Prof Bruce's definitions
Today, pro teams are highly restricted in what they are allowed to do in their local markets by League head office. For example, fans are often not able to create images, merchandise, videos, mashups, stories or music about their favorite team without getting a ‘cease and desist’ letter from highly paid League lawyers who are looking to protect league licensees. So fans need to create underground websites, Twitter/Facebook/YouTube accounts, blogs, podcasts and other online as well as real life properties that hide their real identity—they are forced to become underground fans.
“A while ago I created a bunch of t-shirts with my favourite football players on them using the motif of the film 'SIN CITY'. The idea was to create cool stuff that folks could buy during the playoffs with all the funds raised going to benefit local charities. But after I got a bit of media traction, we received a cease and desist letter from a League lawyer and we had to stop. Now I am an underground fan of my team—if I ever do this again, I’ll do it anonymously. The thing that gets me is that league policies destroy any creativity by fans as well as local teams, everything is just the same everywhere.”
by Prof Bruce May 21, 2010
Get the Underground Fanmug. In a tough, competitive world, it is crucial for CEOs to have direct and forthright conversations with clients and suppliers. To do that effectively, they have to disintermediate their direct reports and even their techies, which means that they will be able to get accurate information from the field without it being filtered or biased, say, by their direct reports who may only want to tell their CEO what they think he or she wants to hear.
“By using social media tools like Twitter themselves, CEOs can disintermediate everyone from the data stream. They can connect directly with customers, clients, suppliers and others and hear unfiltered reports of what is really going on in their enterprises. Just as importantly, they can make their views known to their followers and stakeholder group without it being filtered by their PR people or the media. In times of crisis, this might save the organization.”
by Prof Bruce February 21, 2010
Get the Disintermediatemug. Every time you hear an economist utter yet another wrong or contradictory prediction, you can instantly feel better using this expletive. “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion,” George Bernard Shaw.
“Economists have accurately predicted nine out of the past five recessions,” paraphrasing a supposed quip by Nobel economist Paul Samuelson about the stock market. If you are feeling frustrated by a lack of precision from economists, you can curse the profession by exclaiming: ‘Frigonomics’.
by Prof Bruce July 13, 2010
Get the Frigonomicsmug. A lifestyle business is an enterprise that provides its Founders/Owners with an adequate personal lifestyle but that is all. In other words, it does not represent a game changing, large-scale opportunity that others such as Venture Capital funds can or would participate in—there just isn’t a large enough market, growth is too low or their market share is too small.
“We run one of the most successful east coast VC-funds but a lot of the entrepreneurs who are coming to see us these days are really pitching a lifestyle business which, frankly, we have zero interest in. Even if everything goes exactly right, their growth rate is so low and the overall market is so small that, apart from giving the Founders each a job, there isn’t anything left over for us. We need to see more game-changing opportunities that will provide us with a return on investment that is 10 times what we put in. The only way to get a lifestyle business off the ground is to bootstrap it.”
by Prof Bruce April 1, 2010
Get the lifestyle businessmug. Today’s strict privacy laws require that you protect consumer information. For this and many other reasons, it is often necessary to anonymize a data set, a blog article, a media report or a case study. Anonomizing a story or a case study can also help protect a confidential source or informant.
“You are doing work for a private Foundation and you believe that their case would make interesting reading for your students. The only problem—you are under a confidentiality agreement. With their permission, you anonymize the information and data and write up their story on your blog—sans anything that can point back to the original.”
by Prof Bruce December 8, 2009
Get the anonymizemug. “Why are you spending so much of your time on Twitter? If you’re not careful, you’ll turn into a Twitterbug.”
by Prof Bruce November 9, 2009
Get the Twitterbugmug. To intricate someone; to bring people on board or to get them onside with an idea or a proposal or an initiative of some type by getting them intricated into the process bit by bit, almost without their noticing that they are making a commitment.
When a group was trying to Bring Back the Ottawa Senators in 1990, a team that had not played in the National Hockey League for nearly 60 years, one of their key advisers, former US Attorney General, Elliot Richardson (now deceased) said: "First we'll get the League’s Board of Governors intricated then we'll get the (expansion) franchise!"
by Prof Bruce March 5, 2009
Get the Intricatedmug.