I’m fortunate enough to know a number of remarkably successful people. Regardless of industry or profession, they all share the same perspectives and beliefs.

And they act on those beliefs:

1. Time doesn’t fill me. I fill time.

2. The people around me are the people I chose.

Some of your employees drive you nuts. Some of your customers are obnoxious. Some of your friends are selfish, all-about-me jerks.

You chose them. If the people around you make you unhappy it’s not their fault. It’s your fault. They’re in your professional or personal life because you drew them to you—and you let them remain.

Think about the type of people you want to work with. Think about the types of customers you would enjoy serving. Think about the friends you want to have.

Then change what you do so you can start attracting those people. Hardworking people want to work with hardworking people. Kind people like to associate with kind people. Remarkable employees want to work for remarkable bosses.

3. I have never paid my dues.

Dues aren’t paid, past tense. Dues get paid, each and every day. The only real measure of your value is the tangible contribution you make on a daily basis.

No matter what you’ve done or accomplished in the past, you’re never too good to roll up your sleeves, get dirty, and do the grunt work. No job is ever too menial, no task ever too unskilled or boring.

Remarkably successful people never feel entitled—except to the fruits of their labor.

4. Experience is irrelevant. Accomplishments are everything.

5. Failure is something I accomplish; it doesn’t just happen to me.

6. Volunteers always win.

7. As long as I’m paid well, it’s all good.

8. People who pay me always have the right to tell me what to do.

9. The extra mile is a vast, unpopulated wasteland.

BOCA RATON, FL, APRIL, 2012 – Datamyx, a premier automated marketing information services company, today announced that Dr. Charles W. Stryker and Tom Reddin have been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors effective immediately. Their appointments will support Datamyx’s aggressive plans for expansion into new markets and increasing product offerings across its key verticals. Datamyx is a portfolio company of Halyard Capital.

Dr. Charles W. Stryker has over 20 years of experience assisting firms in the information services industry in all aspects of their strategy and business development as Founder and President of Venture Development Center, Inc. (VDC). During his time with VDC, Dr. Stryker has acted as an advisor to many leaders in the space including Acxiom, Inc., Affinion, IAC (NASDAQ: IACI), IBM (NYSE:IBM), LexisNexis, Nielsen Holdings (NYSE: NLSN), and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). Dr. Stryker has also played an active role in over 80 small to mid-sized firms and currently advises over 25 venture backed companies in the information services space. Recent VDC engagements have included BlueKai, Groupon, Jigsaw, Mint and Quova. Dr. Stryker has also served on the Boards of Directors of many public and private companies, including 24/7 Real Media, Greenfield OnLine, InfoGroup, Intelliquest and MyLife.

Mr. Reddin brings extensive experience fueling growth and building scale into early stage enterprises. As the former President and CEO of LendingTree, he was instrumental in growing the company from a small start-up into a nationally recognized brand and the country’s leader in online lending. Currently, Mr. Reddin runs Red Dog Ventures LLC, a boutique venture capital and advisory firm which focuses on early stage companies in the digital arena. He also sits on the Boards of several public companies, including Valassis Communications Inc. (NYSE: VCI), Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. (NYSE: SKT) and Premier Farnell Plc. (LON: PFL). Earlier in his career, Mr. Reddin spent seventeen years in the consumer packaged goods industry, including five years as the Vice President of Consumer Marketing at Coca-Cola USA.

“With his many years of professional experience advising information services companies, Charlie is an ideal candidate to support our development of new, cutting-edge and technologically-advanced information products that will fuel our customers’ growth and optimize their marketing strategies,” said Ben Waldshan, CEO of Datamyx. “Tom will make a valuable addition to our Board, given his proven track record of taking companies of our size to the next level. His marketing expertise in the online lead generation industry will also help Datamyx advance its products and capabilities into the digital channels.”

“I have known Ben and his team for several years and have been able to observe the growth and diversification of the Datamyx business during that time. I am excited to help accelerate that growth and believe that Datamyx has a compelling market opportunity in front of it,” said Dr. Stryker.

Mr. Reddin added: “Datamyx’s proven products have significant potential not only for direct marketing customers in additional industry verticals, but also for online marketers seeking superior targeting and conversion. I look forward to working with the Datamyx team.”

About Datamyx
Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Datamyx leverages multi-sourced information, custom modeling and analytics tools, as well as its proprietary online technology platform, Intelidata Express, to provide marketers with actionable insights that help maximize return on their marketing investments. Datamyx’s products help optimize its customers’ acquisition, cross-sell, and retention marketing programs in the automotive, banking, credit union, mortgage, insurance, and consumer services verticals. Datamyx is also the only provider of integrated information, technology and analytics solutions derived from all three national credit bureaus as well as other compiled databases.

About Halyard Capital
Halyard Capital (www.halyard.com) is a New York-based private equity firm with over $600 million of capital under management, focused on leveraged buyout and growth equity investment opportunities in technology-enabled information, data analytics and business services companies that serve industry verticals with strong macroeconomic trends, such as Education, Healthcare, Marketing Services and Media. The firm has extensive experience and a proven track record within these sectors, having invested in businesses that include TRANZACT, HCPro, EducationDynamics, Engauge and Presidio Networks.

Best Bars For Business Networking (San Francisco, CA) from Forbes.com

In the market and in the public eye, few industries are more exciting than the tech sphere and – though cities like Austin, New York and Seattle are making a name for themselves in that space – San Francisco and Silicon Valley represent the heart of the space.

Event management company, Schmoozed, made a list several months ago of the best rooftop bars in San Francisco for networking. The list included 620 Jones (620 Jones St.), Medjool (2522 Mission St.), The View (55 4th St.), Sens Restaurant (4 Embarcadero Ctr.) and The Water Bar (399 Embarcadero South).

Our own Forbes travel guide found Boulevard (1 Mission St.) to be a business-networking destination of note. The saloon-style establishment has hosted famous faces, political figures and now tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Entrepreneur.com cited Elixir (3200 16th St.) as the best bar to get business and entrepreneurial gossip from a bartender – Nightclub and Bar magazine’s 2010 “Bartender of the Year,” H. Joseph Ehrmann.

For more cities and information, read the full article here »

Design is shrinking the gap between what a product does and why it exists. Designing is not just about picking the right font or gradient. Stop thinking about design in terms of wire frames or visual style; it is about the product as a whole. Designing is figuring out the purpose of your product and how you orient everything else around it. And that means that everyone within a company plays a role in the design process. And that means that everyone in a company needs to learn design literacy. It’s a hard task. Everyone tells their MBA-wielding friends that they should learn to code: “Anyone can do it,” or “It’s going to be the new literacy.” People think code is the basis of a working product. But what about design? How often are people told that they should “learn to design”?

Excerpt from a great Fast Company Design article by Sahil Lavingia: Pinterest’s Founding Designer Shares His Dead-Simple Design Philosophy