Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

When You're Ready

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Do you have too many tasks to get done in a day? Is the feeling that you're just digging holes in the sand your choke point? I know how you feel -- I truly do. And I have suggestions on how to kick it up a notch. This blog started as a gift for everyone, which made it very broad, because I have a really wide range of interests and am cursed with competence in so many areas/industries. Many of those areas I don't enjoy much. Because it turns out that I'm much better when I... Read more →

Can Technology Help You Deal with Uncertainty?

This is a slightly different question I asked a couple of years back. Invest in better promises There are many ways to deal with uncertainty. From diversifying your investment portfolio and doing better due diligence on the companies where you invest -- I'm seeing the arguments put forth by Fred Wilson, Mark Suster, and in some ways Mark Cuban on supporting strong businesses as valid. Strong work ethics also pay off. Make better promises Another way would be to diversify your skill set. Either being really good at selling in the post-push world, or being very deep in one specific... Read more →

Do You Have a Vision Statement?

Corporations and businesses are made of bits called promises. The better the promise in and out, the stronger and more resilient the business. While the mission defines the fundamental purpose of an organization and how it achieves what it set out to do, it is the vision that defines the way an organization or enterprise will look in the future. The long-term view I've been involved in teasing out the vision statement with senior business leaders at many organizations. On some occasions, after a merger or an acquisition, for example, facilitating the integration of the cultural nuances in both organizations... Read more →

The Future of Media is Social, it Streams, and it Scales

The sites that succeed are those that get a lot of traffic. To sustain such traffic levels, some publications publish fresh content every six minutes#. Some media sites have established the role that curation has in developing and transmitting news. Other sites aggregate content and information published around the Web and to social networks in an easy and visually compelling format. I argued here that there's a value equation between aggregator and curators. Traffic is good for advertisers -- and most publishing models are sustainable through advertising. Yet, there is also an argument to be made for relevant advertising. Ads... Read more →

Amazon on Fire: the New Retail Experience?

I was watching This Week in Tech (TwiT) Live last night with guests Om Malik, Robert Scoble, and John C. Dvorak. Part of the conversation was about how social networks and media companies are getting people used to having the media go to them in exchange for handing over more personal information. This was more strongly emphasized by Scoble. Malik talked about Facebook and lack of transparency. He shared how he's very careful using Facebook for his communications as he doesn't know how the company is using the information they gather. I'm the same way. In fact, I don't even... Read more →

If you Can Dream it...

You can do it. I've bee thinking about the larger or meta conversation around what is happening in the world. I came up with one overarching concept that can be summed up as contribution. It's a human desire to count and thus being truly counted on, not just being a number. And it's finding expression in a myriad different ways. I'm an optimist, I think both at group action level, and individually, this is about finding a voice and building what's next. Thanks to a broader adoption of technology, contribution trends in the last couple of years have included: crowdsourcing... Read more →

5 Manifestos that will Change Your Life

[The Whisper by Michel Desjardins] One of the side effects of increased online time is that, even as you like to stay informed, the torrent of bad economic news, amplified by the networks effect, threatens to overwhelm you. Yeah, even with the explosion of news outlets, your networks are still bigger -- and more pervasive on the social Web. Meeting new friends and discovering fresh content, which are both desirable, end up overwhelming you is a different manner: by showing only an unending river of side-A performances. Sure, you occasionally hear about flaws, only in the artificial light of distance... Read more →

Mastering Connectivity

"Without understanding connectivity, the basis of human connections, network theory, contextual intelligence, any business leader unable to grasp those things will be lost." [Warren Bennis] The 12 habits of highly connective people has been the single most read and shared post I have written in the last couple of months. Literally. Why it worked Part of the reason is the structure of the post. It starts with a great story told vividly by a master storyteller and maker who has earned tremendous respect and attention in the business and tech communities. Two communities I am becoming very involved with and... Read more →

Failure

Those blog posts with carefully crafted advice about link building make me want to puke. Yeah, you read that right. They say Hell is paved with good intentions, so I suppose they mean well. A few neat steps and you're on your way to posting your links everywhere -- and for free. All it takes is a quick browse of a few sites, warm up a couple of tired topics, send your pitch to a bunch of bloggers, and you're on your way. Except for... Like anything in life, execution goes a long way. My inbox has been brimming with... Read more →

Finding the Right Fit

You know the expression: it fit like a glove. It's used to describe those experiences when things are just clicking. Situations in which all stars are aligned, everyone connects, there is understanding. This topic came up at lunch with my friend Taylor Davidson last week. We talked about teaching courses and workshops -- I'm about to keynote a program in a workshop/interactive format at Social IRL next month, and he's teaching entrepreneurs how to build financial models. I was pleased to read his follow up on the conversation in his newsletter. Indeed, teaching is fun. But, as he says, it's... Read more →