Huge fan of Mike Rowe and the work he does at the mikeroweWORKS Foundation. Really enjoyed the speech he gives for PragerU's 2016 commencement. We need more people like him.

As my responsibilities at Custom Built have grown, especially over the last year, evaluating and hiring people has grown as a priority. I'm always on the lookout for insight into how other companies do their hiring and articles like the one Dave Martin posted over on his blog outlining how

Would you hire the last Delta representative you spoke with if you owned a customer service company?That's the first question in the Delta Airlines customer service follow-up survey. Really gets to the heart of the experience right away, doesn't it?

Economics is the study of human behavior as it pertains how people address their wants and needs given there isn't enough of anything in the world to satisfy everyone who wants it. Economics is important, and I'm not just saying that because I have a degree in it. Even a

It's a phrase I've heard countless times from our company's oldest salesman. And he's absolutely right. We may not think about it, but we constantly talk about time in terms of money -- how we save it, spend it or waste it; how productive or unproductive we are with it.

E-books should be sold to maximize profit. Without all the costs associated with physical books, e.g. printing, shipping, stocking, etc... there is no reason they should be priced the same as the physical book. Amazon also takes such a stance, noting they found a book was purchased 1.74

Amazing post by Mark Suster... really nails it on all points.

The guys over at Zapier break down Tina Fey's rules for improv and how those rules are also very applicable to good customer service.

Excellent piece shattering the misconception that a cool logo alone makes a successful brand. Branding is about so much more than the logo on the business card or polo shirt. Branding is about the entire experience people have with your company, and how you can undermine all your efforts if

[M]ost regulation is useless. It's the need to maintain one's reputation that does most to keep us safe — especially today, with instant feedback from the Internet. No clumsy government regulation is needed.In his weekly syndicated column, John Stossel discusses Eatwith.com, a site that takes the concept of

James Altucher lays out a brilliant breakdown of the final battle in Eminem's 8 Mile. Definitely worth the read for anyone interested in understanding how to market to your customer and defeat your competition in the most badass way possible.

I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work… When I was 13 I had my first job with my dad carrying shingles up to the roof. And then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant. And then I got a job in grocery store deli. And

It's not my job to help you with your fishing expedition. Being part of a small business means wearing many hats. As such I am constantly being solicited by sales reps trying to hawk their respective goods and services. Most of those solicitations follow a similar pattern: Hi, this is

This is a really cool product -- a solar cell module that fits on or under your cell phone's touch screen enabling it to use the sun to recharge your phone's battery, giving you unlimited standby time and potentially 50% more talk time.

This rubs me the wrong way. Paypal starts off a press release by boasting about how awesome they are, using that as a backdrop for the real purpose of the announcement, which is a notification that they're firing 445 people. The President of PayPal, David Marcus, notes that PayPal is

Dylan Tweney over at VentureBeat certainly thinks so. While I would go so far as to argue we should look at completely eliminating "intellectual property", it's good to see there are others who are finally starting to see the harm the copyright and patent system does to innovation in our

According to a jury, Samsung violated 6 Apple patents and as a result awarded over $1B to Apple in their verdict. Most people would consider that a heavy loss, but in reality, it's a win for Samsung. How can losing $1B be a win you ask? Samsung mobile phone revenue

A really great look at how a startup airline sells on value, not price, to compete with other airlines.

While I don't agree with all the conclusions reached in the article (small guys go up against the big guys all the time and win, especially in software), it's an interesting look into the fall of 38 studios and the hook on which RI taxpayers have been placed.

No, I'm not talking about how AOL has been unable to successfully transition from an internet service provider to, well, anything else. I'm talking about a recent CNET story that showcased a student, Eric Simmons, who squatted at AOL HQ in Palo Alto, CA for over 2 months before being

A question that comes up pretty frequently is how 38 Studios was able to burn through the $75M loan in a little over a year. This post will serve as a little bit of an off-the-cuff math class to show how easy it is, relatively, to spend that much money.

Over at Techdirt there's a good article about the re-education of the music industry. The prevailing notion was that consumers were "purchasing" music, when in reality they weren't.

At the end of the day, you can make a pizza so cheaply and quickly that no one would dare eat it. That doesn’t prove there’s no market for pizza, only that there’s no market for shit pizza. Which are you making? ~ Des TraynorThe tech industry really

Customer service, this is how it's done. http://t.co/o4gfYpc6 — Noel Tock (@noeltock) January 25, 2012

The life and legacy of Steve Jobs is a very popular topic right now, especially given the recent release of his biography. The Huffington Post had leaked bits and pieces of the book prior to its general availability, and one that got a decent amount of play was the interview