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Challenging Tekkies

In downtime lately I’ve been reading a couple of books that have an entertaining subtext; scientists can be wrong, you sometimes need to stand up to them. Sample quote: “…the arrogant side of science; a belief that it should have monopoly over the debate.”1 The precise context of

Occam's Razor

I can thank Michael Brooks [http://www.michaelbrooks.org/]‘ 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense for reacquainting me with Occam’s Razor. This is a principle that whenever you need to find or choose a solution, the simplest one tends to be the winner. It is reminiscent of the

What They Don't Teach You At Harvard

Mark McCormack, as he likes to point out on every other page of this best-selling memoir, is the man ‘who made Arnold Palmer rich’. Indeed, Mark McCormack covets credit for founding the entire sports management industry. He wrote many books aimed at telling a general business audience what you need

Deal Clinching Drake Formula

Falling across one of the world’s longest running tv shows was a humblingly mind-boggling experience. Issues that The Sky At Night raises can make your head explode. Yet on the rare occasions I’ve tuned in you can’t help but admire how it tries to talk cosmology in

Funder Advice

When discussing a one-page summary of a new venture, I was party to some revealing thoughts on how to further “sell” the idea to potential investors from someone involved in monitoring just such conversations. Here’s a selection that would help shape the resultant full business plan: * Around 10 pages

Indian Pitch Approach

Idling away downtime reading TechCrunch, I came across a summary interview [http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/19/the-man-corporations-love-and-xenophobes-hate/] with the chap credited as starting the race to Off-Shore business processes by dint of his Indian outsourcer creation Infosys,N.R. Narayana Murthy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._R._Narayana_

Commission Gates And Brakes

Sales people the world over are creaking under the strain of corporate cost cutting. Those departing of self accord go with no replacement, basics are frozen, bonus plans squeezed. I came across a number of specific measures from Big Blue that, the sales team suspects, feature the further erosion of

What A Client Values

One FT columnist I like reading when waiting in corporate receptions is Lucy Kellaway [http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/lucykellaway]. She recently riffed typically irreverent thoughts on messages to give long standing clients. I was intrigued to see her document what she considered the four things that clients valued

Relentless Infomercial Zeal

Louis Theroux and his Weird Weekends [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Theroux%27s_Weird_Weekends]. Over a decade ago he poked his nose in the world of tv shopping channels, centring on an American station in Tampa. Our first exposure was to a room full of presenters, fully pumped

Stop Writing That Email

With a spate of Facebook related horrors involving crimes against children hitting the London press these past few days, one news show talking head stated a remarkable stat. Dr Aric Sigman [http://www.aricsigman.com/] mentioned a formula suggesting that for every one hour of time a child spends on