TALKING POINTS: 4 Things Every New Entrepreneur Should Splurge On; Colorado’s New Innovation High

(Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

4 Things Every New Entrepreneur Should Splurge On {HuffPo Canada}

There are investments you need to make as a start-up — like design and marketing, for example — that seem like a non-negotiable no-brainer. But there are other, perhaps less obvious, investments that are important to the long-term success of your business.

Is Colorado About to Get a Rocky Mountain Innovation High? {Washington Post}

The decision to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Colorado has already been considered from a number of perspectives, many of them focusing on the economic, social and political implications of the move. Here are three ways to think about Colorado’s groundbreaking move from an innovation perspective.

BlackBerry Sues Ryan Seacrest’s ‘Typo’ iPhone Keyboard Case Company Over ‘Blatant’ Copying {ZD Net}

First it was Alicia Keys getting the can from the former smartphone making bigshot. Now it’s Ryan Seacrest lined up in BlackBerry’s sights. Either BlackBerry is gearing up for a war on celebrities, or the Waterloo, Ontario-based company is less than pleased at the idea of bringing a former killer feature of the keyboard-enabled smartphone to a rival device. It’s probably the latter.

Breakthrough Fuel CEO to University of Wisconsin Grads: Be creative, entrepreneurial {UW-Green Bay}

Business entrepreneur and UW-Green Bay graduate Craig Dickman delivered the commencement address at his alma mater Saturday, Dec. 14. Dickman talked about his business philosophy, and shared a favorite quote from the late Michael Hammer, a former-business professor at MIT and well-respected author and analyst. 

“Business creates,” Hammer wrote. “Medicine heals… education enlightens… science discovers… art inspires… but business creates.  It creates products, it creates services, it creates jobs. It creates value for its customers and assets for society.  Without the vital creative force of business, our world would be impoverished beyond all reckoning.”

TALKING POINTS: How to Use Video to Promote Your Crowdfunding Campaign

How to Use Video to Promote Your Crowdfunding Campaign {Entrepreneur}

In her book Cash From the Crowd, Sally Outlaw, founder and CEO of crowdfunding website peerbackers, reveals the secrets of funding your business with help from colleagues, peers, family, friends and even perfect strangers through a crowdfunding campaign. In this edited excerpt, the author offers easy tips for creating a pitch video that attracts funding.

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This Video Will Make You Want to Be An Ass-Kicking Entrepreneur {Ad Week}

Grasshopper.com’s epic parody 1980s entrepreneurial video has all the right things. It has the word “epic” in the title. It has that one-take, walking toward the camera while grabbing props out of nowhere thing that people go nuts for. It has a great actor who went to the Shatner school of pausing. And if you don’t love it for all that, watch it to see the best example of a business card ever conceived:

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How Melinda Walton Went from Corporate Employee to Creative Entrepreneur {Women’s Agenda}

Melina Walton had worked for 10 years in the corporate world as a communications professional when she started to feel something was missing. “The main thing I wanted was to have a job and life where I really wanted to go to work every day,” she says. “I wanted to have the lifestyle that made me happy every day. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my corporate role but something was missing.”

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New from Russell Simmons: Narrative, a B2B Digital Marketing Firm {Business News Daily}

For nearly 30 years, Simmons has been building and promoting brands in the entertainment and fashion industries. Now he’s applying that branding experience to the world of tech and manufacturing with his innovative marketing firm, Narrative.

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What Does It Mean to Be An Entrepreneur Today? Reflections for 2014 {Huff Po}

December is a month where people hit the “pause” button and think about the past year. About what was attempted, accomplished, remembered, forgotten, created, and discarded. About where one is headed; physically and metaphorically.

TALKING POINTS: Success tips from Box CEO Aaron Levie; 3 tips for the next generation of entrepreneurs; more

Paranoia is the Key to Success, Says Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year {Inc.}

[Aaron] Levie has successfully run a $1.2 billion company for eight years, and he’s only 28-years old. This year Levie, CEO of Box, a cloud computing company, has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine. Inc.’s Editor -In-Chief Eric Schurenberg says Levie “is doing what all great entrepreneurs have always done. He sees the future before almost anyone else, and then, by the force of his personality and drive, he gets his colleagues and his customers to see it too.” –from Yahoo Finance

Three Tips for the Next Generation of Would-Be Entrepreneurs {Forbes}

The road to successful entrepreneurship is by no means easier that the traditional American Dream. In most cases, it’s harder — and it takes a lot of time, effort, energy and more often than not, money too. So whether you’re brainstorming how to make it on your own or are a seasoned entrepreneurial vet, here are three tips for today’s generation of entrepreneurs.

What Type of Entrepreneur Are You? {HuffPo Canada}

Today’s venture capital community and media have heavily emphasized the youth oriented nature of entrepreneurship. While young entrepreneurs populate the front covers of today’s magazine covers, they are part of a bigger entrepreneurship ecosystem. From serial entrepreneurs with decades of experience to hobbyists turned business owners, there is a complete spectrum of entrepreneurship that has been overlooked by the media and those providing startup resources.

Is Entrepreneurship Contagious? {CNBC}

A British news correspondent recently emailed me to ask for any research that helps answer the question of whether there really is a dirty secret that high-growth companies are usually led by founders from privileged families.

Marriage Without Monogamy, Part Four

My fourth essay in the “Marriage Without Monogamy” series went live on the Tango Magazine website a few days back. And this is interesting: In an especially smart and cunning effort to up my readership stats, the editors have apparently changed the essay’s title from “Marriage Without Monogamy, Part Four” to “Open Relationship Dos and Don’ts: Is it still an open relationship if you’re restricted by a long list of rules?”

And just in case you’re wondering what’s so brilliant about all that, the answer’s simple: Any-damn-thing posted online that contains the term “open relationship” is practically guaranteed instant popularity. Seriously. Actual editors of actual online magazines have said as much. And yet sadly, this entry in the MWM series has not yet been picked up by the Huffington Post, as my first, second, and third pieces were. I suppose it’s still possible that’ll happen sometime this week, especially given the story’s new SEO-friendly title. I’ll post a note here if that happens.   

And speaking of the Huffington Post, I’m putting together my first piece for them today. It’s about the current changing nature of marriage and relationships, which is more or less the same general ground I’ll be covering in all my future HuffPost pieces. Assuming this one goes over well and they ask me back, that is. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah guess what? The lovely and talented sex journalist/educator Tristan Taormino gave me a little shout-out on the website for her new book about creating and sustaining open relationships, “Opening Up” (Cleis Press).

Having Our Cake & Eating It Too

Now that I actually have a chance to sit back and think about it, I guess I always did expect the Marriage Without Monogamy column I’ve been writing for Tango to hit a few nerves. But I honestly didn’t expect to see the level of interest I’m seeing now. I can thank the Huffington Post, I suppose, for my first hint that this thing was going to be big. Someone there posted excerpts of my first two essays on the front page of the site’s Living section, and boy did the hate mail ever flow. I don’t think I managed to accomplish more than five or 10 minutes of work on the day I noticed that the Huff Post had picked the column up — I must have refreshed my browser a hundred times before I realized the work day was just about over, and all I had to show for it was a sore index finger. The thiong is, it’s just such an absolutely surreal feeling to sit by helplessly as perfect strangers tell the world how and why you are such a vile, nasty creature. Sigh.

(Update: An excerpt from the third Marriage Without Monogamy column just went live on the Huffington Post under the title, Open Relationships: What the World Needs Now?)

All that attention on the Huffington Post did turn into something bigger and more positive, however: I heard from an editor, who informed me that the excerpts of my Tango essays were actually clocking some of the site’s highest hit numbers. She also kindly invited me to start writing about Sex & Relationships for the site’s Living section, so as soon as I can come up with a few decent ideas, I’ll put together my first Huffington Post piece, and I’ll be sure to link to that essay here.  

Even more exciting than all that was the press the column got this morning on the Daily Bedpost, a Conde Nast blog written by Em & Lo  — you’ve probably read their Mating column in New York magazine. My good friend and amateur photographer Paul Severin did a photo-shoot with Carrie and me this past weekend specifically for the Daily Bedpost mention, and the picture above is the shot they used for the site. Ever since the post went live this morning, I’ve been telling people that the photo reminds me of the cover art on Fatboy Slim’s Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, which sort of existentially describes where Carrie and are living these days…       

My Open Marriage Column for Tango Magazine

I recently signed a contract to write a biweekly column for Tango magazine. Tango is a sex and relationships publication that is not entirely unlike Nerve.com, but with slightly less of an overt hipster edge, if you know what I mean. The column, which I’ll be writing for at least the next six months, is called Marriage Without Monogamy. And while it’s ostensibly about the open marriage I’m currently planning with my fiancée, on a slightly deeper level it’s about the very quickly changing nature of marriage culture, so to speak, in the 21st century. My first essay went online about a month ago, and it’s essentially an introduction of sorts to the larger story itself. You can read it by clicking here. The second essay was also published recently. To give that story a read, please click here.

Interestingly, the Huffington Post picked up both columns, and both have received a surprisingly amount of attention by Huff Post readers. Seriously: If you’re having a rough day at work and feeling the need for a good, deep laugh, check out the Readers Comments that have been posted at the end of the essay. Many of them are just absolutely insane; you can actually feel the anger seeping off the computer monitor, and as a writer myself, I can tell you from personal experience that that’s not necessarily the easiest thing to do! You can read all the Readers Comments by clicking here, and then scrolling down just a bit.

Marriage Without Monogamy

About a month ago, I was contracted to write a biweekly column about open relationships and alternative marriages for Tango (www.tangomag.com), a magazine that covers all manner of sex and relationship issues. It’s quite a bit like Nerve, but without the overt hipness, if you know what I mean. Women, supposedly, are the magazine’s intended demographic, but my suspicion is that just as many men are studying its content and taking good notes. At least, they should be. 

Anyway, my column’s first entry, Marriage Without Monogamy, was posted on Tango’s website about a week ago. A few days after that, it was picked up by the Huffington Post, which plugged the story in its Living department under the title, Marriage, Minus the Monogamy. And then all hell broke lose in the Huff Post’s Comments section.

To say that the essay raised a few eyebrows would be an enormous understatement. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these people ripped me a new one. Personally, I think they’re just jealous. And probably undersexed. And they’re definitely taking their lives at least a touch too seriously. But I’ve been in the writing business for a long time now, and it takes a lot for a reader to offend and/or upset me. That said, give these comments a look if you’re interested (but only after reading the essay!), and let me know what you think.

The column’s second entry, by the way, has already been filed. It should be appearing soon on the Tango site, and I’ll post an announcement here as soon as that happens.