johnl

I would collect everything an animal might want to eat, place them in distinct piles and watch what comes around and what is eaten. You can then form a strategy based on the animals sited or just eat what they do, working up from very small portions.

You might say the Japanese art of Aesthetics is finding order and beauty in items and situations that most of us take for granted.

I don't know if I agree with every point in the author's list but it's a good start at listing attributes that differentiates between one site and the next.

Yep, feedback would be the key for me.

I think it is more like programming. The more you program, the better you find what works and what doesn't, the better your programming becomes.

Bringing the matter to the public's attention is sufficient in my opinion. Google pulling out would only leave a vacant spaced filled probably with another company more willing to be controlled. So I would rather Google stay and keep taking it's lumps all the while providing us with the feedback.

My first thought was that the company might be mismanaged. It may be just going through growth pains. The concept seems innocent enough. It sounds like what is needed is is a filter that keeps both sides of the discussion civil and warnings that "this post may be archived" with the appropriate reason so that no one is left guessing.

Neat, wondered how they were going to generate revenue. A two tier system should work, low level is free, professional level gets the bells and whistles.

Keeping the discussion at a business level I would think would be the most productive. I don't see how throwing politics into it is going to help the situation.

Yes, I wouldn't want to let the person think themselves out of anything before a discussion can be initiated. Better to drop them as fast as possible into the sales person's lap for an intelligent discussion..

Find a niche market and dominate it, works every time.

Yes, feedback is important. You can't test everything.

If someone forced me to do a startup in the finance industry it would be a loan company requiring the person to update their financials semi-annually. With the loan risk being continually updated the loans could be packaged and syndicated without the need for the heavy insurance and rating companies manipulation that goes on now. All done on the net.

A good example of a founder that knew for the company to survive and growth in the future another step was required and he was not interested in that position. A smart guy.

My guess is the hardest place for the founder is step 2, the transition phase where the role of the founder has to change from startup to small company mentality..

I would also add "protect their brand" to the list.

That's pretty neat that Google keeps poking around with different concepts without a "profit source" behind it. Normal business school analysis would require a internal rate of return before starting.

While using their peripheral vision also I bet.

I would agree with your heading. Found this interesting article.

http://blog.firsttuesdayjournal.com/?p=2231

Think of it as a hedge against any type of electricity disruption and it makes more sense to me. If they control their own electricity they gain more flexibility and if it is clean it makes them look all the better.

I agree with a hero being "dangerous" but I would say you should be looking at the manager as the problem, not the employee. If one employee is doing all the work it is because the manager or his manager is letting it happen.

Goes to show... you never really know. The decision taken out of the context of the lawsuit looks poor but maybe weighed by the lawsuit (could it have taken down the company?) may not look so poor.

Go team Go

You can get a hint of what is happening by looking at the countries around China. South Korea real estate prices are back up to where they were before the crash, Australia has had to raise interest rates to cool down their economy. There is even talk the Japan might be coming out of it's funk. With that type of growth China's books have to be pretty messy, but I don't think they are blowing smoke.

I think there is a trade off between precision and maintainability. If you can code it and never touch it, I would go for precision. But if you are going to revisit the code often enough I would go for maintainability.

They are all issues that distract you from your appointed goal, to build a company from scratch. You start spending your time getting back on track and not going forward and your are done for.

Beware of linear projections.

Search engines should avoid being in the business of egging people on. That has to be one messy program/algorithm/filter. We put one together for a retail company emails and stopped 20% of the incoming mail. It was pretty funny what combos you can get.

I've noticed the same problem, on some searches the entire first page is pure junk. Bet 80% of internet users don't know the difference. Maybe a power users mode that drops those from the search results would work.

I don't think they need better information, just a collection place that adds up the red flags and spits out a security risk level. Cross referencing the different sources of information should do it. Create a central database. It also may be how these people are tracked. If it's on a assigned case basis, that could be difficult to manage.