LockerDome:  The Facebook of Team Sports” is making strides to become the go-to site for athletes, club or high school sports programs and a growing number of recruiters.  The company started with offering to “launch a sleek, customizable website” in 60 seconds for a club or high school sports program, one that could become a sports network where athletes could “create profiles, upload media, and gain national exposure.”

LockerDome’s now ready for the big leagues. Or so it hopes,” writes Lydia Dishman in “Passion Play: LockerDome Wants To Win By Building A Better Facebook For Athletes” that appeared online on January 5, 2012 at Fast Company.  “The bet we made is that people are more passionate about sports than anything else,” said Gabe Lozano, Co-Founder/CEO of LockerDome.

Dishman writes that, “With revamped back-end architecture and a growing network of members, youth programs, and professional athletes’ pages, LockerDome’s attracted a $750,000 round of angel investing led by Jim McKelvey, a cofounder of Square, and Brian Matthews of Capital Innovators.”  She goes on to quote Lozano, “‘There’s the one company that you can [invest in] and sell for $100 million and then there’s the one company that will bring in ‘Monopoly money’ in the billions.’ Matthews had a hunch that LockerDome could be the latter.”

[click to continue…]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us

{ 0 comments }

Nicholas Kristof posted “The Most Important Job in America” on his blog “On the Ground” at The New York Times on Saturday, January 21, 2012.  The esteemed columnist writes that, “I think education is, in the long run, the most important challenge America faces and the one where we’re in greatest difficulties. If we want to maintain economic competitiveness and chip away at poverty, we simply have to improve high school graduation rates and college attendance — and that in turn will depend on an overhaul of the entire education system, starting with early childhood education.”

Kristof’s blog post introduced his next day’s column:  “How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal.”  The short story is that Neal, an incorrigible elementary school boy who brought his English teacher Mrs. Grady to tears one day, picked up a book in the library, read it, liked it, returned it then was delighted to find another book by the same author.  He found a third book, then a fourth, etc.  Thinking that Neal didn’t want to be seen reading a book, Mildred Grady always placed the new book where he could find it.  Not until he was an adult and saw Mrs. Grady at a high school reunion did she tell him that she drove to a book store 70 miles away to buy books by the same author for him to read. [click to continue…]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us

{ 0 comments }

Diane Garnick Opens Wall St. Firm

January 21, 2012

Print This PostToday while reflecting on strong women who have persevered under dire circumstances, I remembered a woman who was the keynote speaker at the Women in Business: Pearls of Wisdom 2010 Conference at Baruch College—but I forgot her name.  Searching my blog for my post on the event—I was the moderator for the panel [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

Self-Taught or Schooled Engineers?

January 20, 2012

Print This Post“Lookin’ for Hires in All the New Places,” an article by E.B. Boyd in the November 2011 sample issue of Fast Company caught my attention when I was flipping through the pages.  The article describes how instead of seeking and hiring college graduates or Ph.D.s, the option is to hire techies who have [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

The Learning Organization

January 17, 2012

Print This PostTomorrow, I am going to be speaking for a class of second year graduate students at Columbia University’s School of Social Work.  My topic is “The Learning Organization” and I’ll be sharing my experiences as a consultant helping a non-profit take a systems approach and become a learning organization.  My audience of social [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

1968 – A Year I Remember

January 16, 2012

Print This PostWhere were you when you heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed? In the afternoon of April 4, 1968, I was walking with a friend on Telegraph Avenue after leaving the campus of the University of California at Berkeley where I was a student.  It was then that I heard the [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

20-Mile March to Great

January 13, 2012

Print This PostGreat By Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos And Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen (HarperBusiness) is the latest of best-sellers on the topic of organizational excellence.  Other books by Collins include Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t; Built to Last:  Successful Habits of Visionary [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

Fortune Teller

January 11, 2012

Print This Post“The Impact of Technology on Workplace 2020” was the title of the final written assignment by students in my “Organizational Behavior” class that ended in late December.  After receiving Fortune Magazine’s January 16, 2012 edition, I’m not certain I will assign that same topic again since my students can find a lot of [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

Volkswagen Pulls a Plug on Blackberrys

January 9, 2012

Print This PostWhen I see my students’ eyes and hands stuck to their smart phones in class, I often think, “Are you really that important that you can’t wait until the end of this session to check your e-mail to see if your manager has contacted you or you’re needed at work?”  Addiction to e-mail [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →

What Shapes Your Thinking?

January 6, 2012

Print This PostCertain primitives bind their skulls with strips of hide so that their heads grow “on the bias”.  When these wrappings are removed, the first flow of blood is extremely painful.  In our society, many people bind not their heads, but their minds, and as result of this tourniquet on their imagination, their thinking [...]

Share this post:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
Read the full article →