January 2012
9 posts
“I think we need to do a better job of communicating with consumers”
– Thorsten Hines, Research in Motion’s newly-appointed CEO, explaining what the struggling smartphone maker needs to do to rebound in the U.S. market.
“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources...”
– A definition of an entrepreneur, according to HBS professor Howard Stevenson.
2 tags
WatchAn example of how good music can give a corporate demo video some zing.
2 tags
A Great Email Auto-Reply
I will be out of the country until January 14, 2012. I will be checking email from time to time, but cannot promise my usual obsessive approach to email. Happy new year.
The Social Term for 2012 is....
“Social sound platform” in the wake of SoundCloud raising $50-million in venture capital.
December 2011
10 posts
“Apple doesn’t own innovation and design out there right now. It was time to...”
– Brian Wallace, a vice-president of strategic marketing at Samsung, who ironically joined the company this year from RIM, which is getting assailed for its lack of innovation.
2 tags
WatchI want a Nest, which has created Thermostat 2.0.
“We realize we’ve not met expectations.”
– RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis talking about the company’s dismal performance in 2011, one of the biggest understatements of the year.
“We are in a bubble for social startups. [When it bursts], this is going to sweep...”
– Forrester CEO George Colony suggesting that social startups are in for tough times.
November 2011
7 posts
WatchA short interview with Klout CEO Joe Fernandez after his keynote conversation at meshmarketing yesterday in Toronto.
October 2011
11 posts
Marc Andreessen on Growing a Startup
The problem with with true hyper-growth… It’s the problem like baking a cake in three minutes. You’re in the kitchen and you have sugar, flour, egg on the ceiling. What the hell are you doing?
“The focus on head shots has moved a necessary first inch toward its next logical...”
– The Globe & Mail’s Jeff Blair questioning why head shots in the NHL are being banned but it’s still okay for fights to happen that involve players hitting each other’s heads.
September 2011
17 posts
“More and more people visit Facebook out of necessity rather than desire. It’s a...”
– Mashable’s Ben Parr on Facebook as it prepares for its annual f8 conference.
“The way this has unfolded is not the way it should have unfolded. There were a...”
– Peter Milczyn, Toronto councillor and Ford Bros. supporter, talking about how new “plans” for Toronto’s waterfront have been racked over the coals. Is anyone surprised?
“This is not a careful examination of the city’s fiscal condition. It is a...”
– Toronto Star columnist Royson James on about Mayor Rob Ford’s plan to slash spending by going after the city’s libraries, zoos, subsidized daycare and public transit.
3 tags
“You don’t get jobs having 400 acres of parkland. Parks are beautiful. We have...”
– Toronto mayor Rob Ford talking about how parks and trees don’t employ people, which brings back memories of former mayor Mel Lastman
“TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards. We have a...”
– Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chief executive, audaciously explaining why it’salright that Mike Arrington can create a new VC fund to invest in start-ups, and still be involved with TechCrunch, which writes about start-ups.