My introduction to Tagged.com

I heard about www.Tagged.com from a friend on Google Buzz.  Thought it might be a nice place to meet more adults in my area and possibly make some friends.  Before I even completed my profile, I received a message that "Wendy" had "bought" me, and another that   "Delight" had bought me.  I was mildly amused that there seemed to be a bidding war for me, but when I checked it out "Wendy" had the picture of a dude!  Turns out that this is some kind of game and I am now being bought and sold as a pet on Tagged.  I'm sure there are some nice people on Tagged but is a little weird.  I'll give it more time but this wasn't a very nice introduction to your service.

Assume you are below average

Here is an interesting contrarian thought from Derek Sivers' blog.  I mentioned on a different network today that it is a well known flaw in human thinking that people credit their successes to their own hard work or intelligence, and their failures to bad luck.  Sivers noted something similar in that most people consider themselves to be "above average" in many areas.  In psychological terms this is called, "illusory superiority".

He recommends dumping this attitude entirely.  Assume you are below average - it may actually confer some advantages.  I do this from time to time and it does seem to work. In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king.  In a roomful of smart guys, the dumb guy may not be king, but he may have the most common sense.  Worth a read.

http://sivers.org/below-average

Google Should Stop Going After Facebook & Twitter & Go After LinkedIn Instead

I totally agree with blog post by Chad Catacchio.  I find Linkedin to be lacking in many ways. For one thing, I really don't think they need to block us from communicating with people the way they do, but regardless they absolutely need some competition.  Google is not set up well for business at all right now - for one thing, their profiles are terrible, but a business move with Google Buzz and a few other of their services would be a smart move right now, and I hope they consider it.  http://thenextweb.com/google/2010/06/27/google-should-stop-going-after-facebook-twitter-go-after-linkedin-instead/

Chris Dixon on Venture Capital Tax Rates

I just discovered Chris Dixon's blog this morning, and I have to say I am impressed.  In the post linked below, he expresses the opinion that Money Managers and Venture Capitalists should pay the same tax rate as anyone else -something a bill that recently went through Congress was trying to correct.  http://cdixon.org/2010/06/01/money-managers-should-pay-the-same-tax-rates-as-everyone-else/

This is a view I have not seen expressed very often - especially by someone involved in the venture capital community.  He points out that the argument that this will help "small business" is complete nonsense.  It is simply another tax break designed to help fat cat "investors" get even more rich.   Unfortunately, our government fell for this "small business" line still again so this tax break for billionaires will apparently remain in place.  I have been looking, but I still haven't seen anything creative, innovative or even effective policies coming from our government that can actually help small business.  In fact, I am not even sure that they even know what a real small business or a true start-up company is.

Hopefully there are people in our government who will eventually listen to voices of reason like Chris Dixon.

Competition is overrated

I agree with this - people with new business ideas are far too paranoid about competition.  As this article points out, almost every good idea has already been built, and finding an existing product in the marketplace can actually be a good thing. I have heard engineers say, for example, that it is often better to be "second" with a product, rather than first.  I have also heard that if you do a start up correctly, no one can really steal your ideas because "they are you".   Worth a read: http://www.businessinsider.com/competition-is-overrated-2010-6#ixzz0ryuQChNC