I remember being in business school. One of the modules was business planning whereby we had to write a business plan for a fictitious company. Of course, we all produced a cliched 70 page behemoth of a document.

As you have probably heard by now Rupert Murdoch is looking to charge search engines for access to News Corp content online. It’s been in the news that News Corp and Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) are looking to ink an exclusive deal. Most notability, News Corp’s content will be de-listed from Google.

You only need sales people for bad products. It’s official, you’ve read it on this blog. Sales people are obsolete for good products. Of course, by good I mean remarkable.

The importance of mental preparation is probably the most under-emphasized element of entrepreneurship. By definition, as an entrepreneur you must become more motivated than the typical employee.

Why do people shoot down your ideas? Why do they tell you that they think you are stupid for starting your own business? After all, they are not experts.

Ok, I know what you are telling yourself. “This guy has sold out.” “He’s turned to the dark side.” “The VCs have secretly taken over the blog!!!”

When you think about e-book readers you think about Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader. However there is a cooler cat in town. A new start-up is mixing it up with the big boys and holding their own. The Cool-er e-reader is a product that challenges the “big tw0″ of the e-reader world.

I have just read an article on Neuromarketing which stems from Martin Lindstrom’s book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. In summary, Lindstrom uses Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Steady-state Typography (SST) to look at what the brain is doing when exposed to various marketing and advertising stimuli.

Imagine this, you have just learned the rules of poker and you are sitting at your first table. Do you think it would be wise to bet on every hand?

Traditionally, the main problem with focus groups is that they promote the consensus view. As a direct result, you get an aggregate insight. This is actually a severe drawback in the 21st century.