Archives / March, 2008

Closer to the Front Lines

Closer to the Front Lines When we started Return Path, we added a little clause to our employee handbook that entitled people to a sabbatical after 7 years of service (and then after every 5 incremental years).  Six weeks off, 3/4 pay.  Full pay if you do something “work related.”  Sure, we thought.  That’s an easy thing to give.  We’ll never be 7 years old as a company.  Now, 8 1/2 years later, of course, the first wave of people are reaching their sabbatical date.  A couple have already gone (one trip around the world, one quality time with the kids).  A couple others are pending.  Four of us at the exec level are overdue to take ours, and we…

Don't Ever Do a Conference Call from an Airport

Don’t Ever Do a Conference Call from an Airport Ever.  Just say no thank you, you’re not available.  Airports are terrible places to be on a phone call.  You can’t hear the call, the call is barraged with P.A. system announcements.  It’s disjointed and difficult.  Better to force the call to happen at another time or send a delegate from your team or company on your behalf.  If you *must* do a call from an airport, I’d say best practices are: 1. Let the meeting organizer know ahead of time that you have no choice (if the meeting must be scheduled at that time) 2. Remind all participants up front that you’re in an airport 3. Make liberal use of…

A Flurry of CAN-SPAM Activity – Is It Meaningful?

A Flurry of CAN-SPAM Activity – But Is It Meaningful? Our four-year old oft maligned anti-spam legislation in this country, the CAN-SPAM act, has seen an uptick of activity this past week.  Melinda Krueger sums up the sentiments of many in the anti-spam community in her Email Insider column today when she says, There is no provision in the act against sending unsolicited email as long as you comply with the rest of the act. The motivation of the act was more to make voters feel politicians were doing something about this annoying problem. In the last two days, however, we got news of ValueClick’s $2.9 million settlement with the FTC over a CAN-SPAM violation (the largest ever), as well…

Book Short: Smaller is the New Small

Book Short: Smaller is the New Small Last month, it was Microtrends. This month, it’s MIT Professor Ted Sargent’s The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives. It seems like all the interesting things in life are just getting smaller and smaller. (Note to self: lose some weight.) Sargent’s book is geeky but well-written. He dives into a couple dozen examples across many fields and disciplines of how nanotechnology holds extraordinary promise for solving some of mankind’s toughest scientific challenges — while creating a few new ethical and economic ones. The science is for the most part beyond me, but the practical applications are fascinating: – making solar power the sole source of global energy needs a possibility…

Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy

Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy As I said in this post, sometimes calling for the boss’s head is a mistake, and that an alternative — an honest apology, some kind of retribution, and a clear and conspicuous post-mortem can often be a better way for an organization to move forward after a leader-involved crisis.  But not today. Elliot Spitzer has to go.  The hypocrisy he displayed in running a law and order campaign, administration, and career, using his office as a bully pulpit and unnecessarily ruining innocent people’s careers to stroke his own ego, while willfully breaking the law himself in the manner that he did, is way too much for an elected official at that level.  I just…

Sophisticated Negotiation Technique

Sophisticated Negotiation Technique Brad and our co-tenants in Colorado, Still Secure, have already documented this — including a dedication from Still Secure (thanks, guys – you took the words right out of my mouth).  But still, the story must be recorded here for posterity as well, if for no other reason than how absurd it was. We share a lease in Colorado with Still Secure (the lease used to be Brad’s/Mobius’s), and the lease ends this fall.  Both we and Still Secure have grown to the point where we’re bursting at the seams, so someone is going to have to move out.  After months of polite wrangling, it was clear there was no easy solution.  Sometimes, win-win just doesn’t exist….

The Gift of Feedback

The Gift of Feedback My colleague Anita Absey always says that “feedback is a gift.”  I’ve written in the past about our extensive 360 review process at Return Path, and also about how I handle my review and bring the Board in on it.  But this past week, I finished delivering all of our senior staff 360 reviews, and I received the write-up and analysis of my own review.  And once again, I have to say, the process is incredibly valuable.  For the first time in a long time this year, I got a resounding “much improved” on all of my prior year’s development items from my team and from the Board.  This was great to hear.  As usual, this…

Advisory Boards

Advisory Boards This is a topic that’s come up a fair amount lately here. Advisory Boards can be great sources of help for entrepreneurs. They can also be great things to participate in. Here are a handful of quick tips for both sides of the equation. If you are building an advisory board: – Figure out what kind of Advisory Board you want to build — is it one that functions as a group, or is it one that’s a collection of individual advisers, and a Board in name only? – Clarify the mission, role, and expected time required from advisers on paper, both for yourself and for people you ask – Be prepared to pay for people’s time somehow…