Worth Reading: Week of 2/11/2013
Don't worry everyone we survived Nemo! As cold as it is accelerating startups never ceases! Here are some interesting links to help keep you warm in the harsh weather:
Talk about these at the watercooler
The Redefinition of Work
Shelby Clark, the founder of the world's first peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace, RelayRides, writes to the Huffington Post about creating new sources of income as traditional jobs are phased out thanks to increases in automation that replace human labor. In the face of this, it has never been a better time to get creativity flowing, find non-traditional paths to success, and become an entrepreneur. Clark writes about an exciting world where, just by sitting at a computer, "micro" entrepreneurs from around the world can generate income from idle time using plattforms like RelayRides to share their resources. In this economy, creativity is key.
Applebee's Overnight Social Media Meltdown
Ever wonder what happens when PR, Social Media Management, and Customer Services goes terribly wrong? Look no further than Applebee's. After a firing a waitress that posted a photo of a note from a customer who didn't tip her, Applebees at first did the right thing and said it was in accordance to company policy. However, they then did the wrong thing and began to engage customers in a social media war. You can't be stubborn to your own opinions as well - chances are if multiple consumers say there is something wrong with your brand then it's probably time to do some re-evaluating. Applebee's should have listened to FIRE+ICE CEO Jim Miller, who has just the advice for dealing with this problem!
5 Tech Solutions to Use at Your Next Event
Events can be crazy these days! The best events, however, have some level of interactivity to them that increases engagement and interest within the event. Fortunately, BizBash has put together a great list of cool tech solutions to help make it easy to make your events fluid and more interesting! One product on the list, interactive marketing plattform Blyve, helped us out with real time coverage of our 2012 Awards Ceremony and brought the exciting news and happenings during the event to new audiences around the world.
Khalil Fuller named 2013 Young Futurist
3 Things Service Providers Can Do to Help Entrepreneurs
Internet Service Providers, Application Service Providers, Storage Service Providers - so many different services! Each of these service providers provides startups with the crucial support startups need in order to stay focused on making a huge impact. However, many startups often don't have much in the way of budget to fully leverage some of the tools that these providers can supply. Tish Scolnik and Mario Bollini of GRIT are intimiately awareof this and write to the Huffington Post on what Service Providers can do to better help startups. With the growing influence of startups on America's' business infrastructure, it will be interesting to see if Service Providers start providing more early stage startup-oriented packages to some of their customers.
Navigating the Boston Tech Community: Startup Bars
If the weekend snowstorm were any indication, this is going to be one long week! Don't fear though, Intelligent.ly is here! Bookmark this blog post by them detailing some great bars around the area that you can check out to close off your week with while meeting some fellow startup enthusiasts and entrepreneurs!
Books make you smart
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Aristotle; key to his musings is the concept of habituation. That is, habituating yourself to best practices in order to make sure you can be the most virtuous person possbile. This applies very much in the world of business and Charles Duhigg has a fascinating insight into the science of habit. This book has some awesome tips on identifying your habits, mastering them, and increasing productivity.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
Nate Silver earned his fame when, during the recent election, he used applied statistics to accurately predict its outcome (nearly) on the nose. However, the lessons he disposes in his book apples to more than just Poltiics. It applies to baseball, economics, the weather, and even businesses. Big data has always been important to statups, and Nate Silver's book is a primer on how to identify the real data, the one that is actionable and useful for your company, in a sea of "noise", that is, data that is pretty useless.
- Jibran Malek, MassChallenge Social Media & Marketing
Have a great week and be sure to come back to the MassChallenge Blog for more advice, insights and startup profiles from the Startup Accelerator.
Important 2013 Accelerator Dates:
Launch and Applications Open February 13, 2013
Application Deadline April 3, 2012
