Breakpoint Book

Two Years of Failure – by Jeff Stibel

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A little over two years ago, my assistant and I snuck into the office after hours and painted quotes of famous people’s thoughts about failure, from Winston Churchill (“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”) to Sofia Loren (“Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life”). After my assistant left, I took a Sharpie marker and wrote some of my most humbling failures on the wall.

The wall was met with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, both by employees and by the press who quickly caught wind of it. Over time, employees, partners, even family members came by to add their remarks until the wall was littered with failures. It was received favorably by…

Read the full article where it originally appeared on LinkedIn.

The World’s Report Card: Is B The New A? – by Jeff Stibel

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On Friday we found out that Standard & Poor’s downgraded France’s credit rating. “Debt grade cut from AA+ to AA due to weak economic growth, high unemployment and government spending constraints,” the Telegraph reported. These issues are all too familiar to American readers, many of whom still recall the sting of having our own credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA+.

While the United States has always fancied itself in a league above any individual European country, this news should serve as a reminder that we’re not doing so badly on a relative basis. In fact, compared to the rest of the world’s economies, the United States ranks…

Read the full article on LinkedIn where it originally appeared.

How Credit-Worthy Is America, Inc.? – Excerpt from Harvard Business Review

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Last month, the government was partially shut down for 16 days at a cost of $24 billion and we came within two days of running out of money to meet our debt obligations. The current government funding will run out in January. The American people and the wider world are skeptical that the US will be able to get its fiscal house in order.

But setting aside political brinkmanship, can we objectively analyze how the country is doing financially? Rather than looking at debt figures or dollars spent in a vacuum, we need to also judge the US economy on a relative basis. After all, businesses sit in markets, which means…

Read the full article on Hbr.org where it originally appeared.

Decaf: The Entrepreneur’s Jet Fuel – Excerpt from Novaria Communication

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I’m always intrigued by people who don’t drink coffee. I once had a boss who said he was “naturally caffeinated.” I admired how he could keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

Jeff Stibel is one of those self-professed decafs. Looking at his resume, you can tell that he derives all of his stimulation from life, from people and from the pursuit of success.

Jeff Stibel is an entrepreneur. He builds companies. For the most part, he does it in the classic ways – acquire a division of a larger company, take it private and reinvigorate it. As CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, Jeff is definitely reinvigorating a 176-year-old brand and running a successful business service provider that seems to understand its customers quite well.

Read the full article where it originally appeared on Novaria Communication

Privacy in the Age of Big Data

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There’s a frightening proposition that the mysterious conglomeration called Big Data will nullify our concept privacy. But in reality, the idea of “privacy” has been eroding for a long time within both the digital and physical world.

But is this really a bad thing? Author Jeff Stibel doesn’t think so. “This is a great thing! It’s great for society, it’s great for business, it’s great for consumers,” he says.

Big data is just a massive amount of small data bundled together and sorted into relevant information. And this information provides great power and intelligence, which allows governments to keep us safe and businesses to produce more of what we want. Isn’t that a win-win?

To hear more about Stibel’s take on big data’s deletion of privacy and why it can be a good thing, get your copy of Breakpoint today! 

 

(CC photo by: Purple Phoenix)

What Does Breakpoint Mean?

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With people come networks, and with networks come breakpoints. Whether you’re in social media, business, or just dealing with people, a network forms and eventually hits its limit.

Lucky for you, you can acquaint yourself with these so-called breakpoints before it happens. Author Jeff Stibel reveals that “by learning about [the consistent cycles of networks in biology] you can learn how to build better businesses.”

Quirkily enough, ants are the key to understanding how to deal with a breakpoint. Ants know when they hit their breakpoint. So, instead of producing more and more ants, they take their 10,000 or so ants and become a sophisticated, collective society that sustains itself.

If you want to learn more about the sophistication of ant colonies and how to know a breakpoint when you see one, get your copy of Breakpoint today!

 

(CC photo credit: davecobb)

Surviving Your Company’s Breakpoint

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We all like to reminisce on our young, glory days so let me take you back to junior year in high school:

You probably have some “totally rad”  hair style like a mullet or a rat-tail or the let-me-just-spray-this-full-can-of-hair-spray-in-my-hair-look.  You’re probably known by the ladies for having the best extreme-sprinkler at parties.  You were probably about to take the SAT. Remember the SAT? They had all of those tricky questions that gave a completely inaccurate depiction of your knowledge? Here’s one to make you feel young again:

If all businesses depend on networks and all networks inevitably hit a breakpoint, do all businesses hit a breakpoint?

A) Yes

B) No

Correct answer: A. All businesses hit a breakpoint. No network is invincible. No, not even yours. But fear not! Your breakpoint is not an ultimatum, there are ways to survive your company’s breakpoint.

 

Once a company hits it’s breakpoint (the point in which it fully saturates it’s network and exceeds it’s carrying capacity) it can either collapse or recover. Your breakpoint can be hugely enlightening for your business and you can gain crucial intelligence and stabilize. To learn how you can survive  your company’s breakpoint, get your copy of Breakpoint today! 

 

CC photo credit: Amorette Dve

 

 

Not Just Ants, Thieves Too Target Circuit Wires

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Grand Prix for Good: Ants March With Leaf Billboards in BBDO’s WWF Stunt

Ants that make a statement. Yes, you read that right, leaf-cutter ants are now activists for themselves and for the World Wildlife Fund. Ants protested with leaves reading “Help now!”, “Save Trees” and many other phrases supporting the environment. Look here for the awards won and a video showing the protest itself.

CANNES, France-One of the biggest cheers at Saturday’s award ceremony here at Cannes Lions was reserved for the Grand Prix for Good winner, which amusingly and ingeniously harnessed the power of …

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Can conservation biology save the planet’s biodiversity?

A new, innovative though coming from wildlife perservers and nature lovers is that wildlife needs room to grow and expand. It simply cannot be constrained to isolated parks throughout the world if it is expected to completely flourish. Different people share their views of what wildlife should look like, their experiences in wildlife, and some of the bumps along the road.

A new school of thought argues that wildlife needs land to roam — and that preserving isolated parks isn’t enough

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Not just ants, thieves too target circuit wires

Now we’ve all heard of the “Twanny Crazy Ants” by now, but in case you have not, they are ants that will destroy your technology. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) have contracted a number of complaints about missing copper and auxiliary foils from signal boxes. 5 culprits have been detained and arrested for such actions.

RPF nabs a gang of thieves that would rip off copper and aluminium foils from circuits at railway signals and sell them to scrap dealers, causing disruptions in train services

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Google Ventures and its investing tactics a new formula for venture capital business

A short synopsis of how Google approaches venture capital for business. Instead of taking it as an art form, Googles look at if from a science. The key is to collect data, organize and finally study the information, only the will money begin to emanate.

Here is how the venture capital game used to be played around here:

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Are fungus-farming ants the key to better biofuel?

With climate change and global warming everyone is constantly trying find new ways to fuel our society’s needs. Although ants are not everyone’s favorites, fungus-farming ants may be the next answer in creating biofuel to keep society going. The chemical enzymes used by these ants to breakdown leaves, can also be used to breakdown corn byproducts that will make fuel.

A group of scientists discovered a chemical key that could revitalize corn-based ethanol by allowing it to be made from stalks, leaves, and other bits beside the cob itself. Turns out, the savior of ethanol could be the South American leafcutter ant.

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Goodread’s giveaway: Win an advance copy of Breakpoint!

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breakpoint-bookCEO, entrepreneur and brain scientist Jeff Stibel‘s latest offering, Breakpoint is set to release on 23rd July 2013. But you can get an advance copy for free! Register by 13th June to win your copy!

Breakpoint is the intersection of the brain, technology and business. And if you’re into any of those, or social media, networks of any kind, cloud computing, biological systems and their behavior, or just the internet and how it came to be what it is to the world today, then Breakpoint is just the read for you… and it’s hitting the stands in less than 2 months!!

For Press Inquiries or Speaking Engagements, Contact: Heather Herndon / HHerndon@dandb.com / 310-919-2290