t name the company or the guy for reasons that are obvious to anyone who works in a large public company.   But I can share the gist of our conversation.  The part that is interesting to startups is the conversation we had around supplier management, environment complexity, and supplier support.

Julio’s at the end of a purchase decision cycle, and he told me which way he was going.  “We’re going with Sun, at least for now,” he said, “because they provide great service, we’ve worked with them for years, they understand our environment, and quite frankly, I don’t want to add another supplier.”  (more…)

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Sat 5 Jan 2008

Making Facebook Safe for Boomer Corporations

Posted by jtmcarthur under Affiliate Marketing, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Storage and Data Management, Technology, Viral Marketing
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As a fellow baby boomer, Denise Shiffman’s recent blog post really hit home.  She said, “Facebook is the new email.”  She wasn’t the first to make the connection.  In fact, the Scobleizer has a whole running debate here from October, 2007.  But because I know Denise, and implicitly trust her, she gets credit for getting my attention. 

As a boomer, I live on email, but as my blog readers know, I’m on Facebook now, too.  In fact, it’s about the only way that I communicate with Steve Zivanic, who created this viral campaign for very-traditional Hitachi Data Systems (HDS).  I just checked one YouTube posting of his video that reports 320,000+ downloads.  Good job Steve.  Steve’s left HDS and found a fitting home at myndnet.  He tells me they understand the value of viral marketing. (more…)

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Thu 3 Jan 2008

Paul Gillin Educates a Blogger on Google Search Rankings

Posted by jtmcarthur under Affiliate Marketing, Branding, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Marketing, Selling, Social Media, Storage and Data Management, Technology
[3] Comments

Mike Worhach, President and CEO of Sepaton, walked into the Starbuck’s where I was meeting  Paul Gillin this morning, and said, “Every time I see you, you’re taking notes.” Confirming once again that it’s important to surround yourself with people smarter than yourself, I was having a follow-on to my meeting with Paul last week.  Paul has been amazingly generous with his time, given that he has started writing another book.  I’m eight chapters into his book from last year (2007, for those of you who are keeping track), The New Influencers, and I wanted to pick his brain on how he might be able to help one of our clients.  But I also got an added bonus, which was getting a few quick tips that could make a big difference for anyone.  Here’s one. (more…)

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Sun 30 Dec 2007

A New Social Media New Year's Resolution

Posted by jtmcarthur under Affiliate Marketing, Branding, Communities, Marketing, New Markets, Startups, Storage and Data Management, Technology
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Paul Gillin was kind enough to meet me for coffee on Friday morning.   Paul and I go back a long way.  He played a key role in the success of TechTarget, and I spoke at one of his first conferences, the highly influential Storage Decisions conference.  When we met for coffee this week, Paul  brought with him an autographed copy of his latest book,  The New Influencers , which I am reading, while on a 3-day holiday in Syracuse, New York.   Who wouldn’t want to be in Syracuse, the land of lake-effect snow, in the middle of winter?  But it’s a great place to go to catch up on reading.

 As part of my New Year’s resolution, I’m determined to become more engaged in the “new social media.”  There are a couple of reasons.  The first is that, while I have an enormous network of contacts, I need a more effective way to maintain communication.  The second is that, I have several clients that need a more effective way to reach potential customers and influencers than traditional marketing approaches provide.  (more…)

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Thu 27 Dec 2007

Opportunities to Walk Away

Posted by jtmcarthur under Startups
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I’ve been reminded several times over the past nine months, that one of the most difficult decisions for any entrepreneur is knowing when to walk away.   Yet every entrepreneur is faced with at least four important opportunities to walk away, which, if done thoughtfully and expeditiously, will ultimately strengthen the company.  These are:

  1. Walk away from the wrong customers
  2. Walk away from the wrong investors
  3. Walk away from the wrong employees
  4. Walk away from the wrong partners

It may seem odd to talk about building a successful company, while walking away from any resource or opportunity, but, in fact that is often exactly what is needed.  This post focuses on customers.  But why would anyone walk away from a customer? (more…)

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Thu 15 Nov 2007

If I Were Starting a Company Today…

Posted by jtmcarthur under Analysts, Startups, Technology
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At the very kind invitation of my former IBM rep (I mean former as in two companies and 13 years ago, when I was an IT buyer spending multiple tens of millions of dollars on mainframe computers and storage each year and her youngest son wasn’t yet riding a bicycle, much less driving a car), I went to a seminar today hosted by Mainline.  I’ve been told Mainline is IBM’s largest value-added reseller.  I think it was someone at Mainline who told me that.  Anyway, the topic was VMWare’s Virtual Desktop. 

(more…)

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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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