Brand You

In his article, "The Brand Called You," Tom Peters makes fundamental points about what you need to do to create a brand around your name. Specifically, he challenges readers to think of branding as large companies do: basically, 1) be clear about what makes you different 2) market your brand through community leadership, writing, or speaking 3) network well to create a loyal band of customers. Check out the article:

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/10/brandyou.html

Richard Fairbank, CEO Capital One

Richard Fairbank described his simple strategy of spotting mega trends and working backward at a recent award dinner. Now the CEO of Capital One, Fairbank revolutionized the credit card industry by "smashing the price of credit" using technology.

Check out the summary at:

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/
2006leadershipaward-fairbank.shtml

Hindsight speech

Guy Kawasaki is a frequent speaker to high school and college audiences. I enjoyed reading his baccalaureate speech at Palo Alto High School. The speech is still very relevant to recent college graduates like myself. Kawasaki lays out ten hindsight lessons to live by, shedding light onto what he has learned about life as a Silicon Valley employee/ entreprepreneur.

Download the speech at:

http://www.guykawasaki.com/downloads/baccalaureate.pdf

Innovation is King

The McKinsey Quarterly recently surveyed executives about future business trends. The sample of world executives reports that innovation of products and services will continue to drive the global business environment.

The sign-up is free and the remainder of the article is fairly interesting:

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article
_page.aspx?ar=1754&L2=21&L3=114

Pre-entrepreneurship

I recently read an article called "Pre-entrepreneurship: what to do when you are waiting." It is one of the best, most concise articles I have read on the subject of entrepreneurship in a while. The premise is that not we all don't have the right idea quite yet, but there are things that we can do in the mean time to prepare to start a business. Check it out at:

http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/preentrepreneurship
_what_to_do_when_you_are_waiting.php

Silicon Valley Flops

Due to my recent arrival in the Silicon Valley, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the area. The Wall Street Journal's "Start Up Journal" recently featured an article about some of the worst internet boom companies. They include relics that are laughable in today's economic climate but in the late 90's were raising tens of millions of dollars. Check out the article at:

http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/
20060504-meyer.html

Top Entrepreneurial Colleges

Entrepreneur.com recently put out a ranking of the top 100 entrepreneurial colleges. You can view the list at:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges/results/1,6454,,00.
html?mode=type&list=NT&tier=2

Some of the early choices are a bit surprising because it exposes programs that aren't often in the limelight. So if you are an entrepreneur and looking at colleges, it might be wise to heed the list and go to a place where your ambitions will be well nourished.