Breakpoint Book

Growing Your Business Via a Strong Network – Stibel on “The Business Journals”

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“To grow your business, grow your network,” Jeff Stibel said in his July 30, 2015 post for “The Business Journals.”

In this article, Stibel talks about attracting customers and increasing revenue by having a strong network. He brings it back to the ant colony that he references in “Breakpoint,” noting that an ant colony knows it’s the strength of the network that matters, not the size.

To learn more about building a strong network in order to help grow a business, read Stibel’s full post here.

Photo Credit: The Business Journals, violetkaipa

Taking Stock of the Performance of Social Networks

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Jeff Stibel discusses why we are looking at social media networks the wrong way. As a society we put a lot of pressure on networks to succeed, and while they do grow tremendously in the beginning, they seem to all eventually collapse. Read more about how we can save our networks and their stocks by shifting from “growth to usability.” Read the full article on LinkedIn where it originally appeared to learn more how we can save our networks and their stocks by shifting from “growth to usability.” Image credit: MKHMarketing / Flickr

Business, Biology, and Technology: “The truth about Competitive Advantage”

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In case you haven’t already heard, Breakpoint, by Jeff Stibel is being cited as a must read for business people. The book has made it into the Top 20: “What Corporate America is Reading” list compiled by Brian Solis and is rapidly gaining interest amongst America’s brightest leaders. Stibel is the Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. and Chairman of BrainGate, as well as on the boards for University of Southern California, Brown, and Tufts University.

In addition to Breakpoint, Mr. Stibel has published a number of books and academic articles related to business, economics and other topics, such as neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Business books play an integral role in the evolution of business development, strategic thinking, corporate culture and the overall way that leaders mature, grow and adapt to our ever-progressing society.

The book is distinct from other influential books because it looks at business through a different lens than the rest. Rather than focusing primarily on corporate strategies and other traditional business topics Breakpoint examines correlation between biological systems and technology.

Within the complex world of biology, bigger is rarely better in the long run, and the deadliest creatures are usually not the large or aggressive ones like the lion but the small, out-of-sight ones like viruses and bacteria. Mr. Stibel compares this biological phenomenon to the internet and he takes the position that it is the quality of a network that is important for survival, not the size, and all networks—the human brain, Facebook, Google, even the internet itself—eventually reach a breakpoint and collapse.

The corporate and technological success equation is Quality ≠ Size

Exceptional companies are using their understanding of the internet’s brain-like abilities to create a competitive advantage by building more effective websites, using cloud computing, engaging social media, monetizing effectively, and leveraging a collective consciousness.

The mantra that Jeff has established around the Malibu office is “Work Hard, Play Hard” and because of this focus on quality the company has been able to achieve amazing things. From the company culture to innovative product development, Mr. Stibel truly does lead by example as he encourages both internal and external company initiatives that encourage small business and community growth.

Amidst all the peripheral noise of traditional business books Mr. Stibel has written a truly impactful piece that shows the reader where biology, technology, and business intersect. In a consumer-driven market where corporate responsibility matters and corporate cultures are thriving, it is important to remember that quality will always trump size in the long run.

 

Photo Credit: Mo Riza, Flickr

 

How to Cope with What the Internet Does to Your Brain – by Jeff Stibel

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Would it surprise you to learn that our brains have been shrinking for the last 20,000 years? It’s true. In a major reversal from the two million years before that, our brains have actually been growing smaller. We’ve lost about a baseball sized amount of matter in a brain that’s not any bigger than a football. One reason for that is our bodies are smaller as well (except for maybe Shaq), but that only accounts for a small amount of the loss.

Read the full article on LinkedIn where it originally appeared.

The Most Important Decision You Need To Make When Building A Network – Interview with Jeff Stibel

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Lane Wood was about to turn 30, and he was in a full-on identity crisis. He had recently left charity: water where he worked directly with the founder, Scott Harrison, and A-list celebrities to bring clean drinking water across the planet.

It had been an amazing, life-changing experience; especially for a former pastor from rural Oklahoma.

However, on a winter night in 2011 at a Union Square cafe in New York City, he confided in a close friend and nervously wondered, “What happens when my email doesn’t end in charitywater.org? Have I built real relationships or have I just increased my social media follower number?”

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Which relationships do we deepen, and which ones do we let fizzle or never form?

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For Jeff Stibel, a 40-year-old brain scientist, the Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., and the author of Breakpoint, the answer lies in other types of networks that share similar properties.

In Jeff’s words, “The goods news is that we can look to biology and biological networks such as ants, bees, and even termites to tell us what happens in networks as a whole. We can see that there are very consistent, predictable cycles. Those cycles drive not just biological networks but business networks, economic networks, and social networks.”

Read the whole article on Forbes where it originally appeared.

The Logic Behind Facebook’s Recent Moves – By Jeff Stibel

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Recently, two Princeton graduate students released a study predicting the demise of Facebook by 2017, using concepts from epidemiology. No quicker had the media reported the results of the study than numerous rebuttals were posted. A few Facebook data scientists had great fun by posting their analyses showing that Princeton University would run out of students by 2021 and that the Earth would run out of air by 2060.

Read the whole article where is originally appeared.

Is Twitter in Trouble? – By Jeff Stibel

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Last week, Twitter’s stock took a big tumble after it released its first quarterly earnings report. The report showed that revenue is up (and better than expected), but user growth is slowing and engagement is down. Declining user growth is not an issue in itself, and actually can be a great thing for a network (in fact, I wrote a whole book on this topic). Lack of engagement, on the other hand, is something different.

Read the whole article where it originally appeared.

Image Credit:Matt Hamm, Flickr

Google Is Already in Our Nests – By Jeff Stibel

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Last month, Google bought Nest Labs, a company that makes smart home thermostats and smoke detectors. While a few applauded the acquisition (mostly geeks and tech investors), much of the reporting centered on privacy fears and predictions of doomsday advertising scenarios. It’s just the latest story exploiting our collective fear of the growing “internet of things” and distrust of the companies who leverage it.

Read the whole article where it originally appeared.

Photo Credit:plantronicsgermany, Flickr

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