Strategy + Solutions

Thoof

Strategy+Solutions is based in Austin, TX and we have a new web 2.0 media source for you to check out from our own backyard....Thoof!  Here is what they are about from their recently launched site:

"Thoof is a website that offers interesting news articles, websites, videos, photographs, and other links from around the web. Everything on the site is posted by Thoof readers, and can also be improved and edited by those same readers. What makes Thoof unique is a sophisticated algorithm which discovers a reader's interests and tailors the stories to each reader's individual tastes. Every Thoof reader will see a personalized page with stories he or she will find interesting. All that you, as a reader, have to do is simply read what you like, and Thoof takes care of the rest!

We created Thoof because we found, as we surfed the web for things that interested us, that we seemed to have only two options: Either visit dozens of specialized sites, or visit general news sites where what we wanted was often buried under a pile of what we didn't want— if it was there at all. On either type of site, we often had to read through lots of stories just to find one that was interesting. User-contributed sites provided the most interesting articles, but were often duplicated and inaccurate, and there was no way to fix them. Thoof tries to solve these problems."

The Mind of The Strategist Refresher

The Mind of the Strategist by Kenichi Ohmae, a McKinsey alum, is a great book and an extremely valuable read for small and medium businesses and especially start-ups.  It is enjoyable to revisit the classics and apply the common sense and wisdom they share.  Here is a section filled with some common sense approaches to management strategy that often get overlooked despite their simplicity.

Ohmae begins "In my experience, there are at least three major constraints to which the business strategist needs to be sensitive." 

"I think of them as the essential R's: reality, ripeness, and resources."

"Let's begin with reality...business strategists must always be aware of the customer, the competition, and the company's field of competence."

"Ripeness, or timing, is the second key consideration that the business strategist must address.  Unless the time is ripe for the proposed strategy, it is virtually certain to fail."

"Resources, my third R, constitute such an obvious constraint that it is amazing that they should be ignored or neglected by strategists.  Yet examples abound of strategies that failed because their authors were not sensitive to their own resource limitations and skills."

These are powerful strategic thoughts to visit from time to time when crafting your next technology, business, marketing, or sales strategy.   

Have you done your homework (market research)?  Have you put the current and potential customer to work for you?   

What is your competition doing?  What are the competitive threats and opportunities? 

Are you sticking to your guns in terms of core competence or are you taking a shot gun approach to earning market share/leadership? 

Finally, are you seizing strategic opportunities with timing and resources in mind? 

The Supernova Conference June 20-22 San Francisco, CA

Check out the 2007 Supernova Conference produced in partnership with the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.  Should be a great event for those who can make it to San Francisco.  The speaker list is outstanding.  The Supernova Connected Innovators hosted by Techcrunch is especially interesting to Strategy+Solutions.  Check all of this out and register today.

Vyew Introduces Exciting New Tool for SMB's

Vyew Syncs Live Web Conferencing and Asynchronous Collaboration for Creating, Managing, and Interacting with All Forms of Content

Vyew bridges asynchronous and synchronous workflows and also adds portability to finalized content for posting on blogs, social networks, and other online pages

BERKELEY, Calif. -- June 8, 2007 -- Vyew, which recently emerged out of Beta, introduces version 2.5, one of the first online applications to fuse both live meeting and asynchronous collaboration capabilities to improve content collaboration, online meetings, and workflow. It is ideal for a wide range of users, from independent professionals to small businesses and workgroups.

With Vyew 2.5, people can create VyewBooks to share, present, and interact with other people around all forms of content such as Microsoft Office files, pictures, audio and video. Tools to create new presentations are also included within the suite. Participants can also share their desktop view for live sharing of files, images, and Web sites. The new version also enables people to print VyewBooks.

VyewBooks are now also portable in 2.5 with the addition of an embeddable Vyewlet generator. Vyewlets are read-only VyewBooks which can be posted outside of Vyew -directly in blog posts, Web sites, social networks, and any online page - to create dynamic, multimedia presentations to engage viewers. If and when a Vyewlet needs to be updated, it can be done so inside Vyew with changes pushed live to the Vyewlet via an RSS-like mechanism.

Vyew is business-ready, allowing companies to customize the browser-based application to reflect their corporate branding and ID.  Vyew is also introducing Multi-Language support for Asian, Cyrilic, and Arabic keyboard characters. This broadens Vyew’s functionality for globally dispersed teams.

“Software’s migration to an online platform is facilitating new relationships between people and content,” said Henry Hon, CEO. “Vyew isn’t just another WebEx or GotoMeeting where information is communicated in a canned one-to-many format. Vyew is an enterprise-class social computing platform where people can also create, share, and participate with rich content in a many-to-many relationship, both in real-time and asynchronously over time.”

Vyew is available for free and is supported by light advertising. Businesses can enjoy ad-free, customizable versions of the service, with subscription prices starting as low as $6.95 per month.

Vyew allows unlimited sessions. Vyew also gives subscribers unique flexibility with Overflow Participants, an industry first, which allows extra real-time participant expansion for live conferences – at no additional charge. Subscribers can also choose to set-up a Custom Room ID for quick, easy-to-remember access to their sessions: For example, www.vyew.com/username.

Related information:

Vyew – http://www.vyew.com

Vyew 2.5 - http://tinyurl.com/2w7pn9

Vyewlet introducing 2.5 - http://tinyurl.com/2s66h7

About Vyew

Vyew is a browser-based collaboration and conferencing platform that enables Web users to share and create together in real-time and over time. Within seconds, Vyew users can access a shared workspace where they can upload and annotate files (.ppt, .doc, .xls, .pdf, .jpg, .mp3, .flv, etc.), take screen captures, white-board, and use a library of plug-ins to create content for sharing and collaborating on. Content in Vyew can be saved, accessed on-demand, left ‘always-on’ for reference or to add to over time, printed, and published anywhere on the web. During live conferencing sessions, users can also communicate via Vyew’s free teleconferencing service, instant text chat, and stream live what’s showing on their desktop.

Salesforce.Com & Google Offer Marketing Software

Great news for the SMB market was announced on Tuesday.  Salesforce will resell the Google AdWords platform by acting as a distribution channel targeting the small and medium business marketplace.