Posts Tagged: blogs

Capesquared — 1 Comment
18
Aug 10

New on Twitter: #2forTuesday

If you’re following either Shay Colson or Andrew Farah on Twitter, you may have noticed either of the following Tweets this morning:

“@ElizabethGall, @jadabumrad is a master storyteller. #radiolab#2forTuesday cc: @shaycolson”

“Hey @andrewfarah, @marshallk does a great job covering tech with no fluff and a NW feel. You’d dig his work.#2forTuesday.”

You may have also noticed the common hashtag: #2forTuesday. What is #2forTuesday? Read on to find out.

Start with #FollowFriday

To get to the origins of #2forTuesday, you must start at another popular Twitter phenomenon: #FollowFriday, or #FF for short. “Follow Friday” evolved as a way for Twitter users to share with their followers the accounts of some people or companies that they enjoy following. The creation of Follow Friday can be traced to a point in ancient Twitter history (several months ago) when Twitter stopped displaying mentions (messages that begin with an @username) unless you were also following the person being mentioned.

This dramatically reduced the ease with which you could find new, interesting people to follow on Twitter. Used to be that if someone you already followed was talking to someone else about something you were interested in, those conversation snippits would make their way into your timeline, and you could choose to follow nor not follow. With the change, however, the majority of these messages were cut out, and Twitter became much less open. Unless you were following both sides of the conversation already (i.e. a debate between your friends), you were likely to not see anything at all about the conversation taking place.

To solve this problem, #FollowFriday was born – allowing people to point out others who they enjoy following, and share them with their own followers. #FollowFriday has grown since then, and has become a common practice amongst Twitter users. So common, in fact, that many people push similar or identical groups out to their followers each and every Friday, adding to the massive amount of noise already so common on Twitter.

Capesquared has developed a solution to cut through the noise, and discover users worth following.

#2forTuesday

The idea behind #2forTuesday is that rather than following a group, it’s more valuable for a Twitter user to put in the time, thought, and energy to connect two people whom they follow, but who don’t follow each other.

By suggesting they connect through a tweet mentioning both users, the likelihood of quality content and follow-through with following goes up dramatically. What makes the difference? The addition of human curation.

Humans are excellent at sorting, processing, and categorizing information. Much better than computers, in fact, especially with complex information and multiple inputs. Think about all of the information processing your brain is required to do for your to walk, bike, or run – coordinating your muscles, looking, listening, feeling, thinking, sweating, dodging traffic, etc.

All of this, and more, is possible while using only a fraction of your computational potential. Put a little bit of that potential towards pairing two Twitter followers up each Tuesday, and you’ll generate some great matches, and maybe get some great recommendations in the process.

Stay tuned for more Twitter-based tools and products from Capesquared in the near future.

Upstart — No Comments
9
Mar 10

Starting Up | Making Entrepreneurs

This is the first post in this week’s series: Starting Up from Capesquared partner Shay Colson’s blog.  This week will explore entrepreneurship in all its various forms with a focus on technology enabled (but not necessarily hi-tech) ventures.

As we begin this week’s look at entrepreneurship, I think it would appropriate to start with a great article last week from TechCrunch by Vivek Wadwha that asks the question “Can Entrepreneurs Be Made?”

According to the “traditional wisdom,” the answer is no:

Silicon Valley investors often have a picture in their heads of the type of person who is worthy of funding: young, brash, stubborn, and arrogant. They believe that successful entrepreneurs come from entrepreneurial families and that they start their entrepreneurial journey by selling lemonade while in grade school. Angel investor and entrepreneur, Jason Calacanis said as much in his recent talk to Penn State students. And after meeting Wharton students, VC Fred Wilson expressed shock when a professor told him that you could teach people to be entrepreneurs. Wilson wrote, “I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for almost 25 years now and it is ingrained in my mind that someone is either born an entrepreneur or is not.”

I agree that the answer is no – but I have a different theory about why.  You see, the problem is that the “traditional wisdom” comes from Venture Capital folks.  I’ve got some news for these people: the VC model is broken, out, and gone.  New entrepreneurs (entreps, for short) are looking for ways to get their messages, products, and services out without having to sell-out.

Motivation is a great starting point when it comes to learning about entreps.  What do you find?

We found that the majority didn’t have entrepreneurial parents. They didn’t even have entrepreneurial aspirations while going to school. They simply got tired of working for others, had a great idea they wanted to commercialize, or woke up one day with an urgent desire to build wealth before they retired. So they took the big leap.

The game has changed, due in large part because of the Internet – and I’m not talking about a new wave of “dot coms.”  What I’m talking about is a medium that allows your idea to spread, go viral, scale, and generally take you beyond your wildest dreams – provided your idea is solid.

That’s what the Kauffman foundation thinks, too.  They are

investing heavily in an ambitious new program called Kauffman Labs. This aims to dramatically increase the ability of small businesses to become big businesses. The Labs program is built around a novel idea: that highly motivated individuals with “scalable ideas” can be recruited to be entrepreneurs and to be made successful, by surrounding them with a network of other experienced entrepreneurs; sources of money; and mentors.

Today’s entreps are about the idea, about making an impact, and about peer success – not about VC dollars, dotcom dreams, or the things that people typically think about when they think about Internet entrepreneurs.  So what makes the difference?  Wadwha posits that

It is probably education, exposure to entrepreneurship, and networks that led these people to pursue the entrepreneurial path.

I think Wadwha is right.  Many people do not think about entrepreneurship as a viable path until much later in their lives, about the time they start feeling constrained by their job, realize they are smarter than their boss, and decide to put that great idea they had three years ago into action.

As we continue the series on Starting Up we’ll look at what it takes to go from idea to startup, some hurdles, and some enablers.

Stay tuned – this is exciting stuff!

Capesquared — No Comments
3
Mar 10

New Math: Business + Blog = ?

Inc. Magazine has a blog post about the challenges that companies face when trying to use a blog to promote themselves.  The short version: it doesn’t work.

At Capesquared, we’ve read the article, and we agree.  That’s why we’re going to continue the roll out of the Capesquared blog, but with a conscious focus about relevant content.

What would relevant content be?  Well, things that we’re about, but also things that you’re about.  We’re interested in technology and how technology works, but we’re also in how technology changes the way you work.  So, we might post an article about Work and the iGeneration.

We’re interested in design, both aesthetically pleasing and functional.  So, we might post an article about some really cool letter press business cards.

We’re interested in human-driven solutions, collaboration, and innovation.  So, we might post an article about WorldChanging.com – and how we don’t always agree with this approach.

Finally, we’ll talk about projects that we’re involved with – and there are a bunch in the pipeline.

In short, we envision this space to be a place where interesting topics are discussed, where conversations are generated, and where our work, interests, and clients can intersect.

Please keep an eye on this space.  As the blog, and the business, continue to grow, it’s going to be a great ride.  We’d love to have you be a part of it.