Ben Neumann: Views From The Trenches

Scott Maxwell, who's the Managing Director of expansion stage VC firm Insight Venture Partners in New York recently posted something interesting on his new blog about what it takes to hire the right people. As this goes along the lines of my earlier Temporary Authism post, it made me think about this again from a different point of view.

Having been in the CEO, President, or Chairman seat for most of my past 15 years as an entrepreneur I have to agree with Scott's take on this issue. I've personally hired virtually every management position up to appointing successors for my own jobs, and while the basic rules of finding great and talented executives (and non-executives for that matter) pretty much are still the same, the overall attitude of folks that qualify for these positions seem to have shifted a bit. At times it appears as if we're seeing a much stronger entitlement attitude as it used to be. Now it might, of course, be a view point issue, but to underline Scott's posting and from my "view from the trenches" in only a few cases did entitlement attitude = compensation (or maybe I should say money as not everybody we ultimately hired considered compensation as strictly dollars and cents).

In summary, among a few other things, it takes a good product, a solid vision, a great team, a true opportunity, and plenty of room to grow to attract, retain, and motivate the power guys and gals who consistently hit it out of the ballpark. It's not just the salaries anymore that make or break a deal (although I'm convinced that many ultimately doomed releationships still start off from there), but the environment along with the opportunity along with the people that are involved.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally followed my family, who went already 2 weeks ago, to my hometown Krefeld, Germany to visit some good old german friends and family. I went with mixed emotions as I left Germany simply because I didn't really like it there too much. So, going back was not something quite on top of my priority list. Additionally, the second half of this year has been and will continue to be quite travel intensive (a trip to China's still coming up). To my delight and surprise the trip is turning out much better than expected; even the normally terrible weather played it from the sunny side, which is a very rare occassion in the region that I'm from. Lets see how it develops.

As far as some "useful" posts are concerned, after reading a book called "The Wisdom of Teams", I started to and currently am working on an article about team work. Exciting stuff I'm finding while doing some research about the topic. Findings will be published soon.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Over the past few weeks Chris had suggested to me that I formalize my vision for Globat from a 30,000 ft POV and present it to our directors in one of our semi-weekly meetings. I really am a big supporter of planning on the financial end, but I am usually not so hip on the whole business-plan-in-detail idea (even though I agree that almost every business needs one). Plans, especially the ones from a 30,000 ft perspective, have a tendency to become "stale" with time and improperly viewed and executed might lead to a form of tunnel vision, which is something I have always tried to avoid. I want to keep our options as well as flexibility open, especially as far as the future of the company goes.

Having said that, it turned out to be a good exercise for my mind and a fun project to present to our team. Point well taken! I believe everybody understood where I was trying to take them and the next few months will tell how "stale" the plan really becomes (if at all). I'm excited to see and work with the group of talented people we have rounded up over the past year and the direction we are starting to take. I’m sure I’ll post more about it as time goes by.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AJAX is actually a really cool tool that makes browser-based applications behave more like software that runs on your PC. Most web applications require that a new web page is send to a user to accomplish individual steps in a task, which explains why they are more often than not pretty darn slow. AJAX (stands for Asynchronus Javascript And XML) lets new data trickle in, updating the content of pages on the fly without much of a visible refresh or reload of the page. Have you used Amazon.com's new search engine A9.com, Google's Gmail and Maps, Netflix movie ratings, or Yahoo's Flickr service? Than you have definitely used an AJAX application. Jesse James Garrett of SF-based Adaptive Path, who came up with the name AJAX, believes that its real impact will be in the enterprise applications, i.e. by speeding up the work of remote employees. Software giant Microsoft is already on a AJAX developer kit. That is usually a pretty sure sign that it's ready for the big time.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever heard of Wi-Max? If not, try to get used to the term as you will most likely be using it shortly. Simply speaking Wi-Max is Wi-Fi on steroids. It has a theoretical range of 30+ miles. If you, like me, have used or are using Wi-Fi you might have noticed that it has range limitations. Wi-Max promises to change that. Intel has taken the lead in developing the Wi-Max standards and the service is expected to roll out during the next two years. The plan is to launch first in rural markets in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and then in new telco markets elsewhere. To demonstrate Wi-Max to the public, a few months ago Intel streamed a digital movie to a theater at the Sundance Film-Festival over a 50-mile network of Wi-Max transmitters.

Skeptics argue that Wi-Max may be supplanted by competing technologies that are on track to hit the marketplace sooner, but don't underestimate the reach of the companies that plan to support Wi-Max; the list includes power house names such as At&T, Bellsouth, Qwest, and Sprint. Leading research firm ABI forecasts 8 million Wi-max subscribers by 2008 and demand for the new technology is expected to grow to $2 billion by 2010. If the predictions come through it might ring in the end for DSL, cable, and even T-1 connections.

Posted by Ben Neumann at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)