January 2011
3 posts
Publishing a New Blog Post (Part 2/2)
This post is the second part of a two part series explaining how to create a blog. If you haven’t already created a blog at www.blogger.com, then scroll down to my earlier post and start there. Once you have created your blog, start here to publish your first real post.
(1) Go to www.blogger.com and log in using your username and password from when you created your blog.
(2) Click...
How to create a blog in 20 minutes (Part 1/2)
This is the presentation we gave at Duncaster, a retirement community, about the value of blogging. Following the presentation is a set of how-to instructions for starting a blog.
Duncaster bloggingView more presentations from therealtomrose.
Start here to create your own blog in 20 minutes:
(1) Go to www.blogger.com and click “Get Started”. (I assume you already have an email...
3 tags
Building a Deck in 5 days
Every time you drink a beer on my parents’ deck, you save a penguin from choking to death on a plastic bag! That’s right, we built the deck out of Trex, a plastic, wood composite. Interesting fact: Trex is the largest consumer of post-consumer plastic grocery bags. Trex also doesn’t warp, doesn’t splinter, and doesn’t need to be maintained at all! The only...
December 2010
1 post
A Simple Way to Minimize the Length of Flight...
My flight is delayed and I just watched jetBlue board and launch a later flight headed to the same destination. I will explain this injustice and an easy solution.
Sending an on-time regularly scheduled flight before a delayed flight to the same destination seems like an obvious injustice. Any first grader could explain why this is unfair. There is a basic cultural norm that says, people...
October 2010
2 posts
Riding the Amtrak Acela to 30 Rock
I’m on my way over to 30 Rock to meet with some folks at NBC. (I wish I could say it was regarding TheMBAShow.) I’m headed up there to do some surprise consulting for Rockefeller Consulting a new social media company that consults with Fortune 500 companies on social technology integration. It turns out that surprise consulting requests happen A LOT in business school. This will...
Hiking Franconia Notch
Boy, did we pick the right day to hike Franconia Ridge. Apparently, every year on 9/11 a group called “Flags on the 48” flies an American flag on top of each of the 48 mountain peaks in New Hampshire that measure 4000ft or higher. The Franconia Ridge loop trail includes 4 of the 48 peaks.
Franconia ridge is arguably the nicest hike within 2-hours of Boston. The ridge trail...
August 2010
4 posts
The Kazakoffs get hitched! (And a boat)
I attended a belated wedding reception yesterday for Miro and Elizabeth Kazakoff. (Miro is an MIT Sloan 2nd year.) Just prior to the event, the three of us took a spin around the Charles River in a luxurious Cape Cod Cat Boat. Of course, we wore life jackets for the majority of the trip, but took a couple of pictures without them for posterity.
The weather was perfect; the breeze was...
2 tags
My boat is sailing away without me?!
You can read all the books you want, but until a water taxi beaches itself on top of your anchor line while you’re plying with your dog on the shore, you just don’t know what to do in that situation. One of my sailing teachers used to say that sailing ability is a mixture of training and EXPERIENCE. Emphasis on the experience. Finally, I’m starting to understand what he...
1 tag
Fast Ferry from Boston to PTown
On Friday, I took the “Fast Ferry” out to see some of my Family who were staying in a rented house in Provincetown. Let me just say, that when they chose the name for that ferry, they weren’t lying. That thing absolutely flies. I don’t know how fast we were moving, but when looking over the side, you can tell that we’re moving fast enough that if you fall over,...
2 tags
7 Sure-Fire Ways to Protect Your Bike in Boston
Have a bike that doesn’t attract attention. (No fancy road bikes,
ghetto stickers are a plus)
Use a U-lock (anything else is ludicrous, and a u-lock is fast)
Everything should be bolted on. (No quick release anything)
Pay attention to what you are locking on to (one of my bikes was
stolen by breaking the bike rack.)
Don’t marry your bike. (When your bike is stolen, your mind...
July 2010
4 posts
3 tags
6 Steps to Getting Hired at HubSpot (As an...
HubSpot is a hot startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts with ~160 employees as of this writing. Many, including HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, credit much of HubSpot’s success to its effective hiring practices. So, how does hiring work?
Hiring Mantra
Hiring at HubSpot is an extremely quantitative affair. Data is collected about candidates at every stage of the game and only the absolute...
“Process is where innovation goes to die.”
– Anonymous via Yoav Shapira
1 tag
Anti-Anti- Immigration Protesters March on Boston
“Fight Brewer!, Fight Back!, Fight Brewer!, Fight Back!, …” was the chant of the crowd on Mass Ave. in Boston today. A group of angry protesters assembled and marched under police cover in protest of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who was visiting Boston today. According to FOXNews, Governor Brewer is in Boston for the National Governors Association Meeting. (It was the first...
3 tags
Castle Island in Boston
In South Boston, there is a fort called Fort Independence, which is open to the public most days. Towering 20 feet over Boston Harbor, Ft Independence is surrounded by grassy fields, volleyball courts, beaches, playing children, American flags, and fried food.
Tracy and I headed out to the fort because we heard that it was friendly to dogs and served soft ice cream. We had nothing to do and...
June 2010
2 posts
4 tags
How to Use IP Effectively in a Start-up
I just attended a presentation at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center led by Al Burnett, the general council for Vecna Robotics. He had some interesting things to say about intellectual property (IP) and how it could be effectively used in very young companies.
The short of it: get some patents, and do it as cheaply as possible. Don’t worry too much about the quality of the patents, the...
February 2010
6 posts
2 tags
“If you aren’t the undisputed leader in your target market, then you...”
– Bill Aulet
2 tags
The key to triggering rapid growth: find the "job...
Startup companies all grapple with the same issue at first. They are trying to find that magical product offering and marketing effort that will be the turning point which causes revenue to skyrocket. Well, Clayton Christensen et al. have been researching successful startup companies to determine exactly what conditions typically exist right before that turning point.
What he has found is that...
1 tag
“Cocaine is nothing compared to Joe Joe’s”
– Arnie Barnet
1 tag
“I grew up in Brooklyn, so confidence interval your face!”
– Arnie Barnett
2 tags
Clayton Christensen on startups: sell rebar
I had an opportunity to speak with Clayton Christensen about starting companies and he had some startling things to say. According to Christensen’s research there are essentially two ways to start a viable company:
(1) Use innovation to get out in front of the industry leaders and sell-out to them quickly before they crush you.
(2) Innovate in a way that allows you to compete with...