tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84459052012-02-16T02:37:29.305-06:00Uncommon Sense - Some of Your Damn BusinessStuff about Start-Ups, Entrepreneurial Endeavors, SEO, Tech Transfer, Minnesota Tech and Innovation, online marketing, content optimization, and other random topics that I find interesting.
Some things are NOYDB(none of your damn business); This is Some of Your Damn Business.Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.comBlogger291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-17893627423222730792011-04-30T17:15:00.002-05:002011-07-15T10:11:05.780-05:00Why the most important word in my world is "WHY"This is the single best presentation of any kind, about any topic, that I have ever seen.
I wish I was a smart as this guy. He somehow codified what the difference between successful and failed leadership and inspiration is, and I find that amazing all by itself.
I have been saying for years that the most important word in my world is "WHY." "Why" has always been intuitive for me.
"Why"Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-90332171470677159462011-04-23T13:39:00.000-05:002011-04-23T13:39:29.538-05:00Startups, Focus and Monetization.Somebody posted a question on the Startup Weekend Linkedin group about whether a focus on monetization is something that you do more when you have been through the process of building a comany before and how it changes with experience. The answer to this can't really be addressed until we tackle the broader topic of, "When should you start worrying about monetization?"
The answer to the first Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-89646440681459188332011-04-16T17:28:00.000-05:002011-04-16T17:28:16.294-05:00This time it is personal<!--[if gte mso 9]> VPCEB1A4E 12.00 1024x768 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-6846955749237467782011-04-04T14:16:00.000-05:002011-04-04T14:16:47.487-05:00Minnesota High Tech Association and Itasca Project Should Coordinate CalendarsRecently I have been privileged to have been invited to, what I consider, important events that offer fantastic networking and learning opportunities. these events are all pushing for participation from the same core audience, and they are all doing their own part to move the region toward its goal of returning to its former glory as the preeminent entrepreneurial and economic development hub ofDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-12885139166023307202011-02-12T00:38:00.001-06:002011-02-12T00:49:12.676-06:00Eating Crow and Loving It - 24 hours after REoMNOn January 21st, I wrote a scathing blog post about my disappointment in not seeing very many tech entrepreneurs in the crowd at a couple of the Jumpstart Community Advisors meetings that I had been involved with. Because I grew up in Minnesota, I am as good as anyone at living up to the theory that
It's not whether you win-or-lose; it's how you Lay the Blame.I blamed a bunch of folks from Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-68427154915917672902011-01-30T09:48:00.001-06:002011-01-30T10:06:39.654-06:00All Time Best Songs for Start-UpsThis is a list of the best song titles ever, describing what starting a tech company is like. You can read the list from top to bottom or bottom to top. I don't think it matters.
Add yours to the list!
1. You May Be Right (I may be crazy) - Billy Joel
2. American Idiot - Green Day
3. Can You Help Me - Ape Hangers
4. Crazy Life - Toad the Wet Sprocket
5. Crazy Train - Ozzie Osbourne
6. Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-46940998152724809512011-01-21T23:38:00.000-06:002011-01-21T23:38:17.092-06:00Silicon Valley EnvyBecause I am a regular at the Minneapolis BootStrapper's Breakfast, I am a member of the Bootstrapper's Breakfast Yahoo group which is, understandably, dominated by entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, where the group originated. I receive a lot of unreadable spam from this group, but once in a while there is a provocative discussion that get's me going (like that is super difficult?)
A couple ofDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-41817359121756923632011-01-20T23:46:00.002-06:002011-01-21T00:00:48.180-06:00Where the Hell are the Entrepreneurs?I have been to two different "JumpStart Community Gatherings" and have come away from both with the same overriding question:
Where the Hell are all the Entrepreneurs?There is something seriously wrong with a process that is supposed to be gathering information about how to fix the broken entrepreneurial and investment climate in Minnesota, but in a room with 50+ people, there were 9 Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-39272260457583039612011-01-17T16:04:00.001-06:002011-02-05T16:09:49.732-06:00117 Tech Start-Up Questions from a Dumbass EntrepreneurHi, I'm Darren and I'm a dumbass. I work in a world where there are almost no questions that can't be answered without first saying, "Well...It depends!" But doing what I do, starting tech companies, is one of the only things I am really good at. So, with that said...
I have been an entrepreneur/start-up junkie/ Dot-Communist for half of my adult life. Many things have changed in the world ofDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-45134875740204569492010-12-01T12:56:00.000-06:002010-12-01T12:56:32.723-06:00Why does Minnesota Suck? Reaction to the Kaufman Index of Entreprenurial Activitythe Kaufman Foundation released the Annual Report on Entrepreneurial Activity this week and, once again, Minnesota was WAY down toward the bottom.
Bad news... we fell off a cliff on "Entrepreneurial Activity," which is broadly defined as "The adjusted number of entrepreneurs starting new businesses."
So I have a few things that I need to get off my chest.
To Investors that are reading Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-63313033900578357262010-09-29T01:24:00.001-05:002010-09-29T12:14:27.769-05:00Recap of KickStart Meeting on: CHOICE OF BUSINESS ENTITY: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT C-CORPS, S-CORPS AND LLC'sI got a lot of useful information at the KickStart Meeting this morning. I thought the venue was perfect for this type of thing. Our hosts, Olsen-Thielen & Co., Ltd, were very hospitable. There was someone waiting in the front lobby to point us toward the correct meeting room and they even had bagels and coffee waiting for us when we arrived (above and beyond as far as I'm concerned); but muchDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-63611020320978715022010-09-26T01:56:00.003-05:002010-10-06T02:31:09.153-05:00Open Letter to AUTM: The REAL National Convention Debate Topic Should Be: "Why Haven’t We Embraced the Web for Marketing and (Express) Licensing of our Available Technologies?"Alan Bentley, the president of AUTM recently announced that there would be a big "debate" about the pros and cons of "express Licensing." First let me say that in my opinion having a “debate” on pros and cons of express licensing doesn’t go far enough. The discussion should also include marketing technologies outside of our personal networks and why we haven’t fully embraced the technologies Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-60857216664368777952010-09-23T13:23:00.002-05:002010-10-26T00:02:07.894-05:00Great Bootstrapper's Breakfast todayToday's Bootstrapper's Breakfast was fascinating and well worth the time. In attendance were the entire team from the winners of the start-up weekend, who have been working on no sleep and lots of caffeine. Kevin Spreng kept the discussion on track and we all got to talk about what we are working on and, in most cases, what we do when we aren't bootstrapping a start-up.
One of the interesting Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-84509293638718912302010-09-08T17:14:00.000-05:002010-09-08T17:14:01.104-05:009 Steps to Diagnosing Lost Search Engine TrafficI really like this article about figuring out why there is traffic loss on your website. JillWhalen Knows her stuff.
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, a Boston SEO Consulting AgencyDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-24106220042708135712010-09-07T04:08:00.002-05:002010-09-07T04:09:33.656-05:00Association of University Technology Managers, Statistics, Over Time
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mso-font-signature:Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-39669366478763643512010-09-05T02:48:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:25:59.036-05:00Lies, Damn Lies and StatisticsTruth, Opinions & Statistics?
A national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in collaboration with the Exploratorium benchmarks how the internet fits into people's habits for gathering news and information about science. Findings include:
Nearly 9 in 10 (87%) online users have used the internet to look up the meaning of a scientific concept, answer a specific science Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-28754509338288812352010-09-05T02:38:00.006-05:002010-09-06T03:24:55.782-05:00The Online Experience TTO’s Should Offer Their Potential Licensees
These are some of the things that we set out to accomplish when we were building CaSTT (Commerce and Search for Technology Transfer)
Simple and Familiar User Experience
TTO's must make it easy for potential licensees to:Search for and find a specific technology
Get detailed product information
Choose an appropriate license type
Enter Customer and payment information
Complete the Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-90323581110598144562010-09-05T02:32:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:26:37.041-05:00How Does Your Tech Transfer Office Treat Potential Licensee’s?Does This Sound Familiar
Currently, when an individual or organization wishes to enter into a non-exclusive license agreement for the use of commercialized intellectual property with a University, a manual process must be undertaken whereby both the potential licensee and employees of the Technology Transfer office can expect to engage in an inefficient, and occasionally arduous, licensing Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-49582589639801587692010-09-05T02:24:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:27:48.314-05:00Where Do Your Technology Descriptions Come FromIt’s Not The Arrow; It’s the Archer
No matter whether you have a home-grown IP Management Database or a commercial application, the problem isn’t the IP Management System. Most technology tracking and management software was never meant to be a central repository for Search Engine Optimized technology marketing content. No prior system was specifically designed to integrate with the vast arrayDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-80448886121534587922010-09-05T02:21:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:28:47.010-05:00The Promise of the Future for Tech Transfer
How to Get There
It is possible to leverage the power of the Web to bring potential licensees, folks that you don’t have contact info for, to the universe of amazing technologies that often lie dormant waiting for someone to discover them. By using ubiquitous web tools, and following proven content-optimization methods, industry can find out about licensable technologies and, in many cases, Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-52041102964242214252010-09-05T02:17:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:29:36.572-05:00Why are Tech Transfer Organizations Using video / Web 2.0 / social media tools
It Gets Worse
The trend that sees tech transfer offices skipping the most important steps in the online-marketing-tool "learning curve," and instead jumping directly to a strategy of using video/Web 2.0/social media tools, without ever learning how the web, search, content optimization and basic internet marketing processes work, means that they are focusing time and resources on steps that wonDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-26791927891635621712010-09-05T02:08:00.001-05:002010-09-06T03:30:27.838-05:00Innovation Lives; Just Not Inside the Tech Transfer Office
Are We Scared or Apathetic?
Most folks from private enterprise would be shocked by the vast array of bureaucracy and manual processes that nearly all tech transfer organizations engage in, which choke the use of new, better and more appropriate ways of marketing innovations.Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-76232951130548656042010-09-05T02:03:00.000-05:002010-09-05T02:03:39.559-05:00Tech Transfer Professionals Can't Be Experts in EverythingWhy Do We Try to be Smarter Than the Inventor?
An obvious problem in Tech Transfer is that many people, working in TTO's all over the world, put much more value on being completely conversant in the minutiae of the technologies they are tasked with marketing and licensing, than they do the ability to actually market them. They get brow beaten by professors and researchers who claim that the Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-84499995047437455382010-09-05T01:58:00.002-05:002010-09-24T00:32:24.703-05:00Why Don't Tech Transfer Offices Know How to Market Their Innovations?Why Don’t People Seem to Care About All the Cool Innovations That We Produce?
In the interaction between potential licensees and tech transfer offices (TTO's), there are critical missing pieces of an ever-expanding puzzle. Creating, managing and displaying useful information about their intellectual property in such a way that it is understandable, easily found, accessible in many formats and Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-25461269772597520582010-09-05T01:55:00.000-05:002010-09-05T01:55:00.232-05:00Problems with Tech Transfer, Online Marketing and Licensing InnovationThis is the first in a series of articles about the issues surrounding online marketing and licensing in Technology Transfer Organizations at Universities, Hospitals, National Laboratories and Government Sponsored Research Facilities
In subsequent articles there will be new content posted regularly, from industry leaders, regarding new ways of solving all of the problems identified here. This Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-46499323849454370872008-11-24T10:42:00.004-06:002008-11-24T10:50:06.663-06:00what a messOK, I am completely aware that I am the exact wrong person to criticize anyone about home-office cleaning, clutter or organization, but...a complete day spent cleaning and organizing, in only one room, is not really ok. It is obsessive-compulsive. I have three offices (let's not talk about my neurosis and other obvious issues or we'll be here all day) and even if I had dog urine covering everyDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-38127077456356426802007-01-29T12:44:00.000-06:002007-01-29T12:46:20.477-06:00Posted by Lee Odden on Jan 29th in Online Marketing, SEO, Business of SEO |Explaining search engine optimization to newbies is something that anyone with sales or account support responsibilities at a search marketing or interactive agency is going to have to get good at. I used to spend a lot of time using the notion of “organic” and the whole “making fertile ground, planting seeds, nurturing, cultivating, watering, air, sun, bear fruit” kind of analogy but it gets oldDarren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-24416888821447683252007-01-29T12:37:00.000-06:002007-01-29T12:38:38.440-06:00Recruitment ToolsTools are one of those things that job-seekers are increasingly frustrated by. I am the former owner of a recruiting website (actually I still own the domain name, www.GetWork.com but the company doesn’t exist anymore) so I have been exposed to hundreds of different recruiting tools. I am now a job-seeker and I have made a point of keeping notes on the recruitment tools that are easy and Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8445905.post-1095965732989656662004-09-23T15:55:00.000-05:002006-11-13T17:11:05.892-06:00White Paper - Connected/Disconnected CampusesWhite Paper
“Connected Campuses” A disconnect between technology’s mission and technology use.
“Connecting” a campus is no longer purely a function of pulling wires, building dedicated computing facilities and buying switches. Today, a truly “connected” campus has less to do with hardware and more to do with how students, staff, faculty, administration, alumni and a university’s broad public Darren "Dag" Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918409229242058716noreply@blogger.com2