Business & Entrepreneurship – Steffan Antonas

Randy Komisar’s Cautionary Word on the Deferred Life Plan and Thoughts on Cultures of Entrepreneurship

I find myself coming back to nuggets on Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner frequently. These two, taken together, are like a motivational one-two punch if you’ve got entrepreneurship in your blood. Randy is right on the money. In the first video, he warns against the concept of a deferred life plan, when people put off what they really want to do for what is expected of them. He says that deferring life is when you are deferring your sense of excitement and passion for what you really care about and points out that working hard is not inconsistent with the deferred life plan, but doing so for a product that you do not have interest in is.

In the second video Randy points out that most entrepreneurship in the world is not mission-driven, but inspired by necessity and he challenges the audience with the idea that fostering a strong culture of entrepreneurship can provide a surrogate notion of empowerment and democracy (that we are lacking). So what do you love to do? Wanna change the world? What are you waiting for?

A Cautionary Word on the Deferred Life Plan

Embracing A Value Driven Culture of Entrepreneurship

Netflix’s Freedom And Responsibility Culture

I came across this awesome 128 slide presentation from the CEO of Netflix today (below). The presentation is meant to be read, rather than presented and offers a quick-fire reference guide on the values, behaviors and skills Netflix upholds in the effort to create a culture of freedom and responsibility for their business. Regardless of your position in your current organization, these slides are worth spending some time absorbing – they represent a massive (and necessary) shift from the values and thinking that define rigid cultures of control and process adherence to those that create cultures that set the appropriate context for workers to form nimble, effective teams who constantly innovate, share ideas and challenge and learn from one another. At it’s core this new cultural framework requires a simultaneous top-down and bottom-up infusion of values. Making it work is about getting managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than by trying to control their people, as well as about building teams of self motivating, self-aware, self disciplined, self improving people who take ownership and responsibility and are willing to work cross functionally when challenges arise.

The full presentation is embedded below for you to flip through. I’ve included a break down of the 9 behaviors and skills that the company highlights as most important to their culture:

#1 Judgement

You make wise decisions (people, technical business and creative) despite ambiguity
You identify root causes, and get beyond treating symptoms
You think strategically, and can articulate what you are, and are not, trying to do.
You smartly separate what must be done well no, and what can be improved later.

#2 Communication

You listen well, instead of reacting fast, so you can better understand
You are concise and articulate in speech and writing.
You treat people with respect independent of their status or disagreement with you
You maintain calm poise in stressful situations

#3 Impact

You accomplish amazing amounts of important work.
You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely upon you.
You focus on great results rather than on process.
You exhibit bias-t0-action, and avoid analysis paralysis.

#4 Curiosity

You learn rapidly and eagerly
You seek to understand our strategy, market, subscribers, and suppliers (factors that impact the business and customer experience)
You are broadly knowledgeable about business, technology and entertainment (you understand the various contexts the business operates under and the interplay between them)
You contribute effectively outside of your specialty

#5 Innovation

You re-conceptualize issues to discover practical solutions to hard problems
You challenge prevailing assumptions when warranted, and suggest better approaches
You create new ideas that prove useful
You keep us nimble by minimizing complexity and finding time to simplify

#6 Courage

You say what you think even if it is controversial
You make tough decisions without excessive agonizing
You take smart risks
You question actions inconsistent with our values

#7 Passion

You inspire others with you thirst for excellence
You care intensely about Netflix’s success
You celebrate wins
You are tenacious

#8 Honesty

You are known for candor and directness
You are non-political when you disagree with others
You only say things about fellow employees you will say to their face
You are quick to admit mistakes

#9 Selflessness

You seek what is best for Netflix, rather than best for yourself or your group
You are ego-less when searching for the best ideas
You make time to help colleagues.
You share information openly and proactively.

Culture

View more presentations from reed2001.

Are We Innovating, Or Are We Doing Exactly The Opposite?

In this keynote on Constructive Capitalism, Umair Haque reminds us that not all profits are equal. While some truly innovative companies are creating authentic “thick value” in the economy, others create profit through economic harm to others that results in “thin value” and (what he calls) a “zombieconomy”. How thick is the value you are creating?

This video was created for VINT, the International Research Institute of Sogeti. For more information please visit the following websites Methemedia or http://vint.sogeti.nl. You can also contact duivestein directly. For those of you that don’t have 45 minutes to watch the keynote, here’s a quick synopsis of the video’s content. Read More

Actions Speak Louder Than Advertising

Razorfish released a report this month that’s worth spending some time with. The report has some valuable insights on how social influence marketing is shifting the advertising game on the web. A survey with 1,000 consumers plus six months worth of conversational data serve as the backbone of the findings. The sections are digestible, easy to scan and each contain an “implications for brands” bulleted summary that contain quite a few noteworthy nuggets. Many thanks to my friend Vada for seeing the value in this and and sending it along…

What The Fluent Report Covers:

The importance of social media in making purchasing decisions, and how brands need to develop a credible voice, socialize with customers and provide a return on emotion (ROE?) to their customers.
How traditional top-down branding will become increasingly impotent as social media grows
How (and what types of) Influencers Drive brand affinity
How influencers impact the marketing funnel, and what type of influencers matter most at different stages
How “herding” around top social networks and the emerging choices of people to focus on a few social networks (instead of spreading themselves thin on many networks) is leading to consolidation and heavy clustering around “winning” social media hubs
How social features are becoming integrated into online display advertising.
How social media is becoming both a paid and unpaid distribution mechanism for advertising content
How tools like Facebook Connect are moving the social graph out onto the Web
10 Ways to Make Twitter Work For Your Brand

Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report

Download A Copy Of The Full Report Here

This report touches on how Social Influence Marketing encompasses every part of marketing and every dimension of an organization. A survey with 1,000 consumers plus six months worth of conversational data serve as the backbone of the findings in this report. We also introduce the SIM score, a simple but groundbreaking index for the social web.

Built It, Then Make Them Experts

There’s a lot we can learn about best practices for creating and releasing software or web services to the masses from watching the video gaming industry. Successful video game companies know how important it is that they engage and immerse users quickly because they know they aren’t just in the software business, they’re in the fun business, and there’s nothing fun about sucking at a game. Recognizing this, they’ve developed innovative methods for getting complete novices engaged and enjoying the product as quickly as possible. I call this the “zero to fun” metric.

Getting a user from zero to fun as fast as possible isn’t just a gaming industry must. Everyone wants to enjoy the experience of using software and the web, and how much we enjoy the experience is largely a function of how adept we feel as users. Making a user feel like an expert is key to making their experience remarkable, and for that reason, giving a user that feeling quickly should be one of the primary goals of any company releasing software or web services to the world. Read More

The Real Dynamics Of First-Mover Advantage

Mick Liubinskas (Co-Founder and Web Product Director of Pollenizer) wrote a piece today on ReadWriteWeb as part of their ReadWriteStart channel that had some great points about the realities of “first mover advantage” that I’ve heard echoed by many battle-hardened internet entrepreneurs. The post is titled First-Mover Advantage Is About Compound Interest, Not Market Share. Here are some of best nuggets: Read More

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