Microsoft wants developers to contribute their enhancements to OneNote (a note taking software from Microsoft) and win prizes. Microsoft says: It’s your opportunity to influence the future of OneNote. It’s your chance to wow a global audience. And it’s your shot at winning one of five Toshiba Portégé M200 Tablet PCs. Open Innovation is a… Continue reading
Date Archives → May 2005
Ways to distinguish yourself – #28 Know where you are
This happened in 1997. Kavitha (my wife) and I had just landed in Silicon Valley. Before this, we were living in Singapore and things were very different there. We had to make a lot of changes in our lives to adapt to the valley. First, we had to get our driving license and buy a… Continue reading
Defy commoditization – Mortgage banking example
I saw this interesting story about a bank in San Ramon coming up with an innovative mortgage banking product offering. Mortgage banking is mostly commodity stuff and most commodity offerings compete solely on price CMG Financial Services, the company that came up with this innovative product bucked the trend. The idea as I understand it… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself – #27 Avoid complacency at all costs
They say that failure is the stepping stone for success. What happens once you succeed? Success is not a destination and it should lay the foundation for your next quest. Interestingly, success can be a problem sometimes. A classic situation is when one thinks that he or she is now successful and it’s time to… Continue reading
Open Innovation – Nike joins in
Last month I wrote a short article titled The world is your R&D unit. Many of you wrote back about examples other than the ones I mentioned. Thank you. Brad talks about Nike shoe design contest. Take a look how Nike is engaging with designers outside of Nike to come up with eye-catching designs. Way… Continue reading
Picture is worth a thousand words
Great post on Seth’s blog about a story in pictures – story of the effect of drugs and prostitution. Here is the link to the story. As you can see, even if you don’t read the accompanying text, the story is clear and compelling. Worth sharing this with friends and family members. Please sign up… Continue reading
Quotes worth recording – Bertrand Russell
What a gem. That’s why listening and interpreting what you listen is such a hard thing.. “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand” – Bertrand Russell Please sign up for my newsletter here:
Creating a new market
When microsoft announced a subscription service to tackle spyware, I thought it was an interesting move. In fact, it reminded of a story my friend used to say. Here is the story: Long ago, there was a salesman whose job was to sell maintenance contracts for fax machines. He would go around and pitch this… Continue reading
Quotes worth recording – George Bernard Shaw
Picked this up from Tom Evslin’s blog. In the following quote, George Bernard Shaw asks us to step out of our comfort zone and be unreasonable if you want to get uncommon results. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all… Continue reading
Are you an entrepeneur?
Here is a great post on this topic by Tom Evslin where he provides a 10 point list to do a self-assessment to determine your entrepreneur quotient (for lack of a better phrase) 11. Chris Yeh adds one more item to the list called Reality Distortion Field. I have a few to add but here… Continue reading