Promotional "Tool"

Perhaps I am being an unwitting tool of a viral marketing campaign. Anyway, Frans Johansson, author of the Medici Effect is promoting his upcoming Medici Summit on March 3-4. As part of this, he has posted his entire book, in pdf form, on the Medici Effect website.

Why am I doing this? Well, in part to encourage my students to save some $$ on books. Which they can then use to take their favorite professor out to lunch. But, I think this is a pretty cool idea. Basically, Frans is betting that no one really wants to read a whole book on their computer screen. So they will read the first few pages, bounce around the pdf file and then buy the book or attend the conference. A good example of Chris Anderson's "Freeconomics," giving away the abundant (bits) and chaging for the scarce (seats at his conference). Guess he isn't too worried about Kindle hackers. Yeah, I wouldn't be either.

Speaking of intersectional speakers, Gifford Pinchot is speaking at Colorado State on February 18 at 7:30 pm on the topic of "Creating Change from Within- Intrapreneuring in Interesting Times. " Mr. Pinchot coined the term "intrapreneur" long ago and has spent his career trying to use business as a force for positive change. Sure to be an event that piques your creative side. I guarantee you will start work the next day with a different view of what your role "at work" is. Feed your inner thunderlizard!

And, speaking of thunderlizards, the original one, Guy Kawaski moderated a great panel on angel investing last week in Palo Alto. Hear the story from the guys that were Google's angels!