Entrepreneurs are tested as their start up grows up “the hockey stick”, from initial concept to full execution.  They must be able to pivot, changing from sole contributor to team leader.

And through that metamorphosis, their reliance on data increases.  Data, like revenue, is oxygen for businesses.  From pipeline bottlenecks, to revenue forecasting, to funding valuations, data drives everything.

Here’s a great article on just a few ways data is important.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Small businesses are often strapped for resources, especially time and money.  Fortunately, technology has come to the rescue.  Every year new solutions come to market – here’s a list of great tools for small businesses for 2016.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

On the heels of reclassifying broadband providers under last year’s net neutrality regulations changes, the FTC recently proposed sweeping changes to broadband privacy requirements.

“The plan would require broadband providers to obtain consumer consent, disclose data collection, protect personal information and report breaches. Broadband providers currently collect consumer data without consent and some use that data for targeted advertising, which has drawn criticism from privacy advocates.” – noted Entrepreneur.com.

Giving proper notice and choice is a self imposed standard for the digital marketing industry.  As seen with the AdChoices standard, consumers need to be notified that they are receiving a targeted advertisement and have the option to opt-out of the targeting.  Ironically, the AdChoices opt out is managed through a cookie – and this opt-out is only valid as long as the consumer maintains the AdChoices opt-out cookie.

Presumably broadband providers will enable a similar notice and choice system, though likely system wide rather than ad specific.

These changes apply to broadband providers like Verizon and AT&T, but do not apply to Google, Twitter, nor Facebook.

The proposal goes to a vote on March 31, 2016.

Source:  Entrepreneur.com

There is an old saying that goes “work expands to fill the time allotted”, … or something like that.  I really was never very good at sayings. But it means that if you have an hour to do something, it’ll take you an hour.  (it’s true … have you ever been on a conference call scheduled for an hour that didn’t take just about an hour?).

The same principal which covers our human bandwidth applies to digital bandwidth.  Look back to Bill Gates.  I know, I know, an evil word – he first version of does was only 4KB.  For the non technical, your cell phone has more than 1,000 times more memory.  Now programs can easily be as large as 4 GB – simply because our systems can support it.

The FCC recently announced that it is considering opening unused airwaves for public wi-fi (dubbed “Super Wi-FI”).

Perhaps instead of expanding bandwidth, we should look to ways to optimize the bandwidth that we have.  Utilizing hybrid peer to peer technology, which delivers the efficiencies of peer to peer technology with the stability of traditional CDN content delivery (I know, more geek speak … it’s like a Toyota Prius delivering your movies online).  Forcing ourselves to be more efficient will fuel just as many technological advancements as expanding our capacity.  Especially when we have plenty of unused fiber capacity (dark fiber).

Just a few years ago delivering content on the Internet was expensive.  REALLY expensive.  So a lot of companies made significant business decisions to reduce the cost of delivering content.

This seemed like the perfect storm, because content just kept getting bigger (movies files are larger, as the quality has improved. eg: HD versus normal ) , and more content was being delivered online.  Through basic supply versus demand one could reasonably assume that the cost to deliver content was only going to go up.

But alas, it hasn’t.  In fact, the cost to deliver content has dropped significantly.  So what have content delivery companies done?  They’ve changed their messaging.  Instead of cost, they focus on quality.  On improved user experience.  On higher touch points within the download experience.

There is an old that roughly says “if you’re moving in the wrong direction, at least you’re moving” – or something to that effect.  The message being that it is better to be moving, than just standing still.  You can always adapt and overcome, transition, and change direction …. just keep the momentum going.

The worst thing you can do is to stop.

I found this very interesting ….

Several years ago it was called a “Super Size”.  Now it is called a “Sharing Size”.    Interesting how marketing changes with public sentiment.