Facebook’s sometime-in-the-future IPO is one of the most anticipated stock offerings of all time, and with good reason: in a short time the company has become the de facto standard social network with over 500 million users and a private-company market capitalization of somewhere over $20 billion.  You can even bet on their IPO date on Bodog if you’d like.
But I think that Facebook going public is a bad idea, and here’s why:  a public Facebook will be under pressure to continually increase earnings, putting it in an escalating conflict …

President Obama has signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law.
Besides my general opinion on the size and role of government(*), I wasn’t happy about the initial drafts of the law due to its impact on a start-up companies’ ability to raise angel funding.
Under the previous regulations, start-ups raised angel funding from only “accredited investors” to minimize their legal costs, hassle and time to close.  During the initial drafting of this new law, Congress proposed raising the bar to quality as an accredited investor from a …

BloggingInnovation is a popular innovation site, with several articles published each day from a number of contributing authors – including me, as of this past January.
Each month they have a series called “Innovation Perspectives” where they pose a question to different authors.  This month’s question was “What are three specific actions that a non-innovative company can take to become more innovative?”
Read the full article I contributed here.

If you want to influence user behavior, offering an incentive isn’t enough.  You also have to make the implementation of that incentive practical and efficient.
For example, let’s say that a health insurance company is willing to lower your premiums if you lose weight, or lower your cholesterol, or lower your blood pressure.  The incentive is a direct financial gain, but how does the insurance company verify that you are doing these things?  Maybe they could provide a form for your doctor to sign, but that is a process that could …

We took the kids to the Carnegie Museum of Art yesterday.  To keep little kids interested they have a scavenger hunt, where they describe a painting in each gallery that the kids need to find.  I always appreciate businesses that provide these types of family activities, or at the very least a way to distract the kids (like a restaurant that hands out crayons and coloring paper to kids – every restaurant should do this).
As I walked around the museum I had two separate thoughts on innovation.  First, I began …