Comments for insidespin.com http://insidespin.com/blog Entrepreneurs Seeking Excellence Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:58:28 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.32 Comment on Tired of being on the RIM of Danger (Blackberry) by admin http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=138#comment-4190 Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:58:28 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=138#comment-4190 I’d still like to see RIM focus more strongly on software innovation — the sync and updating procedures remain antiquated, the devices don’t have many marquee applications that leverage their platform strengths, and they miss dates. All in all, i’m a big fan of RIM, but they do have to pick something to innovate around and get to market ahead of Apple to announce they are back.

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Comment on Tired of being on the RIM of Danger (Blackberry) by Megan http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=138#comment-4179 Wed, 29 Feb 2012 06:14:52 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=138#comment-4179 Good and interesting post. I think the reports of RIM’s demise are greatly exaggerated. 2012 is their chance at a turn around year.

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Comment on Someone wants to be CEO by Jacob Pollack http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=142#comment-3445 Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:28:28 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=142#comment-3445 Sometimes people just do not learn the first time. It’s an unfortunate thing, maybe someone should just cut down their hope of becoming CEO so they can focus on their job rather than finding ways to become CEO on company hours.

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Comment on PlateSpin Reunion by Jason Dea http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=124#comment-2750 Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:55:31 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=124#comment-2750 I’m glad you saw my press release šŸ˜‰ The good news is there is a universal recognition of the PlateSpin brand value. The question is, what we build it into in the future.

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Comment on Making Mistakes — The Power that Drives Us by Jason Dea http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=118#comment-1984 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:38:34 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=118#comment-1984 Great post.

From what Iā€™ve seen one of the keys to success in tech (especially in smaller companies) is the ability to ā€œfail fastā€ and iterate through multiple combinations of product/market/strategy to come to a winning formula. That process can be either organic (with burnt fingers as you say) or accelerated with the help of folks like yourself who can fast-track the retirement of certain combinations based on your prior experiences and instincts.

Something about the Canadian psyche however seems to prevent us from really embracing that model. Weā€™re a naturally risk averse culture, which really flies in the face of that ā€œfail fastā€ mentality. Instead a lot of Canadians it seems tend to hang on to less than successful products or strategies rather than failing and moving on to the next innovation.

Just my two cents. Interested in hearing the perspective of others.

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Comment on About by admin http://insidespin.com/blog/?page_id=2#comment-791 Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:17:26 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?page_id=2#comment-791 Hi Mary, I would be happy to outline the purpose of insidespin — do you want to chat on the phone some time over the next few days?

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Comment on Facing Facebook by admin http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=84#comment-614 Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:29:57 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=84#comment-614 As I published this i thought of one more interesting mental image of what facebook could cause – a new definition of smokers corner. Imagine all the young people out shopping, walking around town and any time they want to buy something they quickly post their status (check in) to facebook and wait for the relevant ‘ad’ coupon to come there way. Every store would have a ‘facebook’ corner where people could hang out waiting for their discount to arrive — it would be a funny scene — does not seem so far fetched actually.

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Comment on Facing Facebook by Adam White http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=84#comment-612 Fri, 25 Feb 2011 01:33:53 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=84#comment-612 Writing a book and going on tour would be a great way to spread the word about insidespin. C’mon – it’s been 3 years already šŸ˜‰

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Comment on Setting Corporate Strategy by Jason Dea http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=81#comment-563 Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:36:31 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=81#comment-563 Just a general comment. I really enjoy reading your insights on business and leadership. You should add a twitter gadget to your site to make it a bit easier for others to spread your wisdom by re-tweeting your posts.

I found this entry particularly insightful (especially your response to Adam), and it’s the type of message that should be (or could be) distributed quite broadly.

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Comment on Setting Corporate Strategy by admin http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=81#comment-547 Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:49:05 +0000 http://insidespin.com/blog/?p=81#comment-547 Adam — thanks for the follow up questions.

The issue at PlateSpin was a common one — no matter how many ways something is communicated, most people fail to receive the message as they are not paying attention — in many respects, they don’t need to pay attention (they think) from a job perspective, so the message does not get absorbed. It’s not a unique situation by any means — i see it everywhere I have worked including before and since PlateSpin. It provided a reminder of how important it was and is to find different ways to communicate and re-enforce important elements of your business plan so people don’t stray off plan. As you know, we held team-wide meetings annually and monthly (for the most part :), posted materials on internal web sites, even hung important things in the kitchen — but when we would survey people about how they felt working at the company, one of the top items to complain about was that there was little communication. As I say though, a common problem that is just part of the human condition. We never did give up trying to communicate, maintaining open doors on company direction, reporting as best we could on progress against key objectives, etc — where it seems to go off track at other companies is when the leadership team stops trying to communicate, i don’t we ever stopped trying.

In terms of being on the same page, i think this really talks to both of the last points in your comment — the company culture helped direct everyone in the right direction. This is important to establish early on — people who worked for PlateSpin generally new what we were about, it permeated the atmosphere just like it does when you walk into places like Google, Apple and Microsoft. We were fortunate to have a talented team, young, filled with energy to succeed operating in a market situation where success was possible and visible around us. This does help for sure. I could take some personal credit for that, but it would not have been what it became without many people feeling the urge to row in a common direction.

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