Business Lessons from sucessful entrepreneurs and business leaders: LunchLearning.com

Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 41 minutes 49 seconds

We’ll be wrapping up this week with a look at a somebody who, like some of this week’s predecessors, took on a serious subject and transformed it through humor. However, this time, instead of operating through print has his medium, we’ll be looking at somebody who works visually and aurally, delivering the bitter punchline with practiced poise. Jon Stewart, somewhere between a comedian, satirist, politico and reporter, is, in many ways, as powerful a representative of the news as traditional outlets like CNN.

What exactly did one man do to achieve such clout? He did something so extraordinarily simple that it hardly seems like anything noteworthy: he reached an entirely new segment of the population. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart features a nightly viewership of over one million individuals, many of which utilize the show as their primary source of news and, even more tellingly, did not watch news programs of any kind before. Despite it being a comedy program, the show is widely regarded to be as valid as many other sources of news.

Despite its appearance, the success of The Daily Show is largely about noticing an untapped market and the discovery of exactly what that market wants. The blend of wit and news, wrapped in a thick layer of truthiness (as popularized by Stewart’s contemporary, Stephen Colbert) was viewed as a respite from traditional news media outlets that were perceived as grim, packed with fluff, biased and often downright misleading. However, regardless of what studies show and proponents claim, Stewart tries to hammer home that he is not a journalist and his show is not real news. In either case, people love him and the show is an unequivocal success.

The following video is a biographical sketch of Jon Stewart, actually the second host of The Daily Show, but the one that introduced its current political leanings and brought it to stardom. While the easiest way to understand the draw, and hence the marketing insight, of The Daily Show would be to watch it in the company of individuals in the younger generation, an exploration of the man, and what put him there, is second best.

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Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes

Video Time: 41 minutes 49 seconds

Today’s video features Drew Curtis, founder of the hilarious website fark.com, which is a popular site made up of links to humorous and sometimes strange news articles. In this video, Curtis explains how he built up fark.com to what it is today. Through trial and error, efficiency, and experience, Curtis made fark.com into a million dollar business.

Curtis explains that you don’t need venture capital to be a successful internet entrepreneur. He compares the failure of his well funded ISP in the late 90’s to the success of fark.com, which he started with no investors. To keep overhead low, fark.com has only three employees, no office, and only five servers that handle an enormous amount of traffic. Fark.com gets over 2,000 link submissions a day, and more than 60 million page-views a month. Drew also shares his insight on social networking and internet advertising.

For more on Drew Curtis, check out his book, It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News.

Happy Learning!

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Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Video Time: 40 minutes 3 seconds

Why did the chicken cross the road?….Wait you’ve already heard that one. OK I’ll admit that I’m not that good at telling jokes, but I had to at least try and be funny since this week’s theme is humor in business. Today I’m going to show you a presentation from Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw on what makes a good game. It’s a little off topic, but see if you can follow my rationale.

Yahtzee is a popular video game critic who has been shot to fame in the video game world with his Zero Punctuation series. Wondering how an upstart become so popular so quickly? It’s because he’s hilarious of course. When Yahtzee critiques a game he makes sure to incorporate his unique brand of humor to emphasize his main points and to keep the audience’s attention.

So what can Yahtzee, a video game critic, teach us about the business world. Well a lot actually. It’s very subtle, but Yahtzee is using humor to sell people on several ideas on what makes a good video game. Even when he is in a crowded room giving a presentation, Yatzhee’s humor creates a casual environment that allows him to speak freely without coming across as a raving lunatic. Another good point about humor is that it’s often memorable. Even if you can’t remember exactly how a joke goes, you can remember how it made you feel when you heard it. By pairing your main points with a joke the aforementioned points intrinsically becomes more memorable.

Using humor in business is important if you want to make positive and memorable impressions on clients. This is especially true in sales. Using humor in a sales environment can get people to return phone calls and close deals. Think about it, if two people were selling the exact same product to you, who would you choose? The person who made you laugh so hard you cried a little bit or the person who did everything by the books, but had you look down at your watch waiting for the pitch to be over. I’ll take two of whatever the funny one is selling, thank you very much. When you watch this video pay attention to how Yahtzee pairs his sarcastic comments with his main points to sell the audience on his opinions.

Note: The first two videos are really the important ones you want to watch. The last two are a Q&A session. If you liked what you saw in the first two videos stick around and see how Yahtzee answers questions on the fly.

Happy Learning….and Game On!

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Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 57 minutes 29 seconds

Political comics don’t tend to reach out that far, primarily living on the editorial page with an anonymous artist. One prominent political artist had gone another route, becoming nationally syndicated right on the comics page: Garry Trudeau. Centered on political satire, Trudeau’s comic, Doonesbury offers us a scathing, yet insightful, view of the modern political arena. However, he is more than just a strip cartoonist: Trudeau has produced work in a number of different fields, ranging from books to TV shows.

Trudeau is another example of a man who became successful in the effort to chase his dreams: early in the interview, his response to why he has branched out so far is simply because he saw an opportunity and, ever since he was a child, he wanted to do everything. Opportunity, combined with passion, gave him that first foothold.

Maintaining success is a constantly evaluative process. Once a product is launched, whether it’s a washing machine, program or comic, it must be regularly reviewed. The changes brought about from can these evaluations don’t have to be minor either. Massive shifts can transform dogs into star performers. Doonesbury underwent a dramatic change in art style; Marlboro became a men’s cigarette. These changes, even if it’s only in perception, and their impacts, both large and small, become a part of what defines things in the public eye.

Products, of all types, are a central element in everybody’s life. This impact cannot be overstated. The narrative that develops between and around people and products is the essence of Robert Brunner’s brand. Whether it is opening the newspaper over morning coffee and wondering what’s going to happen in Garry Trudeau’s world or wearing iconic white headphones, a dialogue has been established. A passion for your work gives the dedication to continue to nurture it through every step.

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Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 53 minutes 55 seconds

This week our topic is humor, and what better way to start it off than with The Onion (@TheOnion on Twitter), a news organization founded on this very principle. In this video, Sean Mills, former president of The Onion, appears on Authors@Google to promote the book Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition.

First, a little history about The Onion. Two students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Christopher Johnson and Tim Keck, founded The Onion in 1988, and sold it a year later to Scott Dikkers and Peter Haise. Initially, The Onion was successful only in college towns and cities near Madison. Slowly The Onion branched out, starting a website in 1996, and in 2001 moving its headquarters to New York City. In 2007, “The Onion News Network” was created, which is a web video portion of the site that parodies the 24-hour news networks.

Sean Mills begins his talk with a parody and satire-filled presentation of what The Onion is really about, including the past, present, and future of The Onion. Mills shows us that, time and again, The Onion has been there to report all the important breaking news. Mills also shows clips from “The Onion News Network,” and gives us a taste of their new morning show, “Today Now!” The last fifteen minutes of the video includes a question and answer portion, so if you want to skip some of the humor and get a little more insight into the specifics of the business, by all means skip ahead.

So sit back, be ready to laugh, and Happy Learning!

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Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 21 minutes 50 seconds

Many people view innovation as a cumulative process, more evolutionary than anything. Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and known for coining the term “net neutrality”, speaks at The Institute of International and European Affairs and explores a radically different perspective. Rather than viewing innovation and develop as the process where things continually grow and change gradually over time, Wu proposes that innovation occurs on a cyclical system that is dependent upon revolutionary developments.

The vast majority of innovation consists of incremental improvements on a given platform. However, these changes are minor and are merely refinements or additions upon the existing structure. As a platform matures, innovation slows down as the market is saturated and the low hanging fruit has all been claimed. A revolution reveals entirely new avenues of potential and, as a result, spurs innovation and new developments rapidly. This cycle is present everywhere, ranging from product development and personal growth to infrastructure and business.

It is absolutely vital to manage both the evolution within each cycle as well as the revolutions. Ignoring one results in stagnancy. While development isn’t absolutely necessary, it does limit the viable lifespan of anything that is restricted. The cycle of each revolution has its ups and downs as well, something that Wu is careful to note. Just as the Internet is currently growing, it is absolute folly to think that the Internet, as its perceived today, is the final, penultimate standard. It, like television and radio, CDs and cassettes, will undergo an eventual decline.

As you watch this video, consider the influence of cycles in your life, both personal and professional, and how things are transformed as a result. They are not inherently good or bad, but merely different and a prepared individual can anticipate and prepare for the changes they bring.

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Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 15 minutes 51 seconds

Craig Venter, successful entrepreneur and biologist, founder of three important scientific institutions (The Institute for Genomic Research, Celera Genomics, and the J. Craig Venter Institute) is probably best known for his work at Celera, where he successfully mapped the human genome. No doubt an extremely impressive resume, but lately Venter has been taking his biological research into even bolder areas.

Venter is currently putting his efforts into the J. Craig Venter Institute, where he works to solve environmental issues through the creation of synthetic organisms. Venter has continued to push the limits of science and business through groundbreaking work, co-founding Synthetic Genomics in 2005, a company which aims to create microorganisms that will actually produce environmentally-friendly biofuels.

In this video, Venter addresses the possibility of synthesizing new life through our digital world, and how new developments in this area could help solve global issues. I’m no scientist, so I’ll let the video speak for itself, but don’t worry, you don’t need to be a biologist to understand the important implications these discoveries will have on our world!

Happy Learning!

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Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 15 minutes 5 seconds

No one can deny Steve Jobs has been an incredibly bold entrepreneur from the start. Co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. and former CEO of Pixar, Jobs has continually pushed the limits of technological innovation and artistic creation. In this commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Jobs casually offers up three stories, loaded with important life lessons.

Jobs discusses his college days, in particular his decision to drop out, but then “drop in” on classes. Clearly a person who often took the path less traveled in life, the lessons he learned while “dropping in” on classes were invaluable and would contribute to his success later on in life. He says, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards,” and encourages us to follow our hearts, to trust that one day it will all come together. As long as we are working towards what we are passionate about, it will be worth it.

Jobs talks about how he and Steve Wozniak built up Apple, starting out as just two guys in a garage. Not everything was perfect during his time at Apple. At age 30 he was essentially fired from Apple and didn’t know what to do with himself. But what he did know was what he was passionate about. Shortly after leaving Apple he created Pixar and NeXT Computer. Pixar needs no explanation of its incredible success, and NeXT was eventually bought by Apple, putting Jobs once again at the helm. This experience taught him a lot, and Jobs urges us to persevere in life, saying, “Do what you believe is great work…keep looking, don’t settle.”

At the end of the speech, Jobs discusses his recent health struggles. He urges us to use the knowledge of death to push ourselves to achieve what we want, to make necessary changes in our life and start doing what we love and what we feel is important, right away.

Don’t let the length of this video fool you, there’s plenty of knowledge and wisdom packed in! Happy Learning!

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Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes

Total Video Time: 22 minutes 25 seconds

Games tend to exist in a single state. Board games exist in reference to the board, sports take place on a given field or arena and video games exist in an enclosed virtual domain. With the advances in technology however, there have been developments in creating games, if they can still be rightly termed, that break through these boundaries. Alternate, or Augmented Reality Games (ARGs) utilize a number of platforms to develop immersiveness and to blend the boundaries of reality and fiction.

ARGs exist for a wide variety of purposes. They have been used to advertise, generate buzz, be a stand-alone game or even educate and push an agenda. However, what defines them is the blending of the real world and artificial world with no clear distinction. To achieve this, “hacked” websites, buried treasure, things washed up on the surf, to shadowy individuals and user contributions are utilized.

While a respectable number of ARGs have been developed, there are four particular landmarks: The Beast, produced in conjunction with the Stephen Spielberg movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Perplex City, I Love Bees, developed to market the video game Halo 2, and World Without Oil. The Beast was the first major successful ARG, attracting three million individuals around the world to participate through emails, websites, faxes and phone calls. I Love Bees followed a similar, but far more complex path, inviting its participants to solve puzzles as well as further develop the narrative of a digital intelligence stranded on Earth. World Without Oil is regarded as the first serious ARG, utilizing user submissions to describe a, well, world with rapidly diminishing oil supplies to liven its narrative.

This video series follows the observations of Naomi Alderman, the lead writer for Perplex City, one of the first major ARGs designed to operate independently without external funding. While it was only moderately successful in achieving its goals, much of its structure is now part of the standard for ARGs. In a world where company interaction becomes an increasingly important element in marketing, ARGs are a step far beyond that of Facebook groups and Twitter feeds.

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