Tribute to John McEnroe: Performance Variability Happens With Even The Greats ... You Cannot Be Serious!
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
CNN reports that John McEnroe's talk show is being cancelled after barely six months.


Now I've never watched his show, but John McEnroe is smart, colorful, and entertaining. Aside from antics early on in his tennis career, I have really identified with him: plays tennis left-handed, uses an all-court strategy, has natural athletic abilities, has played vintage Maxply Fort Dunlop racquets, followed players like Rod Laver, got bored with the age of modern tennis because of a lack of characters on the circuit, made significant steps toward personal and family improvement latter in life, and loves to play rock-and-roll (sure he plays guitar and I play the drums, but we both like Patti Smyth and Van Halen ... that's the only difference, right?).


Some other *small* accomplishments of John (from the McEnroe Show website):
A #1 New York Times' Best Seller, "You Cannot Be Serious"
7 Grand Slam Singles Championships
3 Wimbledon Singles Championships
4 U.S. Open Singles Championships
5 U.S. Davis Cup Championships
10 Grand Slam Doubles Championships
5 Wimbledon Doubles Championships
4 U.S. Open Doubles Championships
1 French Open Mixed Doubles Championships
7 Masters Doubles Championships
154 ATP Tour Singles and Doubles Titles
36 Champions Tour Titles
NCAA Singles Champion at Stanford University
1999 Induction in the International Tennis Hall of Fame
2000 Davis Cup Captain


John is a world-renowned sportscaster, and he has been *** #1 *** for much of his life. His unique persona even served as inspriation for the role of the American chess master in the musical Chess. His book is probably the only autobiography that I ever read outside of the ones forced on me back in high school. But John will now have the following credit as well:
[ranking] 833rd out of 834 shows that aired on all of cable television in the period from 6 a.m. Monday through 3 a.m. Tuesday. "McEnroe" beat only the Food Network's "How to Boil Water." (source)


All I can say is that John McEnroe is still an inspiration to me. Being #833 of #834 after being #1 in many other areas just goes to show that even proven greats can have underperforming ventures.


John, I'll jam with you any day.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Blog is the #1 Word for 2004
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
The top 10 words of the year based on searches of Merriam-Webster Web sites are:

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Source: Merriam-Webster

See more detail as reported at CNN. Note that the term "blog" will even been added to the dictionary in 2005. I think I may need to go back to school for at least 2 of the other words ...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/11/30/words.of.the.year.reut/index.html

I hereby invoke the common law trademark rules for the "Blog Aside" (tm) marks and designations. Not to be confused with the term "blogicide" I might add. Anyways let's face it - blog properties just went up in value.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Musings on Blog Searching, Blogging, and Bulletin Boards
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Haven't quite got down the reading, posting, and browsing aspect of blogs down yet to my liking. Even though my investigations to date indicate that the searching, directory, blogging, social networking, caching, and grid computing spaces are converging, the workflow is pretty inefficient for me. Even simple browser bookmarking for me is getting out of hand.

Now as for stuff that *does* simplify my life, if you haven't tried the Findory site, check it out. In a nutshell Gregory Linden, founder of Findory and a key person formerly involved with personalization features at Amazon.com, has created an offering that personalizes the process of searching blogs through the use of adaptive learning. The platform tracks and learns what you like to read (through browser cookie technology). Then it organizes info in that way for you. What I like. No install. No new browsers. Just rock-and-roll and go. My style all-the-way.

To me, tailored searching is a great thing. Why? Because it draws personally relevant and timely network information flow to me. I use networks as an important part of my learning process because I am involved in a broad set of activities and can't be an expert in every area. For one thing, figuring out which channel to open for information can sometimes be tough because of the number of options. Findory is becoming sort of like Star Trek's Number One to me ... I can just turn to it and say "Open a channel" and "Make it so".

Now changing the subject a little bit, I wanted to comment on putting things back into the network. I find blogging useful, but I was originally surprised to find that the commenting format in blog environments was different from that on bulletin boards. Blogs don't make back-and-forth easy. Bulletin boards do. It is practically impossible to track the back and forth that goes in the commenting section of a blog. This hampers any useful dialogue that might grow out of the original blog post. Perhaps the desired effect. Perhaps not at other times. Problem is, as far as I can tell, there's no option in blogging to take the conversation to a bulletin board environment (e.g., a LinkedIn plug-in, Google scratch space, intelligent eGroups link or whatever). The situation that winds up happening is that everyone meets up in hyperspace, but there's no virtual Starbucks to link up for coffee and take the conversation further. Where's my instant e-Latte when I need it?

Updated: I was told that I should have said "cyberspace" not "hyperspace". Ah well. Tomato - tomata ...


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Mental Map of the Blogging World - A Work in Progress
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
As a number of folks may know, I have been experimenting with blogging to learn more about the detailed dynamics of the space. Blogging is an active area based on a lot of factors such as open source software, social networking, emerging venture investments, searching technology innovation and liquidity events, content management, ASP models, M&A activity, browser developments, standards, CRM, email, marketing, mobile technology, etc. Blogging has an indirect effect on some of the business activities I am exploring, so I wanted to create a mental map of what is going on companywise.

Anyway, here's my work in progress and mental map on the blogging space. I know that the matrix could be built out a bit. Suggestions welcome. Hope there aren't any gross errors in there. I've included source information and indicated where I've made guesstimates.

Updated (blues indicate changes since original post):

Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Nobel Prize, Supreme Court, Nobel Prize
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
I expect this to be a pretty high-caliber blog when up an running. The Becker-Posner blog (http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/) just came online. Where else would you be able to find a blog written by both a Nobel Prize winner in economics (Gary Becker) & a potential Supreme Court appointee, Nobel Prize hopeful, and Microsoft antitrust case mediator (Richard Posner)?

If you want some free economics and law schooling outside of the University of Chicago, this blog will likely be the place to go.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Christmas Comes Early on Dec. 2, 2004
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
The Christmas season is a time about giving to others. In some ways, it is also a time for people to fantasize about all the things you can buy with money. Imagine being able to buy:
- any company in the world
- all 5,000-some IT startups in the Silicon Valley
- your own country
- your own armed forces
- part of the biotech and pharmaceutical industry

The above items are a Microsoft business fantasy outlined in TheDeal.com. The possibilities are something just short of fantasy though as Microsoft prepares to pay out $32 billion (more than 40% of its total cash reserves) in a special dividend on December 2, 2004. It represents the largest cash dividend payout in history. If Microsoft executives and the Board can't find a better use for the money, then straight-up finance theory would say that the company should return money to shareholders as it is doing.

For once, let's all cheer for corporate governance!

Disclaimer: Steve is neither a Microsoft shareholder nor an employee ...


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Some Business Facts Appropriate for Thanksgiving
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Thought I would post some business facts related to Thanksgiving. The facts:


- the US does not import that much turkey (between January and August 2002 total imports was around $12 million)
- in 2001, the turkeys produced weighed 7.2 billion pounds altogether and were valued at $2.8 billion
- $1 was the cost per pound in December 2001 of a frozen whole turkey (based on the prior fact, those feathers must weigh a lot [smile]!)
- $1.49/pound was the 2004 offering price of fresh Rosebud turkeys by Peapod (for Nov. 19 - Nov. 24)
- 13.6 pounds was the amount of turkey consumed by the typical American in 2000
- my kids have a hard time chewing turkey (based on the prior fact, some people are eating a lot of turkey to compensate for my kids!)
- ConAgra (owner of the Butterball label) had 2003 revenue of $19.8 billion (that's not all turkey!)

Sources: http://www.chiff.com/a/turkey_census.htm, ConAgra financials



Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

If Your Employees Play Foosball This Well It May Be A Bad Sign
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
This link gets credit from Paul Brown, a friend, my former boss, and founder and CEO of FiveSight Technologies. Now I've known a number of early- and growth-phase companies that have adopted foosball (table soccer) tables. On the one hand, foosball does help to build company culture and get team sprit up. Foosball also can also get the blood rushing before important business meetings where competitive drive and hunger play a big part.

That said, if your employees play foosball at this level and better than they can articulate learnings about the sales process or where the company is at maturity-wise ... well you'd better watch operations more closely! ;)

Source: http://www.here.dk.nyud.net:8090/listarchive/jokes/Garlando.wmv (filming location not known)



Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Research by Ljunqvist and Wilhelm: Prospect Theory and IPOs
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
There is an interesting finance, organizational behavior, and initial public offering (IPO) puzzle addressed at the following blog.

The puzzle stems from the following. Why is it that many IPOs are dramatically underpriced? How can it be that in a matter of 30-90 days that companies (e.g., Google) can be trading close to 100% more than than their original IPO price? Did the company actually undertake some activities in 30-90 days that could double its enterprise value by billions of dollars? Hard to imagine in the absence of big news or other dramatic market changes.

Now aside from investment banking mechanics of making a market for taking a company public, it seems as though company shareholders would be somewhat upset by leaving so much on the table. If an IPO could have raised $2X billion for a company instead of $X billion, wouldn't you be upset as a CEO of that company?

Apparently not according to academic research. According to the blog article referenced above, "In trying to explain IPO underpricing, Loughran and Ritter (2002, RFS) suggested that CEOs may not be concerned about leaving money on the table in IPOs because the losses are netted against the rises in stock price in the secondary market." The article goes on to say, "Ljunqvist and Wilhelm now test this and find that it seems to hold ... They find that when the CEO wealth increases significantly in the IPO process (and hence presumably the CEO is a 'happy customer'), the firm is more likely to stick with the same underwriter, even if there was significant underpricing in the IPO ... In more technical language, the idea that the CEO is less concerned about what is left on the table because (s)he is making money anyways is essentially prospect theory."

I'm not arguing with the research. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but whatever happened to fiduciary responsibility?


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Not Quite Friday Cat Blogging ... Its the Hairy VC Deal!
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Thought I would resurrect a venture capital cartoon from the bubble days. Credits to http://www.thevc.com/.

Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Primordial Soup and Getting the Stars, Planets, and Moons to Align
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Well this is going to be a cryptic post for many, but it is intended to be a non-confidential brain dump of business things that I have touched in the networking flow within the past week (some things touched on deeper than others):
- technology transfer
- electrically small antennas (RFID)
- breakthrough, high-stakes presentations
- offshore software development for growth companies
- signal compression technologies
- hanging wireless antennas off of electricity poles and exploring job opportunities
- management consulting opportunities
- chemical cleanup of chemical warfare agents and potential terrorism agents
- oil additive that improves heat transfer of air conditioning units
- radio broadcasting for truckers
- MLM schemes
- business plan development
- psychology and use of organizational behavior theory in insurance marketing and program pilot and rollout
- process operations for backoffice to eCommerce companies
- new venture capital research on returns, etc.
- venture capital and CEO blogs
- judging for MBA case competitions
- the 16th floor
- STARTech Foundation (gazillionth time - I need to investigate this time!)
- buying celebrity talent
- wiki and RSS-based software companies
- buying and selling homes in the Park Cities
- publishing articles and books
- the difference between doing lunch and networking
- oh yeah ... and the election!


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Some Business Facts Appropriate for Halloween
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Thought I would post some business facts related to Halloween (as inspired by a comment from my mother about spending). The facts:


- as reported at www.shoppingblog.com , Halloween spending is estimated to reach $3.12 billion, and the National Retail Federation (NRF) Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey results indicate that the average consumer plans to spend $43.57 on Halloween merchandise this year (approximately 34% of this is on candy and 35% of this is on costumes)
- the population in the United States is estimated to be 293 million (July 2004) as reported in the World Factbook of the CIA
- the revenues of Wrigley exceeded $3.0 billion in 2003, and more than 90% of its revenues are from chewing gum sales worldwide
- *neither* of my kids got a single stick of Wrigley chewing gum for Halloween
- health care spending is on the order of $1.7 trillion (so off-the-cuff I'm guessing that dental care spending is in the range of tens of billions of dollars)


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

The 2004 Election Debacle ... A Premonition Or Happening Before Our Eyes?
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Today I was part of a conversation with some of the faculty at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU), and we lightly touched on the subject of the election. Now I have a technology and operational process bent to me, so perhaps my concerns about this election are just a combination of reading CNN news about e-voting security (here), hearing rumors that people are voting multiple times simply by identifying themselves as another person at other voting locations (since people don't have to provide photo ID in some cases), getting secondhand information about mechanical ballot completion being misleading in terms of some districts allowing people to vote with one punch (but where the detailed ballot doesn't follow that instruction perfectly), and seeing that the polls are so close between Bush and Kerry (does statistical significance play a role in vote counting?). To top my heightened sense of anxiety about the election, I couldn't even take advantage of voting early in the University Park area of Dallas ... the lines were like one to two hours long at 10:20AM today.


This stuff is all starting to sound very troublesome. Can we just let the folks at JibJab settle this (here)?


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Thaler and Fama ... We're All Organizational Behaviorists Now ... Sort Of ...
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
The perfect news for my "A Random Walk" blog category ... Richard Thaler (my wife's doctoral advisor back at the University of Chicago) and Eugene Fama duke it out for the readership of the Wall Street Journal. Since I can't automatically link to the article, I thought I would link to an article by Stephen M. Bainbridge (an academic in the blogosphere) posted just an hour ago.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/102004D.html

Rather than comment on this article, I think Stephen Bainbridge has done a nice job here.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

The Size of the Corporate Blogosphere
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
David Sifry, Founder and CEO of Technorati, a company watching and cataloging 4.3 millionish weblogs, published some interesting statistics on the size of the corporate blogosphere.

http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000390.html

Although the details on how the figure was obtained were not published at the time of my entry here, David pointed out that some 5,000 people are blogging in official to semi-official capacities for their companies. This number is consistent with other numbers I have seen around the Internet on business blogging. Clearly an emerging area, but one with very interesting possibilities when one considers the power of the network, the informal nature of the blogging channels, market timing, and the search for customer intimacy and high-tech touch.

What I think David forgot to mention is that there are actually 5,001 corporate blogs. The S4 Management Group Perspectives link could neither be catalogued nor counted by Technorati because I couldn't apply my two engineering degrees to figure out where to paste the Javascript and HTML code suggested by Technorati into the weblog format code ... these kinds of technical issues (not specific to Technorati) are the kinds of things that will make bridging blogging technology to the business community challenging.



Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

DallasBlue Power Networking Lunch Gets Rave Review
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
Hats off to Marc Freedman, Founder and CEO of RazorPop, for organizing a great DallasBlue (http://www.dallasblue.com) luncheon talk and networking event this past Thursday at the Blue Mesa Grill in Addison, TX. Ran smoothly, on schedule, and with good attendance. Excellent job, Marc!

Lunch talk was by Michael Greeson, President & Principal Analyst at the Diffusion Group. Lots of stats, strategy, and branding talk made Michael's talk unique - it was the first comprehensive dialogue I had participated in that covered the converging space of broadband, networking, PCs, home entertainment, and consumer electronics. If I had to sum up three perspectives that will make convergence interesting, they would be 1) increasing power of the service provider (I got my home network from SBC/Ameritech), 2) saturation of the traditional PC market with excess horsepower (when will I ever need a new PC again? And did anyone notice the recent announcement by Intel on capping the clock speed of the Pentium for the near-term?), and 3) importance of brand name in terms of winning in the living room (I love my iPod and Sony stuff). I think we are seeing signs that partnering and M&A plays will become more and more prevalent in this space.

As for the networking environment at DallasBlue, well if you are a networker, DallasBlue is great because Marc has allocated good time for people to socialize. And this is important because networking takes time. Networking is more than doing lunch. It's more than getting business cards. It's not about selling to people. And networking is definitely not about getting business from your friends. Networking is first about developing rapport and helping people. The rest may follow given time and dedication.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Dr. Suzanne Shu's Website at SMU's Cox School of Business is Online
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
My significant other just got her faculty website online as she prepares to teach core marketing to business school students at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Go Suzanne!

http://faculty.cox.smu.edu/~sshu/index.htm


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Poll on Business Blogging
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
I posted an earlier entry about business blogging. Thought it would be interesting to let people take a quick poll here. Thanks for voting!
Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

Can We Keep Up With Technology Countermeasures?
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
I read the following interesting news on SPAM and spyware ...


"In what could prove to be one the great second acts in Internet history, erstwhile king of spam Sanford Wallace takes center stage this week as exhibit A in a federal crackdown on invasive online advertising software."


"In the first action of its kind, the agency last week filed a civil lawsuit against Wallace, charging the admitted former junk e-mailer with fraudulently installing advertising and other software on consumers' computers through his network of Web sites. "


"'Very much like with spam and the spam legislation last year, spyware can be fought through a combination of efforts: enforcement, legislation, technology and consumer education,' said Dave Baker, an attorney for Internet service provider EarthLink, which has been an active participant in anti-spyware efforts."
source



I applaud Baker's efforts, but I wonder about the age we live in today where:
- computer viruses block anti-virus programs from reaching data updates for new viruses,
- teenagers are smart enough to hack into security measures developed by PhDs, mathematicians, and cryptographers in less than 15 minutes,
- SPAM email has overtaken the Internet (albeit CAN-SPAM legislation hasn't been around that long),
- telemarketers and telefaxers still contact my residence after repeated unsubscribe and subscriptions to do not call lists,
- venture capitalists and companies like Google are investing in blogging technologies for various reasons, some of which include because email is so cluttered by garbage,
- people are migrating off of the PC platform to the Macintosh to get away from the computer virus nightmare,
- and the beat goes on ...


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com

26,324,627 Downloads of New Technology
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
One of my past colleagues at the management consulting firm PRTM pointed out to me a cool technology by Skype. It is a P2P telephony company enabling free, superior-quality calling worldwide. I'm generally not an early-adopter when it comes to actually using technologies (although I know some of the S4 Management Group blog readers are), but what really caught my attention was the roots back to KaZaA and the quote by the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.


"I knew it was over when I downloaded Skype," Michael Powell, chairman, Federal Communications Commission, explained. "When the inventors of KaZaA are distributing for free a little program that you can use to talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it's free - it's over. The world will change now inevitably."
Fortune Magazine, February 16, 2004
About Skype


Don't know what the conversion rate to users is on the 26-some million downloads. Last I remembered stats on the instant messaging space ... well, it wouldn't surprise me if Skype had a total user base on the order of the pure-play, instant messaging platforms even lacking first-mover positioning and even given some of the tricks of getting the end-user, customer premise equipment in place.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com