Month: February 2008

Many readers of this blog have asked me how to add search to a Tumblr powered site like mine.

Lijit has a very cool search engine that I’ve been using since my pre-Tumblr days when I was blogging somewhere else. When I started on Tumblr, I added it immediately. You can find it on my left sidebar.

My Lijit search engine is configured to search across much of my content like my tumblelog, my flickr pix, my friends blogs and more.

The kind folks at Lijit have put together an easy to folllow guide to add Lijit to your Tumblelog.

Give it a try.

Microsoft today announced that they are acquiring Danger. 

Congrats to my friends Andy Rubin, Joe Britt and Matt Hershenson.

Danger’s SideKick is a very cool product & platform. It embraced many of the innovative ideas that Joe & Andy helped create when we worked together at WebTV. Namely, ease of use, beautiful UI, and make the service itself perform a lot of the heavy lifting instead of the client device – plus killer hardware.

I remember when Joe & Andy left to start Danger. It was just down the block from WebTV’s offices and next door to Google. Danger’s first website was a few different animations that kept everyone on the edge of their seat.

Congrats again guys. 

I talked to Mass High Tech last week about non-competes and our efforts at the Alliance for Open Competition to get rid of them. I’m also happy that Michael Greeley from IDG Ventures recently added his name to the list of supporters. The article came out on Friday.

Putting aside the incredibly dorky photo they took of me (can’t believe I agreed to that), EMC has a quote in that article.

It’s becoming an interesting pattern. I talk about getting rid of these non-competes and EMC is always the keeper of the status quo.

I wonder if other big corporations are unwilling to talk about this topic publicly because EMC is always the party being quoted. It’s probably because they are one of the biggest companies in this state.

Patrick Cooley, a spokesman for Hopkinton-based EMC Corp., said “most U.S. employees” sign a noncompete as part of their larger employment agreement.

Well, I have two thoughts in response.

First, just because a lot of companies have this clause doesn’t mean it’s right. There are plenty of laws in our history books that were considered proper in their day that we no longer tolerate.

And second, I wish that someone would push & follow up with EMC to ask why they feel they need this clause when California tech companies have thrived without them.

That’s the question they should answer and discuss.

I do like Nancy Edwards Cronin’s view when she says in the article,

“If these companies are focused too heavily on attrition and heavy-handed control of the intellectual capital leaving, they very well may not be properly encouraging innovation” themselves, Cronin said.

That’s exactly right. In my mind this means you should create the best environment possible and one that fosters innovation. Your employees should work at your company because they want to work there – not because they have to.