You are most definitely correct that the President can not and should not be able to dictate any policy. That said, the true power of the presidency doesn't lie in executive orders. It lies in his (or hopefully some day, her) ability to inspire people.
Kennedy didn't mandate we go to the moon. He challenged us to do it and we did.
That was the point of the article. It wasn't to tax and spend. It was to simply lay out a significant challenge - whatever that challenge might be - to America and let our entrepreneurs lead the way.
If the Boomerang product you're talking about is the one found at boomerang.com, then I don't think the two are related at all.
Boomerang is an email marketing software. It has a free trial but otherwise you have to pay to use it.
followupthen.com is only an email reminder system. It is not a marketing tool. It has a free version (which is what I use and is great) and then a paid version (which allows you to include attachments and will automatically put appointments in your calendar).
So they're not really comparable at all as far as I can tell.
This is great info to know. It kind of reminds me of "no cell phones" on an airplane.
That said, it's the rule in a lot of museums and while it bugs me, it drives me crazy to watch all these entitled people snapping away with their flashes on.
To all of you flash photographers out there (and Alec Baldwin), you may be right that it's a stupid rule, but none the less it's the house rule so start following it.
Google Apps is okay. We use it but are looking to change because of the upcoming privacy policy for Google Drive (they basically say they have the right do do whatever they want with your documents). I also don't find Google Docs/Spreadsheets to work very well with Microsoft documents. (we have a few vendors that use MS Word/Excel and it's kind of annoying to not access/store it in Google Apps). Lastly, Google Docs is ugly. That last point isn't super important but you'd think they could design something a little more esthetically pleasing.
I personally have been playing with SkyDrive from Microsoft and so far that has been pretty good. Seamlessly opens and edits MS docs made on the desktop - which is nice. If I was just starting out again, I think I'd start with SkyDrive.
That said, my company is heavy Google Apps users and it works fine most of the time.
I don't see how you can stand with Newegg on this unless you think that it's just installing Linux that should void the warranty.
I have plenty of friends that hate all the crapware that comes pre-installed on a computer and the first thing they do is re-install Windows. Does that void the return policy terms? I have other friends that hate the latest version of Windows and are still hanging on to their XP install disks. Does that void the policy? How about if some just installs some brand new, virus filled software on to the existing computer? Does that void the return policy?
The fact is, terms like: "...if the item system has been changed or modified, we are unable to honor you a return..." essentially means they can deny anyone a return who installs any software on a computer. Who doesn't install software on their computer within the first few hours of opening it up?
Maybe my mom. But trust me, Newegg does not want my mom as a customer. She's a technology companies worst nightmare when it comes to support.
The bottom line is that, depending on your business, it can take a long time to build up a good list of non-filtered ads. After 4+ years of asking customers to write reviews of our service, our business has 63 5-star reviews and about 83 filtered reviews. We have a lot of happy customers and a lot of them create a Yelp account just to review us and then never use it again. I totally understand Yelp filtering these out.
Unless you're a restaurant or some other establishment frequented by the Yelping community, there's no silver bullet to getting a lot of great reviews. It takes time and probably more than half of the ones you get will be filtered.
That said, I think it's foolish of pretty much everyone to use Yelp ads. They're a complete scam but that's a different topic.
This is a lesson I think a lot of Silicon Valley needs to learn. I read an article several months ago written by some 19 year old Valley kid about how Chicago could never produce a great startup because it's too practical of a city. People don't start a business without a real plan for how it's going to make money. Somehow that was a bad thing.
I couldn't believe what I was reading then and I couldn't agree more with what Ford is saying here. I realize that some industries require a fair amount of capital to get started. You don't bootstrap an auto or semi-conductor company. But software?
In all honesty, the millions of dollars raised by most tech startups are done with the promise that they'll get a bunch of users and then figure out how to monetize them later. That is a bad business model and one that is doomed to waste billions of dollars in cash and millions of hours of talented software developer work.
If you're sitting out there with a bunch of money to invest, don't go looking for a company that needs money to stay alive and please, please stop funding what is nothing more than glorified college projects.
Instead, find a company that already has customers and is profitable and needs money to expand their business. That's money well invested.
What I find most interesting here is not the customer service story. That's interesting and inspiring, but what really amazes me is that Bob didn't know how to use a computer, he spent a couple hours on the phone, and then never had to call back again.
If that's true, you know what it tells me? This was incredibly well designed software. The reason Ron got $4 million dollars wasn't because he spent time on the phone with Bob. It's because he had great software that worked and that a complete novice, with a little help, could configure and run. What large company wouldn't want software like that?
Yes, customer service is important, but having a great product that's easy to use is the really big lesson here.
What I find interesting is that the article implies Andrew Mason really screwed up not taking the Google offer. But that assumption assumes that Mason's only motivation in life is to get as much money as possible from Groupon.
I don't know Andrew Mason and I can't speak to his intentions but doesn't the possibility exist that he looked at his bank account and thought, "I've already got more money than I'm ever going to need and I love running Groupon."
Don't get me wrong, if making money was his top concern he made a huge mistake. I live in Chicago and own a small business here. Even before the Google offer small business owners in Chicago (especially restaurants) were already talking about what a rotten deal Groupon was for their business. The writing was on the wall 2 years ago.
That said, maybe it's time people consider that a person's motivations might not only be about sucking as much profit as possible from their business. Maybe they really love owning and running it.
Microsoft has over 90,000 employees, and no doubt some of those people were hired specifically to protect their software licensing. They're probably not pulling their top OS developers to work on this. So the idea that they should have been "spending more of their resources on making software work..." is not really valid.
In fact, there is no company or software community anywhere that writes highly complex and bug free software. It's not possible.
I definitely understand his point that is a radical departure from existing Windows design and that business, who are loathe to try anything new, might not be interested.
But that fact is, businesses already aren't interested in upgrading to new Windows releases. XP was plenty good for the vast majority of businesses and many of them are still running it because it works just fine.
I had the chance to play with a Windows 8 tablet and I have to say that was pretty impressive. The Metro interface works great in that environment.
My guess is that Microsoft will support Windows 7 for businesses for another decade. In the mean time, they are hoping to win the hearts and minds of people in the fast growing tablet and smartphone market.
I doubt they'll succeed, but they have to give it a shot. I applaud them for making the effort.
This author is missing a few big points. First, Yahoo didn't make a move into social until it was too late. Facebook is one of the biggest mobile apps. Sure, they haven't figured out how to monetize it just yet but they are a huge player in the space and have been for awhile.
Secondly, he/she completely ignores the fact that Google is making gobs and gobs of money based on their initial web design. They may not ever make the social transition but people are going to continue to search the web and they'll be the top player. Same goes for Facebook - social media is here to stay and they will be the big dog for a long time to come.
Lastly, portals pretty much just died. I don't see that happening with social media in the next 5-8. So, once again, Facebook is going to remain relevant for a long time.
Kennedy didn't mandate we go to the moon. He challenged us to do it and we did.
That was the point of the article. It wasn't to tax and spend. It was to simply lay out a significant challenge - whatever that challenge might be - to America and let our entrepreneurs lead the way.