Business & Strategy Archives

How I use OKRs
A description of how I use OKRs to guide a team, written so I can send to future teams.
October 13, 2023 - 1231 words

Strategy Means Saying No
An oft-overlooked aspect of strategy is to define what you are not doing. There are lots of adjacent problems you can attack. Strategy means defining which ones you will ignore.
October 27, 2020 - 278 words

Understanding vision, strategy, and execution
Vision is what you’re trying to do. Strategy is broad strokes on how you’ll get there. Execution is the tasks you complete to complete the strategy.
October 24, 2020 - 781 words

Developer Relations as Developer Success
Outreach, marketing, and developer evangelism are a part of Developer Relations. But the companies that are most successful with developers spend most of their time on something else.
October 19, 2020 - 211 words

Managers and technical ability
In technical fields, the closer you are to the actual work being done, the closer your skills need to resemble those of the people doing the work.
December 26, 2019 - 614 words

Think or do
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Executing them is what’s valuable.
July 13, 2006 - 100 words, 1 comment

A million parts
Jeff Jarvis has a brilliant guest piece that sums up the changing roles of content...
July 12, 2006 - 111 words

The importance of being good
Starbucks is pulling CD burning stations from their stores. That says something interesting about their brand.
May 25, 2006 - 489 words, 9 comments

Technorati quick fix
Technorati makes quick work of a site bug
May 12, 2006 - 77 words, 1 comment

Home Depot: Excellent customer service
A simple call for information results in a very pleasant experience.
May 11, 2006 - 181 words, 74 comments

Relax your policies
Create overly-restrictive policies that assume your customers are bad people and you’ll end up treating al lyour customers like they’re bad people.
May 8, 2006 - 125 words

Sun Niagra server trial making a strategic mistake
Sun is making a strategic mistake by making it hard for startups to try their servers.
March 17, 2006 - 439 words, 5 comments

Creative Weblogging: listening to customers
I asked Creative Weblogging to bring back full text feeds. They’re trying it out.
March 5, 2006 - 222 words

Open Source profits
Big companies are becoming major contributors to open source projects and sometimes buying the companies behind them. There’s big profits to be made in open source.
February 14, 2006 - 116 words

Feedburner fesses up
Feedburner spammed some people. And instead of making excuses, they did the right thing.
February 9, 2006 - 52 words

To those who've asked...
I don’t have an inside track to Ookles, so please stop asking.
January 11, 2006 - 165 words

My christmas deliveries
Items ordered at Christmas weren’t shipped smoothly, but everything worked out okay.
December 28, 2005 - 253 words

Lock-in is bad
T-Mobile thinks they’ll get new Hotspot customers with exclusive content and locked-in devices.
December 14, 2005 - 723 words, 5 comments

FeedFlare (or, Stop Changing my Feeds!)
FeedBurner’s new feature is great in concept, but has a rotten implementation.
December 13, 2005 - 135 words, 1 comment

Angel funding through AdSense
Kevin Burton has a clever new way to fund his startup.
November 19, 2005 - 100 words, 1 comment

Where do the RSS ad startups fit in?
Yahoo’s RSS advertising service could spell trouble for pure-play RSS advertising services unless they adapt their business model.
November 16, 2005 - 1158 words, 2 comments

How Yahoo's RSS Advertising works
Here’s look at how Yahoo’s RSS ads work and a comparison to the ad insertion techniques of some of the other players.
November 16, 2005 - 809 words, 1 comment

Yahoo launches RSS advertising service
Yahoo has entered the RSS advertising market.
November 16, 2005 - 131 words, 1 comment

Upcomming for Yahoo
Andy Baio does good.
October 5, 2005 - 122 words, 1 comment

Placement premiums
Changes in technology and consumer habits should be changing the business models of companies.
January 27, 2005 - 74 words, 10 comments

Time-based information
The tasks users are trying to complete often change depending on the dates and times they are accessing your site. Help them by putting the information they need right at their fingertips.
November 25, 2004 - 136 words, 3 comments

How not to apply for a job
Applying for a job isn’t that hard, but it does take some minimal effort and common sense.
September 24, 2004 - 539 words, 17 comments

Google offers Picasa for free
Google makes its new photo management application available for free.
July 19, 2004 - 21 words, 4 comments

Google on the desktop
Google picks up Picasa, giving them an important foothold on people’s PCs.
July 13, 2004 - 555 words, 8 comments

Customer callbacks
Instead of waiting on hold for an extended period of time, PG&E customer service lets me ask them to call me back when someone is available.
June 29, 2004 - 160 words, 4 comments

RSS Strategies
Are you publishing in RSS? Have you received any benefits from it?
April 13, 2004 - 410 words

How to be a successful consultant
Jeff Nichols starts a new series on the role of an analyst.
January 7, 2004 - 77 words

Business blogs
Anyone know of some good business and marketing blogs?
August 9, 2003 - 120 words, 15 comments

Wireless Google java
I’ve already had some people arrive here that were obviously searching for wireless Internet in Carmel. If your business isn’t online, you’re losing business.
July 14, 2003 - 52 words, 1 comment

Writing Realistic Job Descriptions
Publish a job listing like this one and you are virtually guaranteeing that you won’t get qualified applicants for the position.
July 10, 2003 - 685 words, 19 comments

Other uses for your content
When you put information on your Web site, you need to remember that the text you write might be used in ways that you didn’t think of.
July 10, 2003 - 297 words, 5 comments

Turning away customers
If a customer is going to go to the trouble of contacting you, it’s important, at least to them. Make sure you’ll see it.
July 9, 2003 - 274 words, 7 comments

Atomz responds
In talking with Atomz, I’ve discovered why their free service exists. It isn’t a marketing blunder, but rather a generous decision to continue supporting legacy users after the companies business model changed.
June 20, 2003 - 864 words, 6 comments

Ecommerce liability
Guess has been fined by the government for leaving their Web site open to known security vulnerabilities. What affect will this have on your business?
June 19, 2003 - 123 words, 2 comments

Ecommerce costs
When planning a small business ecommerce site, you’ll need to budget for the costs involved in processing credit cards, marketing, and software.
May 4, 2003 - 858 words, 14 comments

Quotable
"Don’t mistake activity for achievment."—John Wooden
May 4, 2003 - 17 words

Weblogs in Business
How can a blog help your business? You can improve marketing. knowledge sharing, collaboration, and team communication, all without knowing a thing about Web publishling.
April 4, 2003 - 610 words, 3 comments

Worth quoting
Penn Gillette on professionalism.
January 4, 2003 - 66 words

Small Businesses missing the Web
Many small businesses don’t think they need a Web site. But having a site can enhance any business, save money, and increase revenue.
January 3, 2003 - 764 words, 1 comment

Switching wireless
Wireless phone providers are going to need to up their level of service now that they are losing a competitive advantage.
December 30, 2002 - 338 words

The band gets it
The best way for a local band to build a following is to give away their music.
December 14, 2002 - 164 words

Where's the link?
Leaving external links out of magazine articles may keep the reader at your site, but who wants a frustrated reader?
December 5, 2002 - 162 words, 2 comments

DVD-Bomb
Another case of technology trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
November 27, 2002 - 139 words, 1 comment

Wireless Adoption
At the real estate softare company where I used to work, our WAP product won us sales, but nobody bought it.
September 10, 2002 - 501 words

Total Experience
A great Web site, cheap prices, and bad service. Which will your customers remember?
August 29, 2002 - 40 words

Goodbye BN.com links
What happens when you break links to your site and your competitor doesn’t? Sites link to your competition instead of you.
August 15, 2002 - 122 words

Quality Service
In contrast to yesterday’s host, Insider Hosting has stellar customer contact.
August 14, 2002 - 177 words, 2 comments

Ignoring customers
Ignoring your email turns off potential customers.
August 13, 2002 - 187 words, 1 comment

Email marketing stupidity
I just renewed the domain registration for kalsey.com through Register.com. Right after I did so, they automatically sent me some marketing email. They made some dumb mistakes in their message that you can easily avoid in your marketing campaigns.
July 9, 2002 - 374 words

Strategic Site Management
Someone in your company should be in charge of your Web site. Here’s why.
June 3, 2002 - 124 words

Apple theft
Sometimes companies other than Microsoft steal instead of innovate. Apple’s been taking ideas from their developer community for years.
May 27, 2002 - 96 words

Complex operations hurt your business
I prefer to buy from Barnes & Noble over Amazon. I’ve never been thrilled with...
May 11, 2002 - 354 words, 1 comment

Subscription TV
Another thing that Kellner said that I found a little goofy is that he’d like...
May 6, 2002 - 339 words, 1 comment

Customer Care
Business 2.0 | Management Lesson #1: Speed Still Matters: "Customers' switching costs have been reduced...
February 22, 2002 - 47 words

Freelance Overload
R144.com | Freelancers Find Success Accompanied By Longer Hours: "However, another big factor in freelance...
February 22, 2002 - 79 words

Mergers as an advantage
McKinsey Quarterly | Learning from high-tech deals: "For most companies, acquisitions and other transactions are...
February 20, 2002 - 55 words

Wireless Advantage
O'Reilly Network | Easy 802.11b Wireless for Small Businesses: "Now think about how this can...
February 15, 2002 - 63 words

Tesco Delivers
As mentioned here previously, British grocery chain Tesco has been successful in the home grocery...
January 14, 2002 - 46 words, 1 comment

Ice Escapades
My In-Laws took one of those all-expense paid guided tours to see the US ice...
January 14, 2002 - 263 words

Tesco delivery
Unlike Webvan, the UK grocery store chain Tesco realized that the Web is just one...
October 11, 2001 - 85 words, 1 comment

Windows marketshare
Two interesting articles on Windows XP and Microsoft’s methods to take and hold marketshare. Salon’s...
October 8, 2001 - 102 words

End of the Line?
Stupid business plans
November 1, 2000 - 187 words

Shopping Woes
Shopping shouldn’t be this hard.
March 11, 2000 - 674 words

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