Getting Our House in Order. The Re-org Blog from Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

New Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz smartly decided to blog about the re-org that’s in progress. CFO Blake Jorgenson is already out, according to AllThingsD. Given my long history in conducting strategic research with the Yahoo Customer Care team, I’m happy to hear about the urgently-needed intensified focus on this part of the company.

Getting our house in order

Posted February 26th, 2009 at 9:16 am by Carol Bartz, CEO

A month and a half in the saddle and today I have the perfect excuse to get blogging.

I’ve been on a whirlwind tour for the last six weeks, talking with everybody from executive leaders to the guys who configured my laptop. I’ve been in student mode, slowly getting smarter about what makes this place tick. And most recently, I’ve been gathering information on what it’s going to take to get Yahoo! to a great place as an organization –- and one that brings you killer products.

People here have impressed the hell out of me. They’re smart, dedicated, passionate, driven, and really nice. There’s so much great energy and frankly lots of optimism. But there’s also plenty that has bogged this company down. For starters, you’d be amazed at how complicated some things are here.

So today I’m rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet. For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We’ll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer. For you using Yahoo! every day, it will better enable us to deliver products that make you say, “Wow.”

I’ve noticed that a lot of us on the inside don’t spend enough time looking to the outside. That’s why I’m creating a new Customer Advocacy group. After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to and supporting you. Our Customer Care team does an incredible job with the amazing number of people who come to them, but they need better resources. So we’re investing in that. After all, you deserve the very best.

We’re also leaning on this team to make sure we’re all hearing the voice of our customers (consumers and advertisers). I’m singularly focused on providing you with awesome products. Period. The kind that get you so excited, you have to tell someone about them. Whether on your desktop, your mobile device, or even your TV.

And that takes a real understanding of what you want/need/love/hate, how you’re using our products, and what you find simple, intuitive, easy and fun. Who wants innovation for innovation’s sake if it doesn’t make your life easier, more efficient, more productive? So expect us to hear you better and take better care of you.

Finally, a note about our brand. It’s one of our biggest assets. Mention Yahoo! practically anywhere in the world, and people yodel. But in the past few years, we haven’t been as clear in showing the world what the Yahoo! brand stands for. We’re going to change that. Look for this company’s brand to kick ass again.

Big thanks to the many of you who’ve reached out with positive comments. It’s clear people want Yahoo! to succeed. I’ll try to pop by here again soon, though probably not too soon. I have a pretty long to-do list.

Carol Bartz
CEO

Guru’s Note: As a fellow Cheesehead and UW Badger, I enthusiastically support the Carol Bartz style of doing business. My Autodesk pals tell me she’s no-nonsense, down-to-earth and not one to tolerate some of the inexplicable speed bumps (“how complicated things are here”) that have plagued even the most high priority Y! projects.

Finally, Music Lovers Can Share Concert Sets via Wiki. Introducing SetList.fm.

This post is in honor of my set-list-fanatic daughter who missed out on snatching Andrew Bird’s list last Friday night at The Fillmore for reasons that will go unmentioned.

As fervent concert goers know, grabbing the set list from a favorite band’s gig is like nabbing a trophy. But as fervent concert goers also know, not everyone can get their hands on that sweaty and smudged piece of paper. Which is why Setlist.fm was launched, a free wiki-site that allows users to upload and browse concert set lists.

As Springwise explains: the process is easy: users sign up, select an artist from the site’s extensive database (or add in someone up-and-coming), input a venue, and then list the songs the artist played during that particular show. They’re encouraged to add whatever they remember, relying on ‘crowd memory’ to fix errors and add missing songs. Once saved, a list is added to an archive of an artist’s performances that also includes ‘most played’ statistics and links to live videos.

Each user is given a personal page of the set lists they added or edited, as well as their comments and concert attendance statistics. Helping promote the site, a Setlist.fm widget is popular on music websites, and is also available for Facebook pages. Its pseudo-handwritten ink-on-paper format combines a sense of authenticity with the convenience of a digital database.

As you can see from the picture above, somebody better quick log on and add in the songs Andrew Bird played, brilliantly assisted by Martin Dosh and a trippy, talented Swedish band called Loney Dear. The whole concert was such a tribute to true musicianship and songwriting genius that I was too mesmerized to remember much of anything, much less titles. And no, it wasn’t the sweet scent wafting in from the street.

Launched in September 2008, Setlist.fm’s current database consists mainly of recent concerts, although there’s nothing to stop enthusiasts from listing shows dating back to Bruce Springsteen’s glory days. (But as they say, if you can remember the 70′s, you probably weren’t there.) Amazingly, Setlist hails from tiny Liechtenstein.

The Red Hot Resident Evil 5 Elite Red is Coming March 13.

The rumors are true. The ravishingly red hot Resident Evil 5 Elite Red is on its way. Amazon’s taking pre-orders right now — $399 and free shipping.

Here’s the scoop:

Red console
Standard Edition: Resident Evil 5 game
Red Wireless Controller
120GB hard drive
Token card including Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and exclusive Resident Evil Premium Theme

Thinking about A Tech Incubator? Think Pink. Pink Garage Mentors.

February of 2009 sure doesn’t feel like a particularly auspicious time to launch a new business. In fact, it feels more like it’s time to hide, to hunker down and wait out the storm. Maybe tuck that great idea away for now. Or simply hang on to that job for dear life and slog through your day.

But at the risk of playing Pollyanna (does anyone know who that is anymore?), here are some positive factoids about successful businesses that got started during a downturn. From the legendary HP, which got its start in a Palo Alto garage with an investment of $538 at the end of the Great Depression, to Trader Joe’s, CNN, MTV and even Jim Henson’s Muppets, start-ups that run nimble and smart often have the edge in a down economy.

A recent article in Fast Company profiles three companies –Method, RF Micro, and Clif –that survived and thrived during times of economic uncertainty. Then there are more legends: GE started during the panic of 1873, Disney’s start was during the recession of 1923-24, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft during the recession of 1975.

So what do all these uplifting examples mean to you, other subjecting you to a hopelessly perky pep talk? (I’d mention Gidget but I’m already in trouble with Pollyanna.)

Forge on. Keep on keepin’ on. And if you’re a woman with a hot business idea or part of a women-led team, take advantage of a real opportunity to get experienced help from women who’ve been there, done that. That opportunity is called Pink Garage Mentors. We’re here to help you successfully apply for a tech incubator — often the first tangible step toward making your entrepreneurial vision come true.

Pink Garage Mentors are experienced founders, VCs and C level execs who will read your application pre submission, help you refine it, and provide virtual coaching to serious applicants. We will focus this month on TechStars and YCombinator applicants.

If you would like a mentor for your Summer 2009 TechStars and/or yCombinator application, email pinkgaragementors@gmail.com with a copy of your application and we will match you with a mentor.

Application deadlines are coming up fast: (So get in touch with us asap)

TechStars — Applications close March 21st.
YCombinator — Application deadline March 18th.

Samsung’s Blue Earth, The First Solar Powered Phone.

I really want to love this new Blue Earth smartphone. But there’s a stumbling block: I keep imagining the uber-hipsters who flash eco-trophies like this around . . .usually at the gas station while fueling up their Hummers.

Look at how gloriously green this gem is:

• Solar Panel on the back of the phone
  Eco- friendly phone made from recycled plastic extracted from water bottles
  Free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardant, Beryllium and Phthalate
  Eco-UI: Eco-mode / Eco-calendar / Eco-walk
  5 star energy efficient charger which uses standby power lower than 0.03W
  Small and light package made from recycled paper

My other problem: Does all this sun-power honestly work?

We won’t know for a while, as the Blue Earth is only scheduled to hit the UK later on this year.

The Guru of New Welcomes GuruMommy.

We Gurus have to stick together. So I immediately zipped over to check out a site GuruMommy.com, created by Linda Meadow, the author of City Baby LA guidebooks, who has three living-breathing reasons to call herself a Mommy Guru.

Unfortunately, I think I arrived at the site too soon. Much of it feels like it’s still under construction — categories either have skimpy or no content. Classifieds offer only a note about Baby Strollers. The blog has few posts. There is a lot of promise here — I especially like the Guru Seal –but the site breaks the cardinal rule of website building: before launch, make sure every category is richly populated so it looks like there’s ‘someone home.’

The site also feels a bit like it exists in a time warp, where families still take pricey vacations, buy trendy gifts (Poppy Gift Store Bins for Baby Boy at $260) and face the challenge of kidlet moving up to a big kid bed that costs thousands of dollars. Perhaps GuruMommy’s LA is faring better during this R-word than other places but I know a long list of Moms in SoCal and most are watching their pennies carefully.

My favorite part was actually the post about coping with head lice. This near-universal problem was one of the shockers of moving to balmy California — and I was happy to see that Guru Mommy tackled this non-cool, always-distressing concern.

I’m looking forward to visiting this site again and discovering a thriving site chockful of useful content.

Facebook Blinks.

Update on Terms
by Mark Zuckerberg Today at 10:17pm

“A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input. ”

Guru’s Note: And here I was just about to remove the Facebook Share below.

Meet Skout, the Social Networking Community for Kids’ Products.

Much of my world seems to be busily working on kids’ products, divining and designing everything from eco-adorable clothes to online games, websites, books, photography and more. So I was excited to discover a social network designed specifically for these uber-creative folks –designers, makers, vendors and others involved in children’s clothing and accessories.

Based in New Zealand, Skout Trade Fair is an online community that aims to help those in the children’s products industry find each other and connect. The founders have built in some admirable features which are likely to keep everybody honorable, supportive and industry-focused: membership on the site is by invitation only, and only members can view its content. Participants can also lose their membership for engaging in unethical practices. (Yay!) Once granted membership, though, participants can jump right in and join business forums, connect with other members, list events, upload photos of their work, join groups and contribute to blogs.

Guru’s Note: I was quickly admitted to the membership — but they did put me through my paces by asking a couple of on-point questions.

And good news on the technology front: Skout is built using the uber-customizable Ning platform — which is swiftly emerging as one of the most useful social networking tools available.

Thanks, as always, to springwise.

It’s the Recession, Stupid. Introducing the New Recession Etiquette.

Guru’s Note: This post was originally published last October, which is why the numbers below seem positively rosy in comparison to the first weeks of February. I’m republishing it because a little nudge about being kind to each other feels like a good idea.

First, let’s look at what’s happening out there:

• 44,000+ layoffs in the tech industry alone
• Consumer confidence at an all-time low
• House values down by an average of 17%
• Ed McMahon’s house now owned by Donald Trump
• Mother’s Cookies crumbled.

With these sorry facts in hand, it may be time to foreclose on our existing Rules of Etiquette. Especially old chestnuts like ‘the one with the most toys wins’ and anything that includes the words ‘disruptors, Tesla, bling, or second-round-of-funding.’

Here are the New Rules of Recession Etiquette:

Follow me on Twitter:  guruofnew

The Perfect Girl Geek Valentine’s Day Gift — the Lipstick USB Drive.

Looking for the perfect gift for the girl geek in your life? Fashionistas can slip this sleek and chic Lipstick shaped USB drive right into a purse or pocket.

Thanks to likecool.com.

Next Page »