This is a very thought provoking book by Eric Ries. It gives some valuable insight on why so many startups fail and a new approach to making sure that your startup is not one of them.

The agile methodology is a well proven model in the development community but utilizing the methodology as a model for operating the business is very unique.

This is a very good read…

A linchpin, as Seth describes it, is somebody in an organization who is indispensable, who cannot be replaced—her role is just far too unique and valuable. And then he goes on to say, well, seriously folks, you need to be one of these people, you really do. To not be one is economic and career suicide.

No surprises there—that’s exactly what one would expect Seth to say. But here’s where it gets interesting.

In his best-known book, Purple Cow, Seth’s message was, “Everyone’s a marketer now.” In All Marketers Are Liars, his message was, “Everyone’s a storyteller now.” In Tribes, his message was, “Everyone’s a leader now.”

And from Linchpin?

“Everyone’s an artist now.”

By Seth’s definition, an artist is not just some person who messes around with paint and brushes, an artist is somebody who does (and I LOVE this term) “emotional work.”

Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for. As a working artist and cartoonist myself, I know exactly what he means. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

The only people who have a hope of becoming linchpins in any organization, who have any hope of changing anything for the better in real terms, are those who have the capacity to do “emotional work” at a high level—to be true artists at whatever they set their minds on doing. The guys who just plod around the office corridors, just turning up for their paycheck…. Well, those guys don’t have a prayer, poor things. The world is just too interesting and competitive now.

And Seth then challenges us, the readers, to become linchpins ourselves. To make the leap. To become artists. To do emotional work, whatever the sacrifice may be. It’s our choice, and it’s our burden. Seth won’t be there to catch us if we fall, but to become the people we need to be eventually, well, we probably wouldn’t want him to, anyway.

Congratulations, Seth. You have penned a real gem of a book here. Rock on.

“Clickability is a perfect complement to our Limelight Video Platform business, where we are seeing strong traction and where revenue has doubled since we acquired it six months ago.  Traditional IT services and software applications are migrating into the cloud for better scale, higher performance, and global reach. With the addition of web content management, Limelight can now help customers capitalize on this important trend by handling the complete web site lifecycle in the cloud, including publishing workflow, website hosting, site acceleration, video publishing, mobile and tablet distribution, and effective monetization utilizing closed-loop marketing” said Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight Networks, Inc.

“This acquisition expands Limelight’s total addressable market in cloud-based services by $1 billion, and the web content management segment is expected by Gartner to grow to $1.7 billion by 2014. Limelight has built a track record of successfully integrating other high-value, high-margin cloud-based services. We look forward to continuing that success with Clickability as they begin to leverage our technical and operational infrastructure,” added Lunsford.

Clickability’s web content management and web marketing tools are complimentary with Limelight’s video platform, site acceleration, mobility, and EyeWonder advertising services. With these services together on a single, global platform, Limelight will be able to deepen its relationships with publishers, enterprises, and agencies by providing them with streamlined workflows, differentiated performance, global scale, and insights that can accelerate time to revenue.  Clickability serves over 60 customers in markets such as media, high tech, financial services, government, and manufacturing, including Amcor,  BMC, Minneapolis Star Tribune, PR Newswire, and Swiss Re.

“With the increasing demand of business buyers and consumers for more content online, the need for publishing and web marketing capabilities to efficiently manage that experience increases. In joining Limelight, we will be able to accelerate our growth and product innovation cycle, as well as have additional resources and global cloud computing capacity to scale with our growing customer base,” said Jeff Freund, CEO, Clickability.

The transaction was completed with a combination of Limelight Networks common stock and cash and is valued at approximately $10 million. Limelight expects Clickability to contribute approximately $4.5 million to $5 million of revenue in the second half of 2011, and to be accretive in 2012.  Catapult Advisors LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Clickability on the transaction.

Clickability’s WMA offers Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketers innovative new capabilities to understand website visitors, increase visitor engagement and better qualify sales leads. Built on the company’s flagship Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Web Content Management platform and dynamic website delivery infrastructure, WMA tightly integrates content delivery with rich visitor profiles that capture visitor information and behavioral data to better serve visitor interests. Unlike Marketing Automation solutions that drive visitors to static landing pages, WMA enables each website visit to deliver content tailored to the visitor’s implicit and explicit interests.

According to Jay Gaines, Research Director at SiriusDecisions, Inc., Business-to-Business marketers have historically struggled to affordably create a website visitor experience that demonstrably improves lead qualification and the sales pipeline.

Gaines commented, “Corporate websites remain one of the most under-leveraged marketing assets relative to their potential for identifying and qualifying genuine sales leads. Without the ability to automate and orchestrate sales motions on the website, and deliver targeted content based on visitor interests and profiles, most B2B websites remain glorified brochures. However, the cost to create a truly dynamic website with content targeted to the visitor in the moment has simply been cost prohibitive for all but the largest companies.”

WMA, using Clickability’s SaaS platform for affordable delivery of dynamic content, changes the game for B2B marketers. A rich set of features allows marketing to drive beyond website lead conversion to lead qualification. These capabilities allow the marketer to define visitor segments, profiles and lead scoring criteria, and automate rich data capture and reporting. The mapping of content to visitor interests and supporting innovative approaches to tailored content provide true sales motion orchestration. Specific features include Visitor Management, Anonymous Visitor Identification, Behavioral Tracking, Progressive Profiling, Targeted Content and Calls to Action, Lead Scoring, Website Visitor Resource Portfolio ^TM, Marketing Funnel and Visitor Reporting as well as integration with marketing and sales force automation tools.

”The future of the corporate website lies in bringing B2B marketers the ability to drive value in the Sales pipeline,” said Jeff Freund, chief executive officer at Clickability. “With WMA, marketers can transform their websites from static brochure-ware into dynamic lead generation engines.”

The company has received Invest NI assistance towards consultancy and marketing support and participation in U.S. trade missions to explore opportunities in the United States for the TotalMobile product which is used to mobilize field force workers, to reduce costs, improve efficiency and minimize carbon foot print.

As a result of this research, also supported by Invest NI through the Growth Accelerator Programme (GAP), Consilium has identified Boston as a strategic location within the US because of the opportunities it has presented both in terms of customers and partners. It already has an office in Atlanta and a partnership with AT&T, a US telecommunications industry leader.

The company, which employs around 90 people in Antrim and has substantial business with public sector bodies in Great Britain, is also working on a number of projects in the New England area.

Colin Reid, Consilium Managing Director said “We’ve decided to open in Boston because of the high level of interest there is in our TotalMobile solution for what is now a fast growing market opportunity in the public  sector.” Over the past year we have been successful in winning a number of contracts both at a state and municipal level within Massachusetts”

“We were also encouraged by the research which indicated that TotalMobile offered a solution not currently available in Massachusetts and surrounding areas.

“Developing what could be a huge market for TotalMobile required a significant presence on-the-ground and led us to invest in a base at the heart of the Boston business district. We’ve also recruited four staff to maximize both sales and partnership opportunities,” he added.

Welcoming Consilium’s decision to focus resources on the U.S. market, Dr Vicky Kell, Invest NI’s Director of Trade, said: “We’ve been working closely with the company on the development of an effective market entry strategy that will enable it to maximize the potential of its TotalMobile product in this huge marketplace.

“As part of this process, Consilium has benefitted from Invest NI support via the Growth Accelerator Programme (GAP) as well as Invest NI supported trade missions and in-market consultancy services which were used to evaluate market requirements, opportunities and business procedures there. This approach has enabled management to develop a strategy based on a visible presence in the market.

“The U.S. remains the biggest international market for technology products and services. Consilium’s success shows that local technology companies can use our extensive program of client-focused services to compete effectively in this demanding but lucrative market,” she added.

Consilium Technologies was established at Antrim in 1985 to develop software solutions for the public sector. The company has attracted venture capital funding from MMC and 3i.

Date Posted: 06 Oct 2009

Serving as a member of AIC’s executive management team, Educate will oversee the AIC Sales organization and be responsible for top-line performance across all business units. Educate will also be responsible for sales leadership development, client relationship management and partner alignment.

“Eric’s strong background and experience in sales and business development will enhance our sales performance and help strengthen our brand and our business,” said Elmer Baldwin, AIC President and CEO. “Eric has successfully sold to some of the most sophisticated and complex organizations in the world, including government, retail and financial institutions. I am confident he has the right mix of skills, attitude and passion to lead our sales organization to the next level.”

Previously with Fair Isaac Corporation (now FICO), the global leader in decision management and business analytics, Educate held positions as Vice President of Client Services, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. During his time with Fair Isaac, Educate led the direct and indirect sales channels, corporate marketing, account management and technical and professional pre-sales support organization, while reinvigorating the company brand and increasing revenue.

Before joining Fair Isaac in 2000, Educate held sales leadership roles at Imation Corporation, EMC Corporation and Silicon Graphics, Inc.

“I’m thrilled with the prospect of helping AIC advance its business and transform the organization into more of a value-driven IT professional services company,” said Eric Educate. “Despite the challenges we face in today’s economic market, there is an opportunity for AIC to further develop its client relationships and improve its sales processes to drive performance in new and existing markets. I look forward to working with the AIC team to increase its share of IT staffing and solutions business.”

Adrian Moore, managing director of CDC Ltd., commented “We are delighted to enter into this mutually beneficial agreement with Tyler. As we diversify our business strategy to provide new products in other global market sectors, particularly the banking and mortgage lending industry, having Tyler take our innovative spatialest® product forward in the public sector tax and appraisal market is a significant and very positive development for our company. ”

“We are thrilled to offer Tyler clients such an innovative tool,” explained Andrew D. Teed, President of Tyler’s Appraisal & Tax Solutions. “The spatialest® product will augment our current market and data analysis products and is yet another solution that supports Tyler’s clear position as the leader in property valuation software.”

Established in 1997, CDC Ltd. specializes in software development and GIS consultancy services for the property appraisal industry. CDC Ltd. developed spatialest® as its flagship product in 2001. A powerful modeling toolset, the product seamlessly integrates GIS and statistical functionality to create a unique approach to property appraisal by generating an estimate of property value using comparable sales information, intelligent property attribute comparison and proximity. More information about CDC Ltd and spatialest® can be found at www.cdc-ni.com

Based in Dallas, Texas, Tyler Technologies is a leading provider of end-to-end information management solutions and services for local governments in the United States. Tyler partners with clients to make local government more accessible to the public, more responsive to needs of citizens, and more efficient. Tyler’s client base includes more than 8,000 local government offices throughout all 50 US states, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. Tyler has been named one of “America’s 200 Best Small Companies” for two consecutive years by Forbes Magazine. More information about Tyler Technologies can be found at www.tylertech.com

Serving as a member of AIC’s executive management team, Educate will oversee the AIC Sales organization and be responsible for top-line performance across all business units. Educate will also be responsible for sales leadership development, client relationship management and partner alignment.

“Eric’s strong background and experience in sales and business development will enhance our sales performance and help strengthen our brand and our business,” said Elmer Baldwin, AIC President and CEO. “Eric has successfully sold to some of the most sophisticated and complex organizations in the world, including government, retail and financial institutions. I am confident he has the right mix of skills, attitude and passion to lead our sales organization to the next level.”

Previously with Fair Isaac Corporation (now FICO), the global leader in decision management and business analytics, Educate held positions as Vice President of Client Services, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. During his time with Fair Isaac, Educate led the direct and indirect sales channels, corporate marketing, account management and technical and professional pre-sales support organization, while reinvigorating the company brand and increasing revenue.

Before joining Fair Isaac in 2000, Educate held sales leadership roles at Imation Corporation, EMC Corporation and Silicon Graphics, Inc.

“I’m thrilled with the prospect of helping AIC advance its business and transform the organization into more of a value-driven IT professional services company,” said Eric Educate. “Despite the challenges we face in today’s economic market, there is an opportunity for AIC to further develop its client relationships and improve its sales processes to drive performance in new and existing markets. I look forward to working with the AIC team to increase its share of IT staffing and solutions business.”

The Commercefx and its Saas application Cfx enjoy a distinct advantage: it has already been in commercial use by IBM’s Sales and Distribution group under the IBM internal name Contracts OnLine (COL) for over two years.  In that time, IBM has added over 14,000 users across approximately 8,000 of its world-wide customers, distributors, and resellers.

This on-demand application has been developed and continually improved over the past three years by a world class team of professionals at IBM’s Watson Research Center guided by the actual users of the application. Significant business value is currently delivered daily to every Cfx user engaged in conducting pre-sales, sales, contract and post contract activities vital for the exchange of goods and services. No other application in this market reduces the friction inherent in doing business for every single party in the transactions. Other applications are geared to only one party.

We are happy to be able to help make on-demand application solutions already tested in real world customer use by IBM available to the general world-wide business market place. The new company will be able to extend this state of the art SAAS application to many new networks of businesses and their trading partners.

Commercefx has been seeded by Turn Eight Group and the Bateman Company.

To date five NI companies have entered the US market with our assistance. This group offers an impressive array of software and application products for GIS enhanced real estate appraisal, social services CRM, mobile workers, data cleansing and verification, and correctional institutions.

“A powerful combination of Northern Ireland’s first class university system and a very strong entrepreneurial spirit, together with an old fashioned ethic of hard work has provided us with a group of technology companies that are a pleasure to work with in tackling the sometimes daunting US market” commented Jon Baer of Threshold Ventures. “We find essentially no difference in the way these companies apply creative technological solutions to the business needs and the native Silicon Valley companies we have worked with so much in the past.”

INI is constantly evaluating new NI companies for their readiness to enter markets in Europe, Asia, South America and the US. We anticipate the number of companies involved in the program to increase over time. Our mission is to help them reach a point where they no longer need assistance and can proceed on their own.