Technology Review: Radical Opacity In shadows: Christopher Poole is the creator of 4chan, an online message board where anonymity reigns. Christopher Poole is 22 years old, and as is often true for men his age, his mental life has been punctuated by a series of passing enthusiasms: video games, online chat rooms, Japanese animation. Currently he seems to be going through a Robert Moses phase. Like many people, Poole thinks there are better ways than Moses’s to manage the tangled social, cultural, and infrastructural needs of a community of millions. Visited mostly by young men in their late teens and early 20s, 4chan is loosely organized by topics of interest–music, games, TV, animation (Japanese and otherwise). By no coincidence, 4chan stands out not only for the content its users generate but for the way they generate it: with a degree of anonymity almost unheard-of in the online world.
What is the first document I should put in front of a VC? Twenty-seventh in a series of weekly posts by myself and Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief which answer the fifty questions you should ask before raising venture capital. We expect the series to run for a year after which we will collate the posts into a book. You can find the rationale behind the series here, and the list of questions here. We welcome your comments on any and every aspect of what we are doing. Hopefully the recent posts in this series have given you an idea of how VC evaluate companies, markets, teams and so on. My next three are going to deal with how to best get that in writing with the aim of getting productive meetings with investors. I use the term ‘productive’ very deliberately as I’m a big believer that ‘raising money’ is actually better described as ‘selling equity’ and hence should be treated like a sales process where qualifying prospects out quickly is key to being efficient. The other important thing is that the document should be short.
How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business Maturity Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next? What does a truly advanced company look like in social business? They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria. We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”. How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business MaturityCorporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business: Clear understanding of customers’ socialgraphics. We’ve done research on the roadmap for companies to reach these 10 levels of nirvana, but have found few companies that have done a few, or even a majority of them.
7 Ways To Promote Your Business Online For Free The Evolving Role Of Community And Social Media Managers Community management is not new. People have been managing communities since communities and user groups were first created. Someone has always had to make sure that the community or user group is humming along like a well-oiled machine. The fast spread of social media has changed the role of a community manager, and has created a profession of a social media manager (or social media director - I use the two interchangeably). So... what's the difference between a community and social media manager? Everyone has his / her own definition of a community manager vs. social media manager, and there are as many answers as people blogging and speaking about this (just see my recent Twitter exchange below) Here's how I see the two intersecting and diverging. A community manager is mostly concerned with building and growth of a community, he / she may or may not use social media, as the community may be on Ning, custom branded community or external outposts like Twitter and Facebook.
5 Hot Industries Every Small Business Owner Should Know About Want to know what industries are heating up? Industry analyst IBISWorld just released its picks for the 5 hottest startup industries for the next five years. The company analyzed revenues, growth trends and profitability levels of more than 700 industries to determine which ones are best poised to grow. Even if you are already in business, knowing which industries are in growth mode can give you ideas for new products, services or partnerships that could help your business expand. Testing and Educational Support: High school graduates are going on to college, college students are clinging to their college years instead of facing the tough job market, and laid-off employees are heading back to school. How could your business take advantage of these trends? For more about IBISWorld and other industry reports, visit the IBISWorld website.
Mark Greenfield - Higher Education Web Consulting » The Fate of Communications Services in Universities I rarely allow guest posts on this blog but today I am making an exception. Pat Lynch is someone who I have followed for many years and someone I deeply respect. His book “Web Style Guide”, co-authored with Sarah Horton, was one of the first web books I ever purchased and I still refer to it on a regular basis. Pat has shared with me his thoughts on the recent conversations on the future of higher education web development (see “When the Axe Man Cometh” on uwebd). His historical perspective on the future of university web services departments provides sage advice for us all. I spent most of my 39-year career (so far) at Yale as a manager and director of various kinds of internal communications services, including science graphics, medical illustration, video production, biomedical and general photography, computer graphics and slides film-recording (back in the 1980s), desktop publishing, web design, print and reprographics services, and web design.
5 Tips for making sure you don’t screw up your social media strategy It’s simple. Any brand or business that has previously made use of traditional marketing techniques needs to make the transition into the social media space. People now have the control over how, when and where they make purchase decisions, how they communicate and engage with brands as well as how they influence others’ feelings or perceptions about a brand. Social media plays a pinnacle role in terms of helping companies get into their consumer’s mindset, understand how they want to be communicated with and actively engage with them. But not everybody is getting it right. Common mistakes brands make in social media One of the biggest downfalls is that brands often rush into the online and social media space without fully thinking it through or tying to incorporate it into their other marketing activities. Social media doesn’t just operate in isolation. Defining your social media strategy First of all, companies need to define specific criteria to measure success.
How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months | Blog Tyrant Last Update 12th June, 2015 So you want to sell a blog? In my first year of University I sold my blog for almost $20,000 after only eight months work. It was then that I realized that making money online was something I really wanted to give a shot. In this post I am going to show you what I did in those eight months and how you can create a blog that someone might just want to pay big money for. I am going to divide this post into three sections: The pre-blogging stageBuilding a blog worth some moneySelling your blog Nothing in this post is particularly insightful or new, if you know where to look. The pre-blogging stage Photo: johnonolan This section is about all those little things you need to do before you start your professional blog. 1. Firstly, if you spend eight months working on something you don’t believe in or something that disagrees with your personal morals then you are going to end up hating yourself for wasting that precious time. 2. Let me give you an example. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2.
Quick Practical, Tactical Tips for Presentations In the past I’ve given some tips for handling meetings effectively, covering topics like: - How not to let your meeting go down a rat hole; - Dealing with the elephant in the room; - Dealing with skeletons in your closet; - How to make meetings discussions, not “pitches” - A tale of two pitches (I eventually invested in the first company that pitched) Today’s post is a subtle one about positioning yourself in a presentation. This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides 1. If you look at Diagram A above you’ll see that the presenters are sitting at the opposite end of the table from where the screen is. If you look at Diagram B you’ll see that the people you’re presenting to can look you in the eyes and glance up at the screen. 2. I’ve lately been attending meetings with our shareholders (called LPs or limited partners). 3. 4. 5. 6.