This morning I was watching CNBC and an a commercial came on slamming CNBC for their lack of coverage of the current financial crisis.  The ad disapproved accused them of showing infomercials during the coverage along with being a sleep at the wheel.

The ad was meant to promote Fox Business News and I am astonished that it made it on the air.  Even more so than that I was astonished to see it play multiple times through the day.

• Conduct your upgrades / scheduled maintenance in the wee hours of the morning (not 9pm PST) and on weekends (or when your business is at is slowest)
• Whenever possible don't bring down all your systems, I should have been able to book the flight witht the customer service rep
• Provide an incentive to those customers impacted

Overall Virgin America is a solid airline and everyone makes mistakes, but this was pretty basic IT protocol.

The Bootstrapper Venture Summit (BSS) is a New York early stage event, bringing together the exciting startups with investors, along with impressive keynotes. 

BSS, to be held on October 2nd, 2008 is by application or invitation and open to only 15 select companies & 100 investors.

Jay Levy of Zelkova Ventures will be on the Mobile & Telecom Panel moderator by Lubna Dajani.

More information is at http://bootstrappersummit.com/

Not enough people listen anymore.  Unfortunately we are all so focused on what they are going to say they don’t comprehend what the other party is saying. This winds up leading to issues such as miscommunications and errors in work and delivery.  

Further, listening is the only way to know that you are on the same page as the other person.  If both people are to focused on developing their thoughts and next comments, than both parties could be on completely different pages just rambling on their own.

A few important pieces to the puzzle in listening include:

·         Don’t Interrupt – Make sure the other party finishes all their thoughts before you give yours

·         Summarize – Make sure you summarize what the other party says and ask for confirmation that you got it rid

·         Avoid Distractions – Limit the distractions to you (i.e. turn of the blackberry)

·         Question – Ask questions of the person related to their comments

·         Non Verbal – Look for non-verbal communications, this can sometimes be just as valuable as verbal communications              

Does anyone else feel like the HTC G1 – Android Phone looks like a device of 3 years ago?  Did Google, T-Mobile and HTC forget the role design in product sales?

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/silicon-valley-barely-touched-by-financial-crisis-so-far/ 

The NY Times had a good article on the impact (or their lack of) of the financial sector on venture capital and the tech sector.  Overall good summary, though I would say that they did miss the point that most companies that are being invested in currently, are going to need 2 – 5 years to see an exit, which  will hopefully give the markets time to get back to some ‘normal’ state.  Not to mention if companies can make it In a down economy, they are poised to do when things turn around.

The four minute video highlights several important points all entreprenuers should learn.  Many times these points are learned the hardware from past experiences, but if you can learn from other's experiences you can save yourself and others much pain and suffering.

 http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2008-09-22-the-virtues-of-raising-a-little-vs-a-lot?play=false