Back to Vanno »

Archive for July, 2009

Big companies can be just as innovative as startups

Published by nickd on July 29, 2009 in Nick's rants and raves. 0 Comments

I’m getting really tired of pundits claiming that big companies can’t innovate, and that startups are the saviors of our economic future.    I’ve worked in/with big companies and startups, and have seen tons of innovation and many brilliant people in both. The biggest difference is a simple and obvious one – big companies become conservative because they have something to conserve, and startups take big risks because they have nothing to lose. Their respective shareholders expect these behaviors, and this difference in operating model – not lack of innovation or smart people in big companies – explains the difference in outcomes. Otherwise said, big companies don’t bet the farm, simply because they have a lot more mouths to feed than startups do. 

The latest article of this genre that set me off was in Silicon Valley Insider.   Henry Blodget pimps a video of Kevin Ryan talking about “Why big rich companies can’t crush tiny startups“.   I posted a long comment that focused primarily on the fundamental logical flaw in the kind of reasoning Ryan (and many others) use, and thought I’d share it here also. 

Continue reading ‘Big companies can be just as innovative as startups’

The broken guitar had no effect on United Airlines

Published by nickd on July 25, 2009 in Vanno_News_and_Views. 4 Comments

Social media marketers (all 100 million of them, if my Twitter count is correct) are bending over backward to congratulate themselves on the effect the 4M YouTube views of a song about a broken guitar had on United Airlines.   Some social media PR types are touting the enormous brand damage done by the incident, and a journalist at the UK Times Online has even connected a 10% drop in United’s stock price with the spread of the YouTube video.

This reminds me of a similar case of social media overreach in which Vanno was directly involved.  Remember the now infamous Michael Phelps bong incident?   Not long after Lou Dobbs highlighted how Kellogg’s Vanno rank (a social media measure of  company reputation) dropped precipitously after the bong incident, someone connected a drop in Kellogg’s stock price with the social media buzz/outrage around Kellogg’s decision to drop Phelps. Continue reading ‘The broken guitar had no effect on United Airlines’