ReadWriteWeb

We all know what the acronym BYOB means, but when it comes to bringing your own mobile devices, there are several implications for enterprise IT managers. Of course, BYOD isn't a new concept: people have been bringing their own PCs and connecting them to corporate networks almost as soon as the PC was invented back in the 1980s. I recall dealing with this issue as a young IT worker, trying to convince my manager that the nascent Compaq (which is now buried inside HP's product lines) wouldn't bring our network to its knees. Fun times.

Organizational leadership theories too often manifest into tedious memoirs peppered with Sun Tzu and Machiavelli quotes. The frequent outcome is subjecting teams to rewriting job priorities as MBOs, KPIs or another pedantic upper management craze. When a cultural management program breeds further disillusionment, it hardly seems worth it. Naturally, when a free copy of Tribal Leadership crossed my desk I was skeptical. That being said, because Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh wrote the introduction and IDEO founder David Kelley is featured, I was willing to give it a read. After all, these two leaders have clearly made strides in defining positive company culture.

Written by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer- Wright, Tribal Leadership is a new perspective on company culture consisting of a series of "stages". This theory requires no immediate organizational overhaul and instead concentrates on a behavioral hierarchy where companies "level up" their individual employees. In short, and refreshingly, the project tools do not change; instead, the way of looking at employees within each Stage becomes the focus.

Gartner Research VP Mike Rollings is calling for an end to Taylorism as a management doctrine. "Humans have become cogs in business machinery pursuing efficiency," he writes. If you think that sounds radical, last year Wall Street Journal editor Allan Murray wrote a piece titled "The End of Management" decrying hierarchy, bureaucracy and encouraging business leaders to embrace change.

But Rollings and Murray are contributing nothing new. It's a rallying cry that has been heard for decades. Enterprise 2.0 and social business proponents like to talk about breaking down silos, flattening organizational structures and making work meaningful again. I know I do. But we're fooling ourselves if we think these are new ideas.

Mark Suster is one of those unique venture capitalists in that he has experience as an entrepreneur prior to joining the VC world (or the "dark side" as he calls it). Twice, in fact. That's why he calls his blog "Both Sides of the Table," because he has literally sat at both sides of the negotiating table. It's this experience as both an entrepreneur and a VC that provides him a fresh perspective on startups and the investment market, so what does Suster think are the most important factors to securing investment? Apparently, it comes down to four M's.

With so many cloud-based productivity and project management suites out there, it's a wonder there aren't more that drill down and focus on one of the most universally common aspects of work: scheduling it. Sure, project management suites like BaseCamp and Zoho Projects feature calendars, tasks lists and collaboration tools, but some companies have relatively complex staff schedules to manage. A Web and mobile app called When I Work launched by ThisCLICKS Interactive earlier this week aims to meet precisely that need.

Consulting firm Spencer Stuart and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) released the results of a study on VC-backed company leadership today. The study includes data from interviews and from a survey of NVCA members on their attitudes regarding the CEOs who run their companies.

Earlier this month, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz brought up an interesting topic surrounding the hiring and firing of executives at startups. While talking with a pair of his friends - one a VC and the other a startup CEO - the CEO asked if he should get rid of an executive as the company grows larger because he lacks experience leading a larger company. As Horowitz explains in his post "The Scale Anticipation Fallacy," he believes passing judgement based on how an executive might perform in the future is ludicrous.

It was announced Tuesday that email management startup SendGrid had raised $5 million in Series A financing from a handful of prominent investors, including Foundry Group, Highway 12 Ventures, Dave McClure, David Cohen and Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg. SendGrid, a graduate of last year's summer TechStars program, launched last fall and raised some seed funding from many of the same investors on its way to sending nearly 1.2 billion emails for its over 4,000 clients.

Every now and then we hear the story of the entrepreneur who left his or her steady job at a large company to follow their dreams and create a startup, but we aren't all as daring and brave to quit steady work, especially in a time of economic uncertainty. If you have the entrepreneurial itch but aren't in a situation that would allow you to sacrifice your day job, there are still ways you can scratch said itch and bring innovation to a "startup" within a larger company.

Last week the New York Historical Society opened the first large-scale exhibit of material from the Grateful Dead Archive. The archive will be managed by the University of Santa Cruz with special access to four decades worth of videotapes, recordings, fan letters and even a note from President Obama. What is surprising about the archives and the band itself, is that this classic group of rock icons is being touted as one of the first businesses to take an active role in viral marketing and brand influence building.