I was catching up on my favorite blogs this morning when I came across a maxim generally attributed to Warren Buffett. "Only do business with people you like, trust and admire." Others give it a slightly different twist but the gist is the same. The timing was great given our deliverable of a post on [...]
The 5 C’s of Business Credit and Trust
My vision for the Descant platform is to help businesses create a powerful credit profile and share it on their own terms. By now, business owners and executives know how vital it is to tell prospective customers a powerful story about their company and its services or products. All too often, credit reviews--whether a customer’s [...]
What makes small businesses seethe?
Yesterday, Wall Street Journal carried a piece about the spin-off company from Dun & Bradstreet--Small Businesses Seethe at Credit Service Using Dun & Bradstreet Name. In addition to realizing I've never used that verb other than in past tense, it was a striking story and quite familiar. With Descant, I set out to "co-create" a [...]
About that metadata
This thing called metadata intrigues me (data about data). So, I have been following all the ins and outs of recent disclosures about how our government tracks metadata. What a relief to come across this tongue-in-cheek piece thanks to another friend in Facebook (I have a wonderfully eclectic group of friends and colleagues in my [...]
Instinctive Drowning Response
Yesterday, Slate published an online piece to which numerous of my Facebook friends have linked. I initially read it wearing only my hat as a Mom and someday grandmother. The essence is that children who are drowning don't behave the way you'd expect given TV and movie depictions. They are mostly silent and not flailing [...]
What does your social data tell a creditor?
For some time now, I have been tracking start-ups using social data to determine creditworthiness. In the past week, I first saw this guest post. Shortly after, a popular Silicon Valley tech news site picked it up and carried it farther here. The author seems to see only upside. For example, By analyzing years of [...]
Your best foot forward
I was catching up on technology news this morning and found a piece about a mobile application for building and sharing resumes. It caters to service industry professionals. This comment from the CEO caught my eye: “We really want to help these candidates put their best foot forward and provide a great experience to find [...]
Think outside the black box
I woke up this morning thinking about black boxes. Odd for a beautiful Sunday morning but interesting timing. This morning's New York Times carried a piece on big data and the implications for privacy and more. Alex Pentland of MIT was quoted at some length which took me to his various musings on the subject. [...]
descant labs 