I spent May 16 at TiECON 2009. There appears strong interests in entrepreneurship:
- The announcer said attendance was 20% above last year’s, while attendance at othere conferences were reduced;
- Michael S. Malone mentioned that there is growth in ”encore entrepreneurs”, those over the age of 40, vs the younger entrepreneurs.
Three of the sessions were especially noticeable:
- Keynote by Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com. He spoke about Zappos, its focus on customer service, reaping customer life time value, delivered by company culture, achieved by employee selection, training, and incentives. He also spoke about achieving happiness, which ahs 4 factors: perceived control, perceived progress, sense of connectedness, and finding meaning and value in life.
- A presentation on viral marketing by Kevin Epstein. He provided 8 steps to viral marketing and suggested a book: Influence by Robert B. Cialdini. 8 steps are:
- Understand what you’re selling.
- Craft the message.
- Setup infrastructure.
- Craft content.
- Be ready to respond & reciprocate.
- Be proactive, don’t just post, submit, participate, comment on others.
- Reward good behaviors.
- Do not spin.
- Interview of Reid Hoffman by Michael S. Malone. Linkedin is not about how much time you spend online, but more on how efficiently you leverage your network. Entrepreneurship is like throwing yourself off the cliff and assembling the airplane on the way down, you either survive or die.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Waiming Mok
