To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
pa href="/article/record_review/147782-guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy"strongemChinese
Democracy/em/strong/a's release date has come and, fortunately, gone. By now we know the album is
an overproduced turd (who could have seen that one coming?), but whatever happened with the free
cans of soda a href="http://www.drpepper.com/"strongDr. Pepper/strong/a was going to a
href="/article/news/49539-chinese-democracy-in-2008-free-dr-pepper-for-all"stronggive/strong/a a
href="/article/news/49554-axl-rose-responds-to-dr-pepper-proposition"strongeveryone/strong/a upon
the unveiling of a href="http://web.gunsnroses.com/index.jsp"strongGuns N' Roses/strong/a'
anticipated "masterpiece"?br /br /Well, Dr. Pepper made good on the promise by offering a coupon on
its website for 24 hours, but a problem arose when the demand from thirsty GN'R fans crashed the
site. In response, Dr. Pepper "extended the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours, added a
toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons, and set up an interactive voice
recorder to accept coupon requests," according to a a
href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/02/gunsnroses.soda/index.html?iref=mpstoryview"strongCNN
report/strong/a. Ridiculous problem ridiculously solved, right?br /br /Not so fast. Plenty of
people still didn't get their free Dr. Pepper, and some of these people blame GN'R frontman Axl
Rose himself, despite the fact that he wasn't officially involved in the promotion at all.br /br
/To clear up the misunderstanding, CNN reports that Guns N' Roses lawyer Laurie Soriano wrote a
letter to the good Dr. requesting an apology. She told CNN, "The door to a lawsuit being filed is
always open until the fans are taken care of and Dr. Pepper has done the right thing."br /br /So,
wait, Axl Rose can sue Dr. Pepper for half-assing a promotion he wasn't involved in because his
fans think he's responsible? Hey kids, let's play the misplaced blame game!br /br /P.S. It is funny
when a writer for CNN gets a sentence like "No one is LOL" published./p pa
href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/3W0MUmKhpEH5afxPFgLZ-PbeTZk/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/3W0MUmKhpEH5afxPFgLZ-PbeTZk/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/loGtbq3F2H8"
height="1" width="1"/
Nintendo secures an operating profit of USD 6 off of each Wii unit sold, according to an analyst at
Macquarie Securities.
Analyst David Gibson explained to Forbes that while Sony makes a loss on each PlayStation 3 sold
and Microsoft has the potential to break even with the Xbox 360, Nintendo makes a profit.
The Wii is expected to sell more software than any other console this year, with a target of 220
million units, compared with 120 million for PS3 games and 125 million for Xbox 360 titles. On top
of this, the article details how Nintendo capitalises on its position by selling 60 per cent of Wii
games itself, compared with 30 per cent for Microsoft and 15 per cent for Sony.
Part of this success is placed upon Nintendo's practice of keeping price down, with the console
itself retailing for around USD 250, compared to the PS3 at around USD 400, while Wii games are
priced around USD 50 rather than USD 60 on the other two consoles.
Hiroshi Kamide, director of research at KBC Securities, Japan, commented: "The key thing about
Nintendo is they want their things to be at price points that anyone can respond to."
Apple responds to an iPhone 3G lawsuit by saying its ads are not misleading, but consumers
shouldn't believe them in the first place.br style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color:
maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:1511c07ba7bfa0c1cb4555afcd1e2d53:7SvGBoEpU6uC%2FNS3NmcC5Mul0s2MhVlVBcCRzuTsUDpNRphK%2FBu5cLPBwp2BFskqdbdErb%2F%2FF395OQ%3D%3D'img
border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:e504b6d1cacabffb03d9340d80fd05e4:o5T50HU2acw79MrMS5bVwwvjyS2Stzvy%2F2LHaxGxvs8RotfjsLDrjg4XjyQw%2B%2FPgjblh0gqVN4pw'img
border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:42e059e751dc1de143f1bf4de619effb:%2FSZkIxICZoX8dsWUnrUBfvz4Bz4v6g22tov3UGxAmcYkujhGKLOOmmrVt2Z54WtfH2ZLTHt6K%2FqY'img
border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a
a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:9a4ac3fde5b56cbae80f607b2982f02d:xYXnJghe9UmiHfzUllj9ZWH2wJpQLHCyxBeRUwojEPqa5R27UFhv85l82nCW1Gsrd8Ynxglx2R3R'img
border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=476c9798ecd2bf808db2ccc8fae210e2p=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=476c9798ecd2bf808db2ccc8fae210e2p=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=476c9798ecd2bf808db2ccc8fae210e2" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa
href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=dFHCIx"img
src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=dFHCIx" border="0"/img/a/pimg
src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/472968272" height="1" width="1"/
Societe : ABRAXAS - Lieu de travail : 75008, Paris - Type de contrat : CDI - Salaire : A
négocier - Detail : Rattaché(e) à la Direction des Systèmes
d’Information au sein de son département Exploitation, l’Administrateur SAP a
pour missions : · Mise en place des procédures d’Exploitation et
d’Administration : Administration au quotidien, création et mise à jour des
documentations liées à l’Exploitation et à l’Administration des
environnements SAP · Mise en place et suivi de la supervision de l’infrastructure SAP
: correction d’erreurs et application de patchs / montées de versions. · Mise
en place et surveillance des indicateurs de performance : suivi des performances globales et
anticipation des besoins futurs. Votre profil : De formation bac+4, vous possédez une solide
expérience d’au moins 5 ans en exploitation de plateformes SAP sous Linux/Unix avec
Oracle. Vous aurez à travailler avec les autres Administrateurs SAP afin de former une
équipe solide dirigée par un Architecte SAP expérimenté. Esprit
d’initiative, sens du détail, autonomie et bon relationnel seront vos atouts pour
mener à bien votre mission. Anglais lu et écrit. Compétences techniques : -
Forte culture SAP - Environnement Linux RHEL + Oracle 10G + ECC6.0 + ISU + CRM + NetWeaver Cette
offre vous intéresse ? Merci d’adresser votre candidature à
sandrine.inaudi@abraxas.com, ou +44 207 255 56 03 sous la référence 212/SIN/ADM
Abraxas plc is a leading specialist recruitment agency for the IT industry. Due to the high level
of applications we receive, please be aware that you may not hear from us immediately, as we can
only respond to those applicants whose skills and qualifications are suitable for this position. If
you would like Abraxas to help you find a similar position, or for a complete listing of all our
current vacancies, please visit our website at www.abraxas.com and register your details. Please
note that no terminology in this advert is intended to discriminate on the grounds of age, and we
confirm that we will gladly accept applications from persons of any age for this role
Modern newsrooms have to engage in a never-ending conversation with their community. This may
sound self-evident, but it can be a tough sell in a newsroom working under high pressure. So how
do you get reporters to buy into the proposition that they need to listen to their audience? They
need to see for themselves the enthusiasm that the community has for talking back to its
reporters.
The people formerly known as the readers have now become readers/writers. In the "good old days"
of the print newspaper, we only got a few letters each day. Today, we get hundreds and sometimes
thousands of comments on our news articles each day. With the click of a button, readers can
easily and instantly post reactions to articles. Furthermore, the readers don't only react to our
articles -- they react far more often to each others' comments. The article may start a
discussion, but it does not necessarily remain the center of attention.
This interaction gives us more than additional eyeballs; it teaches us new aspects of
storytelling. For instance, a news website is sometimes more about telling a story in a way to
bring the community together rather than about providing "hard news."
Three recent stories published in Belgian business newspaper De
Tijd provide good examples of how a newspaper can adapt to its new role as a community
center.
The Story of a New American President
The election day in the U.S. was an election night for the people in Belgium. Of course, our
newspaper covered the elections intensely, but we were at a loss for what to do during the night.
People who were so interested in the election that they would stay up all night would surely
watch for the results on CBS or CNN, so what would be the point of De Tijid scrambling to post
breaking coverage on its site? Would it not be better to focus on "the day after" and deliver
more value by writing detailed analysis about the results?
We thought it over and realized there was something valuable in covering the election as it
happened, but it was something beyond scoops and analysis: We could gather the community and
facilitate a conversation. Compare it with a soccer game: One can watch it at home, alone, or
experience the magic of being all together with fellow fans in the stadium.
That night, we launched our CoverItLive live-blog
application and I commented on the election night with our colleague in New York City. Several
other colleagues also made guest appearances that night. Most striking of all, several thousand
community members also visited our live-blog/chatroom that night to post comments --
even as they were, indeed, watching the election results on CNN and CBS.
Even though they were technically getting their news from another source, that did not matter.
They wanted more than to just hear the news; they wanted to discuss what had happened, share in
the joy (of many) and the disappointment (of a few), and hear what other ordinary people had to
say about it. We found that as live-blog hosts we didn't have to comment all the time, as chatty
community members filled the "dead air." Besides, as soon as you get hundreds or thousands of
participants, moderating what others say is sometimes enough to keep you busy.
A Judge Decides
Like so many nations, Belgium has been suffering the consequences of the global financial crisis.
The biggest bank of the country, Fortis, had to be urgently
sold to the French bank BNP Paribas. Fortis
shareholders went into shock as the value of their stocks plummeted and they immediately began to
question the government's response in organizing the transaction.
Inevitably, people went to court.
On the week in question, a judge would deliver a very important ruling on the Fortis sale. The
event was structured simply enough: The judge would begin by explaining his reasoning, often
meandering in one direction and then another, before finally announcing his final decision. In
this type of proceeding, it is impossible to know whether the judge's monologue will go on for
one hour or four.
We had doubts about whether or not to live-blog the event. Why not just wait for the news of the
verdict -- the only hard, fundamental fact that mattered -- instead of having live coverage of
the long speech?
Once again, we reasoned that there was a community out there -- tens of thousands of people in
the financial sector and, of course, many Fortis shareholders and clients. There are a lot of
emotions involved in this case; it is the biggest issue in our De Tijd community. We just felt we
had to be there, with our community, being their ears and eyes (other events taught us that even
streaming video of an event does not change this).
So some colleagues did
the live-blogging (Dutch language), while others moderated the community dialogue (community
members could react in real time in the chatbox). There was a lot of moderating to do in this
conversation -- more than 10,000 people attended the session! And they had hundreds or thousands
of thoughts and questions to share.
At least as impressive were the reactions after the event. We got numerous responses by chat and
email, thanking us by chat or email for the live coverage. It was evident this was not only about
reporting the verdict. Although the news value of the judge's speech may not have been
particularly high, it was evident that this was what the public needed to hear. And, even more,
they needed it as an opportunity to be heard.
Who Was First?
On one recent weekend, another newspaper ran a story about a huge bridge loan authorized by the
Belgian state for Fortis. The newspaper said the loan had been authorized very discreetly. Our
website did not run that story, because the very discreet loan was, in fact, not very discreet at
all: De Tijd had broken that same story three weeks earlier.
We decided not to run the "new" story for reasons that should be familiar by now: There was no
new hard news. In fact, we considered this a non-event. However, our community was shocked. They
heard about the news in the other newspaper and yet saw no mention of it on our site, which is
often thought of as the leading source of information on the Fortis case.
People started posting the article in the comments section of the site, complaining that De Tijd
was "giving up" the Fortis coverage. Some suggested the journalists "gave up" after pressure from
high places.
Suddenly, our newspaper found out that it had limited control about what was published on the
site: Even if the editorial staff did not run a story, people would do it themselves by posting
it in the comments and, more so, add their own conclusions. Suddenly a non-event had become a
news story after all.
The
editor in chief reacted (Dutch language) immediately. He told our community that his
journalists had no intention of abandoning coverage -- quite the contrary. He explained that the
story about the bridge loan was actually an old story, and linked to the story we had published
three weeks earlier.
The Monday after we learned that his reaction was by far the most read story of the weekend.
There was a lot of "real hard news" on the site, but for our community the discussion about the
Fortis coverage was far more important, even though nothing new had happened there.
Unanswered Questions
After these incidents, many colleagues now seem to accept that engaging in conversations with the
community is an important part of our role as a newspaper. The community appreciates it
enormously, and it is also the sensible thing to do in terms of encouraging visitors to spend
more time on the website.
Of course, this current financial crisis limits the amount of time that reporters can spend
fostering a sense of community as those working in the newsroom have other jobs to do. So how can
we still make sure that we don't ignore community development during these troubled times? Some
possibilities we are working on include:
> Considering inviting community members to be moderators or else outsource moderation duties.
> Explaining the rules and guidelines for comments clearly and in a positive way.
> Using well-known symbols to make moderation clearer: We give serious offenders a "yellow
card," which means their reactions are no longer published in real time but need prior approval.
In extreme cases we give a "red card," banning them. We do not use these cards for someone who
only went off-topic, but for people insulting other participants, for instance, or using
repeatedly unacceptable language.
> Buying or developing a system wherein community members can rate comments and filter out
those with low marks.
Whatever system we go for, it remains crucial that journalists running a story know how the
community responds. Reporters should realize that while not every reader of a business newspaper
is a CEO or a PhD in Economics, they can still learn a lot from their community just by engaging
them in online conversations.
Roland Legrand is in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, the publisher of leading
Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo. He studied applied economics and philosophy.
After a brief teaching experience, he became a financial journalist working for the Belgian wire
service Belga and subsequently for Mediafin. He works in Brussels, and lives in Antwerp with his
wife Liesbeth.
Illustration of social media by Omar Lee for
MediaShift.
Societe : ABRAXAS - Lieu de travail : Paris - Type de contrat : CDI - Salaire : A négocier -
Detail : As an ASM Service Manager you will be responsible for: Coordinate the activity and control
the quality of the work performed by the support Engineers in the provision of ASM services and
ensure a balanced workload among the support teams Manage change requests and control the
development and implementation of approved change requests Pre-sales and sales support Interacts
with other teams (internal and customer’s teams) to identify and clarify requirements or
problems, manage conflicts... Informs the customer about exceptional situations that may impact the
daily operations and presents plans to avoid/minimize problems Communicates and reports normal
activity as well as exceptional situations Discusses plans with peers on the customer side to
exploit and detect new opportunities, informs Functional Business Development Manager so as to plan
adjustments to service scope or ASM services evolution Assesses client IS current situation and
prepares service setup Develops/supports the development of Software License Agreement’s or
contracts Anticipate adjustments of the team to accommodate the new reality Controls the execution
and quality of the work performed and the results produced by the support engineers against SLA as
well as against requirements specified or solution identified to problems reported Coaches the
execution team, provides technical support and know-how promotes a service attitude, whist
allocated to servicing his/her customer. Experience required: You have +4 years of experience in
Oracle Retail in a least strong experience in one of these following Oracle Retail modules: ORMS,
ORDW, ORSIM, ORWMS, ORPM, ORIB. Strong technological knowledge and strong Knowledge on retail
business – at least one area is required MUST BE fluent in French and English
Maturity level on costumer relationship management its needed. If you are interested in this
opportunity please send your CV to Sandrine INAUDI, recruitment consultant,
sandrine.inaudi@abraxas.com or +44 207 255 56 03. Abraxas plc is a leading specialist recruitment
agency for the IT industry. Due to the high level of applications we receive, please be aware that
you may not hear from us immediately, as we can only respond to those applicants whose skills and
qualifications are suitable for this position. If you would like Abraxas to help you find a similar
position, or for a complete listing of all our current vacancies, please visit our website at
www.abraxas.com and register your details. Please note that no terminology in this advert is
intended to discriminate on the grounds of age, and we confirm that we will gladly accept
applications from persons of any age for this role
!-- [DocumentBodyStart:c5fee734-d422-4789-929b-f23be0cdb39a] --div
class='jive-rendered-content'pHello Rob,/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding:
0px;"nbsp;/ppspanPlease take a CPU snapshot as described in /spana class="jive-link-external-small"
href="http://jetbrains.net/devnet/docs/DOC-192"http://jetbrains.net/devnet/docs/DOC-192/a/pp
style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pblockquote class="jive-quote"
level="1"pEnv: Windows XP, JDK 6u10, 2GB memory, Core 2 DUO/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt;
padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppI was previously running build 8995 and when I switched back to/ppIntelliJ
the controls responded immediately./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding:
0px;"nbsp;/ppHowever, with build 9164 about 60% of the time the GUI controls when/pptrying to run
say JUnits, or just clicking in an editor window/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding:
0px;"nbsp;/pptakes 3-4 seconds to respond. By this I mean before I see a button/ppredrawn as being
pushed./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppThe Memory usage is about 50%
of maximum heap. I watched the memory/ppgauge and when the/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt;
padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppIntelliJ finally begins to respond I don't see a drop in the memory/ppusage
as I would expect after a garbage collection cycle./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt;
padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppIs anyone else seeing this under Windows XP?/pp style="min-height: 8pt;
height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp---/ppOriginal message URL:/ppa class="jive-link-external-small"
href="http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/message/5228067#5228067"http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/message/5228067#5228067/a/p/blockquotep--
/ppDmitry Jemerov/ppDevelopment Lead/ppJetBrains, Inc./ppa class="jive-link-external-small"
href="http://www.jetbrains.com/"http://www.jetbrains.com//a/pp"Develop with Pleasure!"/pp
style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt;
padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/p/div!--
[DocumentBodyEnd:c5fee734-d422-4789-929b-f23be0cdb39a] --
!-- [DocumentBodyStart:8f0fe997-662a-4a69-b295-3890058c66a2] --div
class='jive-rendered-content'pEnv: Windows XP, JDK 6u10, 2GB memory, Core 2 DUO/ppI was previously
running build 8995 and when I switched back to IntelliJ the controls responded
immediately./ppHowever, with build 9164 about 60% of the time the GUI controls when trying to run
say JUnits, or just clicking in an editor window/pptakes 3-4 seconds to respond. By this I mean
before I see a button redrawn as being pushed./ppThe Memory usage is about 50% of maximum heap. I
watched the memory gauge and when the/ppIntelliJ finally begins to respond I don't see a drop in
the memory usage as I would expect after a garbage collection cycle./pp style="min-height: 8pt;
height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppIs anyone else seeing this under Windows XP?/p/div!--
[DocumentBodyEnd:8f0fe997-662a-4a69-b295-3890058c66a2] --
!-- [DocumentBodyStart:8f0fe997-662a-4a69-b295-3890058c66a2] --div
class='jive-rendered-content'pEnv: Windows XP, JDK 6u10, 2GB memory, Core 2 DUO/ppI was previously
running build 8995 and when I switched back to IntelliJ the controls responded
immediately./ppHowever, with build 9164 about 60% of the time the GUI controls when trying to run
say JUnits, or just clicking in an editor window/pptakes 3-4 seconds to respond. By this I mean
before I see a button redrawn as being pushed./ppThe Memory usage is about 50% of maximum heap. I
watched the memory gauge and when the/ppIntelliJ finally begins to respond I don't see a drop in
the memory usage as I would expect after a garbage collection cycle./pp style="min-height: 8pt;
height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppIs anyone else seeing this under Windows XP?/p/div!--
[DocumentBodyEnd:8f0fe997-662a-4a69-b295-3890058c66a2] --
The actor shoots down the "negative shadow on the positive and good fight I'm fighting"img
src="http://feeds.people.com/~r/people/headlines/~4/472656119" height="1" width="1"/
Ravit
Lichtenberg is the founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com—a boutique consultancy with a mission to
help startups succeed. She authors a blog at ravitlichtenberg.com.
With the economic downturn grinding the startup wheels to a near-halt here and abroad, companies
are competing for a smaller pie. Capital, acquisition odds, advertising dollars, and consumer
wallets are all becoming much smaller.
If you are a European startup in the consumer Web services or product space, you have even more
obstacles to overcome than your US counterparts. For one, funding in Europe is still very limited
and narrowly focused compared to the US. Second, your consumer base is much
smaller—especially if your product is localized for language and service.
Third, the more innovative you get, the more likely it is you’ll bump against a much
greater skepticism and a much smaller pool of early adopters.
So you decide to come here—Silicon Valley, the Mecca of anything
startup– to raise funds and tap into the massive and enthusiastic US customer base. But
right now, even though you may have enjoyed great interest as investors expand their reach
internationally, you’re up against fierce competition from just about everyone.
And this is where European startups face the biggest challenge: presenting your company in a way
that makes sense—the US way.
Fundamental differences
In the past 2 months I’ve listened to over 40 pitches from French, Belgian, British, and
Eastern European companies. About 1 in 15 presented their company in a way that would stick. This
is because Europeans tend to build their case in a highly academic way–stating the
conditions under which their offering makes sense and building their argument from there.
American audiences, on the other hand, are used to seeing
“the bottom line first” and they do things very fast by European standards.
“They’re like cowboys,” a Belgian CEO told me. “First they shoot then
they look.” This is a fundamental difference in how people present and perceive
information. And it can mean the difference that gets you to that second meeting, someone writing
about your startup, and even getting funding.
Key points to remember
Let’s go over a few key points that can help you present your company in a way that makes
more sense here:
1. First impression is (almost) everything.
Americans know this very well. That’s why they work on their “elevator pitch.”
You have 30-60 seconds to create an impression. Want to spruce it up even more? Have a 1-2 minute
demo ready on your iPhone that plays while you speak. Think: Why are you different? What makes
you stand out? How do you stick in someone’s mind? Why should an investor want to see you
again? These are questions that should always be on your mind and guide what you
say— all in 60 seconds or less.
2. Speak in benefits. Customer benefits, that is.
Europeans tend to be highly accomplished on the technology side. In the US, you also need to
think about, and communicate, what your prospective customers will be able to do thanks to your
technology. How will it address a true customer need? Why will a customer use it? Better
yet—why will they pay for it? Every time you speak about a feature or
capability of your technology, immediately follow with “and that means that customers will
be able to...” (fill in the blank).
3. Start with the end first.
It may sound counter intuitive but business communication in the US is often non-linear and
starts with the conclusion first. The people with whom you meet will want to know what your
product does and how much money you expect to make from it. If that sticks, then you can go back
and talk about how you got to the idea, how you developed it, all those other things it can be,
etc.
4. Know your numbers.
In Silicon Valley numbers speak louder than anything else. They’re also important as a
reality-check for you as technologies and competitors evolve. Don’t let anyone fool
you–no one really knows what’s going to happen so it’s okay to make
assessments—just make sure they’re intelligent ones. Be ready to talk
about your 3-year profit-and-loss (P&L) model and about your Total Addressable Market (TAM)
in clear terms.
5. Focus.
The American idiom is “put a stake in the ground.” It’s when of all the many
things your technology can be, you choose one (or two) things for now and go with them. This is a
tough one, I know, because you want to show all the great things your idea can become. But where
you see options, VCs see lack of direction. So let’s keep things in order: Decide on a
focus for now, and put the framing, benefits, and numbers around that choice. You will later have
plenty of time to develop your roadmap.
6. Investors are not your friends.
They are meeting with you because you might represent a good investing opportunity. As such, come
prepared with all your materials and if possible, with a beautifully executed demo and present
your case. If you need advice, ask your friends, other CEOs, or advisors if you have them. In
fact, ask anyone–just not investors you’d like to work with. Once the term sheet has
been completed and the deal signed, they’ll provide you with plenty of advice whether you
want it or not. It’s their job.
7. Networking is key.
Many European CEOs think networking and mingling is “cocktail hour saved for those who
don’t do real work.” But in the US—and especially in the Silicon
Valley—this is an important catalyst to getting business done. You need to get
out of your three-cubicle office which you’re sharing with four other companies and go to
events. You need to tell other CEOs, bloggers, and investors about your product. You’ll get
invaluable advice that will undoubtedly help you move forward, new connection points, and a
perspective on the startup world within which you operate. This is just as important as making
phone calls and taking meetings.
8. Keep it short.
Repeatedly I hear that CEOs talk about their companies for too long. Yes- you want to make sure
people understand the breadth of your offering, but more talk doesn’t necessarily get you
results. Lucas Grassi Gurfein, former International Product Manager for Yahoo!Inc. suggests
bullet points often work best: Use them as talking points and keep your presentation short. More
important than demonstrating the history of your idea is creating a stellar impression and a
genuine curiosity in your listeners’ minds; you want them to come back and say “can
we talk more?” Less, you see, is truly more.
9. Don’t be argumentative.
In most European countries, debating a topic is just part of daily conversations. To most
Americans—unless they were on their college debate team—the
practice of debate can be unnerving. You already know that Europeans can be perceived as
uncomfortably direct here—add debating and you come across as argumentative
and maybe even hostile, which is hardly what you meant.
Try to balance between presenting your rationale and listening to feedback. If you have a thought
about the point being brought up, you can always start by acknowledging the feedback’s
validity and then add how you’re thinking of addressing it.
10. Tap into the existing infrastructure.
There are a number of organizations and initiatives designed directly to help advance European
companies in the US:
· Each country typically has a Chamber of Commerce in the Bay Area which puts together
business-related events and can help you get connected much faster than you could do on your own.
· There are non-profit organizations like SVOD and VC backed events like the Dow Jones’ Venture
Wire EuroTech Showcase that help promote European startups through connections to venture
capital firms and journalists.
· A number of organizations sponsor conferences, competitions, and
“boot-camps” for startups. GuideWire’s Innovate!Europe is one
example—it focuses on identifying new and promising talent in Europe and
helping them grow globally. Make sure you’re aware of these and attend at least a few each
year.
As the CEO of a European startup you will need to overcome a number of obstacles. At the same
time, the European tendency to take more calculated risks, base products on proprietary
technology, and have demonstrated success abroad, can translate into leverage especially in these
difficult times.
As venture capital firms increasingly diversify their portfolio with a greater reach abroad, you
may in fact enjoy more opportunity than ever before. If your product is truly offering customers
a way to do something new, something they want—if you help them make existing
interactions less painful—you’re just as likely (if not more) to get a
piece of that funding pie and more of those cavorted consumer eyes. The key is to communicate
what you do and what’s unique about your startup’s offering in a way that matches how
people perceive and respond to information in the US.
Have tips of your own? Share them below in the comments.
pOutcry about an audio issue with the New Xbox Experience has prompted Microsoft to respond in turn
with acknowledgment of the issue and word of a forthcoming patch./ppa
href="http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/12/02/xbox-360-nxe-patch-in-the-works-for-audio-issues"Read
More.../a/p
pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/peoplebrowsr_icons.jpg"Imagine a
href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/"TweetDeck/a as an online application. Now imagine that you
could use its paneled dashboard interface to keep tabs on your other online identities, too. With a
href="http://peoplebrowsr.com"PeopleBrowsr/a, you can. This new application, currently in alpha,
lets you update your networks, follow your friends, organize your favorites, and search for content
across networks that include a href="http://twitter.com"Twitter/a, a
href="http://flickr.com"flickr/a, a href="http://youtube.com"YouTube/a, a
href="http://linkedin.com"LinkedIn/a, a href="http://www.digg.com"Digg/a, a
href="http://seesmic.com"Seesmic/a, a href="http://identi.ca"identi.ca/a, a
href="http://www.photobucket.com"Photobucket/a, a href="http://upcoming.com"upcoming/a, and a
href="http://friendfeed.com"FriendFeed/a./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a
href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12781amp;cb=12781' target='_blank'img
src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12781amp;n=12781' border='0' alt='' align="right"
//a/p h2About PeopleBrowser/h2 pKeeping tabs on all the happenings across the social web can be a
challenge. For some, a href="http://www.friendfeed.com"FriendFeed/a is the destination of choice as
it lets you see streams of information from all your friends as they share, comment, and
participate in social media. Others find the application too noisy, as it requires a lot of manual
tweaking and filtering to remove unwanted content. /p pA good alternative for those who want to
keep up with the social web in a more organized fashion is a
href="http://peoplebrowsr.com"PeopleBrowsr/a, a virtual dashboard for tracking your online
identities. It's very much inspired by TweetDeck with panels that you scroll through horizontally.
It also has a "Groups" feature, but its implementation was somewhat confusing. We'll give it a pass
for now, though, as the application is still in alpha. /p a
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3076841943/" title="peoplebrowsr by sarahintampa,
on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/3076841943_84a7e7c4cd.jpg" width="500"
height="405" alt="peoplebrowsr" //ap h2How To Use It/h2 pTo get started with a
href="http://peoplebrowsr.com"PeopleBrowsr/a, you simply add your online IDs and authorize the
PeopleBrowsr service when necessary, as with a href="http://flickr.com"flickr/a and a
href="http://youtube.com"YouTube/a. Once you're finished, you can then switch over to the
PeopleBrowsr app itself. /p pThere are actually two different views to choose from: the stream view
(which resembles TweetDeck) and the Gallery view which lays out the avatars of your friends across
the page. You must select your view of choice upon login. In the Gallery view, you can click on
friends' avatars to see their latest updates and then interact with those updates accordingly,
depending on what network you are browsing at the time. /p pTo select the network you want to see,
there's a navigation bar at the top left side of the page. You can scroll through the various
online sites listed, selecting those you want displayed. In the Stream view, this is more practical
as it loads up each new network in a separate panel, letting you then scroll horizontally from
Twitter, to flickr, to YouTube, etc. /p a
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3076781771/" title="peoplebrowsr_navigation by
sarahintampa, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/3076781771_9e7209b2f8_o.png"
width="311" height="68" alt="peoplebrowsr_navigation" //a h2Your Streams/h2 pEach network provides
different options for the types of views you can add to your paneled view. Clicking on the network
from the navigation bar (see above) will add some default views to the window, but you can also
choose to add other views from the navigation bar above the streams themselves. For Twitter, the
views to choose from may include things like Replies and your Friends Timeline, for Flickr it
includes options like Favorites and Friends' photos, and for YouTube, it includes your videos, your
favorites, and so on./p pa href="http://peoplebrowsr.com"PeopleBrowsr/a also has "PeopleTags" which
let you tag friends in order to create cross-network groups. This feature wasn't entirely intuitive
to use because the "My Groups" option appears at the top of the page even when no groups have been
created. It seems to respond to a click but does nothing even though you're assuming that it will
open up a pane for group creation as in TweetDeck. However, as you click on the individual posted
items in your streams, you have the option of tagging them in order to create groups which then
makes the "My Groups" link functional. /p p a
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3076877597/" title="peoplebrowsr_streams_001 by
sarahintampa, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/3076877597_b081018b5b_o.jpg"
width="602" height="261" alt="peoplebrowsr_streams_001" //a p a
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3076877795/" title="peoplebrowsr_flickr by
sarahintampa, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3061/3076877795_2fa67ab53f_o.jpg"
width="599" height="258" alt="peoplebrowsr_flickr" //a h2PeopleBrowsr Shows Promise/h2 pFor an
alpha app, this is a great first start. There are still some tweaks, like the Groups feature for
example, that need to be made. Also, although it was possible to add a FriendFeed ID, FriendFeed
did not appear in the top navigation for some reason. Without its inclusion, this would be an
incomplete application. The app was also slow at times, once even crashing Firefox entirely.
However, it's hard to tell for sure whether that's the app at fault or the pre-beta OS the testing
was done on. That said, a href="http://peoplebrowsr.com"PeopleBrowsr/a definitely looks like a
promising tool to organize your social streams in ways that make sense to you. /p stronga
href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/peoplebrowsr_a_visual_dashboard_for_your_online_identities.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong
pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GuHyyQbEFNbRr6IDgDNuTPP_ChQ/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GuHyyQbEFNbRr6IDgDNuTPP_ChQ/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=WIjLqXpX"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=9hTy7560"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=V9H4NJfA"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=V9H4NJfA" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=Yk7JEhXj"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=Yk7JEhXj" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=cIa14YfO"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=cIa14YfO" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=yHWhG7mY"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=g9BAOv8T"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/Q6FwW9_BXT8" height="1" width="1"/
centerobject width="400" height="225"param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /param
name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /param name="movie"
value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2229299amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1"
/embed
src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2229299amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400"
height="225"/embed/objectbr /a href="http://vimeo.com/2229299"g-speak overview 1828121108/a from a
href="http://vimeo.com/user922585"john underkoffler/a on a href="http://vimeo.com"Vimeo/a./centerbr
/ pClaire Evans wrote an interesting article on scientist John Underkoffler's "spatial operating
environment" a href="http://oblong.com/article/0866JqfNrFg1NeuK.html"g-speak/a for GOOD last week.
Unlike current operating systems (Vista, Leopard, etc.) which are designed entirely around the
mouse, g-speak responds to the organic human movement of the user, without a mouse. This could
potentially have significant consequences for how we interface with computers, which is precisely
why g-speak is so compelling. Excerpt below: /p piAfter all, computers -- with their processors,
memory, graphics, and networked view of the world -- are offering us increasingly complex
possibilities for translating and interacting with 1s and 0s. Yet, the way we use computers
hasn’t changed appreciably since the 1980s: we still click around a screen with a mouse or
track pad./i/p piThe makers of g-speak know that this sort of control doesn't take advantage of how
the human brain works. According to Underkoffler, the brain regions that controls muscles, muscle
memory, and proprioception (the sense of where your body is in space) and the visual system evolved
to work together to deal with spatial situations. "That's why we’re all such experts at
getting around and manipulating the real world," he says. "So it seems clear to us that computers
should work the same way."/i/p pcentera href="http://www.good.is/?p=13588"[ READ FULL ARTICLE
]/a/center/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-fp/~4/472613706" height="1" width="1"/
More than two years after Apple launched the iPhone, and months
after its rivals launched their versions of touchscreen phones, Nokia today started selling a
touchscreen phone (5800 XpressMusic) and announced the N97superphone, which has touch screen
and a keyboard and will be made available sometime in the second quarter of 2009. Maybe. Despite
the collective oohs and aahs that can be found on the Internet, however, it would take a lot more
for Nokia to beat its competitors, especially Apple and its iPhone.You can buy the Xpress device,
which was
first announced in October, for$314 unsubsidized, though in India and Russia the prices are
higher. As for the 5800 Xpress, a friend of mine recently brought one to the U.S. and after I
played around with it for an hour, my response was meh! The touch was OK, just like it’s OK
on any other device, but it’s not as responsive as the iPhone. So no, it’s not an
iPhone killer, not by any means.
The N97 however, seems, like a worthy
competitor — in an Aston Martin vs. Infiniti sort of a way, at least. I am withholding
further judgment until I’ve had some time to play around with it.
The N97 is a Symbian S60 touchscreen device with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5-megapixel
camera and 32 GB of on-board memory; it also features an upgraded version of Nokia Maps LG (the
Prada II has similar touch-with-a-QWERTY keyboard approach). You can bump up the memory by adding
a 16 GB microSD card. It features a large 3.5″ touch display with 640 X 480 resolution. And
yes, it will be sold in the U.S., where it’s going to cost $650; it will go on sale in June
2009 (specifically June 29, 2009, according to the company). One of its more attractive features
is this concept of “social location.”
With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the Nokia N97 mobile computer
intuitively understands where it is. The Nokia N97 makes it easy to update social networks
automatically with real-time information, giving approved friends the ability to update their
’status’ and share their ’social location’ as well as related pictures or
videos.
They are taking a cue from other phone makers, like INQ Mobile, which have
already released their version of Facebook phones and are already finding success with it.
From the looks of it, this is an impressive entry. My frustration with Nokia phones is that they
are either underpowered or are hampered by the S60 OS, which is not very reliable and makes the
phones crash all the time. (Well, more than my iPhone and less than Windows Mobile.) (Related
post: Symbian,
iPhone and the New Mobile Reality.)
The very fact that Nokia is only now getting out touchscreen phones shows that as a company it is
stuck in bureaucratic quicksand, with a culture of consensus that makes it difficult to respond
to new challenges. Nokia — and I have been following them for a while — has become
one of those companies that, much like Microsoft, is good with announcements, not so great with
the follow-up.
There is word that Nokia has a whole arsenal of touchscreen phones coming in the latter half of
2009. Let’s hope they can get their mojo back and start coming out with great devices
– especially ones that will make me go back to using Nokia devices on a daily
basis. Until then Apple and its iPhone has the pole position all to itself.Â
Aussie Idol star Anthony Callea says coming out has had minimal
career impact: "You really have to be comfortable with yourself before you make that step.
Everybody has an opinion. People say, 'You should have been up front about it', but you need to
be comfortable. You don't want to get to 30 or 40 and be dealing with your sexuality. I wanted to
do it my way. I didn't want my label or management to be a part of it, I wanted to write my own
statement and express what I've gone through and dealt with."
Beyoncé and "Single Ladies" YouTube superstar Shane Mercado
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
Ravit
Lichtenberg is the founder and chief strategist at 
American audiences, on the other hand, are used to seeing
“the bottom line first” and they do things very fast by European standards.
“They’re like cowboys,” a Belgian CEO told me. “First they shoot then
they look.” This is a fundamental difference in how people present and perceive
information. And it can mean the difference that gets you to that second meeting, someone writing
about your startup, and even getting funding.
4. Know your numbers.
The N97 however, seems, like a worthy
competitor — in an Aston Martin vs. Infiniti sort of a way, at least. I am withholding
further judgment until I’ve had some time to play around with it.
Cincinnati Christian University’s chief financial officer Robert Williams
