Is Your Brand Foiled by Google Search? With its place in the lexicon as a verb and noun, Google is considered by many brand marketers to be the de facto standard for Internet search. It stands to reason that a consumer who searches for a brand by name will expect to find it high up in Google's search results. But what happens when a consumer searches for a generic term, such as "life insurance"? Will the top life insurance brands show up in prime positions on the results page? Not always, according to a recent study by Covario, an interactive marketing analytics firm. Take the search term "home repair," for example. Try the second page, where it's the #16 result for that particular query. Similarly, Tiffany scores a high ranking (#5) when searching for the generic "jewelry" but falls to 29th place when searching for the more specific query of "wedding rings." 1-800-Flowers did indeed capture the number one spot for the search term "flowers," but the brand slid to 25th spot in a search for "gifts."
A Multi-Factor Analysis Of Startups Editor’s note: Matt Oguz is managing director of Palo Alto Venture Science. Every decision we make from what to wear to whom to hire requires a balance of multiple factors. Sometimes we decide quickly and other times with deliberate consideration. We haven’t reviewed all of our clothes.We haven’t reviewed all aspects of what we’ll be doing.When we start that activity we realize there was more to it than what we assumed, such as attending a party where everyone is in a cocktail dress except you because you didn’t know the context of the party. Selecting a startup to invest in isn’t much different. Multi-factor decision analysis, or multi-criteria decision analysis as it’s more commonly known in academia, is an approach that is intended to force hard thinking about the alternatives, contingencies, constraints, etc., to promote good decision-making. We also anchor our valuations to recent events. I’m not pointing out these errors to dismiss the intellect of successful people.
What Workers Want Is What the World Needs Employers who provide workers with tangible ways to make a positive social or environmental impact will find that it pays off. Natalie Fleming graduated from Arizona State University two weeks ago. Like many new grads, she’s been applying to jobs since December and has applied to more than 50 jobs. Natalie’s isn’t alone. Impact work can manifest itself in many ways—roles in corporate social responsibility departments at large companies or in mission-driven organizations like nonprofits are just a few. Among the employees we surveyed, 45 percent of those who said they have impact opportunities at work also reported high job satisfaction levels, while only 29 percent of those who didn’t have such opportunities reported high job satisfaction. Among students, we found that Natalie is indicative of her peer group because she wants to make an impact through her job; she’s also similar in her willingness to hold out for a job that will allow her to do so.
About Living Cities Founded in 1991, Living Cities is an innovative collaborative of 22 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions. In nearly 20 years Living Cities members have collectively invested almost $1 billion, helping shape federal funding programs, redirecting public and private resources, and helping communities to build homes, stores, schools, community facilities and more. However, our members are not simply funders. We have spent the last three years working to determine how we can best serve as a trigger to bring philanthropy, investors and the public sector together to help re-imagine underinvested neighborhoods and find new ways to connect low-income people to economic opportunities wherever they exist in a region.
Thoughts on Flash Here's a look inside a typical VC's pipeline (a must-read for entrepreneurs) | VentureBeat | Entrepreneur | by Sean Jacobsohn, Emergence Capital When I meet with entrepreneurs, I am often asked about the VC “pipeline.” How many deals do we see? How many meetings? How often do we conduct due diligence? How many of those companies do we invest in? I thought it would be helpful to provide visibility about the VC pipeline, while also outlining what helps a company move from an intro meeting into a closed investment. In order to make 10 investments, the average venture capital firm reviews approximately 1,200 companies. Leads: These 1,200 come from network introductions, conferences, in-bound inquiries, proactive efforts, portfolio company referrals, and seed investors. The most important factor in securing a meeting is the background of the founders. Of course, the pitch also matters: Is it concise and compelling? In addition, most venture firms like to make sure that a company is not competitive with a current portfolio company. First, most early stage VC firms look for demonstrated product/market fit.
Third Sector blog The Power of Partnerships Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work. Some problems are simply too complex to solve with any single approach. Consider the fact that in the United States, a million students drop out of high school each year. To begin to turn back that trend, we need to work on several fronts — assist vulnerable families when children are infants, improve classrooms from preschool through high school, provide after-school supports and college access assistance, tackle the issue of summer-learning loss and get much smarter about addressing students’ social and emotional needs at every stage. In the words of Clay Shirky: “Nothing will work, but everything might.” But doing “everything” in piecemeal fashion won’t work. I also pointed out on Tuesday that this approach is centered around the use of data to make improvements, but some readers were concerned that this focus on data was too much. Readers also wanted to know more about the mechanics of the partnerships.
Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline Since its incorporation just over five years ago, Facebook has undergone a remarkable transformation. When it started, it was a private space for communication with a group of your choice. Soon, it transformed into a platform where much of your information is public by default. Today, it has become a platform where you have no choice but to make certain information public, and this public information may be shared by Facebook with its partner websites and used to target ads. Everything you need to know about the four most active edtech investors By Carmel DeAmicis On April 28, 2014 CB Insights recently released a rundown of the investors who have poured the most capital into the education technology space since 2009. There were a few surprises on the list, alongside the obvious players. To give a little context to the research, we did a breakdown of the top four firms, what their background in the edtech space is, and why they topped the list. We also did a quick Q&A with the founder of one of the more unexpected firms to appear — Kapor Capital. The first name on the list may seem out of place. 500 Startups, the accelerator and early stage investment firm run by Dave McClure, was the most active VC firm in edtech from 2009-2013. But on closer inspection, the fact that 500 Startups tops the list shouldn’t come as too much of a shocker to anyone who knows the firm’s strategy. The next two VC firms on the list make far more sense in the education vertical. [image via thinkstock]