links for 2006-11-16
links for 2006-11-14
SEC Chairman indicates blogs may constitue fair disclosure
The Chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox, was having a dialog with Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems about using blogs for reporting financial results. Mr. Cox seems to be open to this notion, which makes a ton of sense. Posting financial results to the corporate blog, or we would prefer to the company’s Hub, would seem a more expeditious and fair way to disperse this information to the public than today’s methods, and thus satisfy Regulation FD.
Mr. Cox went so far as to post his letter to Mr. Schwartz on Jonathan’s blog here.
Can anyone say Investor engagement?
– brian
My podcast interview on Talking Portraits
I was recently offered a great opportunity to speak with Tom Parish at TalkingPortraits about customer engagement on the Web and Kalivo. Tom has an excellent background in search engine optimization, podcasting, and leveraging Web 2.0 technologies for enterprises looking to market to and engage with their customers on the Web. I enjoyed the discussion and Tom’s forward thinking in this area.
You can find the podcast here on the TalkingPortraits site.
If you are Pluggd user, you can find the interview here, and you can subscribe to Tom’s TalkingPortraits through this channel.
Enjoy and feel free to comment here!
– brian
FujiFilm and how a Hub can amplify your product in the marketplace
A reader of my blog pointed me to this Engadget review of the Fujifilm Finepix Z5 as an interesting example of some my my writings about customer engagement on the Web with Hubs.
I found this review to be interesting, in that the first commenter, David, ostensibly could have been a power user of the Fuju product or even a company representative. The point being, by David participating in the conversation (in this case a review) and refuting an apparently false statement by the reviewer, he had a couple of positive effects for FujiFilm. The first is other users of this camera agreed strongly with David’s statement in the first comment and chimed in to that effect; and second is that this review with enhanced comments now serves as a positive endorsement for this product and for FujiFilm’s brand with respect to its technical innovation capabilities.
Being an Engadget review, this information will be amplified for those interested in point-and-shoot digital cameras. FujiFilm could have taken this a step further and pulled this post and comments into their Hub to share with their Hub members on their own site. This way other evangelists that may not be Engadget readers would find the post and could add their support for the FujiFilm product. The responses on the Hub would be broadcast back to Engadget, and it may even lead the reviewer to retract his comment or post a subsequent review favorable to FujiFilm on this point.
Moreover, with a Hub FujiFilm would be a more proactive participant in what is being said (correctly and incorrectly) about their products on the Web. Clearly these blog reviews are having an impact on purchase behavior (read the comments). We can make an assumption that David, the first commenter, was a FujiFilm representative and thus they are managing their messaging on the Web. However, in all likelihood David is just a power user, the kind that FujiFilm should be courting to a Hub so that they can amplify David’s voice the next time a false statement or negative review is made about one of their products.
The future of customer engagement on the Web is when companies are alerted to articles such as this one automatically, they can respond with a factual and appropriately positioned message, pull the conversation into their Hub, and can recruit their power users, or “evangelists”, to their Hub and have them provide the meat of the substance supporting the company and its products.
We are not far away from this future, but indeed more companies need to appreciate or be made aware of the purchase decisions that are being made outside of their purview due to user generated content and conversations on the Web. Engagement will be the only answer.
– brian
links for 2006-11-08
links for 2006-11-06
Staying current on customer needs … A Southwest example
Hill & Knowlton posted an interview with Colleen Barrett, President and Corporate Secretary at Southwest Airlines, on its Client Service Insights blog about Southwest’s approach to customer service. It’s a good read, and I wanted to highlight the acknowledgment of the effectiveness and contribution of Southwest’s blog to their customer service excellence from the top of the company.
Below are Colleen’s comments regarding staying current with customer needs:
CSI: How do you manage to stay in touch with your Customers’ expectations?
CB: There are many ways we can stay current on our Customers’ needs. One of them is our new corporate blog where we get new insights every day into our Customers’ psyches. We do market and Customer research; we send our frequent flyers quick online surveys; and we TALK to them when they are in our airports and on our planes. Our Employees know each of them is a marketer of our product, and that any ideas or suggestions they might get from a Customer can be sent right up the chain with little effort or red tape. We maintain a constant line of communication with our Customers, and we’re working to improve those channels each day.
Southwest posted its own link to this interview here.
– brian
links for 2006-11-02
links for 2006-11-01
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(tags: newton)
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(tags: entrepreneurship startup)
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(tags: enterprise2.0 marketing)
Charles River & Quickstart
TechCrunch announced today the new Charles River Ventures Quickstart program. It is a program designed to ensure that CRV gets access to deal flow in this latest startup boom of Web 2.0, where the costs to effectively get a company up and off the ground (and potentially to an exit) are substantially less than even $1 Million.
I like that CRV codified a process for making these seed investments. Namely, they set an appropriate amount ($250k), set a standard term sheet that is not over the top (discount to qualified financing of up to 25%, 6% interest), created a simple decision process (one pitch, and 2 out of 5 partners approve), and they didn’t try to jam a valuation or terms in to the Series A.
The last point is a critical one. Many times VCs will offer seed money, but do it with a structure that is tied to some Series A term sheet. Entrepreneurs should be wary of committing to a Series A deal before being ready to seek a Series A deal. CRV wisely avoided this issue.
Without knowing the exact details of the program, what was made public sounds like a reasonable deal for entrepreneurs looking for a small amount of capital to get their big idea off of the ground and may save time from rounding up 5 angels @ $50k each or at least 2 to 3 angels to fund $250k.
The program is also a statement from CRV that they’re serious about being seed investors. Many times a VC will say that they’ll do a seed investment, yet they end up digging into the business and creating an evaluation process that starts to resemble a Series A financing - taking up valuable time from the entrepreneur looking for information that is not yet available about the business. The CRV process seems efficient, assuming they stick with it as written.
Lastly, in today’s NY Times, David Sze at Greylock, provides a counter point that entrepreneurs should be cautious about commiting to a venture firm this early in the process just because they’re offering $250k.
He is correct to caution in this manner … assuming that CRV is requiring that they be involved in the next funding round as the lead or co-lead. However, if this is treated as a way to get access to deals early-on and to establish whether a longer-term relationship between the entrepreneur and VC makes sense, it could be a win/win approach allowing each side to take the other out for a test drive before committing more formally in a Series A where preferred stock and board representation is at stake.
If it turns out the relationship is not going to work, CRV at least gets a small piece of the company in preferred stock assuming the company raises funding from another firm, and the entrepreneur at least screened out one firm and knows more about what to look for in a prospective venture capital relationship and what to avoid.
– brian
[UPDATE] Fred Wilson posted on this topic as well today and had some interesting insights, and information that I missed on CRV’s approach to the Series A. I agree with Fred that it’s a fair ask for the right to 50% of the round. CRV won’t invest their 50% if they do not like the deal - price, terms, team, market, etc. However, it does not preclude the entrepreneur from getting another venture firm involved or from getting a fair valuation for their company.
paidContent has a post on the topic here.
VentureBeat interviewed CRV here.
And Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital has some interesting thoughts here, particularly on potential downside for the entrepreneur if CRV does NOT exercise its option to invest in the Series A.
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