New York Times Article Andy Rubin Google Gadget Guru

November 4, 2007
Filed Under Google (GOOG), Mobile / Cell / LBS / SMS, Mobile Search Marketing | 1 Comment

I rarely see things like this anymore, but oh my what an amazingly well researched story by John Markoff about Andy Rubin at Google.

The article talks about the changing face of the smart phone market and you really get a feel for the history of Mr. Rubin. While the parts about Mr. Rubin’s doorbells and girlfriend dismissal methods are certainly interesting, I found the article to be lacking in one major area - his history of successfully monetizing any of the projects he has worked on in the past.

It is great reading about him as a person though and hope to see people expand on the overlooked area as time goes by.

Business Week Article - So Many Ads, So Few Clicks

November 3, 2007
Filed Under Interactive Ads, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media | Leave a Comment

Nice article talking about he decline in click through rates of ads. It includes this statement:

But as responsiveness declines, ad targeting grows more attractive. Marketers see increases of 30% to 300% in click rates when ads are customized based on criteria such as the location, content of Web pages visited, or information researched on search engines.

Exciting data indeed for a project I’m working on right now. It’s all about relevancy, not quantity, of viewers.

Jason Palmer and Others Leave WebTrends…Professional Interim CEO Appointed

November 3, 2007
Filed Under Metrics | 1 Comment

According to this Click Z story…Jason Palmer and three other executives have left Webtrends. Since the company is doing well to the best of my knowledge - one might speculate that it had something to do with things other than revenue and profit.

I only had one encounter with Jason Palmer, it was at my first SES conference in 2005. I was eating lunch with some people at a table and Jason sat down at the table with a client. About ten minutes later, Jason declared to someone that they should mind their own business and not participate in the conversation with his client. I recall thinking that time that guy had a lot of nerve to say that at a table in a public lunch room where he sat down at the table last. That was my one and only interaction with Jason Palmer of Webtrends.

What are other people’s experiences with Webtrends?

Wouldn’t ATT Acquire Yahoo! Instead of Microsoft?

November 2, 2007
Filed Under Yahoo! (YHOO) | 1 Comment

I have my reasons, some of which aren’t appropriate to make public…

Please discuss…

AlwaysOn Top Dealmakers List

November 1, 2007
Filed Under Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital | 1 Comment

As I explore the path of joining a start up management team or potentially returning to the financing side, I will analyze the Alwayon Dealmakers list with great interest when time permits. You should too.

Limited Partners
Limited partners are the big, quiet kahunas at the front of the technology finance food chain. Venture capital firms are just one thing they invest in, but they’re what provides most of the money VCs have under management.
1 TIAA-CREF
2 CalPERS
3 CalSTRS
4 Harvard Management Co. (HMC)
5 Yale Endowment
6 University of Texas (UTIMCO)
7 Stanford Management Co. (SMC)
8 Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO)
9 MIT (MITIMCO)
10 Ford Foundation

Venture Capital – Early-Stage
You have a business plan and a bunch of code. Now you need to raise a million dollars or two to productize your concept and get an office. Besides providing operating startup capital, early-stage VCs will help you form your board and build your team.
1 Sequoia Capital
2 New Enterprise Associates
3 Benchmark Capital
4 Draper Fisher Jurvetson
5 Bessemer Venture Partners
6 Accel Partners
7 Charles River Ventures
8 Matrix Partners
9 Greylock Partners
10 Doll Capital Management
11 Lightspeed Venture Partners
12 Index Ventures
13 Norwest Venture Partners
14 Madrona Venture Group
15 Hummer Winblad

Venture Capital – Late-Stage
You’re hiring a sales force, building a channel, upgrading your executive team, and bringing products to market. At this point, until you’re fully profitable, get acquired, or raise public equity through an IPO, your operating capital comes from late-stage venture investors. Some VC firms do both early- and late-stage VC, as you’ll see in our picks below.
1 Sequoia Capital
2 New Enterprise Associates
3 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
4 Greylock Partners
5 Menlo Ventures
6 Mobius Venture Capital
7 Draper Fisher Jurvetson
8 Benchmark Capital
9 Accel Partners
10 Bessemer Venture Partners
11 Oak Investment Partners
12 Redpoint Ventures
13 U.S. Venture Partners
14 Mayfield Fund
15 DCM - Doll Capital Management

Venture Capital – Corporate Investors
Corporate VCs are a little different. They can invest in early- or late-stage deals, but they usually focus on sub-sectors and investments with potential business benefits for their limited partner – the corporate parent.
1 Intel Capital
2 Comcast Interactive Capital
3 Hearst Corporation/Hearst Interative Media
4 Time Warner Investments
5 IDG Ventures
6 Qualcomm Ventures
7 Motorola Ventures
8 Cisco
9 Adobe Ventures
10 SAP Ventures

Corporate Law Firms
First, let’s call the lawyers – at least, that’s a good plan in the world of technology finance. Some of these firms have done well by providing low or deferred-fee incorporation services to brand-new startups, sometimes for shares, and some not only provide counsel but also introductions during mergers, IPOs, or other financing events.
1 Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC
2 Latham & Watkins
3 Fenwick & West
4 Gunderson Dettmer
5 Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP
6 Goodwin Procter LLP
7 Cooley Godward LLP
8 DLA Piper US LLP
9 Cravath Swaine & Moore
10 Manatt Phelps Philips

Investment Banks
When the time is right to take your company public or get bought, you work with investment banks. If it’s an IPO, they underwrite you – helping prepare your prospectus, setting the share price, promoting you to institutional investors, and once you’re public, providing analyst coverage of your stock to keep public investors up to date on your financial performance. If it’s an M&A, they act as advisers to either party, structuring the deal, and providing acquisition capital. There are two types of ibanks: the bulge brackets, that deal with any and every kind of company, and the boutiques, which are smaller and focus on a few sectors.

Investment Banks — Bulge Bracket
1 Morgan Stanley
2 Goldman Sachs
3 Lehman Brothers
4 Credit Suisse
5 JP Morgan Chase
6 Merrill Lynch
7 Citigroup
8 Deutsche Bank
9 UBS Investment Bank
10 Banc of America Securities

Investment Banks — Boutiques
1 Jefferies & Company Inc
2 Evercore Partners
3 Thomas Weisel Partners
4 Needham & Company, LLC
5 Montgomery & Co. LLC
6 Cowen & Company LLC
7 William Blair & Co., LLC
8 Wachovia Securities
9 Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin
10 Greenhill & Co.

Private Equity
Private equity, or leveraged buyout, firms are the ones that take public companies private, or buy their stock with the goal of turning them around and selling them.
1 Carlyle Group, The
2 Texas Pacific
3 Blackstone Group, The
4 Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company
5 Silver Lake Partners
6 General Atlantic
7 Hellman & Friedman LLC
8 Vista Equity Partners
9 Vector Capital
10 Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe

Institutional Public Investors
Asset management firms of all stripes (mutual funds, hedge funds, etc.) fall into this category. Besides investing in technology stocks, they may also become limited partners in private equity firm funds.
1 Fidelity Management & Research
2 T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.
3 Wellington Management Co. LLP
4 Capital Research & Management Co.
5 AllianceBernstein LP
6 Capital Guardian Trust Co.
7 Vanguard Group, Inc.
8 Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. LLC
9 Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP (US)
10 Wells Capital Management, Inc.

Corporate Buyers – Global Tech
Big companies want to acquire successful startups that have a strategic fit, breakthrough technologies, masses of customers and profit margins.
1 Cisco Systems, Inc.
2 Oracle Corp.
3 Microsoft
4 Motorola, Inc.
5 LSI Logic Corp.
6 International Business Machines Corp.
7 Siemens AG
8 Google, Inc.
9 Seagate Technology, Inc.
10 EMC Corp.

Corporate Buyers - Media
Big companies want to acquire successful startups that have a strategic fit, breakthrough technologies, masses of customers and profit margins.
1 Publicis Groupe
2 CBS Corporation
3 Lagardere SCA
4 Dominion Enterprises
5 Axel Springer AG
6 Walt Disney Company
7 Hearst Corp.
8 MTV Networks
9 Pearson Education, Inc.
10 EMAP plc

Seth Godin Keynoting Search Engine Strategies Chicago and His New Book Meatball Sundae

November 1, 2007
Filed Under Blogging, Branding/Buzz/Viral, Change Management, Chicago, Customer Experience, Recruiting, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments

In advance his upcoming speech at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Seth Godin held a intimate conference call in regards to the conference and his upcoming book Meatball Sundae.

At first I was thinking this would be a long speech, it was in actuality a short, crisp presentation followed by a spirited, fun and playful question an answer session. It far exceeded my expectations and Kevin Ryan should be commended for having this type of community event.

Now onto a discussion of his new book, Meatball Sundae. The foundation for a new economy is being built. The past several years have laid the foundation for a new industrial revolution.

Told the detailed story of Josiah Wedgewood and his high standards for pottery.

There are 14 main themes occurring right now in the world - though there are many smaller and industry specific trends playing out. These 14 trends are (I typed them fast in a live blog situation so I might not have them exactly right):

- Direct communication with customers is creating massive change

- Individuals can amplifying their voice and become a critic - these are not hassles to be dealt with. The answer is building an organization that thrives and survives on this…

- Having an authentic story is vital

- We don’t have attention spans anymore (why are you still reading this post? )

- The new marketplace long tail – very few organizations are embracing it

- Create innovation - If you can describe a job it can get done by somebody cheaper

- Google and the shredding of information and bundling

- Noise and infinite channels of communication

- Consumers can talk directly to consumers without the middleman or company

- The changing balance of scarcity and abundance – it’s hard to imagine people being bored

- Big ideas can reach many people quickly

- The shift from how many to who – the idea of being on the today show instead of a blog is higher value is over

- Democratization of the wealthy - the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider but the rich is going up

- Gatekeepers are more important as they distribute information yet less important as you can go around them easier than ever

After the short speech on the trends there was a free for question and answer session…

Is your marketing out of sync?

SG: They should say how change your marketing (what you do) so that it’s in sync with what the market demands.

Why don’t most companies get it yet?

SG: I spent many years selling advertising. People buy TV advertising, it’s fun and it’s not measurable. When the Internet came along and they went running to Yahoo! to buy ads that aren’t measuring. Google and Overture were used by small business people in the ad. The choice is Superbowl ads that don’t work and measurable ads that are harder to make work. It’s naïve to hope that they will shift in a month or a year. They will eventually have to shift. The prices will continue to go up. People still applaud the commercial not the SEM.

(At this point the Gmail javascript froze all of my browsers. I had to reboot and relaunch. OF COURSE THIS WAS THE MOMENT KEVIN RYAN CHOSE TO ASK THE QUESTION I SENT IN – SO I’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE AUDIO THERE.)

Where do you find thoughtleaders to lead organizations and instead of hiring people with “experience”?

SG: I wrote a post on a similar topic about the loss of relevancy of credentials today. Basically, there are two types of leaders qualified to do this:
- People who have managed change before
- Idea people who don’t necessarily know better

How do make a corporate blog work?

SG: Blogs don’t reach people, people reach blogs… You need to be quick and candid. It’s all about change and being iterative in nature.

Everyone attending SES Chicago will receive a copy of Seth’s book. I look forward to continuing our conversation and maybe even hearing his answers because Gmail’s javascritpt won’t be interfering with his in person appearance!

king Dalka

October 31, 2007
Filed Under Blogging | Leave a Comment

OK as you know I’m not exactly the biggest lover of splogs. But when a splog links to my Google post with the anchor text “king Dalka“, it certainly gets my attention. I almost have to think the splogs are lobbying for my support?

If the splog lobby really wants to win me over, they should try anchor text like Chicago, Sales, Marketing, Local, Mobile, Search which are all better terms to link me with in the future…

Got that sploggers?

Is Google Planning a New Campus?

October 25, 2007
Filed Under Google (GOOG) | 9 Comments

This job description seems to indicate the future acquisition of new land for more Googleplex locations….

1) Responsible for overseeing all aspects of Google’s new building program in Northern California.

2) Experience in with campus development projects required.

Anyone have ideas where this might be located or have information about the plans? Do tell.

Director Real Estate and Workplace Services (HQ/NorCal) - Mountain View

This position is based in Mountain View, CA.

The Director of Real Estate and Workplace Services/HQ Properties, NorCal is responsible for the delivery of all aspects of real estate development, transaction management, project management and workplace services (office management) for all Google offices located in the Northern California. This position will liaise with company leadership to establish an overall strategic facilities plan and execute the plan within the framework of the global real estate plan, budget and service delivery methodology. This position reports directly to the Vice President of Real Estate and Workplace Services.

Responsibilities:

* Responsible for overseeing all aspects of Google’s new building program in Northern California.
* Responsible for all aspects of transaction management within the region; site selection and lease negotiation.
* Responsible for all design, tenant build outs, and facility management within the region.
* Responsible for the delivery of all workplace services within the region including building operations, reception and mail services and office management.
* Develop detailed operating budgets for each office within corporate performance metrics and manage each line of service within established budgets.
* Define goals and objectives for outsourced service providers and manage their performance against defined goals.
* Develop, implement and monitor regional strategic facility goals against corporate metrics established by the Vice President of Real Estate and Workplace Services.
* Educate and set reasonable expectations for company leadership, their management teams and all Googlers about the real estate process, schedule and costs.
* Develop and maintain strong alliances and effective communication channels at all levels within the region.
* Ensure continual process improvement of Real Estate and Workplace Services’ delivery model.
* Perform financial analysis of projects and prepare recommendations the management team.
* Generate real estate reports, executive presentations and business cases.
* Ensure regional service quality and client satisfaction.

Requirements:

* Bachelors’ degree from a mid to top tier school in related field (i.e. business, engineering etc.), MBA preferred.
* 10+ years corporate/commercial real estate.
* Experience in with campus development projects required.
* Experience in a high-tech, fast paced environment preferred.
* Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills.
* Innovated, critical thinker.
* Demonstrate the ability to think strategically.
* Demonstrate ability to prioritize multiple and changing initiatives.
* Detail oriented with strong analytical, organizational, interpersonal and negotiation skills.
* Strong customer service skills.

If You Were Recruiting An Acoustic Guitar Player…Tommy Emmanuel

October 19, 2007
Filed Under Change Management, Online Recruiting, Recruiting | 3 Comments

If you were going to recruit an acoustic guitar player, what attributes would you seek?

If you were recruiting in the traditional manner, you’d seek these attributes:
- college degree in music
- experience working for an orchestra or band
- experience in an educational institution as a music teacher

But if you were looking for a true leader and innovator these measures would miss the hidden gems. People who are self taught are often thought leaders and innovators who lead to breakthroughs because they lack certain limiting beliefs. Tommy Emmanuel is one such person. Let’s look at his unique attributes:
- Tommy is self-taught, having picked up a guitar at a young age
- Tommy has never had any formal training in music
- Tommy has never learned how to read sheet music, yet he knows how to play literally thousands of songs
- Tommy never uses a set list in his solo performances, the creativity flows from circumstance and audience participation
- Tommy constantly innovates and reworks his songs making incremental improvements

Yet, Tommy now plays 300+ nights a year on five continents!!! If you looked at his resume based on traditional measures, you’d likely pass him over. But in the scarce talent, post baby boomer generation we are now entering, people need to look beyond keywords and look into passion and self-taught competencies. Those who do will build industry leading companies. Others will rapidly fall behind and lag in relation to their peers.

I’m fortunate to see Tommy again this evening in Chicago! I had the great pleasure of interviewing Tommy Emmanuel in 2003. Such a remarkable and inspiring person. Here are some samples of his live work on Youtube, enjoy!

FCF07 - The Role of Mobile Search in Social Computing

October 18, 2007
Filed Under Google (GOOG), Mobile / Cell / LBS / SMS, Mobile Search Marketing, Yahoo! (YHOO) | Leave a Comment

Presenter: Charles Golvin, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

I didn’t get around to posting this last week, these are some high points of Charles’ all too short talk:

Mobile data adoption is growing, but skews young. Many people still have not been exposed to mobile ads.

They don’t trust SMS ads. They also don’t want to pay for something in lieu of advertising. In the current state this creates contradictions.

The most interesting thing he said in his talk was when he showed Google mobile search and then stated, “I think Google imitated Yahoo! in this regard”.

Offline visual codes are powerful mechanisms for simplifying mobile call-to-action. (I’d expand this to state that it will become powerful for creating an effective multi-channel strategy as many people are too focused on mobile alone.)

Mobile should eventually be abbreviated, transactional, measurable and integrated with physical world.