Robert Scoble, blogger and entrepreneur, discusses his thoughts on how ideas spread. The public session was part of the Stanford GSB marketing course, the Power of Social Technology (Dr. Jennifer Aaker). A panel of experts, including Robert Scoble, MC Hammer, and Loic LeMeur, discussed how social media can build successful brands.

A great post on Seth Godin’s blog lists a number of random ideas worth reading. Here are my top 5:

• Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
• The hard part is finishing, so enjoy the starting part.
• Powerful organizations adore the status quo, so expect no help from them if your idea challenges the very thing they adore.
• Seek out apostles, not partners. People who benefit from spreading your idea, not people who need to own it.
• Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.

I have a couple of books he published and I like how they inspire great ideas, which are really simple and intuitive. Recommended reading for anyone interested in making their ideas work for them.

Read more on Seth’s blog

Interesting conversation today about the value of experience vs qualifications. I must say, it’s not uncommon to find people with tons of business experience who never went to grad school or sometimes even completed a formal education. It’s also not uncommon to find people with business degrees in other walks of life, not using the skills they have learnt. It’s funny how some people would put so much effort into getting their diploma, all those late nights and dark under eye circles, then not being able to take advantage of what they have gained.

The question is, what do you think is more important? The things one learns at business school? Or the formative years that give a person the traits that are so essential in business? Ot much be a combination of both, but one surely must be more important. Think about our business leaders of today, where do they get their foundations?

I’ve almost got to the end of Seth Godin‘s “Tribes“. I had tried buying this on Amazon some time back, but my order had got cancelled. So it was quite lucky that I came across an audio book version that Seth is giving away for free. I downloaded the player a couple of weeks ago and had it on my phone, but I’ve been away on holiday and had the opportunity to get to listen to it.

It’s a pretty inspirational text that’s really brilliant in its simplicity. I love the fact that after you read some of Seth’s texts you end up thinking how simple the ideas are and marvelling about how you didn’t think of them yourself. It’s all down to framing the ideas and Seth has a great way of decorating his ideas with memorable anecdotes and examples from real life. It’s also great how he covers a range of different topics; from marketing down to shiny new copper kitchen sinks; well, so the metaphor goes. Seriously I started following Seth as a marketing guru, but this book is much more than that; it’s an essential management and change text that can help you both in your career and your personal life.

Anyway; if you haven’t had a chance to get your hands on the book you can download the Tribes audio book here.

• Freakonomics: You’ve read the book, now subscribe to the blog. Educational and entertaining. If you enjoyed the book, you’ll find the blog quite interesting too, as it takes the same tone with a number of different subjects, while managing to keep it quite personal too.
• The Beehive: A great blog by Steve Bee, the head of Pensions Strategy at Scottish Life. “In a fusion of his two main interests, pensions and cartooning, Steve achieved notoriety some years ago by becoming the only person ever to have submitted a paper in evidence to a Commons Select Committee in cartoon-strip format. However, his main claim to fame lies in the field of pensions where he is acknowledged as one of the leading experts on pension developments in the UK today.”
• Seth’s Blog: I’ve mentioned Seth Godin a number of times in this blog already, so his blog must also get a mention here. Seth is a marketeer and innovator and his blog posts are always full of insight. If you only check out one blog a day, make this the one you read.
• Marginal Revolution: As you can imagine from the name, this is an economics blog, written by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, two influential economists and writers. It’s quite whimsical, but informative nonetheless, so it makes it onto my recommended list.
• Bigger isn’t always better: My final pick is an interesting blog by Bob Tomasko, who always has interesting insight. I find his posts pretty thought provoking, so I’d recommend you check it out.

I’ve tried to pick some top blogs from a category I’m familiar with, but you might want to echo this post with some picks from your niche, whether it’s social media or commercial real estate. Just find 5 blogs you like and recommend them to your readers.

Seth also did a video interview with Loic Le Meur which you can watch here:

One of the key things I have learnt from Richard over the past 15 years or so is always challenge. Challenge your business to innovate by asking the unaskable, challenge industry norms and always ask, why? And then more importantly, why not?

I concur with Jayne-Anne, who wrote the post, about how innovation is sometimes lumped together into the same camp where technology lives; but in reality can apply to anything that disrupts the status quo. Anything that prevents a process from following the same linear motion that has been running for days, months or years has the potential to provide you with competitive advantage. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always risk attached to change. But without change, challenge or questions a business stagnates, ends up living in the past and is doomed to failure (The recent demise of Woolworths is a case in point here). You can read the whole post by Jayne-Anne Gadhia here.

So, the question is .. when was the last time you were disruptive?

I came across a great post today by Danny Demichele, an Internet Marketing Consultant, who puts together a good argument how troubled times could actually have a positive impact on an online business. Here are 10 factors that you need to look out for:

• Gas – The cost of travel mean more people shop online
• Price Comparisons – The Internet makes comparison easier leading to more online purchases
• Advertising Efficiency – As marketing budgets get squeezed more money is pumped online into trackable advertising
• Less Big Brand Advertisers – As big brand advertisers shrink they budgets, smaller organisations get more space
• Previous Brand Reluctance – Manufacturers will allow more retailers to sell their products
• TV Shows – More TV shows will move online opening up advertising possibilities
• Investment Dollars – As more people move online, more money is pumped into the Internet
• Lower Overhead – Online businesses are typically cheaper to run that traditional models
• Less Taxes – Avoiding local taxes by shopping online
• Virtual Services – Helping customers reduce their costs

Danny is an SEO Consultant who focuses on internet marketing consulting and has a pretty rich background in Internet-based organisations. His website also has weekly tips to help businesses success, so look out for them after you read the post.

It appears that great entrepreneurs have 5 key qualities that help them succeed in situations that others may fail…

1. A desire to succeed – not having an employee 9 to 5 mentality. They want to go that extra mile to succeed and will do whatever it takes.
2. A positive Mental Attitude – both towards themselves and their business. They see opportunities where others see obstacles, their cup is always half full and disappointments don’t get them down. They look forwards, not backwards.
3. A commitment to hard work – they’re not afraid of hard work and the commitment needed to succeed.
4. Patience – Rome wasn’t built in a day and as well as being committed they have the patience to see the job through, taking it step by step.
5. Persistence – challenges and problems will reveal themselves along the pay but the successful entrepreneur will persist with their ideas and not give up or change direction.

I thought that made interesting reading, especially as a know a number of entrepreneurs that fit the points above like a glove. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling live event video streaming or swimsuits, the desire to success coupled with the other points above are critical to make sure you arrive at your final destination.

• Focus on cashflow: Profit is important, but if you cannot keep your business afloat, then it really doesn’t matter.
• Make a little progress every day: It’s extremely rare that something comes along and blows everything away. Practically all successful businesses were built one step at a time.
• Try stuff: The more things you try the more you learn and the better your chances of discovering/creating something outstanding.
• Ignore schmexperts: Schmexperts are the totally bad combination of schmucks who are experts–or experts who are schmucks.
• Never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do: Whether it’s a customer or an employee if you’re not happy to do it, why would anyone else be?

Those are just the highlights, you can read the entire post here.