Bill: April 2008 Archives
I'll add my praise for this book to the already large mix.
I never thought a book on business law could be so fascinating! I have learned the true beauty of law--the artistry, power, and strategy involved in a successful business.
The book covers topics on:
- Invention Assignment Agreements and Works Made for Hire (when employed and employing)
- NDAs
- Working cost-effectively with attorneys (and choosing them!)
- Forms of Business Entity
- Ownership structure
- Raising Money
- Board formation and dealing
- Contracts, leases, etc
- Intellectual Property
- And so many more!
Sound "legal engineering" can make or break a company. In my young and relatively inexperienced opinion, entrepreneurs should take the extra time and effort to cover their asses by (1) reading this book and (2) acting on its advice. While there is a lot an entrepreneur can do on their own, as far as setting up a legal framework, "consulting an experienced attorney" is always preferable (if you can afford it).
Craig Newmark's careless mindset when starting craigslist has caused him a lot of unnecessary hardship: first, giving away a large portion of his company to an early employee who sold it to eBay and now this.
"Failure to prepare is preparation for failure" - John Wooden
YouTube
AIM/ICQ/Gtalk
And I am sure that others have wasted even more time. While each of these is fun, allowing people to be more social while using the Web, they kill personal productivity.
Distractions! It's so easy to turn away from a piece of work that requires effort and concentration to check your email when a new piece arrives, or to check your Twitter, or browse AIM profiles, or immerse yourself in your Facebook NewsFeed. But all of these distractions kill your personal productivity.
It has been a fight for me too. I made rule that I can only check email 3 times a day (for some this is excessive, for others this would sacrifice their livelihood). I only check Facebook in the evening, once, at a certain time. I've logged off AIM and only go on for a specific purpose for a limited amount of time (no more letting those pesky windows popup and distract me).
It's much better to allocate a specific hour to spend on Twitter than to spend an hour checking it back and forth throughout the day. It takes your mind off your work when you're constantly going back and forth.
I can't say I like his speaking-style very much, though. He started by walking in, straddling the podium, and leading with a story (always a safe intro), but then the intro never seemed to stop. He just continued into a series of seemingly disconnected stories. After 20 minutes or so I was too absorbed to care.
It's so great to see such passion and devotion to engineering. I truly admire people who fall in love with something and stay fascinated by it for their lifetime.
I won't go into a recap or analysis of the talk, I am sure Jeff will do a much better job.
When you fail to meet your own expectations and goals, you're likely to do so for others'.
So what are your commitments to you?
Here are a few of mine:
- Eat healthy
- Exercise 5 out of 7 days of the week.
- Relax
- Kaizen: continuous improvement
- Follow through with daily and weekly "to-do's"
- Scrutinize every new obligation you consider taking on (this can be as little as adding another RSS feed to your reader to picking up a new hobby)
If you read some of the comments on the Seeking Alpha page you will see that he says "buttfucked"...what a great word.
Wow. He even said it in such an unabashedly dreadful manner. If he doesn't want to be here, maybe I shouldn't either.
Anyway, bad employee.
Our competitor, Uloop, jumped in the game at the same time as us (literally the same week that we launched)--started by a group of older guys (late twenties/early thirties, I believe).
We fought them hard for a few months and eventually decided to move on.
Anyway, Gannett made an investment in them in 2007...not a bad bit of "validation", but a little too late.
As my friend, Rich at Attributor, said: focusing on a specific target segment is a much better strategy than trying to be "everything for everyone".
This is the first real post of the series exploring how
groups and organizations share knowledge and information. My goal is to base most of this journey on the
scholarly literature available. I've
discovered that there is quite diverse set to choose from on the topic.
The first piece I'll start with is Constant et al.'s "What's Mine Is Ours, or Is It? A Study of Attitudes of Information Sharing" (1994). This piece seems to be one of the most widely cited on the subject, so it will be a good one to begin with. You can download the paper from Sara Kiesler's website.
First, I should clarify what I mean by knowledge and
information sharing and also be specific on what the article addresses. What I mean by information sharing within
organizations is how individuals share outside
information with others inside of the group.
This can take the form of finding an interesting news article pertinent
to the company or workgroup, or finding a blog post that one's colleagues might
enjoy, and sharing this with the rest of the group. This can be done through emailing, forums,
and other mechanisms.
This is slightly different from the type of information sharing David Constant and his colleagues discuss. Constant divides information into two main forms (although he does not rule out the existence of others): product and expertise.
Expertise is knowledge and abilities where as product is something more tangible like a computer program or a work process. It's important that these be differentiated because of people's differing propensity to share based on the type of information--product or expertise. Constant explores the difference in sharing between product-based information and expertise.
Further, most of the article refers to information that is already within the organization. So, if I am the resident expert on coffee brewing within XYZ Corp., then I may decide to share my expertise with others in the organization (inside-in). Contrast this to me finding an interesting article on Internet advertising trends from a blog and sharing it with my colleagues (outside-in).
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While managers can talk endlessly about the benefits of increased information sharing--increased efficiency, innovation, learning, understanding of the organization's directives--how do we know people will want to share? Or will this people want to share information as much as technology allow?
Findings &
Discussion
Organizational Ownership - a major variable that Constant tested for in a series of experiments is the individual's perception of how much the organization owned what was being shared. For instance, if an individual was working on a computer program and another person asked to use it, how much of the product was perceived to be owned by the organization. Constant sought to measure the sharer's perception of company ownership of the computer program. Constant also wanted to measure this for expertise sharing--how much of this did the organization own?
His findings: products are more likely to be shared within an organization because they are perceived to have a higher level of organizational ownership compared to expertise. Expertise is more likely to be guarded--it is perceived as owned more by the individual.
Role of Happiness - Happy individuals are more likely to share within an organization. Unhappy individuals are more unwilling to share and share a smaller percentage.
Interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978) - "You scratch my back, I scratch yours". That is, reciprocity drives sharing behavior within an organization. Although, an organization can mitigate negative reciprocity (I refuse to share with you, thus you refuse to share with me) and can influence individual's sharing habits. Strong organizations that promote reciprocity, positive behavior, can increase sharing.
Prosocial Transformations - People want positive outcomes when sharing. If sharing brings about positive outcomes, people share more. That is, positive outcome can reduce peoples' hesitation to share.
There is also the notion of "social good". Organizations that promote sharing as a social good can increase sharing among its members. Thus, an organization's culture and attitude towards information sharing can influence sharing.
Conclusion
While most of this is common sense, organizations that are aware of these effects can use them to promote an environment of increased information sharing. Promoting a culture that rewards sharing with positive outcomes--praise and thankfulness--can reduce members' hesitations and increase information flow. Of course, the benefits of increased sharing are certainly desirable by any organization--increased productivity, efficiency, learning and understand, and perhaps stronger personal ties within the firm.
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The rest of the series:
View Bill Lennon's profile