Grade A Entrepreneurs

(also: Zeitgeist, great atypical people, books and misc.)

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The New Relationship Marketing by Mari Smith: High Tech and High Touch

February 27th, 2012 · No Comments · Book Review

Mari Smith, probably the ultimate Facebook guru (see my review in March 2011), is also the author of The New Relationship Marketing that came out last October. Social networks tend to be perceived as channels, or as conduits that enable us to broadcast information in order to attract attention, and more often than not we […]

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The End of Business as Usual by Brian Solis

January 18th, 2012 · No Comments · Book Review

“What are words for if not to inspire the hearts, minds, and actions of our employees and customers?” Brian Solis asks this before listing a series of buzzwords that operate as “crutches for characterless engagement,” and are “indicative of how businesses see (or don’t see) employees and customers.” His advice is simple: Take a moment […]

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Don’t wait to break a guitar to wake up! Open Leadership, How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead by Charlene Li

May 3rd, 2010 · 5 Comments · Book Review

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis Just finished reading an advanced copy of Open leadership, by Charlene Li. Great book! In the eighties, IT folks and executives had qualms about providing desktop computers to their employees – the idea of empowering them boiled down to relinquishing command and control. Yet, the world didn’t stop turning. The accelerated rise […]

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The Cluetrain Manifesto, ten years later

December 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Talents, Innovators

I was at Back Bay Station, waiting for the train to NYC when I noticed a young guy with the Cluetrain Manifesto in his hands. I couldn’t resist asking him of he liked it. “It’s old, but it’s great,” he responded enthusiastically, adding that the authors should give it a new title: “Welcome to the […]

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Social Media: The Revenge of the Internet

October 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of delivering an introductory speech for a great product, ObjectiveMarketer, in front of remarkable executives and CIOs from the European Institutions hosted by Cisco Systems. It’s always a challenge to speak to an extraordinarily knowledgeable audience that is well versed in both technologies and trends, but it is also a rewarding […]

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Preface to Seth Godin’s Tribes: The Convergence of Tribes: The Obama Campaign (part 3)

July 18th, 2009 · 5 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

Part 1: Tribes are more than a trendy phenomenon Part 2: Urban tribes and digital tribes, two simultaneous phenomena The Convergence of Tribes: The Obama Campaign… While analog and digital tribes appeared independently at the same period, they converged about ten years ago, and are now increasingly hard to dissociate. Even though the expansion of digital tribes does […]

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Preface to Seth Godin’s Tribes: Urban tribes and digital tribes, two simultaneous phenomena (part 2)

July 18th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

For part 1: Tribes are more than a trendy phenomenon Urban tribes and digital tribes, two simultaneous phenomena… Godin rightfully reminds us that the creation of a tribe, and its goals, are independent from technology. Tribes didn’t appear yesterday and did not wait for the Internet era. Many of the examples of tribes selected by Godin can […]

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Preface to Seth Godin’s Tribes: Tribes are more than a trendy phenomenon (part 1)

July 18th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

Given that Seth Godin’s Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us came out at the end of last year, the book has been reviewed extensively, and if you haven’t read it yet, I can only recommend that you do. I recently translated it into French and wrote a foreword for it — of which I […]

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