Tag Archives: The New York Times

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Google’s $400 Billion Trusted Advisor Superstar: Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer

Spoken and Written Words STILL Matter in A Big Data, Algorithm-Driven World

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Wad of Cash in Rubberband

Photo Credit: Refracted Moments(TM)

 

Spoken and written words STILL have a powerful and influential impact in a world increasingly driven by computer code, big data, and mathematical algorithms.

Ruth Porat, Google’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), demonstrated during her June 16th investor relations conference call with Wall Street analysts why communicating with purpose, managing expectations, and showing “I’m actively listening” are still (and will continue to be) the hallmark skills of a successful 21st Century Trusted Advisor.

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Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: 06/07/15 to 06/13/15

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Sunday Brunch Newspaper Large

Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

 

I’m a former jock marveling at how LeBron James is leading the Cleveland Cavaliers through a sheer act of personal will throughout the NBA Playoffs. An NBA Championship for the city of Cleveland and King James means one word: Redemption.


Game 5 is today at 7 PM Central Time. If you have the cash, $12,000 gets you two (2) courtside seats via StubHub.

Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: “How Wash U Is Changing The World.” Publishing this finding embarrasses me. My alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, is using this catchphrase in their LinkedIn Advertising campaign to Washington University Alumni.

I loathe this Silicon Valley, self-proclaimed / self-referential bullshit. Sad how this attitude infects a midwestern academic institution. Makes me want to hurl.  (more…)

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A Public Fan Letter to Marissa Mayer: Keep Fighting. Don’t Give Up.

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Marissa Mayer Yahoo CEO

Photo Credit: TechCrunch

Dear Marissa,

Navy Seals say, “the only easy day was yesterday.”

I can’t imagine what you feel as negative press swirls around you during your CEO tenure at Yahoo!. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems like you’ve been under personal siege since the summer of 2012 when you accepted Yahoo!’s top job. Tomorrow, a well-publicized book will be released about you. I’ve pre-ordered it to review and draw my own conclusions.

But, I don’t have to read the book to conclude how “tearing down Marissa Mayer” exploded into a schadenfreude, spectator sport.

I’m not a Yahoo! stockholder, but I cheer and root for you. Everyday. (more…)

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Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: 12/21/14 to 12/27/14

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Sunday Brunch Newspaper

Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

 

I hope you enjoyed a blessed and joyful Christmas Holiday with your family, friends, and loved ones! Here are your share-worthy links to enjoy during Sunday Brunch. Have a great Sunday!

1. Careerealism.com: Don’t Let Your Job Title Define You. The title says it all (pun intended). Pouncing on personal branding and reinvention opportunities matters more than ever. We're all individual startups. Resumes are becoming less relevant in a digital age so make a New Year’s Resolution to build your online presence.

 

2. Unreasonable.is: The 7 Emails You Need to Know How to Write. Email isn’t dead. It remains one of the first ways we build and establish relationships. If you want your emails noticed, read, and acted upon by important/busy people, read this great, how-to article. This one went straight into Evernote for frequent and easy reference. 

3. NYTimes.com: A Brand New World In Which Men Ruled — Instead of narrowing gender gaps, the technology industry created vast new ones for Stanford University’s pioneering class of 1994. If you Google "gender equity” or “gender gap,” you'll find the work of The New York Times' Jodi Kantor. Her thought-provoking and must-read article provides smart perspectives and analyses on the root cause(s) of the current Silicon Valley gender gaps.

Kantor's root cause analyses reveals:

  • Well-paying professions previously limited in opportunity for women opened up (e.g., corporate finance)
  • Other prestigious yet "conventional" professions provided relatively lower risks and higher success outcomes (e.g., medicine, law)
  • The decision to have children and the responsibilities of child rearing (versus their male counterparts who remained unencumbered with these commitments)

The most successful Stanford Class of 1994 female entrepreneur, Jessica DiLullo Herrin, executed a flanking strategy to build and grow Stella & Dot. She created a digital services company but shunned The Valley’s traditional route creating a product or using venture capital funding. In her words (direct quote from the article):

“I’ve never tried to sit at the boys’ table.”

DiLullo Herrin's flanking strategy may prove to be the best way for women to beat The Male Silicon Valley Establishment at their own game.

  
 

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If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.

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Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: Week of 09/28/14 to 10/05/14

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Sunday Brunch Menu LARGE

Share-worthy links Social Media ReInvention Community Members can enjoy during Sunday brunch:

 

1) YouTube: Enhance Your Lighting – GE Commercial. Jeff Goldblum provides a brilliant and hysterical performance in the GE advertising campaign for #EnhanceYourLighting. Views continue exploding (1,394,000+ when I wrote this post). GE takes mundane advertising and transforms it into funny, memorable, and campy content.

Hat Tip — Fast Company: JEFF GOLDBLUM GETS TOPLESS FOR GE, NYC GETS A NEW HEART: THE TOP 5 ADS OF THE WEEK.

 

2) YouTube: Introducing the Post-it® Plus App. No, I won't shut up about this app because I'm a Post-it® geek. Welcome to The Collaboration Age. Enjoy this video and wear your Post-it® geekiness as a badge of honor.

 

 
3) Forbes: Gone From Microsoft, Ballmer Begins A Surprising Second Act. George Anders wrote this great profile about Steve Ballmer (former Microsoft CEO, now owner of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA franchise). Anders' article about how Ballmer is approaching this phase of his professional life is a great example of personal branding and reinvention:

  • Ballmer analytically approaches problem solving or new challenges by researching as much as he can through self-study or interviewing experts. The guy is 58, worth $22.5 billion, and wants to stay in the game.
  • Ballmer continues taking calculated risks. Anders references this quote from an August 2014 ESPN interview ESPN conducted with Ballmer: “It’s not a cheap price, but when you’re used to looking at tech companies with huge risk, no earnings and huge multiples, this doesn’t look like the craziest thing I’ve ever acquired.”

4) Forbes: Finding Alibaba — How Jerry Yang Made The Most Lucrative Bet In Silicon Valley History. Parmy Olson reveals Jerry Yang's second act reinvention after leaving Yahoo in 2012. He's now a venture capitalist, Founding Partner of AME Cloud Ventures, and power broker.

Olson's article proves trust and familiarity are the heart and soul of business relationships (versus Excel spreadsheets forecasting ROI). Jack Ma (Chairman and CEO of Alibaba) and Yang's friendship started in 1997 (and may save Yahoo).

Not convinced? The Forbes article cites 36 billion reasons.

5) The New York Times: New York Times Plans to Eliminate 100 Jobs in the Newsroom. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. (Publisher) and Mark Thompson (Chief Executive) announced the cuts October 1st. Here are some direct quotes:  

  • "The job losses are necessary to control our costs and to allow us to continue to invest in the digital future of The New York Times, but we know that they will be painful both for the individuals affected and for their colleagues."
  • (Referencing the discontinued NYT Opinion app and ongoing NYT Cooking app) "They are all experiments, which we are determined to treat as such: to learn, pivot and, where necessary, make prompt decisions about them."

I admire and respect how a revered publishing institution like The New York Times attempts to adapt a Lean Startup mindset and culture. Yes, they're conducting experiments, validating learning, pivoting, etc.  

But, it takes more than carefully sprinkled buzzwords in another announcement explaining job cuts. Organizations like The Times (and others) must wake up to the painful realization that lean startups do not require 1990's staffing levels and infrastructure.

Why doesn't the New York Times "just get on with it." They will thrive as a digital publisher. If it wants to go fully digital, why not commit now and:

  • Quantify the required subscriptions to build and sustain a digital business.
  • Determine and make the REAL job cuts needed.
  • Retain the required staff and physical assets for optimizing a digital MVP (minimal viable product).

But, it won't.

So, the bloodshed continues …

 

Did You Enjoy This Post?

If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.

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Content Curation #2: Three Articles I Evernoted This Week

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Number 3

The Premise / Goal / Timing of This Weekly Feature

Premise.  If you like the content in this blog, you may like the type of content I regularly read and study on the Web.

Goal.  On a weekly basis, I'm going to publish links to three (3) articles I find interesting.  I'll include a brief summary with some bullet points explaining why I think the content is worth consuming.  

Timing.  I'll publish this content every Wednesday / Thursday. 


This Week's Three Evernoted Articles 


1. The Real Way to Build a Social Network (Fortune / CNN Money):  This article is absolute gold. This book excerpt from Reid Hoffman's upcoming book, The Startup of You, provides insights into the networking philosophy of LinkedIn's founder.   I've wish-listed his book in Amazon so I can download the Kindle version immediately upon it's February 14th release.  

Hoffman bases his networking philosophy two (2) basic principles: 

* See the world from the other person's perspective — putting yourself in another person's shoes is the first step to developing an honest connection

* Think about how you can collaborate with and help the other person versus thinking about what you can get out of the relationship — your first move should always be "how can I help."

2. The $1.6 Billion Woman, Staying on Message (The New York Times):  I'm a huge fan of Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg.  In my opinion, she deserves just as much credit (or more) as Mark Zuckerberg in transforming Facebook into an advertising revenue juggernaut.  

I find this article interesting because it emphasizes her multi-faceted role at Facebook:

* Sandberg is the public face of of Facebook.  She's Facebook's corporate amabassador to Wall Street analysts, thought leaders at global forums such as Davos, global government leaders, and global brands (i.e., she's one of the few global corporate leaders who's been to Bentonville, Arkansas twice).

* She's the driving force in recruiting and mentoring top talent at Facebook (especially women).

* She's publicly stated her views about furthering the professional interests of women in Corporate America (particularly Silicon Valley and the technology industry).

The last point is especially intriguing because Sandberg's recently received criticism for expressing her views on the success of women in the workplace.  And, the critics are women.

3. Zuckerberg Remains the Undisputed Boss at Facebook (The New York Times):  The corporate governance structure Facebook currently has in place gives Facebook's CEO and Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, extraordinary control over his company (even though it will soon become publicly traded):

* He holds more than 25% of the company's stock.

* His voting power with those shares (due to various agreements with other investors) grants him voting control of 60% of the company's shares.

* The article gives context to how Zuckerberg's control of company stock compares with Microsoft's Bill Gates and Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, when their respective companies went public:

  • Microsoft: Bill Gates controlled 49% of company shares
  • Google: Brin and Page controlled 16% each of the company shares (for a total of 32%)

 

Your Feedback Please!

I'd like to experiment with this type of post for the next two to three months.  Let me know what you think (especially if this idea sucks):

  • How can I improve the value of these weekly posts?
  • Is my initial timing choice for publication okay with you (e.g., middle of the week versus the end of it)?  If not, please tell me.
  • What content are you reading?  Please share your links with our community in the comments section!

 

Link to Photo Credit by Andreas Cappell via flickr