A New Kind of Social Community Platform

         R Community Co-Founders (Left to right): Kevin Arnold, Scott Plautz

[An edited version of this article will appear in my “Business Matters” column in the Los Altos Town Crier in October]

Some of us have grown up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. That was the good old times when we […]

Educational Moment on Product Innovation

For all start-up companies, product innovation is the lifeline in keeping their products relevant in the space that they want to own and be recognized. Innovation triggers often are problems that we have experienced ourselves, or what we’ve seen that others are experiencing. 

Innovation does not develop in a vacumm, and the ideas developed […]

Mountain View Start-Up Enhances Artificial Intelligence for Self-Help Skincare Management

(Photo from left to right): Geoff Seyon (Co-Founder and Chief AI Officer), Clare Lee (Product Manager), Afsana Akhter (Co-Founder and CEO), and Janhavi Singhal (Customers Advocate)  (Note:  An edited version is now published in the Los Altos Town Crier’s “Business Matters” section as part of my regular tech/start-up/marketing column)

This article is part two of […]

Making Effective Use of Technology to Get Ahead in This Busy World

“Crowdservice’s vision is to put a personal assistant into everyone’s pocket”

Founder Michael Duran

[Note:  An edited version of this blog appeared in the Business Matters [Tech/Marketing/StartUp] column in the Los Altos Town Crier — a locally owned weekly newspaper, offering in-depth, local news relevant to the affluent communities of Los Altos and […]

Artificial Intelligence Enhances Mountain View StartUp

Computer science engineers Siva Nattamai, left, and Pavan Kumar aim to advance Telehealth technology through Cocoon Cam, their Mountain View-based startup. Cocoon Cam’s smart baby monitor uses artificial intelligence to track the vital signs and sleeping patterns of infants and toddlers.

[Note: This blog also appeared as my featured column in the Los Altos […]

Getting into the Groove of Social Media Posting

I’ve heard from clients who are newbies to social media about the challenge of doing posting on a consistent basis. I feel their pain because as a marketer, I have started with posting rituals that I thought I could follow, based on the pace and rhythms of my work week. Not to anyone’s surprise, when […]

How to Make Productive Use of Social Media

In this hyper-connected world, social media plays an important role in influencing us on where and how we are spending our time on a daily basis.  Given that there are many social media channels to choose from — LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and Reddit, among others – they all are […]

How to Create Engaging Content

Over the holidays, we’ve tried to dapple with video tools to help us create engaging content that encourages more viewers, getting people to dig in and enjoy the content that we’ve shared.  We have been amazed by the results of the Christmas video that we’ve created, which earned over 80+ organic views thus far. 

Here […]

Challenges and Hopes in Finding Furniture Manufacturers in the U.S.

I’ve worked with many clients in different industries. Some needs help in developing services, while some in developing products.

The most challenging part in developing a product is finding people with the right skills to make or produce it for you, at reasonable prices that you can afford, and allow you to mark-up and […]

Immersive Learning

Berkeley-Haas Alumni Conference, April 28, 2018

Wow!  It’s always nice to be back on the Berkeley campus! I found the conference always a fun-filled day — a day to be “Students Always.”

Berkeley-Haas Business School

Although I missed Deal Lyon’s Goodbye Speech in the morning, I attended two workshops: 1) Design Thinking, and […]