So much already about the FB IPO!!!!!  Too many shares.  Slowing revenue.  Pre-IPO markets, history of RenRen etc...  I think they all impacted the share price.  Regardless of whether the stock is at $40 or $10, the value of a stock is determined by its earnings and future outlook, both of which are not entirely clear with FB.  Maybe thats the real reason it didn't take off.

We know the site makes a ton of money right now.  We also know just about everyone uses the site and uses it a lot to communicate with friends.  But does this translate into ever growing revenue streams?  Here are some things to consider:

1. FB and Mark Zuckererg need to care about growing revenue.  This doesn't appear to be the case, at least based on what I read.  I was trying to dig up his actual quote from the "bell" ringing but I remember the comments being along the lines of, "we care more about connecting people than making money."  While that is very noble of Mark, he's a public company now and they need to make money, and more of it each year.  Now can making money and connecting people go hand-in-hand?  I'm not sure . . .that leads us to point #2.
2. GM must have an ax to grind with FB.  The timing of their announcement that they are ditching FB ads couldn't have been worse.  But anyone in the industry will tell you that FB ads do not work, or rarely work.  Click through rates on FB ads are incredibly low.  The ads the do work are usually for coupons, contests or other freebies that users can get if they "like" a page.  Selling stuff off FB is non-existent.  So what does work?  Great content.  The ability for users to share on FB is immense.  There are tons of companies that have put together great content programs that have gathered millions of views and followers.  There are even small companies that use the FB wall primarily for the free media and exposure it provides.  If FB were ever to charge for this, they could make a fortune, but the implications for businesses and users is far reaching and impact significantly the user experience.
3. Is FB the walled-garden of social?  Just as AOL gave way to the internet that gave way to social, social media is at its infancy and it will take many forms.  FB needs to make sure it doesn't become the AOL of social.  Twitter is the great example.  Most users who post on twitter don't even do it on the native site but rather on a mobile device or 3rd party site.  FB is getting better with the like button and review boxes but it still has a long way to go.  FB needs to spread itself across the internet rather than drag everything back to its site.  Speaking off mobile . . . .
4. Come up with a mobile strategy.  Everything is moving mobile and FB doesn't make money off mobile...yet.

FB is huge and will continue to be.  Its hard to argue against the importance of the site.  The real question is, how long will it stay on top?  Does connecting people drive revenue?  I guess we'll see . . . .

This was forwarded to me.  Images and quote taken from Jessica Hagy at Forbes.com - nice and entertaining pieces of wisdom.

There’s a difference between being agreeable and agreeing to everything. Trust the little internal voice that tells you, “this is a bad idea.”

Fun contest and some clever ideas.

Can your company be summed up this quickly - the 30 second elevator pitch?  They had about 450 entries.

“My company, _(insert name of company)_, is developing _(a defined offering)_ to help _(a defined audience)_ _(solve a problem)_ with _(secret sauce)_”).

Funny to still see articles like this when companies like Instragram, with $0 revenue, are bought for $1-billion.  Is social media still that confusing?

McKinsey tries to explain the model for social media.

I'm not sure this is the real "focus" of social media.  This section cut/pasted from article:
What we hope to do here is to demystify social media. We have identified its four primary functions—to monitor, respond, amplify, and lead consumer behavior—and linked them to the journey consumers undertake when making purchasing decisions.

Social media - is media - and needs to be treated as such.  The content you create is your ad.  The ad is meant to interact and spread so the quality of it needs to be good.  Yes, there is a big customer service aspect to social media and the medium facilitates responding and reacting.  Monitoring is clearly a nice defensive tactic used by brands.  But, its media.  Companies are trying to get users to interact with their brand and their content. 

Companies engage in social media for different ends.  Most activity may fall under these four very broad areas, but is it definitely not limited to them.  SEO, for one, is a huge reason to enter into social media.  Social links and content are weighted heavily in search algorithms.  I would think most companies focus on just 1 or 2 areas.   

A really fantastic article from Walter Isaacson who wrote Job's biography.  I feel he may have written this as a response to the edginess of Job's personality in the book, that he was hard, and in some cases, rude to people.  He pieces it all together as part of Job's strategy to focus on simplicity and only 3-4 things at once. 

Anyone who manages people should read this article:

http://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs/ar/1

Some great quotes/sections:

After he righted the company, Jobs began taking his “top 100” people on a retreat each year. On the last day, he would stand in front of a whiteboard (he loved whiteboards, because they gave him complete control of a situation and they engendered focus) and ask, “What are the 10 things we should be doing next?” People would fight to get their suggestions on the list. Jobs would write them down—and then cross off the ones he decreed dumb. After much jockeying, the group would come up with a list of 10. Then Jobs would slash the bottom seven and announce, “We can only do three.”

_______

It’s important to appreciate that Jobs’s rudeness and roughness were accompanied by an ability to be inspirational. He infused Apple employees with an abiding passion to create groundbreaking products and a belief that they could accomplish what seemed impossible. And we have to judge him by the outcome. Jobs had a close-knit family, and so it was at Apple: His top players tended to stick around longer and be more loyal than those at other companies, including ones led by bosses who were kinder and gentler. CEOs who study Jobs and decide to emulate his roughness without understanding his ability to generate loyalty make a dangerous mistake.

“I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them,” Jobs told me. “By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. Ask any member of that Mac team. They will tell you it was worth the pain.” Most of them do. “He would shout at a meeting, ‘You asshole, you never do anything right,’” Debi Coleman recalls. “Yet I consider myself the absolute luckiest person in the world to have worked with him.”

______
he helped to transform seven industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. He thus belongs in the pantheon of America’s great innovators, along with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. None of these men was a saint, but long after their personalities are forgotten, history will remember how they applied imagination to technology and business.

Some good tips on how to manage in-box overload from HBS.  I like the idea of sorting by conversation then deleting all the others - - just did that and killed about 40% of the emails in my in-box.

I've tried the folders before but MS Outlook fights with the iPhone too much.  I remember creating a folder for my CEO.  It broke and I never received them prompting him to call me wondering "where am I" - ouch . . . .

From article - - - -

Case Study #1: Develop a system and stick to it
Ana Dutra, the CEO of Korn/Ferry International, is known for responding to every email she receives within 24 hours, regardless of who it comes from. But she doesn't feel like she spends too much time on email. "I have a system that works for me," she says. It is a process she felt forced to develop when she led the global organization strategy practice at Accenture and received 250 to 300 emails per day. While that number is lower now that she's at Korn/Ferry (around 120 emails a day, she says), she is still committed to staying on top of her email and keeping her inbox clean. "The more it accumulates, the harder it is to catch up and determine what's important and what's not," she says.

Ana uses a four-step process each time she opens her Blackberry or Outlook inbox. She starts by deleting anything she can: invites, spam, etc. She then sorts by subject so she is only looking at the last message in a conversation. She doesn't look at the previous trail of email unless she needs to. "The problem may have already been solved," she points out. She then looks at the messages she was copied on to see if there is something urgent or whether she is just being kept in the loop. The last thing she does is reply to messages that can be handled immediately and files the rest into folders.

For her it's a matter of respect to reply promptly. "It takes 20-30 seconds to write a quick email explaining when you will get to something," she says. "So much is resolved and so many decisions are made by email, it is irresponsible not to respond." She also trains those she works with. "If you want me to read what you write to me, make it short," she says. She encourages people to label things "Action required" or "No action — FYI only."

Every time she has down time — in a car, waiting for an appointment — she cleans out her inbox. She doesn't think of the time she spends managing her email as an encumbrance. In fact it's the opposite. "It doesn't feel like a burden at all. It feels great," she says.

Case Study #2: Stop the source
Frank Sopper, the President of OpenBook Learning, a company that provides educational software to U.S. public schools and advises executives on cognitive effectiveness, does not want to be copied on any emails. "I don't slap anyone's hand if they do," he says, "but I may ask, 'Why are you sending this to me?'" Sopper started to look closely as the emails he was receiving several years back in a previous role. He asked himself: Is there an action item here for me? If not, why am I receiving these?

At OpenBook, he has pushed the people he works with to think carefully about why they are sending an email and who needs to receive it. "We've really worked hard in our organization not to copy anyone on an email unless there's an action item for them," he says. The goal is not to stifle conversation but to make sure it's relevant. "Anyone can communicate with me. They send me an email with me in the 'To' line."

Managers at OpenBook don't feel constrained by the rule. In fact, Sopper says that people seem relieved because they feel trusted to do their job. And he relies on other tools to monitor performance. "I have to trust that we have metrics that measure people's work without watching their conversations," he says.

Has the no CC approach significantly reduced his email load? "I don't know how many emails I receive," he acknowledges. "I get rid of them, move them into folders. They don't stack up in my inbox. But I know it's sharply less than my peers who are running similar sized organizations."

Six odd but insightful predictions from Andrew McCafee at MIT via Sloan Biz school.  I've cut/pasted the short excerpt below.

The iPad will definitely gain competition.  As with their MacBook computers, Apple will keep the highest price point and people will pay the premium because of the brand.  Thats leaves lots of room for at least 2 more tablets.  Amazon and Google will fill this void with a Kindle (low price) and Android (the anti-iPad). 

His prediction #2 about cloud based apps for a fortune 500 company is brave.  The problem I've see with this is loss of control and data security.  Will it happen, yes, but in 2012?  It might be too early.  Without a doubt the cost savings would be tremendous and most likely be as stable as an in-house system.  But he is right that email and calendar will likely go first. 

As for the other three . . .I happen to like Citibankonline.  They've done a good job staying current and secure with a good app, web site and text programs.  I can't speak for other banks.  #5 is most ominous but dead on.  As technology improves jobs will move from labor to technical.  Technology will begin to replace more roles just as trains replaced horses and trucks replaced trains and machines replaced people.  I was speaking with a doctor a few months ago who has a son in a very good college.  His son was deciding to become a doctor or go work for Google and learn to be an engineer.  Guess which one he chose.....

The predictions:

1. The iPad will gain some worthy adversaries.
When Amazon's Kindle Fire came out I wrote that the tablet wars were starting in earnest, and when I hear Eric Schmidt promise a "highest quality" Android tablet in 2012 I get excited to see what's coming. Thanks to tablets and smartphones we're moving past the PC's longstanding WIMP interface paradigm (windows, icons, menus, pointers [i.e. cursors]) into one I'm calling VEST — voice, eyes, speech, and touch — that will change what computing devices we use most often, and how we interact with them.

2. A Fortune 500 company will move its productivity and collaboration apps to the cloud.
Berkeley has just explained why it chose Google for its campus-wide email and calendaring apps, so some pretty large organizations are starting to move into the Cloud. I predict at least one big-company CEO will walk away from the on-premises status quo in 2012. If so, it'll be a fascinating experiment to watch.

3. A web-native bank will appear and inspire fanatical devotion among its customers.
OK, this one is more of a blind hope / cry for help than a prediction. But I'm thoroughly tired of the way incumbent financial services firms treat their customers and neglect their web environments. I want this old, sleepy cartel upset by an online newcomer who cares about what customers want and knows how to deliver it to them.

4. There will be at least one instance of a science fiction technology becoming reality.
I don't know what this is going to be — exoskeletons for the disabled? working brain control of real-world objects? — but I'm very sure it's coming. The past couple years have given us cars that drive themselves and computers that win at Jeopardy! Anyone think those are the last of the amazing digital innovations? Me neither.

5. Job prospects and wages will not improve much for the average American worker.
Unfortunately, any honest list of my predictions for 2012 has to include this one. The two forces of trade and technology are combining to create a tough labor market for lots of workers in the U.S., particularly those without specialized skills. I deeply wish things would get better for them, but I don't think they're going to. If you want to learn more about why I think this, check out Race Against the Machine, the ebook I published this past fall with Erik Brynjolsson.

6. The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries.
This prediction might seem incompatible with the previous one, but it's not. Even U.S. workers facing grim job prospects are benefitting from technology's ability to lower prices and improve quality over time. And freedom, trade, and technology have combined over the past generation to improve conditions for literally billions of people around the world. These happy trends will continue. I am sure of it. Sharp-eyed readers will have realized that the wording of this prediction is not mine; it comes from the late economist Julian Simon, and it ends with the words "most of the time, indefinitely." He's right.

You have to feel for the management team at the USPS.  Government oversight.  An outdated business model.  671,687 employees as of last November and the need to cut $20-billion in expenses.Every dollar of cost cutting means layoffs or the closure of a local branch.  Changes that are all very visible.  No other organization is forced through as much pain when changes are presented than the USPS. 

But is slashing services the right way to respond?

Technology, email mostly, has eaten into USPS's volume so revenue is way down and will continue to decrease, but I think its bad business for the USPS to hasten that decrease by further slashing services.  People still need to receive their packages, letters and bills in a timely manner.  Imagine FREE Amazon shipping taking 3 weeks now instead of just 10 days.  Cutting services forces business to find alternatives.  This will put the USPS into a downward spiral that will force them to continue cuts which will then force business to find more alternatives.

At some point, the USPS needs to find new revenue sources.  The fact that they have a monopoly on the "last mile" - the street to the doorway - its hard to imagine that they can't figure this out.  The Direct Marketing industry spends about $150-billion a year on marketing and services.  All of this flows through the USPS in the form of letters and packages.  But the USPS is seen as an "expense" and not as a "service."  The USPS needs to flip that perception and offer services to these marketing companies - everyone from JCrew to Sears to your local Chinese food restaurant are potential clients.  Localized marketing is the last great frontier for advertisers (see: Groupon) yet USPS hasn't brought much to the table in the form of revenue ideas. You can't shrink your way to greatness.

The USPS is still a marvel, at least to me.  You can drop a $.44 envelope into a blue box in NY and having it show up somewhere else about 3 days later with a high degree of accuracy.  In general, its an impressive postal system.  It would be shame to see if slowly privatized piece by piece but that is likely what will happen.

A good short article from HBS on some myths and realities of innovation. 

Innovation is synonymous with change.  In the workplace, change is bad - even though we say its good.  The reality is, no one wants change because change leads to uncertainty which leads to doubt.  Change leads to disruption and managers hate that more than anything.  Change is also complicated to figure out.  Workflows, resourcing levels and the basic way people "go about the day" becomes muddled.  People have a natural tendency to routinize so change is against human nature.

But change is necessary and therefore innovation is necessary.  Any company/industry not innovating is dying.

Balancing the unnaturalness of innovation with the need to constantly do it is a big management challenge.  Companies that have figured it out (Google, Apple, Amazong, IBM) have made innovation a natural part of what they do.  I remember reading an article about innovation at Cisco.  Cisco created 5 "innovation pods" and selected employees to participate.  Being selected for a team was a major honor within the company.  No longer was change relegated to the guy in the corner causing trouble. 

Innovation that works is woven into the culture of a company and rewarded.  Most amazingly, innovation is a discipline and can be measure and managed (myth #1). Innovation also requires a flexibility from employees so they do not get comfortable with rote tasks.

I think in the next ten years the workplace is going to become less geo-centric, meaning, you staff could be anywhere.  Big departments will probably melt away and be left with specific specialist who are very project focused.  Innovation is going to be a big driver of what these project teams will be asked to accomplish.  How do we do it faster?  How do we do it cheaper?  How do we build it better?  New fresh ideas will become more the norm.

Myth	Reality
Innovation is random	Innovation is a discipline — it can be measured and managed. Consider how Procter & Gamble's structured approach to innovation allowed it to triple its innovation success rate and double the size of a typical initiative.
Only creative geniuses can innovate	Innovation is distinct from creativity. While creativity can help, people who aren't intrinsically creative can create high-impact innovation if they follow the right process.
You're either an innovator or you're not	Research recounted in The Innovator's DNA described how innovation is about 30 percent nature and 70 percent nurture.
Innovation happens in the R&D lab	Innovation — something different that has impact — can happen anywhere in an organization. Everyone should be looking for new ways to solve old problems.
We will win with superior technology	Most market disruptions rest on innovative business models — new ways to create, capture, or deliver value
Innovation is all about improved performance	Sometimes innovation is about improving performance along traditional dimensions, but some of the most powerful disruptive innovations sacrifice raw performance in the name of accessibility or affordability.*
Our customers will be a critical source of innovation insight	Your customers might tell you how to make your current offering better, but they won't point the way to disruptive growth; you have to explore new markets in new ways to identify new growth businesses.
Game changing innovation is done only by entrepreneurs	Many of the most exciting disruptions in recent years — such as GE's low cost imaging solution and Cisco's TelePresence solution — have come from big companies
We will win by targeting the biggest markets	Markets that don't exist are difficult to precisely measure or analyze; the most powerful innovations create new markets.
Innovation requires big bets	As our friend Peter Sims writes in Little Bets, if you want to win big, you should start small.

Great tip from HBR today on managing teams:

Engaged employees are essential to a manager's success. Without subordinates who care about, participate in, and take ownership over the work, even the best boss will flounder. Here are three ways to win your employees' engagement:

• Be modest. Share both your mistakes and your successes. Subordinates will see that you're both human and don't have anything to prove.
• Show that you're listening. People tune in to body language. Manage where you look and what you do with your hands so that employees know you're paying attention.
• Don't have all the answers. Managers should catalyze problem solving. Be willing to admit that you don't know what the answer is and invite your team to toss around ideas.