Andrea Toochin

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to..."

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:15:19 -0500

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

- Dale Carnegie

The "I" Word

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:52:00 -0500

They’re everywhere- innovation labs. Is this America’s way to stimulate business amid a long recovery? Gone are the days when patent royalties were a bonus - universities seem to have no choice but to encourage “innovation” and thereby many big name schools are devoting space and money to new I labs. Many wealthy entrepreneurs and major cities are also committing funds with the hope that incubators will lead to revenue and job creation.

In the academic setting, it will be interesting to see how this plays out because some science genres are more conducive to commercialization while other lay the groundwork for future generations’ work, which may be deemed “innovation.”

Pop the top for info on various i labs. Who will win? Maybe we should ask the Broads to judge a contest with Thiel, Zuckerberg, and a few Silicon Valley and Alley directors and lawyers. But then we’d have a really tough decision to make: which coast would the contest be on?

Blueseed - Floating Incubator Leave it to Paypal Founder and Facebook Investor Peter Thiel to fund a boat-based incubator. Yes please! Thiel helped seed the idea developed by CEO and co-Founder Max Marty. I’m sure the INS is thrilled. I’m just wondering if they’ll take Americans.

Harvard i-lab It seems Faust is trying to bring the talent at the many Harvard schools together through the i-lab.

Y Combinator - Startup bootcamp if you’re lucky enough to get in. The advice is allegedly more valuable the financial investment b/c ~$17K for 6% equity seems a bit high. Their FAQ section is quite informative.

Connecticut -not quite as storied as Mass., dreamy as Cali, or hip as NYC, this tri-state member sits in the shadows of NY but CT is home to plenty of suits from the bankers in Stamford to the hedgies in Greenwich. The NYTimes posted this piece on a new I lab.

Stanford StartX, formerly SSE Labs The word “innovation” need not really be used in the Silicon Valley, land of the dreamers. It’s assumed, along with office attire that may = flip flops and tees.

UMass Boston Venture Development Center As the school works to improve the image of the business school, they also tout the Venture Development Center, which offers space to budding science and technology entrepreneurs, among other perks.

I could go on but this handful is enough for now. Again I wonder is there room for Boston in this startup scene? Silicon Valley (CA), Silicon Alley (NY), and Silicon Harbor (MA)? Doesn’t have a ring to it but let’s keep the faith…

From NYObserver— on student loans in America

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:28:59 -0500

From NYObserver— on student loans in America

Facebook's All Star Board

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:05:09 -0500

Facebook added a new member to its board in September and I missed the release. The cast of characters on the board of arguably the planet’s most powerful social media company is a bit scary because it implies the movies we watch and the sites on which we connect are controlled by a handful of men.

Why do I think FB is more powerful than Twitter? Because FB already knows how to use our data and FB has the power of being a platform, for example, FB gets 30% of the revenue from Zynga (Mafia Wars, Farmville, Words with Friends…) much like Apple reportedly gets 30% of app revenue.

According to the company Fact Sheet, these are the current board members:

Mark Zuckerberg - needs no explanation

Marc Andreessen - co-Founder & General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz. You also may know a few companies he helped to start, namely Netscape and Ning.

Jim Breyer, partner, Accel Partners

Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company

Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix

Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal

Erskine Bowles, President emeritus of UNC and co-chair of Obama’s National Commisson on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He is also on the board of Morgan Stanley. Under Clinton, he at different times served as chief of staff and administrator of the SBA.

BTW, here’s a BusinessWeek piece on social media giants setting up shop in NYC’s Silicon Alley. This comes on the heels of a 12/2/11 FB announcement that it plans to open a NYC engineering office early this year.

"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind too) those who learned to collaborate and..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:02:05 -0500

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

- Charles Darwin

Nobody Has the Answers

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:34:00 -0500

This is what I learned at the Entertainment and Media Conference of 2012, put on by the Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Club. Nobody has the answers. Everything costs a ton of money and while we may have data that clues us into consumer interests, most companies don’t yet know how to quickly analyze that data. But, even if they do, they then have to figure out how to harness the data to market well to either the masses or various focused demographics.

So here are some observations from a series of talks and panels on new media as it impacts the following markets: TV, Internet, Games, Movies, Music and Publishing.

1) The YouTube (Google) folks might call it experimenting. In my opinion, that means they are using the millions at their avail to test new models and ideas because they don’t really know what the industry will look like and what the model should be. Better yet, they and their competitors alike, probably don’t yet know how to market to consumers so they have to experiment- ie guestimate.

2) Everything is headed the way of the Hourglass theory. People kept talking about small and/or startup companies and huge companies making up most of the marketplace, at least in the near future. Meaning that in addition to the TV and film industries contracting as they navigate the new technology-fueled zeitgeist, the market may only allow huge survivers and bootstrappers.

Part of the struggle comes from industries trying to operate while morphing. For example, for some in film, it’s a case of transitioning to a new distribution medium so companies don’t ride the wave past obsolescence. Or as Millennium Films President Mark Gill said: “We are the new radio.” He did add, though, that there is a bright side — video on demand.

Paramount Pictures COO Frederick Huntsberry devoted his talk to the struggle studios face with online piracy, which could be costing studios about 20% of their annual revenue. The problem with rogue websites such as movieberry.com and cyberlockers like those at the center of a major legal case, is that most, according to Huntsberry, are located outside the U.S. (Russia), so the U.S. government can’t touch them.

3) What’s sexy at 25 is no longer sexy at 33. None of these sectors seem sexy to me. Not film, not publishing, not TV. Sure, I miss the swag, the fashionistas, the parties, but it’s probably OK I don’t get comped drinks three nights a week and being in science by day and immersed in technology at school makes me realize there’s more potential in those areas than the “sexy” ones. Content creation is hard, but what’s even harder is to monetize it. If there were any industry highlighted at the conference I’d choose to get into, it’d be online games. But, it doesn’t seem like there’s room for anyone beside money guys and developers.

I’ll leave the media management jobs for the young, hopeful, linear HBS ladies and gentlemen. For me, I’d rather take all the technology, science, and IP and business law classes I can and do something that will create jobs and products in healthcare and technology. But, my biggest goal will be to create a startup that will appeal to moms working outside the home. My ultimate goal or challenge will be: can we have a positive triple bottom line while creating opportunities that will help our employees achieve balanced lives?

I’ll close with the buzz words and phrases of the day.

Fear * Cooptition * critical * piracy * social media * fingerprinting * fanbase * *Earned Media Value * MMO (massively multiplayer online game) vs. MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) *

Internet Junkie: A New Diagnosis?

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:42:54 -0500

Internet Junkie: A New Diagnosis?:

A new entry in the DSM5?

Is the Middle Class a Dying Breed?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:01:24 -0500

There are tents in Harvard Square in front of designer stores and they are not protesting the 1% or Goldman. They are people camping out, probably because the cops patrol Cambridge Commons and only so many will fit under the canopy of the BofA (ironic huh?). I found myself feeling guilty for checking out window displays after passing by folks huddling for warmth after possibly getting their daily dose at the meth clinic one subway stop away in Central Square.

Maybe there aren’t more homeless but just a shift in their patterns. Brattle Street is less obvious than JFK by The Pit or the park, where a handful still spend the night in sleeping bags. Homeless are nothing new but it struck me to see the locals in their new regular spot after a day when the stock markets soared on economic news and tech news/rumors, from Amazon and Viacom, to Google’s impending cloud and streaming ventures. Because my fear is that the economists are right — the middle class in America is a dying breed and it’s not a slow death.

Countless writers and economists have tackled the concept that America might be losing its crown and will soon no longer be viewed as king of the “free world.” Along with the crown will go a healthy middle class. The West and the Rest or the Markets Collide — it all says the same thing and aligns with the popular Hourglass Theory from Citi (also see Gini index)- that while the Third World grows, we have reached a plateau. If we plateau as a nation, than no new resources or jobs will be created and what will happen to the cash strapped, the unemployed, the uninsured?

Part of the shift in the power in the global community is tied to the middle class. Historically this community didn’t exist in places like China and India but the push for Mainland to boost domestic consumption came from their desire to decrease their reliance on Western purchases. The peasants can’t buy iPhones and L’Oreal products, and it’s not enough that the rich go crazy for Louis Vuitton. An interesting note my econ professor, Farhoud Kafi, mentioned, was that most of China is funded by foreign investments so even though they are growing, it’s at least partially thanks to our moving operations abroad. But, he added, once their middle class starts buying more, we may no longer have access to the goods at the cheap prices we now get.

The other night Paypal Founder Peter Theil spoke with Niall Ferguson at Harvard’s Kennedy school. He bottom lined this situation in one sentiment. He said that in the past people spoke of the First World and the Third World. Now they speak of the Developed World and the Developing World. Essentially, he said if America, Europe and Japan represent “Developed,” than we have no more growth left in us. If we do not grow, there is no new product or money but simply a shift of resources between people.

Average is no longer enough, or so argues The Atlantic. The truth is prior generations might have benefited from the post WWII growth that stemmed from rebuilding, the period when Deming helped Japan bounce back, while America too began working on its renaissance. But now working the line isn’t enough, there’s no gold watch, we all need to innovate and yet we’re more exhausted than ever.

I have no answers. Somehow now I feel a bit comforted that this is all happening while I’m in B school because even though the U.S. government is charging me 6.8% to borrow to educate myself, I know it will change me. If The Atlantic is right, what I have to offer without an MBA may not be enough in the world at large. If I don’t change anything, than I too could plateau and I can’t have that.

I have no answers. I don’t know how the world, this country, can save itself. I could say we should use more technology in schools but who will pay for it? I could say we need more technical and vocational schools as alternatives to college but who will develop these programs? I could say we need more condoms, more mentoring programs, more student entrepreneurship programs but who will do the outreach? I suppose at the very least I can promise myself I won’t take any more from the system, the government, than I need and that in the future, when I have more than I need, I will help lend my knowledge and money to those that can develop these programs. And I can say I won’t lose hope, I won’t make myself see right through the homeless, I won’t give up on the junkies, I won’t give up on Obama, and I will do my best to better myself and support programs working to fill the aforementioned voids.

Video

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:13:42 -0500

On Gingrich's U6 Job Number Claims...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:11:00 -0500

On Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich claimed that the jobless numbers (recently 8.3%) are not accurate because they don’t take into account those working part-time that’d prefer full-time, those that have dropped out of the workforce, and on… Here’s are some numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the table is too small to read, pop the top.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:50:00 -0500

Britain’s own Niall Fergusonhas returned to Boston in time to push his latest book, what seems like a historical angle on a not-so-new topic: how the west will lose it’s #1 ranking to the developing world, the nations of the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) group and possibly a frontier fund country.

Ferguson is prolific, egotistical and brilliant, but he was not the first to say that the West will not always be on top. In 2008, Bloomberg posted a great article on former Harvard endowment Chief and current PIMCO CEO and co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian’s book, “When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change.” The Bloomberg article includes this copy:

What we are witnessing, he says, is “a gradual hand-off to a set of countries that previously had little if any systemic influence.” Nations that were borrowers and are now creditors and investors. And the pipes of the financial system, though packed with fancy new structured products, are overflowing with new and old transactions,” he says.

Fast forward about three years and Ferguson is back in The Republik (of Cambridge that is). In fact, he is talking at Harvard’s Kennedy school with Paypal Founder Peter Thiel on Monday Feb. 6. Ferguson’s latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, according to The Gazette, touches on a similar theme, but from a historical angle. In a way Ferguson argues for a positive outlook, reflection, and focus. To quoteThe Gazette:

In “Civilization,” Ferguson dubs these Western advantages his six “killer apps,” which are competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. “The prescription must be to reinstall and update these apps, to take these six things and make sure we’re doing them as well as we can,” he argues.

I’ll leave you with this. The richest man in the world is no longer Bill Gates. The #1 richest man alive is not American. He’s not even from a first world country. Coincidence or is it a sign?

Why Goldman Will Always Win...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:29:00 -0500

A few years ago I was in a German bar in Alphabet City with a bunch of suit friends. At the time I was a financial writer for Institutional Investor’s Newsletter division and editor of the company portal site. There I was on a Saturday night talking shop with a rising star, a Hong Kong native working as a v.p. at BlackRock. We were in a bar mere blocks from the one of the biggest apartment complexes, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town, whose new owners were about to default on the largest residential mortgage (~$4 Billion) in history.

A consortium of companies and funds had gone in on a deal to acquire Peter Cooper, likely assuming that they could bump the rent and force out the oldies. They thought wrong. Not too long after they struck the deal, they handed over the papers to creditors, losing a battle over a housing complex that spans 10 city blocks and one to two avenue blocks.

So I ask said unnamed suit what was going at her then employer, BlackRock, which lost a bit of change on the deal. I believe it was a few days before the shit hit the fan. She said that of course she couldn’t say anything about the aforementioned deal. But she did say this.

“The thing is, the government will always be one step behind industry.”

That stuck with me and the truth is, she is right. Industry can pay and money, if nothing else, motivates people. And so the story continues with the same plot. Goldman ~~Suck$~~ Sachs is reportedly poaching another Treasury employee. Three unnamed sources reportedly told Bloomberg that Goldman is planning to hire former Geithner “counselor” Richard Siewert Jr. to run communications for the bank.

In the words of Margaret Thatcher:

“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”

Facebook Files $5 Billion IPO

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:02:12 -0500

Facebook Files $5 Billion IPO

Can Tupperware Empower Iraqi Women?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:18:00 -0500

Tupperware revealed a new program last week dubbed Tupperware Global Links Program, a year-long program aimed at uplifting women entrepreneurs in Iraq, a move they hope will help foster economic growth. The company, a World Economic Forum (WEF) participant, developed the idea with the U.S. Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and Rollins College.

The program will sponsor a female Iraqi professor for one year. The chosen professor will come to the U.S. for a year and 1) have an “externship” at Tupperware HQ in Orlando and 2) spend the year in residence at Rollins and participate in curriculum focused on entrepreneurship, women business ownership and financial self-sufficiency. The professor will then use the experience and knowledge gained to help train students back in Iraq.

Dr. Amel Abed Mohammed Ali, professor and head of the Department of Industrial Management in Babylon University’s College of Administration & Economics, will be the first professor in the program, which spans the calendar year.

Click here for the release.

FT: Revenues struggle at women-owned businesses

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:20:42 -0500

FT: Revenues struggle at women-owned businesses

Eli Broad on 60 Minutes. He and his wife Edythe are the duo...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:42:00 -0500

Eli Broad on 60 Minutes. He and his wife Edythe are the duo behind The Broad Foundation, which among other projects, seeded The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and has injected tens of millions in the Los Angeles art scene. Their big areas of interest are science, art, and education.

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:02:06 -0500

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

- Albert Einstein

"Don’t you dare surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:00:06 -0500

“Don’t you dare surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are.”

- Jo Blackwell-Preston

Babson: Semester Two

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:04:07 -0500

I just started my second semester of graduate school at Babson. I waited until I was really ready to apply to an MBA program, until I wanted it only for me and not for my parents, for my employer, or for society. And now I have to say I love it. It feels like hope and education and fuel to me.

My econ professor apparently jokes that people go to HBS for the name and they come to Babson to learn. Still I derive joy from trolling the EBSCO database for pearls from HBR and I have to toot my own horn because HBR included a company I’d been thinking about while on holiday — Alaska Airlines (AA). I was fascinated by the fact that AA offers healthy food onboard and has its flight attendants collect all recyclables, which is more than I can say for Sir Richard Branson’s airline Virgin, despite the billionaire’s talk about fostering the search for renewable energy sources.

Alaska Airlines, though was mentioned in a different light in the Jan/Feb 2012 HBR piece entitled Creating Sustainable Performance, which notes that around 2000 AA was lagging so they decided to do something about. To oversimplify, they made the shocking decision to launch a plan that partially involved- wait for it - seeking input and suggestions from their employees and actually letting them act on those suggestions.

Today in class, though, one main message was that marketing is all about pleasing the customer and that marketing = company strategy, apart from its various other definitions. But one point that came up that echoed one of last semester’s main messages was that one of the driving forces in big technology business these days is data. Amazon, Apple, and Google are all after consumer interests and we give up our consumer interests when we give them our ~~virginity~~ data.

Obama Urges Tougher Laws on Financial Fraud

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:03:59 -0500

Obama Urges Tougher Laws on Financial Fraud:

President Obama’s State of the Union proposals seek to acknowledge the public frustration that few financial executives were prosecuted after the crisis.