Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki: April Fools' Stories You Shouldn't Believe

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on April 1, 2008 - 5:48am.
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  1. Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton proposed the creation of the office of the co-president of the United States.

  2. Dave Winer joined Mahalo as the vice-president of marketing.

  3. Michael Arrington announced a conference called Kemo featuring startup life-science companies demonstrating medical cures in six minutes.

  4. Steve Ballmer donated $100 million to the Jane Goodall Foundation.

Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Sucking Up

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on March 28, 2008 - 6:25am.

There is an art to sucking up. Done too blatantly it will backfire. Done too weakly, you won't get what you want. The perfect suck up contains the following elements:

  • Credibility. No matter how good your suck up, if you don't meet the requirements for placement, a job, an interview, whatever, it won't matter, so you need to show why you deserve what you're asking for.

Sk*rt: "Digg for Chicks"

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on March 24, 2008 - 5:55am.

I love Sk*rt. You can think of it as "Digg for chicks" (in the words of QueenofSpain), and it features the user-selected stories in topic such as Arts & Entertainment, Design & Crafts, Family & Parenting, and Food & Home.

Guy Kawasaki: Understanding Consumer Behavior in the Digital Space

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on February 25, 2008 - 7:33am.

Avenue A Razorfish released the 2008 Digital Outlook Report yesterday. The purpose of the report is to help Avenue A's clients understand consumer behavior in the digital space. In the report experts cover topics such as media spending, mobile web usage, social influence marketing, the state of search, and behavior targeting. Here are some tidbits from the report:

Guy Kawasaki: How I Spent $5,000 on (Mac) Air

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on February 19, 2008 - 7:04am.

Day -1095: Waiting for a Macintosh that comes close to a Vaio in size, weight, and, most importantly, battery life. Day -60: Rumors start circulating about a super-cool, super-thin MacBook. Day -30: Go into Apple store and tell them to put one of these rumored super-cool, super-thin MacBooks aside for me if the rumors are true. Day 0: Steve announces MacBook Air at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

Guy Kawasaki: Top Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on January 11, 2008 - 9:12am.
This is a guest post by Scott Shane as a follow up to his entrepreneurship test. He is the A. Malachi Mixon Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which is The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By. Many entrepreneurs believe a bunch of myths about entrepreneurship, so here are ten of the most common and the realities that bust them:

Guy Kawasaki: The Art of the Signup Page

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on January 10, 2008 - 8:05am.

A site's signup page is the second most important page on a site (the most important is the home page itself) because this is where you're asking for committment. Everyone worries about the home page (and still don't do a good job), but most companies do a poor job with the signup page. For example, HAMweather's is aesthetically-challenged, and Last.fm's doesn't convey enough information. This article about signup pages by Tim Bednar is a good read. His list of important signup-page elements is:

Guy Kawasaki: Dear Santa, Here Is What I Want By Next Christmas...

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on December 27, 2007 - 2:30pm.

Dear Santa: 2007 was a great year and I thank you, but I want to provide you with my Christmas list for 2008. I’ve worked with so many engineers that I know that a 363-day lead time should be sufficient.

Guy Kawasaki: Chris Anderson Discussing His Next Book - Must-Watch Video

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on December 17, 2007 - 10:07am.
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Here’s the next trend to study: Free. This is a video of Chris Anderson discussing his next book. Chris is the editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail. Kudos to whoever at Nokia decided to put this keynote online for the rest of us. And kudos to Core77 for finding it via Nova.

Guy Kawasaki: Word of Mouth Versus Key Influencers

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on December 12, 2007 - 8:15am.

This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (good luck finding the issue online because I couldn’t) says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular folks is more powerful than “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. It seems like it’s a bad day for celebrity endorsements.

Guy Kawasaki: Why I Would Choose Amazon's Kindle Over the iPhone

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on November 19, 2007 - 10:16am.

Today Amazon announced its foray into selling hardware with a data service. The device is called “Kindle,” and it represents a daring move for an “online bookstore.” You’re going to see two kinds of reviews: bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have. It’s that kind of product—plus Jeff Bezos’s reality-distortion field isn’t as large as Steve Jobs’s. I have used it and if someone gave me a choice of receiving an iPhone or a Kindle, I’d pick the Kindle. Here are the reasons I like it so much:

tags: Apple | CE | Amazon | Publishing | Books | iPhone | Kindle |

Guy Kawasaki: VCs Should Search For Inexperienced Entrepreneurs

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on November 15, 2007 - 7:24am.
TechCrunch published a great guest post by Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, called “Entrepreneur 2.0.” It inspired me to piggyback on his idea that investing in “serial entrepeneurs” who have already been successful might not be all that it’s cracked up to be and write this post.

Guy Kawasaki: Top Ten Tips For Upgrading To The New Mac OS X Leopard

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 30, 2007 - 8:16am.

Here are the top-ten Leopard tips from my friends, Adam Engst et al, at Take Control Books. They’ve already released five ebooks to help people upgrade to Leopard. Take Control publishes minor updates for free, so the authors can revise their books on the fly. These guys are the experts, but I have two Leopard tips as well, more about them later.

Guy Kawasaki: How Twitter Made My Website Better

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 16, 2007 - 7:23am.

A few weeks ago Chris Brogan published a list of the 100 blog topics that he wished people would cover. One of them was, "How Twitter Improved My Blog," and I accepted the challenge to write something along these lines. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Twitter, you can read "The Tao of Twitter," "Newbies Guide to Twitter," or "Ode to Twitter.") Here is my answer to Chris's request.

Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with a Silicon Valley Lawyer

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 12, 2007 - 5:45am.
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Fred Greguras is a partner at the Silicon Valley law firm of Fenwick and West. He is also a buddy of mine, and I asked him to answer the most common questions of newbie entrepreneurs. His clients have included BioMarker Pharmaceuticals, Excite, Kintana, and Speedera Networks. It’s very important to make the right decisions in these areas at the start of a company, so I hope you’ll heed his answers.

Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with PostSecret's Frank Warren

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 9, 2007 - 5:45am.

Frank Warren started PostSecret as a community art project in November 2004. Since then people have sent in one hundred and seventy-five thousand anonymous postcards. They are featured in art galleries, a music video, and Frank’s bestselling books: PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women. His new book is A Lifetime of Secrets.

Guy Kawasaki: Check Out Razorfish's Interesting Study On Consumers’ Digital Media Habits

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 3, 2007 - 6:52am.

My buddies at Avenue A | Razorfish provided me this copy of a study called “Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change.” It consists of thirteen essays and research that explore how consumers’ digital media habits affect the ways that companies should design user experiences and digital brands. The company wrote the report for marketers who are trying to design more effective online ads and websites in the face of rapid technological change. It is the result of 500 interviews conducted in July, 2007

Guy Kawasaki: Two Years of the Real Numbers of an Internet Startup

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on October 2, 2007 - 10:26am.

My buddy at Redfin, Glenn Kelman, decided he wanted to bare his financial soul so that other entrepreneurs could get greater insight into the witchcraft called financial modeling. In this two-part posting, he reveals his numbers and his lessons. They are eye-opening for most entrepreneurs.

Guy Kawasaki: My Halo 3 Silicon Valley Launch Party Photos

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on September 25, 2007 - 12:41pm.
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Halo 3 shipped on Monday at midnight, and there were launch parties at Microsoft campuses around the country. These are pictures from the Mountain View, California location.

Guy Kawasaki: The Top Ten (Sixteen) Lies of Lawyers

Authored by Guy Kawasaki on September 24, 2007 - 5:08am.
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Like CEOs, marketers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, lawyers tell their own specialized tales. Most of my experience is with lawyers who do work for tech entrepreneurs, so this is my focus.

tags: Deals | Law | Tech | Apple | Guy Kawasaki |