gdp's Comments

TechStars Blog : Do More Faster Book Excerpt

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 04:52:59 +0000

Interesting. Good to hear the design has iterated based on actual usage. I get how sharing is a more immediately higher value activity for the publisher. I also know it felt lame to me as a reader. I got the impression the feature would add to the community/discussion element of a blog and when I bothered to click it that wasn't what I got. I also see how on a post that has been up longer you might have a lot of comments on a given topic it would make it tougher to handle via a mouseover event. Anyways, maybe we'll see some further iteration that handles both needs in the future.

TechStars Blog : Do More Faster Book Excerpt

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:13:30 +0000

This "Highlighter" plugin really needs to default to showing the comment on mouseover or just go away entirely. I shouldn't have to click, move the mouse, then click again just to read some random comment. In its present state is just annoying.

Hard Knox Life : Facebook's latest profile update is about advertisers, not consumers

Mon, 6 Dec 2010 17:15:49 +0000

Similar to the "how do you know this person?" question. Very limited obvious utility to the user, tons of upside for FB. Lots of value in the meta-data. Just tough to get users to spend time giving you valuable data for free.

Hard Knox Life : Going viral vs creating a meaningful relationship

Fri, 1 Oct 2010 00:24:22 +0000

I think this needs to be caveated with Alan Wolk's Prom King Brands concept. If you have a brand where it might make sense to cultivate a relationship then more power to you - go do it. If you are Swingline it doesn't matter how cool you are, no one wants a relationship. In the Swingline case, great go viral, promote some freakish ability your staplers have or just have fun with some over the top superiority claims and raise awareness of your brand.

StartupCFO : Is it OK to have a life?

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:24:10 +0000

i'm confused, you say forget balance, you'll back the unbalanced person every time. then you say you are all for "a bit less intensity". you are all for it in theory, but aren't planning to change your bias? this makes no sense to me unless this post is an exercise in thinking out loud and you paused mid thought and posted it. (btw, the easy answer is "yes, it is ok to have a life.")

Feld Thoughts : What Do You Hate The Most About Your Mac?

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:49:08 +0000

awesome, this was going to be my main complaint!

Feld Thoughts : The New Polymath

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:26:57 +0000

not information insight he seeks at night polymath to be

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Today in Uber-Bearishness: Go to Cash

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:23:00 +0000

Skimming this paper was one of the poorer uses of my time in the last few months. That is saying a lot given some of the things I waste time on. Reads like it was written by an undergrad with ADD.

Hard Knox Life : What Matters Now: Things to think (and do) this year

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:08:24 +0000

More Godin goodness huh? I read the first 30 and am throwing out my votes for Connected and Re-Capitalism as the most significant this far in.

Hard Knox Life : What is the definition of a Brand?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:06:10 +0000

Great definition - love that the consumer is the end all be all. Reminds me of a quote from a Unilever guy I heard recently, something along the lines of "no one ever chose our product because they liked our strategy." I especially like how subjective "expectations" and "stories" gets when taken to the level of the individual consumer. So often, we only consider the story we are telling about our brand or encouraging testimonials from loyalists. It is especially important to understand and engage with the stories being told by competition. I stopped reading Seth a long time ago as the signal to noise ratio was just too high for me personally. I figured that when he said anything really brilliant I'd hear about it from others I know. Nice to see it play out, thanks for sharing Dave!

Hard Knox Life : Brand Managers Need To Practice "Everywhere Shopper Marketing"

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:18:36 +0000

This is old school sales fundamentals right here. ABC - Always be closing. The challenge is in how/if marketers choose to respond to the reality the emergent ubiquity of these "other" touchpoints is creating.

Hard Knox Life : What Grand Theft Auto Can Teach Us About Connecting with Consumers

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:10:33 +0000

“The future is less about building than it is about transforming what is already there.” The recent Time cover story on Twitter by @stevenbjohnson makes this same point when he talks about how measuring American innovation in PhD's and patents misses the point. Innovation that creates value can occur in many places along the value chain. If your context has significant end-user innovation then you must adapt by spending your time and money on connecting, building trust and empowering your end users instead of trying to figure out how to amuse or entertain them. Nice presentation Dave, thanks for linking to it. Gives me some helpful language to help describe the shift.

Hard Knox Life : Should brands start thinking like start-ups?

Mon, 2 Mar 2009 01:30:25 +0000

"...having a mentality of failing fast and fixing the mistakes." Exactly. Most big companies don't do enough to encourage and celebrate failure. Without a corporate culture that is able to embrace failure there will always be a risk/reward asymmetry that punishes anyone who might dare to fail. The entrepreneurs that succeed just iterate faster than others. They iterate faster by figuring out the potential points of failure and putting resources against getting to those critical junctures as quickly as possible. Managers in big companies tend to, either subconsciously or consciously, avoid reaching those same critical junctures. Gathering more information is a classic stalling technique risk-averse managers can easily defend as prudent management.

Feld Thoughts : Q1 Vacation Included Two Highly Relevant Books

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:52:39 +0000

Dean Karnazes is amazing. For those readers not familiar with him check out this 42 minute Youtube video of him discussing his book at Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrdhjd5_0E4

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Random Economic Factoids: Dentists, Valentines, PF Chang's, etc.

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:28:49 +0000

Apparently academia is recession proof--or at least must lag by quite a few years. Here in South Bend, IN I'm having to celebrate Valentine's Day on the 15th as no decent reservations could be found four days in advance. However, the $25 haircut place said hair hasn't slowed but nails and massages are way down. I'll be keeping an eye out for the tense profs.

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Global Synchronized Recession, in Pictures

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:01:27 +0000

Could you post one more larger chart with them overlaid? Seeing them side by side, I get the point, but it might be even more powerful with one summary image.