Same guys that told us about the most successful business models of 2010 year ago, prepared new presentation about failed business of 2011.  Learn from failure.

You might also like:

1. Food for thought: 10 business models that rocketed in 2010
2. Cool stuff digest: December 2010 & January 2011
3. Cool stuff digest: February 2011 & March 2011

I listened to Getting to Yes by William Ury who is probably the most recognized negotiations expert few months ago.

If you never heard about William Ury, short TED talk might be the best way to get to know about his impressive career:

And here are the notes that I wrote down while reading it. Probably they will be of some use for you as well:

1. Always set a goal of negotiation form the very beginning: “You want to sell at the higher price and I want to buy at the lower price. Let’s find the fair price that can both agree upon.”
2. Always try to understand interests behind a position. How did you arrive at that price? Why do you consider it just?
3. Always repeat the position of another side: “Correct me if I’m wrong. Do I understand correctly that you consider this price to be just because…”
4. Always set a principle, external standard to judge the agreement. E.g. fair solution.
5. Separate a person from a problem. “We are very grateful for everything you did for us but it’s very important for us to arrive at the fair solution.”

6. Ignore the irrelevant. “It is irrelevant whether we trust you or not. What relevant is whether our agreement is fair or not.”
7. All other things being equal the least interested side (the one with a better alternative) wins. Prior to negotiations one should think about action plan in case if negotiations fail.
8. Don’t make a decision under emotional pressure. If needed take time to think and postpone a decision. But suggest a reason for this, for example a need to consult with your partner.
9. When asking questions pause, don’t ask another question right away after another side stopped talking. Pause might force him or her to elaborate on issue better.

And a bonus. Very funny video of what can happen if you obsess about negotiating too much…

You might also like:

1. How to win negotiation and get a better deal (1 basic principle and 30 useful tips)
2. Summary of Succeed: how we can reach our goals by Heidi Grant
3. Business model generation

Business model generation book that I’m currently reading is a brilliant example of how complicated topic can be structured and explained visually so simple that even a kid would understand it.

Here is the 72 pages free preview of the book provided by businessmodelgeneration.com.

CONS
It should be noted that it doesn’t go into much deep granularity level, doesn’t give you numbers, formulas or ready-to-use solutions.

PROS
However, it does give you food for thought, important questions to ask and what’s more even more important a great thinking framework that can also be used for brainstorming and collaboration.

Available on Amazon.

You might also like:

1. What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, personal & business lessons
2. How to win any negotiation: summary of “Getting to Yes” by William Ury
3. Food for thought: 10 business models that rocketed in 2010

Name pretty much speaks for itself. Very insightful.

You might also like:

1. What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, personal & business lessons
2. Cool stuff digest: December 2010 & January 2011
3. Cool stuff digest: August 2010

David Hansson (Ruby on Rails creator, 37 Signals co-founder) @ Standord Entrepreneurship Corner – “Unlearn your MBA”:

No similar posts.

Recently I finished reading What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis. Judging by title I didn’t really expect lots of insights from the book but it appeared to be truly visionary and smart. It even made me kind of regret choosing Economics&Business major over Computer Science 7 years ago…

WWGD appeared not to be about Google itself but about the way business, economics, relationships and world in whole change as the result of technologies wide spread and simplification. So, in fact the book covers quite wide range of topics. From Google’s PageRank, to Facebook, new media, customized solutions, customer relations, blogging, Twitter, context advertising, search engine optimization, online communities management, government policies and many other.

I personally generated a lot of ideas when trying to project the concepts from book to my own projects and life. So, here is my personal short list of lessons that I think are worth considering and thinking about, hope you’ll find it useful!

Top lessons from What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, in my own words:

1. Focus on platforms & networks

   Many IT companies, incl. Google itself gain their competitive advantage not so much from their products themselves but from the creative power of users of these products.

   Apple promotes iPhone SDK development platform. Facebook gives wide range of tools to their users and webmasters. They all understand that the easier it is to build something on-top of their service the more powerful it will be. Even small websites, blogs and companies can benefit a lot from crowd-sourcing and providing their customers with opportunity to contribute.

2. Gain trust by giving up control and being transparent
   
   Consumers, readers, partners. Whoever it is you interact with, they will always want to know the truth about your company, service or brand. And it becomes easier than ever with the Internet to find it. In Google search results you can find blog post titled “Yourbrandname sucks” just next to your official website. So, instead of hiding it’s better to be transparent and open in the first place.




3. Launch early
   

   It’s connected with the first idea and has a lot of implications in agile development and goes very well with current web startups trend I think. The idea is simple.Instead of trying to create 100% perfect product, website, blog post or whatever it is and then “launch it” as widely as possible sometimes it’s better to create some alpha version with minimum functionality and then cooperate with first customers, visitors, readers in order to get a better understanding of what market really needs and provide a solution. Instead of wasting time to create dozens of useless features.

4. Customer support instead of traditional mass-marketing
   

   Word-of-mouth was always the first priority in marketing world. But the most effective ways to get it are getting different now. Often it is easier to get a positive feedbacks and publicity by direct open dialog with your customers. Even, with the most irritated ones that currently hate your brand and deliver according message all over. Especially, with them.

5. Organizing communities instead of being a middle-man
   

   As Internet and Google makes it easier to find almost any information and any person middle-men have less chances to succeed  by having access to limited knowledge or connections. Instead, another model becomes highly potential. And this is finding communities that already exist or have a high potential of forming around products, services, companies, problems, interests or places and trying to create something that would bring a better level of organization to these communities.

For insights into specific industries: restaurants, insurance and even government I’d suggest you read a book.

If you aren’t sure if it’s quite your thing it might be a good idea to watch Jeff Jarvis’ presentation @ fora.tv:

And if you finally decided to give it a try, you might want to download audio-book torrent, buy audio-book or buy a paper version it on Amazon.

As my post follows the above-mentioned philosophy and is “half-baked” I would love to hear any corrections or additions from your side!

You might also like:

1. Cool stuff digest: December 2010 & January 2011
2. Food for thought: 10 business models that rocketed in 2010
3. Business model generation

In Feb. I participated in Russian version of startup weekend – Harvest, it’s an event which gets a couple of hundred people with various background (project management, marketing, venture capital, web design, web development, programming and others) in order for them to be able to work together for 2 days. Why 2 days? Well, one of the reasons is to make participation possible for those who have full-time day work. Another reason is that 2 days is enough to start doing something, to convert dead idea into real action, to form a team and fill yourself with energy and motivation that you will definitely need in the future.

Actually, I just wanted to share a video with you. It does not have any educational value but it’s full of energy and shows the atmosphere of the event very well. Why share? Probably it will get you inspired and you will find startup weekend event in your city. Sometimes small things lead to really big things you know…

You might also like:

1. What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, personal & business lessons
2. Food for thought: 10 business models that rocketed in 2010

Why even think of educational online courses?

In my opinion, full freedom implies self-improvement and the ability to learn new things every day. And you know what? I don’t really think that joining the university is absolutely the best way to do it.

I guess I’m not the only one here who has a feeling that education in the traditional meaning of this word is dying in the 21st Century. Sounds like a bold statement, but it’s true. Even now, in 2010 amount of the information available for free is unbelievable. And it’s increasing exponentially. If you still have doubts I recommend you to watch this truly amazing video:

I’m not sure about you, but it definitely made me think a lot. Old traditional universities with big names won’t disappear overnight, of course not. Degree is still the best available indicator of credibility, top universities still have an opportunity to provide their students with the wide range of various subjects and classes. The point is if you worry about practical knowledge more than about degree and credits there are some alternatives available for you. Probably, you just don’t have that much time to spend on educating yourself in a traditional way or probably you don’t want to settle down in one place for a few years?

The change in the educational system is not going to be revolution. It resembles evolution more. And we can see it now: more and more universities (even the top ones) discover alternative ways of providing people with opportunity to learn and acquire the knowledge. Currently, it’s possible to find lots of free courses on economics, psychology or science and study any time that’s comfortable for you.

Okay, let’s make the long story short. I guess everybody knows how to use Google and/or wikipedia here. That’s true, you can get virtually any piece of information using these two tools. But there are a lot more opportunities for distant learning and broadening you mental outlook. So, what are the best places to search for free and high-quality educational videos, lectures and cases?

Here is the brief list of sources I personally liked and highly recommend you to try:

1. Academic Earth.

Academic Earth is a website which offers free online video lectures from universities such as UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale [3] in the subjects of Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, English, Entrepreneurship, History, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, and Religion.

Free. Online. Video. Lectures. If you feel like watching something online and stupid youtube “funny videos” isn’t quite for you, then Academic Earth should be your first choice. Every lecture can be viewed in either text, mp3 or video format.

If you have difficult time deciding where to start I can suggest you try the Yale course of the Introduction to Psychology lectures by Paul Bloom, it’s insightful, funny and extremely easy to understand at the same time.

This site alone is almost infinite source of interesting, insightful and various lectures that will make you forget about your TV for a long time (in case you didn’t give up on it yet).

2. TED conference.

I’m totally in love with TED! This is where you can find the most amazing presentations given by the most interesting people!

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)

is an annual conference that defines its mission as “ideas worth spreading”. The lectures, also called TED Talks, cover a broad set of topics including science, arts and design, politics, education, culture, business, global issues, technology and development, and entertainment. Speakers have included such people as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Nobel laureates James D. Watson, Murray Gell-Mann, and Al Gore, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Billy Graham.

I’m personally subscribed to the TED youtube channel and TED blog via RSS. I honestly consider TED the best online video channel that I’m aware of at the moment. Speakers vary from the entrepreneurs to scientists and politicians. Topics vary from the cutting-edge technology to the hunger in Africa. But few things remain the same: amazing speakers, incredible topics, leadership, insights and vision. The only reason why this is on the second place after Academic Earth is because it’s partially entertaining and not totally educational. The objective here is not really to educate you in the specific narrow field, but to widen your horizons, to make you think about things you normally wouldn’t think about and to inspire you to discover more on the presented subjects yourself.

Here are some of my favorites:

Dan Gilbert: Why aren’t we happy?

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that well be miserable if we dont get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Jill Bolte Taylor: How it feels to have a stroke

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment.

Hans Rosling: No more boring data

With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling uses an amazing new presentation tool, Gapminder, to debunk several myths about world development.

A.J. Jacobs: My year of living biblically

Speaking at the most recent EG conference, author, philosopher, prankster and journalist A.J. Jacobs talks about the year he spent living biblically — following the rules in the Bible as literally as possible.

Jonathan Harris: The art of collecting stories

At the EG conference in December 2007, artist Jonathan Harris discusses his latest projects, which involve collecting stories: his own, strangers’, and stories collected from the Internet, including his amazing “We Feel Fine.”

Of course, there are hundreds more that you’ll probably like more than these, so feel free to explore the TED site.

3. The best way to learn languages online for free

There are at least two web-sites that can help a lot with your foreign languages learning:

http://livemocha.com/

Livemocha is the world’s largest language learning community with over 2 million members. A lot of learning courses for all the aspects of learning: reading, writing, speaking, etc. Plus, the social aspect and opportunity to connect with people learning languages and foreign cultures around the world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

Another great source.

4. Open Universities

Open Yale courses

http://oyc.yale.edu

MIT free courses

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

5. Business Education

Sloan School of Management

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Management/index.htm

One of the first business schools that made a lot of materials available online. Management, psychology, economics, entrepreneurship or finance, pick what interests you most.

Distance Learning topic @ businessweek

http://bx.businessweek.com/distance-learning/

Case Study of Harvard Business School

http://harvardbusiness.org/search//100011

If you don’t mind paying for your distant education there are a lot of paid courses available for you at Harvard web-site.

List of universities and websites offering free business and entrepreneurship courses online

http://education-portal.com/articles/7_Universities_and_Websites_Offering

99 Free Online Classes on Business and Entrepreneurship

http://www.cheaprevolution.com/the_cheap_revolution/2008/01/85-free-onlin-1.html

6. Other resources

If you are looking for more these links may help:

Wikipedia article about distance learning (not a bad place to begin with)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_learning

Dmoz Directory: Distance learning (dozens of links to the online courses, institutions and so on)

http://www.dmoz.org/Reference/Education/Distance_Learning/

Best distance learning courses available on the internet list created by British Council (lots of highly useful links)

http://www.britishcouncil.org/ge-education-distance-learning-courses.htm

Distance learn @ about.com (this site is mostly focused on the online colleges as an option to get a distance education)

http://distancelearn.about.com/

List of cultural and educational video sites:

http://www.openculture.com/2009/06/intelligent_video_the_top_cultural_and_educational_video_sites.html

I guess this is more than enough for now. Hope, you have more time than me to spend on these sites!

Guys, I hope you found this helpful! Can you recommend anything else?

You might also like:

1. How can online entrepreneur or a frequent traveler get the most of Evernote internet service (6 tips)
2. TED-conference alternatives: best edutainment videos from PopTech conference, Singularity University, Learning Without Frontiers & OpenCulture
3. Best free international iPhone apps: only smart tools, no dull time eaters

What is important for the entrepreneur who travels around the world? To be totally mobile. And part of being mobile is to have all your information, both business and personal available with you at the any part of the world. Preferably, without carrying anything with you. Well, Evernote lets you get precisely that.

This is the online service which allows you to store any images and texts (even Microsoft Office documents in the paid version) that you want to use as a reference in future. You can save the data right from the browser by selecting pieces of information and pressing just one button or using the shortcut or you can type something manually. All the notes can be viewed and updated if it’s needed either with the Evernote application or online web-site.

But the most important thing about online storage services like this is that they lower your level of worry. When you know will not lose any information because it’s stored on the server and accessible 24/7 from any place in the world that has the internet.

What makes Evernote even better is that it has a very powerful search engine built-in. It means that even if you upload a picture with text, it will be automatically recognized and transformed to the text format. To make the long story short, this is a priceless tool for me. And if you still don’t have an account I recommend you to get one right now.

So what are the useful lifehacks that can help you get the most of Evernote?

1. Use the web clipper

It’s ten times easier and faster to use Evernote if you integrate it with your browser. First, you need to install the Evernote application itself and then you can get Evernote Add-on for Firefox. With a web clipper Evernote becomes a bookmark manager and your personal knowledge base at the same time.

2. Take digital pictures of all the important documents and upload them to Evernote

It allows you to have a backup copy of your documents and be able to get any details (like passport number of issue date) very quickly anywhere in the world if you have the internet access. Same thing applies to your tickets BTW.

3. Take pictures of all the business cards and upload them to Evernote

It allows you to save time and be able to find necessary contacts no matter how far from home you are.

4. Use tags

There is a great search tool built-in, but still tags are very useful if you want to find one of your notes.

5. Use the phone application

This is how you get really 100% mobile. Any information you found useful once and saved in Evernote is available any second on your phone if you have the internet connection. But be careful using your mobile internet in the roaming, some mobile operators charge ridiculously high prices for this kind of service.

6. Use the audio notes

You can also record the audio notes which will also be uploaded to the service. It’s very useful if you don’t want to forget your genius thoughts that always come at the wrong time. And it’s also less time-consuming compared to the text notes.

The other ways of using Evernote include files backup, creating photo galleries, storing your birthdays there and using it as a complete GTD system. But in my opinion there are tools that are better suited for these purposes (and I’m going to tell you about them) and it’s better to use Evernote for the purpose it was created for: information storage.

Do you have any ideas what to add to the list?

You might also like:

1. How to get Ivy league education online for free: the best internet resources and video courses for distance learning
2. How to win negotiation and get a better deal (1 basic principle and 30 useful tips)
3. What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, personal & business lessons

You might also like:

1. How to win any negotiation: summary of “Getting to Yes” by William Ury
2. How can online entrepreneur or a frequent traveler get the most of Evernote internet service (6 tips)