As if the death of Brittany Murphy wasn’t enough to deal with this week, news comes that New York designer, Phi, is to cease trading. It seems that Phi has cracked under the pressure of the economic climate and will shut up shop by the end of January. Phi was for the coolest of the cool kids. Maybe it was just too cool for school? Who knows… but I will be paying a trip to the Greene Street store in New York on my trip to see whether I can grab a little piece of fashion history.

Phi Spring/Summer 2010

Interesting fact that I didn’t know: The label was funded by Susan Dell, wife of computer magnate Michael Dell. Good one for dinner conversations me thinks.

Phi Fall 2008

Playing in a tournament a few years ago, I heard a story about Tiger Woods and Michael Dell.  When Tiger was ready to turn pro, 12 years ago or so, he made a list of companies he wanted to be his sponsors, and I suppose his agent went to work, shopping Tiger’s shirt sleeves and cap and golf bag and whatever else out to corporate America.  Since Tiger had been a Dell user in high school and college, he wanted Dell to be his major sponsor, mainly on his golf bag. He was asking for $2 million.  Word has it that since Michael Dell was not a golfer and had no idea who Tiger Woods was, he laughed at the thought of spending a couple of million branding dollars on an unproven golfer.  A few years later, Dell claimed “it was the biggest marketing mistake I ever made.”

Doubtful he feels that way today.

Businesses that adapt to change are able to provide an exceptional value to their customers. The use of business technology has improved the efficient use of time, promoted better performance. Computerization and mechanization have even elevated expectations that have been established for building a proud legacy.

A legacy built by with savvy professionals with technology skills can be highly productive. A concept of international commerce with these advances in technology is increased the use of outsourced and automated processes. This has proven to be an efficient, cost effective business model when properly executed.

In this way businesses are spreading across the globe as many of these new resources are being identified. Michael Dell, of Dell Computer, has mastered this process. You can personally design your own computer using Dell’s online tools within the website or by calling one of their sales professionals for your purchases and service needs.

Interestingly, many of these tasks have been outsourced, to locations across the globe. This enables Dell to focus on its core business of developing new products and to more effectively control their expenses.

The advent of advanced automated technology has also resulted in some level of complacency and dependence. This can be one of the hurdles that any technology based business legacy would have to cross. This can be evidenced by their ability to properly handle the periodic failures in the technology due to the inability of some to adapt to these changes.

Therefore, modern day business technology works best when proper balance between the automation and outsourcing is matched with the skill level of the staff of the company and the service providers.

Automation and outsourcing can be useful at helping you, as an entrepreneur, to build a proud legacy. Your effective application of the principles of leverage to technology will enable you to develop a wonderful lifestyle and it can enhance efficiency, maximize performance, profitability, and further boost this legacy.

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” Scientist Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter to his colleague Robert Hooke, February 1676.
Have you ever pictured yourself as being an entrepreneur? Have you ever wanted to be your own boss and determine your own annual income and worth? Have you ever wanted to get away from the office more and spend additional time with your family or close friends? The fact is you can become an entrepreneur. You can even flourish as one much more easily than you might think. Find a mentor. A mentor is someone with more experience than you who serves as a trusted confidante over an extended period of time. In business the mentor is someone who has more entrepreneurial business experience than you and is also a trusted confidante over an extended period of time, usually free of charge. In other words, a mentor is not just an advisor, a mentor is someone who has been there and done that and is best suited to guide you along the path of profitability in your business.

Types of Mentoring
Mentoring is often divided into two types (Buell, 2004):
• Informal mentoring relationships develop on their own as when a person approaches a possible mentor and that person agrees to form a mentoring relationship.
• Formal mentoring relationships refer to assigned relationships, in which the organization oversees and guides the mentoring program in order to promote employee development.
Note that this does not mean it is black and white; rather it is more of a continuum with formal on one end and informal on the other end. For example an organization may guide and oversee a mentoring program, in addition to providing learning opportunities to both the mentors and protégés, but may not assign the relationships.

These two types of mentoring can further be divided into two forms:
• Traditional Mentoring in which there is a long-term relationship where a mentor guides the protégé’s career.
• Special Project Mentoring in which a mentor helps to guide a protégé’s short-term project (a few weeks to a few months).

Benefits of good mentorship
Why is mentoring important in business and life generally?
• In this economy, you need to take advantage of every available resource to propel your career. Finding a mentor-and preferably a network of mentors-is a critical and smart way to get started. And, it won’t set you back financially the way hiring a career coach would.

• Mentoring is a way of giving back to the community and to society at large. It’s a way to develop various skills as a teacher, manager, strategist, or consultant. And a true mentoring relationship also works in both directions-they learn about new ideas from you just as you learn timeless wisdom from them. Jack Welch, one of my mentors, of General Electrics is famous for his belief that you must be either number one or number two in your industry or you must get out and concentrate your resources where becoming number or two is possible. If you don’t the critical tool of competitive advantage, don’t compete.

• A good mentor can provide you with the necessary competitive advantages you will need to be at the top of your field and lead your business into the realm of profitability.

• Your mentor, being an experienced businessperson, is likely to have an extensive network, and can offer you access to far more senior decision-makers than you currently have. And they will be far more willing to open that network up to you than some casual acquaintance from a networking meeting.

• A good mentoring relationship allows both mentor and mentee to develop new talents and build self-awareness. In business settings, the mentee can become more in-tune with a corporate culture and the mentor can hone leadership skills.

Finding a good mentor can often be difficult, if not almost impossible as good mentors are normally very good at their work, thus they already have high demands for their skills and time, thus they might be reluctant to take on a new protégé. To increase your chances, it sometimes helps to be specific about what you want from a mentor. The more certain you are about your needs, the more likely you will find a mentor to meet those needs.

When beginning your search, consider these tips:
Know yourself:
Consider your strengths and weaknesses, and define how a mentor might guide you through your growth.

Be proactive:
Develop a deliberate course of action to find a mentor.

Ask for referrals:
Networks to expand your reach. When requesting referrals, be clear about what you’re looking for and why.

Keep an open mind regarding who this person might be:
A mentor is someone who will help you grow in the area(s) most important to you, so look for someone who exemplifies the traits and skills that you want to adopt.

Identify where you may find a suitable mentor:
Good sources of mentors include your management team, industry associations, online communities, your clergy and/or congregation, and professors. Also consider people in your non-workplace communities, such as retirees, local business owners, and people associated with your hobbies. (Note: Some personal coaches advise against choosing your supervisor as a mentor because of a possible conflict of interest.)

Know what you want to achieve from the relationship:
A clear understanding of your purpose and desired result will ensure that you find a suitable mentor, and that you and your mentor find value in the relationship. This clarity also eliminates any future confusion regarding roles and expectations.

Think about people who have been your mentors in the past:
Whether deliberately or not, each of us has had mentors in our lives. Think about the people who have mentored you and the qualities that you appreciated most about them. Use these traits as barometers to finding a new mentor.

GOT VIRTUAL MENTORS?
Imagine having management guru Peter Drucker as your business mentor. As it turns out, many CEOs do and you can. By reading books, listening to tapes and attending seminars these leaders in various fields of business, entertainment etc., can become your mentor too and guide you to personal and business growth. Below is my list of ten most favorite virtual mentors:

Bill Gates-
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is perhaps the most famous entrepreneur of this era. He had the vision to predict the evolving importance of the personal computer. This allowed him to top Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a 2006 estimated net worth of $50 billion.

Mary Kay Ash – Most Outstanding Woman in Business in the 20th Century
The founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics created a business that has helped some half a million women fulfill their dreams of business ownership. A best-selling author and powerful motivational speaker, Lifetime Television named her the Most Outstanding Woman in Business in the 20th Century.

Oprah Winfrey -Most Admired Entrepreneur
The unmistakable queen of daytime talk and voted the most admired entrepreneur among her peers.  Oprah Winfrey stood out head and shoulders above the rest.

Madame C. J. Walker – First Female African-American Millionaire
The daughter of former slaves, orphaned at the age of seven, Walker built a thriving beauty products business in the early 20th century, eventually employing over 3,000 people. Her hard work, honest business dealings and quality products led her to become the first self-made female African-American millionaire.

Richard Branson – The Rebel Billionaire and the Ultimate Multipreneur
A Most Admired Entrepreneur. While perhaps less well known outside of his homeland of England, Richard Branson wins the Editor’s Choice for Most Admired Entrepreneur. Learn and the ultimate multipreneur  who has succeeded perhaps most of all at “engineering a breathtaking life for himself.

Donald Trump – Billionaire Real Estate Tycoon and Host of The Apprentice
With a long list of accomplishments and assets in real estate development, hospitality and entertainment, the outspoken star and producer of “The Apprentice” is one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs. With his rollercoaster track record, he demonstrates one of the most important entrepreneurial traits: the ability to stand back up when you fall down.

Henry Ford -Founder of Ford Motor Company and Manufacturing Assembly Line Innovator
Henry Ford was not the inventor of the automobile, but his innovations in assembly-line techniques and the introduction of standardized interchangeable parts contributed to making the United States a nation of motorists and produced the first mass-production vehicle manufacturing plant.

Michael Dell: Innovator of the Personal Computer Industry
Michael Dell, born February 1965, started the road to success out of his University of Texas dorm room in with just $1000 and an idea in 1984. Michael Dell is both Chairman and CEO of his company with a net worth of over $30 billion. Dell sells directly to the customer so to avoid middleman mark-ups.

Walt Disney – The Man behind the Mouse
Disney is one of the most recognized brands in the world, but few know as much about the man behind the Magic Kingdom, not to mention the hundreds of animated cartoons, countless feature films and endless toys that bear his name. An influential innovator and entrepreneur in the mid 20th century, Disney went from sketching a rabbit (yes, a rabbit) to running a multi-billion dollar empire.

Evan Carmichael
Evan is an entrepreneur and international speaker. At the age of 19, he became an owner and Chief Operating Officer in Redasoft, a biotechnology software company. The company quickly grew to over 300 organizations as clients, including NASA and Johnson & Johnson, in 30 countries. He started Evan Carmichael Communications Group and created EvanCarmichael website with the goal to give entrepreneurs the motivation to follow their passion and the strategies they need to succeed. Evan has also delivered over 100 keynote presentations to entrepreneurs in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Read the debate intro and the argument from Loyal Homer that no matter what the circumstances a student-athlete should complete their education.

I have incredible respect for former Florida State college football star defensive back Myron Rolle. The New York Times did a substantial story on the scholar athlete and recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford across the pond. Rolle intends to become a neurosurgeon after he completes his education (and professional football career, he hopes). He has already started a foundation that is going to build a medical clinic near the Bahamas. Rolle’s scholastic aptitude and ability to juggle the intense lifestyle of a top tier athlete and a top tier academic load is impressive. Still, few athletes approach the type of academic ability that Myron Rolle has.

However, for Rolle, the best use of his time is in scholarship to further his education and prepare for life after football and his ultimate goal of neurosurgery. Rolle is the rarest of rare examples.

Let’s examine two normal, contemporary scenarios (of which Rolle is not) and determine the best course of action.

Scenario 1

You are an unprivileged scholarship athlete in your junior season at a state university. You have worked hard to get good at football in order to create the opportunity for a shot at the professional leagues. Your stats are solid and your grades are not. Is their value in staying in school and completing your education?

No. Take the professional money and develop your career. Many non-athletes do not have college degrees but have gone on to be successful in their chosen career path because of hard work. See Michael Dell and that Bill Gates fella for two examples.

Scenario 2

You are a redshirt junior at a major national university. You are smart, an above average student with an actual major like Finance. You have also completed 69.4 percent of your passes for 2,453 yards and 13 touchdowns. You are the fourteenth most efficient passer in the country, and ranked fourth in completion percentage. Professional scouts are giddy over your potential claiming you are first or second round draft pick material. Do you come back for your final year of eligibility?

No. Despite your college success both on the field and in classroom, Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder, the best use of your time, talents, and resources is to continue to develop your craft at the professional level. While it may not be easy, it is not impossible to suspend a college learning career and come back to it later. It is impossible to suspend an athletic career and come back to it later in hopes of outstanding results.

Most college athletes are not geniuses. For example, Sam Bradford is a football player. He is not the Rhodes Scholar type. Attending another year of class and tip-toeing around strange NCAA rules that dictate who can and cannot purchase you and your roommate dinner is not going to do Bradford any good. The best use of his time is preparing for the draft. Sam Bradford could have received a headline like, “Sam Bradford First Quarterback Taken” or “Sam Bradford Hopes to Rejuvenate the [Team Name]s.” Instead Bradford’s headlines read “Oklahoma’s Bradford Should Have Gone Pro Earlier” or “Sam Bradford Plans to Enter Draft After Surgery.” When a primary job skill is sound decision making, it is fair to query Bradford about his insistence on staying in college. If he has another year of eligibility, but does not have his degree yet, what did this one extra, injury riddled season accomplish for him? Nothing. In fact, the season was a loss. He did not do anything to build his resume for professional teams and he managed to injure his throwing shoulder twice, requiring surgery after the second injury.

Welcome to The Bradford Effect. Any impressive and highly regarded college athlete who chooses to go pro instead of arbitrarily sticking things out in college has learned from The Bradley Effect.

Athletes, what is the best use of your time? Is finishing your education for an advanced post-football career that requires a great deal of training necessary and important? Or, like 99.9% of student athletes, is your education not the primary focus of college, but a hopeful jumping off point to a career in professional sports. The majority of athletes must make the intelligent decision and maximize their potential by aligning their capabilities with their priorities. In other words – Go on, kids… take the money and run.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo caused quite a stir this week with his antitrust suit against Intel, accusing the chip giant of conducting “an illegal campaign to deprive AMD of distribution channels.”

More than a few writers and bloggers chalked it up to politics. Cuomo’s ambitions are no secret: he wishes to be governor of the state just like his father Mario once was. With current governor David Patterson performing abysmally in opinion polls and up for reelection next year, this could be the time for the son of one of New York’s most famous governors to strike.

Scott Testa, professor of Business Administration at Cabrini College in Philadelphia, adds “My gut is Intel is a very aggressive company and [Cuomo] felt there was an opportunity there, and felt that New York consumers were being wronged, and thought he’d make his move. Intel is very dominant in their market.”

Right now, the testimony is from executives and e-mails dating back as far as 2002. A trial could mean a parade of past and present PC OEM CEOs like Michael Dell, Mark Hurd, Carly Fiorina and Sam Palmisano testifying under oath, which could be either devastating or exculpatory to Intel.

Testa doesn’t believe it was on that level. “I truly believe that this was a mid-level, low-level management issue where you had an aggressive sales person or sales managers. That’s my gut. These rebates are public knowledge. This is between two public companies,” he said.

The latter part of Cuomo’s claim that “Intel launched an illegal campaign to deprive AMD of distribution channels and consumers of product choice and lower prices” could be a tough sell, since no one would argue that CPU prices haven’t come down over the course of the decade even as they advanced and became more powerful.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3847451/Digging+Into+NYs+Antitrust+Suit+Against+Intel.htm

Dell’s CEO, Michael Dell, has recently confirmed that his company will launch an Android phone in the U.S. with AT&T in 2010. So far, this new phone is being called the Dell Mini 3iX because the Android phone looks very similar to it. Because of this, many are guessing that the new phone will just be a remake of the Dell Mini 3iX. However, Michael Dell didn’t confirm this, he just said that they were releasing an Android phone. The company partners with AT&T with this release, so it will be exclusive to AT&T and it’s customers. Technopulse 360 stated that the phone will be released in the first few months of 2010. Dell’s move of partnering with AT&T was a good move, because the mobile service provider doesn’t have an Android phone of its own yet. We’ll see if it’s successful after the holidays.

Features of the Dell Mini 3iX:

• WiFi
• 3.5-inch touchscreen display (640 x 360 pixels)
• GPS
• Microsoft Exchange Support
• 3MP autofocus camera

FCC Pictures:

Source: Unwired View

Dozens of people (hundreds?) waited outside in the rain outside the Novellus Theater in the Yerba Buena Arts Center just to hear Marc Benioff speak.

People waiting in the rain to watch Marc Benioff

The Oracle folks gave out cool "Oracle CRM on Demand hats"

Was it going to be the same speech Marc always gives, the one that talks about how the best and brightest companies are using his platform? Was he going to talk again about the reliability and scalability of the Salesforce architecture? Well, yes, he did this but threw in his thoughts on the Service Cloud 2.

Service Cloud 2 departed from the standard philosophy of the multi-channel knowledge hub or the “customer interaction hub” and delved into the expanded area of a different kind of hub, one that you could consider to be a hub plus a platform or a hub built in the cloud.

Marc and Service Cloud 2

Salesforce’s vision of the multi-channel customer interaction hub includes a customer portal, chat, email, contact center, knowledge, Facebook (and others), handhelds, discussion forums, Twitter, force.com and Google Search.

Standard KB functionality such as attaching an article to a Case during an agent/customer interaction can now be achieved.

A rich solution in Service Cloud 2; Solutions can contain images and video.

Service Cloud 2 Content can be spidered by Google.Service Cloud 2 solution content can be spidered by Google so solutions can be found from the Google search box.

Wikis, blogs, discussion forum content can be leveraged in the SC 2.Answers provided by "amateur" experts and company experts alike can be leveraged as solutions.

Interacting with and leveraging Twitter Content in a bi-directional fashion.

And yes, of course, everything works in multiple languages!

Sometime ago I did a post about a free online one-day Christian leadership conference that was hosted by the good people of CATALYST Conference and Leadership Network. You can see the original post here.  Over 10,000 people participated, and so did I.  I thought it was a brilliant conference and concept, there were some speakers who I thought were just incredible, and not just because of the insights they shared, but it was just inspiring to hear these men of God share about the incredible work they are doing in their communities all around the nation.  God is truly at work in the hearts of leaders in a way that I think is just really shifting culture.  There were several themes that emerged that I thought was particularly interesting as a gauge of what Christian leaders are thinking and feeling at the moment, and one theme that especially stood out to me was SELFLESSNESS. I was so grateful to hear leader after leader in totally different parts of the country share how God is just at work in their hearts to be less self-focused and to look outside of themselves: to surrender their own interests, status and self-centered desires, and to become more kingdom-minded.  As any leader knows this is one of the hardest things to overcome in leadership, the tendency to be more occupied with your own success and status, than the kingdom of God.  Definitely one of the highlights for me.  In case you were unable to attend the whole event online, the good people at Leadership Network actually posted all the talks on youtube which you can check out here.  Time spent watching these videos will be an investment in your own development as a leader.  But, like I mentioned there were some speakers who I thought were just so brilliant that I wished Christian leaders would really 1. get what they were saying and 2. take to heart, and apply what these speakers shared, in our own leadership growth journeys.

Here is one 9-minute talk about being intentional about your growth as a leader, and the incredible things that God will do in your life and in your organization as a result, that I think every Christian leader should watch and learn from and take to heart.  The speaker is Scott Wilson, senior pastor of The Oaks Fellowship in Red Oak, TX, a thriving church with around 3,000 attendees every week. Listen to Scott share about how their whole leadership team changed when they became intentional and serious about their growth as leaders.  (You can see my post on becoming intentional about your personal growth here). I hope as you watch this talk that you’re taking notes. (Suggestion: View it in full-screen mode – and you may have to turn up your volume all the way).

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Ο Michael Dell επιτίθεται στα netbooks | PC Magazine
Μιλώντας ενώπιον ακροατηρίου στη Santa Clara της Καλιφόρνια, ο Michael Dell δεν έκρυψε την αρνητική του στάση απέναντι στα netbooks και το ρόλο τους στη αγορά υψηλής τεχνολογίας. Ο ιδρυτής και διευθύνων σύμβουλος της Dell εκτίμησε ότι ο ενθουσιασμός ενός ανθρώπου που αγοράζει ένα οποιοδήποτε netbook διαρκεί λιγότερο από δύο μέρες. Μάλιστα, ο Dell προσδιόρισε το χρόνο μεταστροφής στις 36 ώρες.[next]

“The technology industry is always going through transition, and there are some big changes going on now,” said Dell Computer founder and CEO Michael Dell in Silicon Valley Tuesday night. He spoke onstage at a Churchill Club dinner event in Santa Clara with Wall Street Journal reporter, Don Clark, after making another appearance in the very rainy Bay Area earlier in the day at Oracle OpenWorld. Dell addressed a range of topics, including shifts going on at his company, the far-reaching impact of virtualization, acquisitions, the upcoming Windows 7 OS, netbooks and smartphones. His comments on netbooks were especially surprising.

Shifting Toward Services

Dell described his company as “somewhere in the middle” of a broad-based shift toward focusing on services, solutions, the enterprise and emerging countries. He said Dell’s recently announced $3.9 billion acquisition of Perot Systems is directly focused on offering services to enterprises. Hewlett-Packard and IBM have been building such services business for years.

By way of example on the services topic, Dell said that “one of the big things going on in this country is that physicians are trying to figure out how to get electronic medical records, which is not an easy problem.” He said that Dell and Perot are already focusing on solving that problem through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. Perot Systems already manages the technology at place in many hospitals, he noted.

The Promise of the Refresh Cycle

Dell made plain several times that he sees the installed base of technology as very old, and sees a coming “refresh cycle,” for which he has high hopes. “The latest generation of chips from Intel is strong, particularly Nehalem,” he said, adding, “and Windows 7 is on its way.” (The operating system arrives Oct. 22nd, although Microsoft’s large-volume licensees are already getting it.) He pointed out that many business are running Windows XP, which is eight years old.

“I’ve been using Windows 7 for a long time now,” he said, “and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It’s a dramatic improvement.” On the topic of the PC, Clark asked Dell how much attention he pays to Apple. “I think Apple raised the bar on product design, and we’re certainly paying much greater attention there than we were a few years ago,” he answered.

Netbooks? What Netbooks?

One of the biggest surprises in the session with Dell was that even though his company has some well-received netbooks, such as the Mini 10v, he really didn’t have one positive thing to say about them or the fast-growing netbook market. “With the netbook,” he said “if you take a user who is used to a 14-inch or 15-inch notebook, and then give them a 10-inch netbook, a few hours later they want their big screen back.” He characterized netbooks as “not a replacement for a high-end machine for an experienced user,” and noted their “slower performance.”

Smartphones in China

Dell was quick to mention the Chinese technology market many times during the evening, which he characterized as doing well, along with other Asian markets. When asked about Dell’s intentions in the smartphone market, he noted his company’s recent demonstration of Android-based smartphones for China Mobile, the largest carrier in China.”They asked us to develop a smartphone based on a derivative of Android,” he said.

Dell also noted, however, that his company can benefit from growth in smartphones in places like China by being involved with service and content providers. “We have a customer in China called Tencent [an Internet service portal] that has 650 million customers, serving millions of cell phone users. Through them, we participate in the Internet-in-your-pocket trend. We’ve sold them enormous numbers of servers.” On the topic of selling servers in volume, Dell also noted that his company has sold thousands of them to Facebook.

Virtualization: Promise, and Challenges
Clark asked Dell about the fact that, through virtualization, many companies end up buying fewer servers, and less hardware in general. “The first thing you have to remember is that any time a new technology comes along that’s good for customers, you get in the way of it at your own peril,” Dell said. “We have to think about how to win in virtualization. So let’s do virtualization right in servers. We’re offering servers with 1-terabyte DRAM footprints. You can virtualize an enormous number of servers with that, and you can put your whole database in memory.”

Salesforce’s (s crm) revenue run rate is currently more than $1.2 billion, CEO Marc Benioff said during a talk at the Oracle (s orcl) World conference in San Francisco today. And over 63,000 customers are using the company’s cloud-based services, according to Benioff, who spent 13 years at Oracle. “The power of cloud computing is the democratization of technology, allowing everybody to have the same access to the same code, the same capability through a robust sharing model, and that’s how we get to over 63,000 companies using our services,” he said.

Kraig Swensrud, Salesforce’s vice president of product marketing, was on hand to demo the San Francisco-based company’s Service Cloud 2 product, which enables companies’ customer service representatives to provide support to consumers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as it can be used to push out company information directly to the public web. For example, PC maker Dell (s dell), a Service Cloud 2 customer, can use the platform to view a customer’s tweet asking how to hook up a netbook to their HDTV and respond to it with a link to the company web site that instructs them how to do so.

Dell CEO Michael Dell also joined Benioff onstage to laud the power of the cloud, a day after the two companies saidthey’re pairing up to offer products targeted at small- and medium-sized businesses. Dell will sell Salesforce’s CRM products and will offer services that integrate them into the software SMBs are already using. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The two companies’ relationship doesn’t end there, of course; Salesforce’s data center is powered by Dell products.

Image courtesy of Salesforce.com

This was posted on yahoo on Oct. 10th 2009, great post clears up a few things that I post so often on this site. But let me tell you, there is no luck about a billionaires empire. It’s created through the laws of attraction. Learn more about what the laws of attraction are by viewing more of this site.

Peace
Simranjeet Singh
Aim: Kether1985

America’s Richest

A Recipe For Riches
Duncan Greenberg, 09.30.09, 06:00 PM EDT

Want to become a tech titan or hedge fund tycoon? Up your chances by dropping out of college or going to Harvard and working at Goldman Sachs.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?

We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from entrepreneurs’ parents’ professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have set them on the path to extreme wealth.

Our admittedly unscientific study of the self-made members of the Forbes 400 yielded some interesting results.

First, a significant percentage of them had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of Forbes 400 members (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires and near-billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few of them were born in December, historically the month with the eighth-highest birth rate.

Of the 274 self-made tycoons on the Forbes 400, 14% either never started or never completed college. The number of precocious college dropouts is highest among those who forged careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT), Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL), Michael Dell of Dell (DELL), Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Forbes 400 members who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: half of them have graduate degrees. Roughly 70% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master’s degrees from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Goldman Sachs (GS) has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman or one of it subsidiaries early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, David Tepper, Daniel Och and Leon Cooperman.

Several Forbes 400 members suffered bitter professional setbacks early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk’s first venture was a flop–an experience he regrets but appreciates. “Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one,” he told Forbes in 2007.

According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November 2008, his botched buyout of a company in Newark, N.J., in the early 1990s taught him “several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager.”

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, and FedEx (FDX) founder Frederick Smith.

Parents Had Math-Related Careers

The ability to crunch numbers is typically a key to becoming a billionaire. Often, mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires for whom we could find that information were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

September Birthdays

Of the 380 self-made American tycoons who have appeared on the Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires in the past three years, 42 were born in September–more than in any other month.

Tech Titans Who Dropped Out of College

Forget everything your guidance counselor told you: You don’t have to go to college to be successful. Close to 15% of the self-made American moguls on the Forbes 400 never finished college. Many of the list’s drop-outs made their fortunes in tech, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).

Skull and Bones

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Goldman Sachs

A stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs is a prime credential for achieving greatness on Wall Street. Of the 61 tycoons on our list who derive their fortunes from finance, at least six cut their teeth in Goldman’s investment banking, trading, or asset management divisions. The company’s crown jewel: its “risk arbitrage” unit, which launched the careers of billionaires Edward Lampert and Daniel Och, as well as former billionaires Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

Photo: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The collective net worth of the super rich on Forbes’s annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans fell by $300 billion over the past 12 months, and the tech sector spilled its share of the red ink.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates lost the most — at least on paper. His net worth dropped from $57 to $50 billion, not enough, however, to keep him from topping the list for the 16th year in a row. Two current and former Microsofties were close behind: Paul Allen (No. 17) lost $4.5 billion and Steve Ballmer (No. 14) gave up $1.7 billion.

Other notable losers were Michael Dell (No. 13), down $2.8 billion, and SAS’s James Goodnight (No. 33), off $1.9 billion.

In this company, the $600 million that Apple CEO Steve Jobs lost on paper doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, on the strength of the $5.1 billion he still has, he moved 18 spots up the Forbes 400 list, from No. 61 to No. 43.

Below: The 12 richest tech moguls and their change in net worth. One actually got richer. Can you guess who?

• No. 1. Bill Gates, Microsoft (MSFT): $50 billion, down $7 billion
• No. 3 Larry Ellison, Oracle (ORCL): $27 billion, no change
• No. 11 Sergey Brin, Google (GOOG): $15.3 billion, down $600 million
• No. 11 Larry Page, Google: $15.3 billion, down $500 million
• No. 13 Michael Dell, Dell (DELL): $14.5 billion, down $2.8 billion
• No. 14 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft: $13.3 billion, down $1.7 billion
• No. 17 Paul Allen, Microsoft: $11.5 billion, down $4.5 billion
• No. 28 Jeff Bezos, Amazon (AMZN): $8.8 billion, up $100 million
• No. 33 James Goodnight, SAS Institute: $6.8 billion, down $1.9 billion
• No. 40 Pierre Omidyar, eBay (EBAY): $5.5 billion, down $800 million
• No. 40 Eric Schmidt, Google: $5.5 billion, down $400 million
• No. 43 Steve Jobs, Apple, Pixar (AAPL): $5.1 billion, down $600 million

Seems like the Pandoras at Dachis are particularly sore these days that entrepreneurs in the social media demimonde they helped unbox are making money and living large without proper pedigree, paying their dues or playing by the rules (as Peter Kim et al define them). Worse, in doing so those pusillanimous parvenus and pretenders — my homage to William Safire — are challenging Dachis’s Ptolemaic model of the social media consulting universe (where an insular club of self-congratulatory, self-referential early adopters occupy the center of the bullseye, natch).

David “Respect My Authoritah” Armano recently issued a cri de coeur against charlatans, opportunists and — gasp — plagiarists posing as social media “experts.” That refrain was echoed by a predictable chorus of acolytes using the comments thread to praise Armano’s wisdom and call for some sort of social media professional certification body — presumablycomprised of themselves — to separate the righteous sheep from the unworthy goats. Just as dutifully, Armano chimed in on the comment thread to praise their wisdom in recognizing his wisdom.

“The problem is this expert was sucking in the feed of my blog without permission, attribution and had more holes in his resume than a slice of Swiss cheese [emphasis added]. So how do you separate the social media snake oil from the vinegar?”

First, WTF is up with that metaphor? Which component represents Armamo’s content in this salad dressing dyad, the snake oil or the vinegar? Sounds unpalatable either way.

Second, his outrage over breaches in garden-variety content streaming etiquette is overreaction enough, but Armano goes on to imply that this “expert” was not worthy to traffic in social media content (which Armano might or might not have himself streamed, adapted or re-tweeted from others) because of an inferior resume. Oh REALLY….Apparently pedigree ought to trump ingenuity, enterprise and drive in the Social Media World According to Armano. I wonder if he would say that Michael Dell was unscrupulous and didn’t deserve his success because he was a college drop-out and disrespectful to IBM.

Brazen unattributed content streaming is definitely uncool, but it is also a foreseeable — arguably inevitable – extension of social media’s fetishization of content sharing. Further, isn’t it one of the central tenets of social media faith that community wisdom will sniff out and snuff out inauthentic poseurs and grifters?

In an April 10, 2008 post, Chris Brogan, commented honestly on his own experiences with the plagiarism, hypothesizing that copying is a constitutive part of the human condition and suggesting that owning up to those conscious and unconscious borrowings makes one’s own truth shine more brightly:

“We are all derivatives of someone else. It can’t be helped. Musicians have roots in other musical traditions, even if it’s not obvious at first. Nirvana is heavily Beatles-influenced, for instance. Authors are unique-twist copies of other authors. It’s just the way of the world, and how humans evolve.”

From there he gave a bravura exhibition of how a genuinely centered, confident, non-self-aggrandizing social media expert respsonds to the scourge of plagiarism:

“I’m inspired by others, and derive some of my skills and abilities from what I’ve learned from others, so instead of bitch about someone copying my stuff, I’m going to praise some people that I have learned from in developing my own presence. (None of this is to blow smoke up these people’s butts. I know most of them. I like most of them. This is about me, and about what goes into the media I make).”

He went on to describe the debts he owes to Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, Annie Proulx, Jeremiah Owyang and Jon Swanson, then concluded simply and elegantly:

“My big point: none of us are originals. It’s okay. And I’ve DEFINITELY done it myself, where I’ve thought something WAS my thought, only to find out that I was synthesizing something I read a few days back, or a conversation I had (Did that famously badly once, to a friend I love, and had to rescind).

“But if you KNOW you’re going to riff off someone, give a little link love and be done with it. Fair?”

HERE COMES THE PAUL HARVEY MOMENT

The irony here is that Peter Kim, in his Sept. 23, 2009 ”amen” (my term)  to Armano’s rant, appears to be adopting the convention of Brogan’s earlier post — without crediting Brogan.

“We invest time and energy in contributing to a collective understanding. I applaud Todd Defren and ShiftPR for sharing their work on the social media press release. Nielsen Online offers free use of their industrial-strength brand monitoring system through Blogpulse.

“We celebrate the success of others. The community at large helped Chris Brogan and Julien Smith become New York Times best selling authors. We’ve cheered on my friends and former colleagues Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang, and Ray Wang (and Deb Schultz) in creating Altimeter Group.

“We give credit where and when credit is due. As Dachis Group builds momentum and understanding around Social Business Design, most people have acknowledged our work in adding their own thoughts to the conversation.

Hmm, makes ya think. Whether the similarities are coincidental or purposeful, maybe Kim should give credit to the New York Times best-selling author who had the wisdom and class to demonstrate how to place social media “plagiarism” in perspective and then process through it with grace and genuine generosity of spirit, not vitriol and proprietary-speak topped off with a self-serving plug for a wannabe new business paradigm.

In a Nov. 16, 2008 post entitled “Social Media is Not Socialism,” Kim puts it even more bluntly:

“When someone plagiarizes content, the social system breaks down.  Individuals who plagiarize seek to claim credit for themselves.   Social media is already social and a Robin Hood-style redistribution of value isn’t required.  But credit and attribution remain key to socializing and increasing the value of content for everyone involved.”

Red alert! System failure!

I guess that would seem to be the case if the ultimate goal of social media is to productize/monetize Social Business Design (which, it coud be argued, is itself derivative of primary social science and marketing research conducted by others).

In closing, my formula for battling social media socialism is this: If you’re that concerned about getting credit for your content, then name it, claim it and smack a big circled “C” on it. Otherwise, trust the wisdom of the community to recognize your work no matter where it appears or who takes credit for it, and the truth will out.

Feel free to use that one.

Dell today announced RIGHTSLEEVE as the Canadian national winner of the Dell Small Business Excellence Award.  RIGHTSLEEVE will receive $25,000 in Dell products and services and a day of best-practice sharing with Dell experts, including time with Chairman and CEO Michael Dell.

Based in Toronto, Ontario, RIGHTSLEEVE develops promotional products for leading corporations across North America. Through its global supply chain, RIGHTSLEEVE offers a wide range of custom-branded merchandise including apparel and promotional products to corporate and retail clients.

RIGHTSLEEVE was established in 2000 when founder and president, Mark Graham, launched a promotional design company that immediately differentiated itself by infusing technology into its day-to-day operations.  “In an industry that is traditionally driven by age-old direct sales methods, RIGHTSLEEVE has catapulted its business dramatically by continually developing and implementing smart technology solutions,” said Graham. “Technology is the very backbone of our operations, enabling deeper engagement with clients, real-time feedback mechanisms, and fast and efficient delivery of products and services.”

Since its inception, RIGHTSLEEVE has focused on breaking away from the conventional methods synonymous with the promotional products industry. Technology enabled RIGHTSLEEVE to establish a robust business model that is dynamic, scalable, collaborative and profitable – attributes that set it apart from thousands of other suppliers in the promotional products industry in Canada. Its use of technology and web tools has allowed it to become an industry leader through efficient collaboration between suppliers, employees and customers.

“In this industry, there is only so much you can do to make your product or service stand out among the many brochures and catalogues clients receive everyday. At RIGHTSLEEVE, we believe that the real differentiator is the experience we can deliver to our clients,” said Graham. “We are delighted to be recognized by the Dell Small Business Excellence Awards and will continue to leverage innovative technology solutions to grow our business.”