Written on March 2, 2011 at 7:25 pm, by wills

A recent conversation with an entrepreneur who is scaling an “Asian-Heritage” shoe brand cleared up a lot of what I think is essential for “21st Century Relevant” businesses. These thoughts were synthesized one step further this past weekend for a presentation I gave to a class of Colgate students (Alma Mater) who enrolled in an entrepreneurship course that I co-teach with two alums.

Written on February 9, 2011 at 6:24 pm, by wills

“In point of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they appeared simultaneous.” – Jack London describing Buck, “Call of the Wild”

This constant call and preparedness for action reminds me of what I see at the core of successful entrepreneurs; a hardened mindset that assumes roadblocks and obstacles ahead as a given; an attitude that wastes little time dwelling on or becoming frustrated by the size of the problem that surfaces; and a preparedness for problem-solving and adaptability that makes the development process look fluid and constantly advancing.

Written on January 13, 2011 at 8:27 pm, by wills

I have three bookmarklets currently in my Chrome browser (seen below) and I wish I had a few more.

I renamed them for my own satisfaction, but the three add-ons above are for Instapaper, Boxee and The Fancy and they are really simple to add and understand.

I’ve been using the bookmarklets for a little while, but am still in the adoption stages of trying to break my stubborn internet-behavior and increase the frequency with which I access them.

Written on January 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm, by wills

Patient capital (Acumen Fund), crowd-sourcing (Kickstarter), socially-focused businesses (TOMS), new avenues for volunteerism (Catchafire), ‘B’ Corporations, forums and message boards with volumes of free and constantly updating content making you your own expert (Hacker News, StackOverflow, Everything Longboarding), university-quality blogs and educational tools (SteveBlank, AVC, Khan Academy)… There is an undeniable evolution taking place affecting what talented people feel motivated to do.

Written on December 10, 2010 at 12:06 am, by wills

I think it was my aunt who told me “there is no such thing as a neutral conversation”, and the comment really ticked me off.

At the time I was an overly idealistic college student from a fortunate background who believed that things happened because they were the things that needed to happen, as if by some natural order and mutual accord.

Written on December 1, 2010 at 1:17 am, by wills

Text will continue to be a primary means of communication going forward. However, despite unbelievable progress in methods for distributing information (internet, television, cell phones, personal computers, eReaders), our ability to convey rich messages through strings of words is still extremely limited. Digital text now consumes all aspects of our daily lives with MMS, Email, Websites, Tweets, Status Updates, Blogs, Research, etc, but little has advanced in the arsenal of word-communication since Shakespeare’s day (and long before).