William Grosso @ July 1, 2008
Recently, while reading the 37 Signals blog, I ran across a brief description of the Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II1.
The 37 signals description is admirably concise:
Dave Balter, from the clever word of mouth marketing agency BzzAgent, has a special treat for our Signal vs. Noise readers. His new book, The Word Of Mouth Manual, [...]
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William Grosso @ June 7, 2008
I just discovered this morning that Peter Seibel, whom I deeply respect and have lunch with every other year, has been successfully manipulating the very fabric of the web.
A bit of explanation: “Link text” is the label that is displayed with a hyperlink. So, in the paragraph above, “successfully manipulating the very fabric of the [...]
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William Grosso @ June 3, 2008
Way back in 2004, I was running SDForum’s Emerging Technology SIG. I was also looking for a job: we’d sold Hipbone to Kana and my people-search startup idea wasn’t getting much traction with the VC’s1 So I looked around for a job and interviewed at Jotspot.
I was fascinated by the vision. Ultimately, I [...]
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William Grosso @ June 1, 2008
Recently, I went to the local movie theater to see the latest Indiana Jones film with a friend. We wanted a well-crafted and somewhat mindless action film1 and Indiana Jones seemed like the right choice.
I hadn’t been to a movie theatre in 4 months, and I may never go to another first-run mass-market film. The [...]
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William Grosso @ June 1, 2008
Dave Winer wrote a post today that reminded me why I read him: a lot of the time, I’ll read something that leaves me almost breathless in its combination of muddled-thinking and wishful-thinking. And, after a brief “what?”, I’ll just move on.
Dave, on the other hand, takes the time to point out the flaws in [...]
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William Grosso @ May 30, 2008
I recently attended Google IO1. While I was there, I ran into some friends. One of whom asked me:
Hey Bill. You know how to network and attend conferences and stuff. What should I be doing here?
Once I got past the momentary confusion (I’m not particularly good at networking and I’m not sure anyone should [...]
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William Grosso @ May 27, 2008
While I’m out recovering from jaw surgery I’ve been catching up on all the reading I meant to do.
Today, it was the Harvard Business Review, The July-August 2007, entitled “Going the Distance.” All in all, a very good issue; I highly recommend going to your local library and reading it1.
The opening essay begins as follows:
Some [...]
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William Grosso @ May 23, 2008
This blog used to be called “Wander, Think, Repeat.” That was a good name — it encapsulated what I do most of the time: I wander around, I listen to people, and I think. Then I do it again. And again. In short, it summarized a lot about me in one short phrase1 [...]
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William Grosso @ September 18, 2007
Recently, the valley has seen a trend towards mini-conferences. One or two day events centered around a hot technology topic. The idea seems to be: move very fast, get all the top names around a topic with a lot of buzz, and get it all done within 60 days (120 days at the top).
There’s definitely [...]
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William Grosso @ September 17, 2007
20 years ago, Allan Bloom convinced me I knew very little. His book, The Closing of the American Mind, is a bona-fide masterpiece. It’s brilliant, it’s compelling, and, in its own way, it’s as Gonzo as anything Hunter S Thompson ever wrote.
So it shocked me to learn that it’s been 20 years. Because the book [...]
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