The Key Ingredients for a Great Corporate Bio

When you meet someone at a party, the first words you say are usually your name. And if you want to keep the conversation going, you talk a little about yourself: where you’re from, how you know the host(s), or what you do for a living. Should the process be any different when you visit a startup’s website?

To some degree, yes. After all, people visit a company’s website to find out more about its products or services, not its name. That process, though, should only take a few seconds. Immediately after, people will want to know who’s running the show.

There are many articles online about how to write a corporate bio, so I won’t bore you with them. I will just say that bios should be:

• Short and achievement-based: Ideally a paragraph or two, and highlight specific achievements in your career that relate to your new company. For instance, if you’re creating a new social media site for donut shops, then you will want to talk about your visits to donut shops across the country, your popular blog about donuts, and your experience in small business and social media.

• Relevant to your company: You don’t want to mention random information: that you love Star Trek, enjoy waterskiing, and have a wife, two daughters, and a dog (that is unless you are creating a social media site for families that eat donuts, in which case you’d want to talk about your family’s passion for donuts early in the bio). If you want everyone to know about your life outside of donuts – just include links to your social media profiles.

• Feature a Current Photo: This is very important. You want people to know what you look like. It makes them feel connected to you and your company.

Want to learn more? Stay tuned for a future post where I will share some examples of outstanding donuts corporate bios. By the way, I like Boston Cream and Jelly without the powdered sugar.

Ashton Kutcher and My Grandparents: You Don't Need to Look Far to Find Inspiration

My grandparents will always be a source of inspiration.

Earlier this month, actor Ashton Kutcher delivered a powerful speech at the 2013 Teen Choice Awards. He spoke about the value of hard work, citing his early experiences washing dishes, working the deli counter, and sweeping a factory floor. He emphasized how important it is to be a caring and giving person, and how "the sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart." And he said that no matter where he was in his life, he always felt fortunate to just have a job.

Kutcher's rags-to-riches remarks were thoughtful and well-intentioned, especially for an awards ceremony. But for some reason, they don’t resonate with me. I guess, as we say in communications: it’s not the message, it’s the messenger. It reminds me of a scene from the famous play and film Driving Miss Daisy, where the affluent and cranky Miss Daisy tells her new driver, Hoke, that she knows “the value of a penny.” “My brother Manny brought home a white cat one day and Papa said we couldn't keep it because we couldn't afford to feed it,” Miss Daisy says. "My sisters saved up money so I could go to school and be a teacher. We didn't have anything!” Hoke responds: “Yes, but look like you doin' all right now.”

The most inspirational stories come from those who have overcome challenges just to live like us. My late grandfather fought in World War II, sold ladies’ handbags, and cared for my grandmother as she suffered through multiple sclerosis for more than 30 years. After he died, I didn’t know how she would survive. But with the help of her wonderful and equally bossy aide, and with her undying spirit, this woman who had once taught the deaf was determined to remain a part of all of our lives. I still remember her traveling in a wheelchair to Israel for my youngest brother’s bar mitzvah. Seeing her board the plane in a narrow wheelchair, and sit through the 9 hour flight unable to stretch or go to the bathroom without great help -- I just couldn’t believe how strong she was.

Usually, in life, we don’t have to go far to find out what really matters. We just have to know where to look.

Beyond the Weather: How to Meet New People without Boring Them

Image courtesy of [photostock] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I was in elementary school, I didn't sit by the aisle on the school bus, flipping baseball cards and chatting with friends. I was by the window, looking at the the hundreds of suburban homes along the route, and dreaming of what it would be like to live in them. At synagogue on Saturday morning, I would stay inside to listen to the Rabbi's sermon, and in the afternoon I'd spend hours in debates with my father, playing devil's advocate. 

Needless to say, I was shy and lacked the skills needed to meet new people and make new friends. So when I saw Elizabeth Bernstein's column in today's Wall Street Journal about How to Become a Better Conversationalist, I was intrigued. In the column, Shyness Expert Bernardo J. Carducci outlines five steps for a successful conversation. I won't list them all, but they begin with commenting on something you and the person you're meeting are both experiencing. It could be something like "Boy, it is pouring out there! I don't know if we've seen rain this heavy since last summer", or "Hey, this is a beautiful restaurant we're hobnobbing in. What are you drinking?"

Once you're in the conversation, you should focus on asking questions, because most people like to talk about themselves and will be flattered by your interest. But don't overdo it. If all you ask too many questions, you may sound annoying or creepy. 

And what do you do at the end? Say you have to go to the bathroom, need a drink, or greet someone you know? I think most people know that conversations can't last forever. But however you end it, whether it was nice to meet you, here's my card, or I'll find you on Facebook, make sure that you do what you say. Following through is what separates the talkers from the doers.

As for me, I've gotten better over the years at introducing myself, in part because I needed to as a reporter at a daily newspaper after college. Some people even think I'm funny. But I still have plenty of room for improvement. So if you meet me at a social event, feel free to praise my shirt, or comment on the food. But whatever you do, don't talk about the weather.

Speak Softly and Post a Lot of Pics

In case you hadn't heard: text is out, photos are in. So in that spirit, I gathered and arranged the photos below to tell a story.

If you can't figure out what I was trying to say, you're not alone. Photos without any context are hard to understand. That's because, as Neicole Crepau of Clipsi.com points out: "civilization thrived when humans moved from pictographs to the written word." The written word, she explains "enabled humans to convey the same information faster and in a much smaller space."

Once language developed, it revolutionized communication, allowing us to learn by reading words. And today, those who read novels have been shown to develop greater empathy and interpret social cues more quickly. In one study, people who read novels were better at reading people's emotions just by looking at photos of their eyes. Now while that study was comparing fiction and nonfiction readers, it still shows the tremendous benefits that the written word has had for understanding images. (For more on this research, check out this article by psychologist Keith Oatley).

So  to sum up: don't give up on text. It's gotten us quite far, and it's here to stay. And if you are wondering what I was trying to say in the images above, here it is: It's sad that the world of writing is dying, and a galaxy of photos is taking its place. (If you didn't get that, I completely understand. I have to work on my pictography:)

When is a Crowd Too Big to Handle?

There are two aspects of crowdsourcing websites that are very appealing. To individuals, these sites provide the chance to share ideas and see the results, something we often don't get to experience in a world that's often unfair. For entrepreneurs, the crowds offer the opportunity to hire fewer employees, and create a customer base that feels a sense of ownership and personal pride in the company.  But is crowdsourcing always the right approach?

It shouldn't take a crowd to figure that out. Virtual crowds are great for market research and spreading the word about a new product or service, especially among the younger generation. But when they get too large, they are not always effective. Big teams can take longer to make decisions, whether they are made unanimously or by majority. And sometimes because of the size, the ideas of some of the smartest teammates are drowned out by the crowd, leading to bad results. The question of how the optimal team size has been studied by experts for quite some time, and of course, there are different opinions (check out this article from Knowledge@Wharton). But it's a question that we must continue to ask, as the crowdsourcing industry gets more crowded every day.

The Big Idea? Or The Next Best Thing?

Image courtesy of [hinnamsaisuy]/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

During an industry event I attended in June, I had the pleasure of meeting a successful entrepreneur who had some advice for those looking to start their own companies: pick a business that already makes money.

On the one hand, that makes sense. After all, startups aren't just about having fun and being the boss; they are businesses and need to make money to survive. But on the other hand, the most innovative companies are developing groundbreaking products or services through new and untested business models. No matter how strong the business plan or how reputable the investors, these entrepreneurs can only hope that enough people will be interested in what their companies offer.

The best approach to entrepreneurship is somewhere in the middle between trailblazing and the tried and true. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs today seem to be adopting only the latter approach -- taking successful companies and copying or building off them. Have you seen how many companies today offer cloud-computing solutions, e-commerce portals, and social communities for everyone from artists to physicians? I'm not sure how long a great idea lasts these days, or whether anyone remembers a name, but in the end a startup will only defeat its competition if it has the right marketing and communication plan. The questions that these entrepreneurs, copycats and pivot artists have to ask are all the same: Who are our potential customers? How should I reach them? And what makes our company better than the rest? The answers to these questions are not easy, but they are the key to making money, being a boss, and calling yourself a successful entrepreneur.

140 Characters: More? Or Less?

I was reading the news online yesterday and soon found myself checking out a new website for reading and writing: Medium.com. The site is being led by Ev Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, and is designed to take over where Twitter left off. "Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends," Williams writes on his site.

So as a blogger looking to to grow his readership, I joined and was quite impressed. The text is clear and easy to read. The ability to comment in the margins of articles allows for focused conversations about each post. And while not everyone is allowed to post yet, the ones that I checked out were good reads.

But there still is one feature that I found a bit odd: each post is labeled with the number of minutes it should take to read. Aside from the fact that everyone reads at a different pace, the timing of writing raised a basic question: if we're worried about how much time it will take to read, why not stick with Twitter?

As someone who worked as a newspaper reporter and has witnessed the demise of both print and long-form journalism, I always thought that people just don't read as much anymore. Skype, Twitter, text messaging, and mobile phones have all replaced writing letters and sending postcards. So are we moving back into the golden age of reading? Are people going to suddenly start checking out 20 minute articles and books, and discussing them with their friends? Or are photos and six-second videos going to become the way we keep in touch? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do believe that as a society we will find a happy medium.