Grade A Entrepreneurs

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

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The art of continuous self-reinvention: What started Nilofer Merchant on the entrepreneurial road

December 5th, 2010 · 6 Comments · Entrepreneurs

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis Chatting over breakfast the other day at Il Fornaio with Nilofer Merchant, whose book The New How, Building Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy I discussed in a former post, I realized that a “new how” often starts with a “new me.” This “new me” can be triggered by unforeseen events – events […]

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Social media to drive social change: The Dragonfly Effect by J. Aaker and A. Smith

November 27th, 2010 · 6 Comments · Book Review

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis What I like about long flights is that they enable me to read an entire book in one shot. This is how I read The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith from Vonavona ventures (an advisory and consulting practice), published earlier this year. This excellent book focuses on how social […]

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English translation of my preface to the French version of Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod

September 24th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Book Review, Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis Note: This book will be published in French by Diateino in January 2011. As a reminder, Diateino is also the French publisher of Seth Godin’s and Guy Kawasaki’s most recent books. To read my French version of this preface, please go to the Diateino blog. *** I’m a cartoonist – This […]

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Entrepreneurs: Do you want to win the Michigan international business plan competition? Try, it’s worth it!

August 31st, 2010 · 2 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis While Silicon Valley remains a powerful magnet for entrepreneurs, quite a few locations in the US also offer friendly entrepreneurial ecosystems. That’s definitely the case of Ann Arbor in Michigan, an incredibly energetic University town with a real quality of life, a highly educated workforce… and one of the best music organization in […]

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Get hip… Get your kicks at the Ubergizmo Digital Summer 2010 in San Francisco

August 10th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis I love Eliane Fiolet and Hubert Nguyen the brilliant founders of Ubergizmo, one of the top blogs about gadgets, gizmos, shifts and turns. Look at their portrait by Renee Blodgett at the first Digital Summer they organized last year with Girls in Tech. The event was a huge success (glance at […]

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Living by Objectives: Jeremiah Owyang, the Edge of a Top Social Media Analyst

August 4th, 2010 · 8 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis If you are interested in social media and community management, you probably read Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy on a regular basis – and if you don’t, subscribe now! Jeremiah, an industry analyst and founding partner of the Altimeter Group, has been analyzing social media trends and technologies, as well as their […]

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Social Media: After the “quote-and-quote-conversation”

May 10th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Book Review

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis Less than a year ago, it was all about conversations. Now, the word “conversation” is used with a pinch of salt. People finally admit that Twitter is more of a broadcast channel, as was clear from the extensive analysis (What is Twitter, as Social Networks or a News Media?) provided by Korean […]

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The New How, Building Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy, by Nilofer Merchant

December 7th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Entrepreneurs, Talents, Innovators

In her book, The New How, Building Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy, published by O’Reilly, Nilofer Merchant addresses a difficult topic: the common discrepancy between what is called “strategy” in the one hand, and what is labeled “execution,” on the other. In between, you have what she calls the “air sandwich.” The gap is not […]

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Dominique Gibert, the French publisher of Guy Kawasaki

December 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Entrepreneurs

I had lunch with Dominique Gibert earlier this week at one of my favorite Parisian haunts, the Brasserie Lipp, Boulevard Saint-Germain. Dominique is the founder of Diateino, the French publisher of Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start and Reality Check as well as of Seth Godin’s Tribes, three books that I translated for her. […]

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Alain Calefas: How his entrepreneurial quest for adventure led him to create Serenity Valley next to Silicon Valley

November 4th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Entrepreneurs

Alain Calefas, Serenity Valley founder, with Michel Serres at DBF, a networking organization for French entrepreneurs, on November 2, 2009. That day, Alain Calefas was interviewed by Jean-Louis Gassée (who co-founded DBF in 1994). Alain Calefas graduated from the French Ecole Polytechnique, arguably one of the most elitist schools in Europe. To get in, you […]

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