Kate Lawrence says, “Most resolutions revolve around physical self-improvement—diet, exercise, and the like. Why not take a breath and tend to your digital health as well? Here are some ways to make your online life a little more manageable, so you can take better care of your colleagues, customers, and friends. Use A Password Manager Every time there’s a security breach we are warned to choose new, unique passwords for affected apps and websites. If you’re not gifted with an eidetic memory, good luck remembering them all. Password managers can store passwords for your email, banking... [...]

Cate Lawrence says, “There are dozens if not hundreds of companies that promise to help you manage social media. One of those companies, Buffer, has managed to stand out from the pack for an unusual reason: its work practices and culture. When I mentioned to a few people that I’d be interviewing Joel Gascoigne, Buffer’s founder and CEO, their responses varied. Some mentioned the product—”Oh, I use that all the time”—while others mentioned their famous workplace transparency—”Did you know they release their salaries online?” But my favorite was this one:... [...]

Christopher Lochhead says, “In mid-December, Atlassian pulled off a successful tech IPO and is now enjoying a $5.5 billion market capitalization. The software company founded by Australian entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar has become Silicon Valley’s hot company of the moment. Some are speculating that their success is a sign of good things in 2016 for other young, hot tech companies with IPO dreams. This raises a question, though: What makes one company hot and another, well, not? By any measure, it appears that Atlassian has built great products, a solid business model... [...]

Adam Honig says, “If you’re creating and selling a product to businesses, having a high profile reference customer can make or break your go-to-market efforts. My first company, middleware software company Open Environment, grew from zero to $30M in annual sales in four years, went public and was ultimately sold to a larger software company with expansion plans. So how did we convince key decision makers at so many companies to purchase mission-critical, middleware software from a new start up? It’s surprisingly simple: We had a great customer reference in Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan... [...]

Jonathan Frangakis says, “Ad blocking isn’t the end of the world, it’s actually a new beginning—and smart app developers are poised to reap the benefits. Developers, rightly, pour resources into creating great experiences in their apps. But when it comes to advertisements, there’s a fundamental problem with the underpinning business model here. Invasive and ill-timed ads have become one of the most hated facets of the modern web. So disliked, and yet so deep rooted, it could even jeopardize the future of mobile app creation—as well as the free web as we know it. But for savvy developers... [...]

ReadWrite team says, “Most discussions of SDN stop at the control and data planes. However, abstraction and programmability of the management layer of the network is critical to enable cloud orchestration applications to manage, end-to-end, all the infrastructure elements of the cloud—compute, storage, and network—for more rapid application delivery. Rich Representation State Transfer (REST) and XML APIs provide access and programmability for Brocade networking equipment operating within cloud environments. In particular, the Network Operating System for the Brocade VDX Switches provides... [...]

ReadWrite team says, “Many network operators expect the near-term benefits of software-defined networking, or SDN, to be operational in nature: greater management efficiency, fewer interoperability challenges, possible reductions in operational expenses. However, the original promise of SDN—faster, custom innovation through programmability—provides new opportunities for rapid service innovation and monetization for organizations with the resources and processes in place to develop and deploy them. Not surprisingly, SDN has seen early adoption in service providers and large enterprises... [...]

Scott Amyx says, “The tech industry is no stranger to change, but the data derived from the IoT is taking disruption to a new level—sforzando. At IBM’s Insight conference last month, Bob Picciano, senior vice president of IBM Analytics, talked about the rise of the “cognitive business”, or an enterprise that engages with analytics to improve its customer relations, business processes, and decision-making capabilities. There are dueling predictions over how ubiquitous the Internet of Things will be, but most indicate that the marketplace will host between 50 and 75 billion connected... [...]

Mark Brooks says, “Neuro-marketing may sound the latest in science fiction mind control, but research has increasingly shown that the human brain responds to particular stimuli in very distinct ways that may surprise you. For the budding startup business looking to connect with customers, knowing how to tap innate responses can make all the difference. Wearables makers should also take note: As more companies seek to study the phenomenon, wearables will become an important tool in gathering the necessary data to inspire the desired reaction from a target audience. I spoke with author and neuro-marketing... [...]

Scott Gerber says, “Recently, Uber and other companies that provide on-demand services have been under the regulatory microscope. Despite these setbacks, it’s still a great industry to get into, full of potential advantages for a would-be entrepreneur. That said, there are a few best practices that you should follow so that the problems Uber and Handy are facing don’t become your problems, too. To set you down the right path, I asked nine founders from YEC what entrepreneurs should consider before starting up in this space. Set Up Workers As Employees, Not Independent Contractors It... [...]