Before she built a beauty empire, Bobbi Brown gleaned business instincts from her Cadillac-selling grandfather.

Bobbi Brown may be the most famous entrepreneur in her family, but she wasn't the first. Decades before she launched her cosmetics empire in 1991, she spent weekends helping her grandfather Sam Shatten at his car dealership. His favorite lesson: Good things come to those who keep their eyes peeled.

Every business decision I ever made I learned from my grandfather Papa Sam. He moved here from Russia when he was a boy. He worked his way up selling newspapers and ladies' handbags, and eventually, he became Cadillac Sam, one of the biggest car dealers in Chicago. When you come here from another country by yourself, you're naturally entrepreneurial. You're used to figuring it out as you go.

There was one story that always stayed with me. One day, a guy who looked like he lived on the street came into the dealership carrying a big shopping bag. None of Papa Sam's sales guys would go talk to him. But Papa put his arm around the guy and said, "How ya doing, boss?" Turns out the shopping bag was full of cash. The guy bought two cars. My grandfather taught me how important it is to have your eyes open, because you never know what's going to come your way.

When I first proposed my lipsticks to Bergdorf Goodman, they said yes and then changed their minds. I had been working with Saks Fifth Avenue on a catalog shoot. I told Bergdorf's, "It's OK that you're not taking me, because Saks is." They said, "Let me call you back." That's how I launched at Bergdorf's.

It's not bluffing. It's thinking on your feet, and it's helped me a million times. One time, I was doing makeup for the Rachel Roy fashion show, and Rachel said she wanted lipstick the color of Hershey's Kisses and espresso. But when I asked my assistant for my lip palette, she whispered, "I forgot to pack it." I said, "OK, hand me the eye shadow and some lip balm." After the show, Rachel said, "I couldn't have imagined it better." Vogue wrote about it. Now, I have a lipstick named Mahogany, all because I didn't panic.

College major: Theatrical makeup
Total start-up funding: $5,000
Products sold per day worldwide: 60,000

A quick reader’s guide: Release It!, by Michael T. Nygard

There are days when I believe that anyone can develop a web app. But even when I’m willing to go that far, I’m never prepared to say that anyone can deploy reliable software. There are questions of scaling, user-generated errors and a plenty of problems waiting whenever an application has to function in the real world. Release It! is a practical guide to making sure that your software can actually survive in the real world, though, and it will leave you properly paranoid about how you write your applications in the future.

Nygard takes a ground up approach, teaching readers how to design applications to avoid key issues in the first place. The chapters are laid out with case studies of specific errors, paired with solutions. However, don’t expect this book to do the work for you. There are minimal code snippets included and those are only meant as examples.

Development: Forth Warrior
According to the readme, Forth Warrior is “a game of programming, stabbing and low cunning.” It doubles as a fun way to practice using your knowledge of Forth. There are a few similar games out there for other languages, too.

Funding: Think your investors are being difficult? Read this.
The mind of an investor is a mysterious place, but the better you can understand it, the more likely that you can recognize when your interests and an investor’s are very different. After all, investors and entrepreneurs can have very different goals for the same business.

Operations: Decoding the deadpool: How to tell when a startup has failed
Startups grow quickly, but they can also fail quickly. It’s hard to tell just when a startup is done, which in turn makes it easier for accelerators, investors and other folks with stakes in different startups to paint rosier pictures of their own success.

Marketing: The app stores are getting full: Only 2 percent of iPhone top publishers in U.S. are newcomers, 3 percent on Google Play
You can’t just build a mobile app and slap it into the appropriate app store — even if once, very long ago, that was enough to get you a few purchases, it’s not nearly enough now. There is major competition that you have to be aware of and that you must address as you’re planning your marketing efforts.

Beyond Tech: How (and why) to intentionally set yourself up for failure
We learn much more from failures than from successes. Provided you can create a safe environment in which to fail, setting yourself up so that you can’t easily succeed — at least immediately — guarantees that lessons will stick with you.

Our most popular link this week: Checking your security isn’t a once-in-a-while thing

Earlier this week, a security research company released a report providing technical documentation and near-certain proof that China is engaging in cyber-espionage activities against the US.  While that’s not exactly a new discovery, it provided a much deeper degree of public information used in presenting its findings.

On Public Radio International’s program, The World UMBC’s Rick Forno discussed the report’s implications.

Forno says he was on the program to discuss American cybersecurity readiness in light of the heightened media interest in cybersecurity following the report’s release.

The fact that the networks and our critical infrastructure systems are still vulnerable after years of analysis and public warnings about their security posture said Forno, “is still very disturbing.”

“Those systems that we view as critical national infrastructures [such as those controlling power and water distribution] he said, “should be separated from the public internet.” But he adds, “When rubber meets the road [in terms of American cybersecurity] I don’t see a lot of improvements.”

The U.S.,” he said, “has the most vulnerable cybersecurity infrastructure on the planet.”

Listen to the interview 

Beginning this month, Catonsville’s David Mikow Art Gallery will host the first in-person exhibition of the online publication, The Light Ekphrastic, featuring collaborative works of literature, poetry and fine art by UMBC faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Join the Ekphrastic team this Friday, February 22 for a special opening event from 5-7 p.m., with informal discussion taking place at 6 p.m.

Exhibiting writers and artists from the UMBC community include:
Sara Abbott (former staff), Richard Byrne ’86, English (UMBC Magazine), Dayna Carpenter (OIA), Marlayna Demond ’11, visual arts (Creative Services), Vin Grabill (Visual Arts), Katie Heater ’09, visual arts (current MFA student), Michelle Jordan ’93, visual arts (Creative Services), Chris Justice (current Ph.D. student), Dina Karkar (Creative Services), Jim Lord ’99, visual arts (Creative Services), Meredith Purvis (OIA), Jackie Regales ’00, American studies, and others.

Published since November 2009 and edited by Jenny O’Grady, director of alumni and development communications, The Light Ekphrastic is a quarterly online journal dedicated to the creation of new written and visual artworks through collaboration between artists. The evening will include an informal discussion with artist/writer pairs about their ekphrastic processes — the methods by which they produce new works inspired by the work of their creative partners.

The David Mikow Gallery is located at 1002 Vineyard Hill Road, Catonsville, MD 21228. Find more information about the David Mikow Art Gallery, operated by Carolyn Forestiere, political science, at its website, or via its feature in the Winter 2013 edition of UMBC Magazine.

Light refreshments will be served.