I’m not in the habit of posting stories from Techflash, but Greg Gottesman of Madrona has a solid guest post on what makes a great start-up culture.
Full article here:
http://www.techflash.com/venture/Thirteen_characteristics_of_a_great_startup_culture_45678557.html
Why was this win important to Mexico fans? When the World Cup rolls around, they place all the competitors into 4 “seeding” categories, from 1-4. It’s kind of like the NCAA Tourney, where you know the Big East, ACC and Pac 10 reps will get the best seeds, while the mid majors will argue for a spot at the top of the bracket. Think of Europe as the Big East and ACC combined, South America the Big East or Pac 10, Concacaf a weak Big 10 or mid-major, and Asia and Africa the small conferences with automatic bids. Traditionally, it breaks out something like this:
Usually, Mexico gets that Concacaf entry into the #2 seeds, and the U.S. gets the #3 or #4 seed. So you get to the World Cup, and while Mexico has maybe England (#1), Paraguy (#3) and Australia (#4) in their group, the U.S. gets Italy (#1), the Czech Republic (#2) and Ghana (#3/4). Since only 2 teams go to the next round, the U.S. already needs an upset to survive, while Mexico just needs to avoid being upset.
But, a U.S. win in a sanctioned tournament over the #1 ranked team in the world, coupled with general dominance over Mexico over the last decade or so, then combined with the U.S. winning Concacaf over Mexico, may be enough to flip-flop the places in the pecking order. And if that happens, the chance to get seeded in a reasonable group becomes more likely.
Some fun pics from the game. Looking for more that I can repurpose…
Donald Fehr was the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association (aka Union). In my career, it’s been difficult to find anyone more frustrating to work with than anyone with “Major League Baseball” anywhere in their business card or title. However, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to deal with the Players’ Union.
Fehr’s announcement today has touched off a firestorm on blogs about whether he was good for baseball. Under him, player contracts went through the roof, so he certainly did his job for his employers. Every time that they had to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Fehr took the owners to school. Heck, they cancelled the World Series and he still got his clients darn near everything they wanted.
So this isn’t a piece about whether he should have allowed MLB to test for steroids, or if player salaries have created franchises with no hope of ever winning. This piece raises the question, “Why retire now, and what does it mean?”
My quick, unsubstantiated take: Here’s a man who uncannily knows when the time is right. I think he knows that MLB revenues are in a lot of trouble. The TV networks who broadcast games are getting killed, and are going to need to cut costs. All the cities already have their shiny new taxpayer paid stadiums, so there’s no new revenue there to grab. And it’s become embarassing that Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Diego, etc… will never compete. The league is losing revenue, needs to change and only one group has the power to allow that to happen.
The Players.
Next bargaining round, the MLB Players are going to be forced into a quandary. The game is taking a hit, thanks in equal parts to the U.S. economic meltdown, players taking steroids from Pez dispensers, players making $12 million a year to not play, and the general ability of the NFL to continue to beat the heck out baseball everywhere it matters. So the players will have to admit this when they sit at the table. They’ll have to at least take a modicum of blame for abusing the lack of drug tests to the point that the great joy of comparing 100 years of baseball statistics has been rendered into a useless and meaningless exercise. And if they admit any of this, they’ll be forced to give concessions on rookie salaries, guaranteed contracts, Free agency, arbitration and/or collective bargaining.
So my synopsis is that Donald Fehr sees that the MLBPA is about to get crushed in the next round of bargaining. And quite simply – he doesn’t want to be the guy who gets crushed. So he leaves the hero or the villain depending on your take. Let’s see if the next guy is rational and cares about the game, or like Fehr, is simply a brilliant and high paid bulldog representing a completely spoiled client.
I like to think of Spring Creek Group as a legitimate Marketing Services Agency that happens to specialize in Social Media. So this site mocking Social Media Agencies makes me laugh. Sadly, there are companies who this web site appears to be based, but I’ll be polite and not name them here…
Look how dusty this blog has gotten. I spent years getting my followers up to at least 5 a day, and now I’ll never get them all back….Next time I go on vacation, I promise to have interns write articles for me. Heck, I might start anyway.
Regardless – A quick thanks to everyone out in Iceland who made our trip such a blast. Anne-Marie from Copenhagen, Alex from Germany, Brian from Reykjavik via St. Louis, Sara from St. Louis, Tom the world traveller from Chicago, Andrew the Med student from Toronto, Sveinbjörna from the Reykjavik soccer team, and the Reykjavik crew of Gunnar, Jon and Svana, who coincidentally worked in Social Media and Small Business Incubation, respectively.
Also, thanks to the tourist information peeps in Akureyri, the bus depot folks in Reykjavik, all the hotel people who pointed us in the right direction, held our bags, and translated words with way too many J’s and K’s in them.
Stories to come, but the short version is that Iceland should get added to the top of your Vacation “To-Do” List if you enjoy stunning vistas, friendly people, incredible hiking, mind-numbing nature scenes, crazy food and a safe and clean environment. If that’s not your cup of tea, then I suggest Cleveland.
More to come.
We’re getting into the home stretch here in Iceland. It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon, which enables/forces us into a coffee shop for some much needed picture uploading. We spent the middle of the week on the northern coast, based out of Akureyri. From there we launched into day trips to Husavik for some whale watching, Grimsey Island to officially hike in the Arctic Circle, and around Lake Meadv (sp ?) which included some of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen first hand. More info to come when the shock of 168 consecutive hours of daylight weares off….
There will be a series of rather long posts as more time presents itself. If you want to cheat and see the preview version of the first three-ish days in Iceland, check out the pics on my Facebook page.
I say three-ish, because it’s hard to really keep track of days when it never gets dark. We landed about 6:00am Sunday in Iceland. So the pics begin at around 8:00am at the Blue Lagoon, then inlcude some random shots, and then really pick back up again Monday night on a tour of Geysir and Goldfoss (waterfall). It really doesn’t get dark here. Around 11:00pm, if it’s dark, cars need to use headlights, but you could still play a game of catch without any problem.
Off to Aukreyri (sp?) on the North coast today (Tuesday). More soon.
So I’m sitting in JFK doing a little philosophizing about Privacy with my friend Ari. Ari is taking the stance that people will soon revolt against their inability to control their privacy – that people today are beginning to crave the privacy the had pre-Internet. My argument is that people are just accepting the idea that privacy is an idea created by society, and not scalable or realistic anymore.
To prove the point, I’m writing a quick blog post to show that you can’t control your own privacy anymore. Because anyone with a laptop, digital camera and internet access can snap a picture and post your whereabouts whether you want them to or not.
Your thoughts on the matter?