Business: Where angels will tread. Rules for Revolutionaries. To Achieve Big Goals, Become A Pattern Thinker (Or, How The Cool Ranch Dorito Was Born) When faced with trying to accomplish a big goal, one of the most daunting questions is: Where do I start? “Standing on the shoulders of giants” is another way of saying you don’t have to start from scratch and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. In business, we sometimes get too caught up in the idea that we need to be different, that we need to innovate. Of course we need to distinguish ourselves from the competition, but that does not mean we can’t borrow good ideas, make them our own, and do an even better job of executing them. Use Pattern Thinking Pattern thinking, where you look at what’s working for someone else and apply it to your own situation, is one of the best ways to make big things happen for you and your team. Combining the knowledge of others with what you know about your brand and industry can lead to results that are more than just incremental improvements, they can help you take a giant leap forward.
Become a Know-How Junkie 1. 2. 3. 4. First Break All The Rules. USDA awards $40 million grants to boost local farm/food projects. Preserving Cabrini-Green's images In the sharp sun of an April afternoon, Nate Lanthrum walks through the remains of Cabrini-Green giving away what he has taken. He looks out of place, a white guy carrying a $1,500 Nikon D700 camera, but the residents are used to him by now and greet... Blackhawks thrilled to have Brent Seabrook back Starting with Game 6 Sunday, Brent Seabrook's timeout will be over and the defenseman will be back on the ice — so long as he promises to play nice. The Blackhawks have done pretty well in Seabrook's absence, winning all three games the NHL... NFL draft preview: Defensive ends As the NFL draft nears — it takes place May 8-10 — we're taking an 11-day, position-by-position look at what's out there and what the Bears need.
In May 1974, Tribune delivered 2 Watergate bombshells Obama denounces racist comments reportedly made by NBA owner Cubs can't take advantage of Brewers' injuries Northwestern women win at Wrigley Blackhawks thrilled to have Brent Seabrook back.
Is China really on the verge of surpassing the U.S.? Mark Mills and Julio Ottino: The Coming Tech-led Boom. AppAddictive Raises $1.2 Million For Drag-And-Drop Facebook Page Builder & Ad Platform. AppAddictive, a newly launched DreamIt-backed startup from the 2011 NYC class, has just scored $1.2 million in seed funding for its drag-and-drop Facebook page creation tools and (forthcoming) ad platform. Designed to bring the same tools the big guys use to smaller businesses and other industry verticals, AppAddictive will offer dozens of easy-to-install applications for Facebook pages, including things like custom landing pages, photo and video galleries, static HTML, quizzes and more.
The funding comes from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Siemer Ventures, and Tholons. The current list of apps is somewhat modest – there are now around ten or so drag-and-drop applications available that let you add things like a YouTube gallery or a signup form to a Facebook page. But, explains founder Mike Onghai, the goal is to expand the selection into a veritable “app store” for Facebook pages, with sections dedicated to industry verticals. “At Apple Everything Is A Secret” All companies have secrets, of course. The difference is that at Apple everything is a secret. —Adam Lashinsky, Inside Apple Last year, the Steve Jobs biography was the best-selling book on Amazon.
But there is another book about Apple coming out which isn’t authorized that delves into the culture of secrecy at Apple. Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired—and Secretive—Company Really Works was written by Fortune senior editor at large Adam Lashinsky, based on a Fortune story he wrote last summer. (Lashinsky spoke with Andrew Keen on TCTV—Part 1 of that interview is up). The book details how Apple keeps its secrets by policing both internal and external leaks. Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building.
The reasons for all the secrecy are twofold: to maximize the free press coverage and buzz at launch and to keep demand high for existing products still on the shelves. Apple is not a fun place to work, according to Lashinsky. The Rise of the New Groupthink. Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook: Who will win the tech war? - Mobile Marketer - Software and technology. By Lauren Johnson November 11, 2011 NEW YORK – As the tech war continues between four of the industry’s biggest players – Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook – data will be the deciding factor for which company wins.
During the “The new power brokers: How Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are changing the game, and how brands and agencies should respond” panel at ad:tech, industry experts debated on which company holds the most power. The panel also presented a look at how much control and power the four companies have and how brands can best leverage their resources to work with each company.
“The four companies vying for control is a validation of the Apple model where if you try to control the ecosystem and give users a seamless experience, you lock them in,” said Molly Wood, executive editor at CNET.com, San Francisco. “Every company is trying to create a device choice that locks into a lifestyle,” she said. In particular, Ms. As an example, Mr. CNET.com’s Ms. Ms. Ms. CNET.com’s Ms. Why Is the Head of Zappos Smiling?
Severin Wunderman | Watch salesman became upscale timepiece maker. Severin Wunderman, the owner of Corum, the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer, who was also an art collector and philanthropist, died Wednesday at his home in Nice, France, his son, Michael, said. He was 69. Wunderman, who built Gucci Timepieces into a multimillion-dollar business, died after a stroke, according to his son. He owned homes in Southern California, Las Vegas and Europe. Wunderman began his career in the 1960s as a salesman for Alexis Barthelay, the European watchmaking firm. During a business trip to New York City in the early 1970s he called on Gucci, a company known for luxury accessories. The two men met for a drink and Wunderman convinced Gucci to place a watch order worth $250,000.
Wunderman then proposed to Gucci that he quit his job and oversee the manufacture of the watches himself. "The man went into his pocket, took out his checkbook and prepaid the order," Wunderman recalled of Gucci in a 1986 interview with the Orange County Business Journal. Fast Company. Big Data Analytics: Trends to Watch For in 2012 - Harlan Smith - Voices. Over the last several years, there has been a massive surge of interest in Big Data Analytics and the groundbreaking opportunities it provides for enterprise information management and decision making. Big Data Analytics is no longer a specialized solution for cutting-edge technology companies — it is evolving into a viable, cost-effective way to store and analyze large volumes of data across many industries.
But how will this translate to adoption of these new technologies? How will companies incorporate Big Data into their existing business intelligence and data warehouse (BI/DW) infrastructure? How can end users take advantage of the power Big Data has to offer? What is Big Data? Big Data technologies like Apache Hadoop provide a framework for large-scale, distributed data storage and processing across clusters of hundreds or even thousands of networked computers. Big Data in the Enterprise Companies are capturing and digitizing more information than ever before.
Which 'big data' are you talking about? | Data-driven. Late last year I posted a blog item about big data and if/when it would present opportunities for storage vendors. I concluded by saying that, while it was a bit early for next-year prognostications, I expected to see the number of storage devices aimed at analytics applications blossom in 2011 with more storage vendors pursuing the opportunity.
It's now 2011 and I stand by that prediction. However, at least three definitions of big data have blossomed since that posting: Big-data storage: systems that store really big (as in humongous) amounts of data Big-data analytics: systems that use new analytics processes to crunch really big amounts of data from multiple sources and deliver information in real or near real time Big-data storage that supports big-data analytics. To understand what big data storage is from the vendor point of view, one need look no further than EMC's positioning of its Isilon acquisition.
EMC has written "big data" all over this one. Why 'big data' is a magnet for startups | Cutting Edge. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --Armies of entrepreneurs are trying to make money sifting through mountains of data from the Web and other sources, but one of the biggest challenges is simply getting control of the data in the first place Entrepreneurs at an event here this week said that the trend of "big data," or collecting and analyzing reams of information from varied sources, threatens incumbent technology providers and enables applications once considered impossible.
Startups are harnessing massive amounts of data to generate personalized entertainment ideas, predict how media coverage will affect company stock prices, or analyze genomes in the search of new medical treatments. As these applications begin to crop up, the computer scientists behind them are realizing that they require a completely different technical foundation, according to people at the event organized the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.