Month: July 2007

Zuckerberg: I think there’s confusion around what the point of social networks is. A lot of different companies characterized as social networks have different goals — some serve the function of business networking, some are media portals. What we’re trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information. We always try to emphasize the utility component.

(One) An easy way to transfer information from Facebook to Linkedin, or vice versa, would be great. I’ve noticed that Facebook users have been more hesitant to start using Linkedin because they want to know what they would do on LInkedin. Reducing the time it takes to create and maintain a professional profile, on either Linked or Facebook, would be great for early/mid twenty somethings.

(Two) Just as most people have a work email and a personal email (at a minimum). There is the same church & state separation for people b/w hyper-social (facebook/myspace) and business-based networking… I would not want to aggregate my facebook and linked in accounts, because I don’t think pictures of me in a funny hat or pictures of my pet is appropriate for linked-in type networking.

And the most insightful (and succinct)

Ed, great series of comments. See my post about some thoughts that I have about the two services — especially on the differences between what people think of as “friends” or “links”

Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO of Rediff.com but more importantly for this post, the Chairman of IIM Calcutta’s Board of Governors, tries to figure out what ails business schools of today:

(Quoting Jeffrey Pfeffer) …much of what business schools teach—analytical tools like statistics and basic disciplines like economics and sociology—are readily learned and imitated by any intelligent person. On the other hand, things like communication ability, inter-personal skills, leadership and, most importantly, “wisdom”, the ability to weave together and make use of different kinds of knowledge, are less easily taught. Paradoxically, these are the very skills that lie at the heart of a leadership role in management.

(Quoting Warren Bennis and James O’Toole) …business schools (are) attempting to adopt a “scientific model”. This model at attempts to treat management education as if it was something like physics or chemistry or biology whereas it is, in their view, more a “profession” like medicine or law. They see this distinction between an academic discipline and a profession as the central issue.

I’ve been thinking lately about why I seem to be dissatisfied with some excellent courses I’ve taken this term. They’re (on the surface) well-designed courses, and are taught by very committed, talented faculty. This article’s been more food for thought. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks I’ll analyse why I feel this way.

The culture at insurgent companies is all about pushing. You get turned down on sales calls, you have tiny market share, people walk away from your trade show booths. You have trouble finding suppliers and a bank loan and even employees. So you learn to push… it becomes part of who you and your team are.

But when you become the market leader, you need to change into a runner, to keep growing the gap between you and the competition.

But most organizations keep pushing. Because that’s what they know how to do. Instead of running up the scoreboard, they look for something else to push against.

Apple, Seth says, is one organization that has successfully undergone this transformation. From being the perennial underdog to a market leader, a trend-setter, Apple has used its iPod moment to start running – hard.