Best thing i ever bought. Thank you cards
Posted on | January 30, 2012 | No Comments
This morning I’ve been writing thank-you cards. One of the best business purchases I’ve ever made (Thanks Nicole!!) was a whole buttload of blank 360|Conferences thank you cards.
Not only do we mail them after each conference to speakers and sponsors, but we use them through out the year. Right now I’m writing thank you’s for 360|MacDev speakers for a nice surprise I have for them. I’m also writing “I’m Sorry” cards for some mistakes in billing from 360|iDev to certain speakers. I’ve also sent them out when special thanks is required and an email just isn’t the right mode. I’m not some “paper is dying, we have to save it!” luddite, but there is something meaningful in the process of writing someone a note on paper and mailing it.
The value of a hand written thank you is beyond measure. Yeah it’s time consuming, and your hand cramps up like a lobster claw, but the feeling you get afterward is worth it ten-fold. People are constantly amazed and appreciative of the gesture of the card, and each time someone says, “thank you for the card”, it validates the reason we bought and send the cards. We do a lot to try and thank those who help us, but I think the most meaningful thing we do is the cards.
If your business isn’t thanking your supporters in a meaningful and truly heartfelt way, you’re doing it wrong. Spend the money and the time to show your appreciation. Don’t make hollow simple gestures like “thanks to all our sponsors” tweets, sit down, write a note, sign your name, lick an envelope. All those things mean a lot to people.
Tags: Business > community > Conferences > Writing
Appsterdam
Posted on | January 19, 2012 | 2 Comments
I spent most of last week in Amsterdam. Now that’s a cool place. You should visit if you haven’t.
I love flying, but man flying to Europe is an exercise in endurance. It’s a physically draining experience. Luckily (maybe) you can sleep on the flight over because you fly at night. I extra lucked out in that there was no one in the middle seat, so the guy at the window and I had space to stretch, store our crap etc. That was nice and made the flight really tolerable.
I like Frontier, and I like Southwest. Flying over seas you’re a bit limited. I choose to fly British Airways. They’re pleasant enough. Why they don’t remove 1 maybe 2 aisles and re-distribute that space to each row in steerage I can’t understand. It’s not like it was a cheap flight, and those people who pay to fly their kids first class must more than make up for the loss of revenue in 1-2 rows of steerage.
Anyhow. Appsterdam.
I had never been to the Netherlands, it’s a cool place. Very English friendly, which as a tourist and business person are huge. They may start a conversation or greeting in Dutch, but will quickly switch to damn good english for you when it’s clear Dutch ain’t your thing. The Appsterdam team holds weekly drink ups for folks to hang out and meet each other. Monthly Weekly lunch meet ups with speakers from all over on a number of topics. One thing they want to make clear, it’s not an Apple group. Android, RIM, Windows Phone, iOS, etc all are welcome. It’s about the apps, not the platform. They even do family weekends to help spouses and kids feel connected to the community. Something I think is a great idea and will likely help lower barriers to participation/relocation.
I stayed with my friends Mike and Judy who are the architects of Appsterdam, a movement to encourage and support app makers. Ideally those makers move to Appsterdam (Amsterdam’s nerd name) and enjoy the growing community there.
Mike and Judy have a Canal house apartment.. It’s bad ass. You walk out the front door, cross a little street, and WATER. Amsterdam is everything i loved about Venice Italy, minus the smell and the Italians. No offense guys but Italians aren’t a friendly group, and not speaking english isn’t an accomplishment. Houses range in size like anywhere, to smaller studios to multi story town home style affairs. i guess it’s a dutch thing but they rarely close their windows. It was cool to see how folks live while walking the city.
The city is frankly what I’d want a city anywhere to be. The government undertakes studies to decide on courses of action, vs. simply throwing out a law to “solve” some issue. It’s nice to see a government run by people who don’t knee jerk, but take the time to actually examine an issue and see what makes sense.
Biking is huge. Like crazy huge. Denver is very proud of it’s bike friendliness, but compared to Amsterdam we hate bikes. There are as many bikes in Amsterdam as there are people (14 million according to a magazine i read). Most roads have a dedicated bike line. Heck most roads have 1 lane for cars, one for bikes. Pedestrians watch the fuck out. Amsterdam’ers bike everywhere, they even have bike freeways to get from city to city. Try getting from Boulder to Denver. It’s doable, but not likely pleasant.
My only complaint about the bikes is that they’re everywhere. The Dtuch see bikes as tools and commodities so most are pieces of shit that are slowly rusting away beneath their rider. If there isn’t a bike rack (there are woefully few) bikes are just locked to anything or nothing. Sitting, laying whatever, bikes are everywhere, one hotel we looked at for an event, had a huge pile of bikes out front, not pretty. Forget where you put yours? buy a new one. Apparently since bike theft is fairly common, the dutch don’t invest much in their bikes since it’ll be stolen eventually. While I know the feeling (September is Steal John’s Bike month, 2011 was the second year of this seemingly annual tradition), I can’t fathom my daily rider being a wobbly, clunky, rusted POS.
It’s funny, here a bell ringing is to let pedestrians know a bike is coming. There a bell ringing is the only warning you’re gonna get that you’re about to be hit by a bike.
Nicole and I have thrown around the idea of taking time to live abroad and I still hope that one day we can do it. Amsterdam is now very high on that list. It’s not as tropical as the spanish speaking countries we visit (nicole speaks pretty good spanish, and I understand enough), but it’s very similar to Denver weather wise, except…
Standing water.
The weather is much like Denver with one exception. Humidity. During my visit the average temp was mid 40s ish. Not terrible, very Denver like for Winter. I packed accordingly. However 40 doesn’t feel like 40 when there’s 93% humidity. Yeah 93%! 7% away from swimming. So that kinda sucked, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
So all that said, I had a blast in Amsterdam and hope to be back. I’m not sure if moving is in the cards anytime soon, but the bug is definitely in there and it’s been energized by being abroad again.
Tags: Business > community > Conferences > Technology > Work
2011 in review
Posted on | January 2, 2012 | 2 Comments
I was traveling by car from Denver to Vancouver WA during the holidays and didn’t get much laptop time. A blessing and a curse for sure :) but wanted to take a few minutes to put down my thoughts on the year that just ended.
It’s been a roller coaster for sure, in both good and bad ways.
I had to cancel (sort of) my first event. 360|MacDev 2011 had to be pushed out until this year (in fact it’s next month, you should check it out and spread the word) because another event scheduled themselves right on top of me, and while their event isn’t known to be very good or in the same realm as mine, they had way more marketing money, so I didn’t want to compete. In the end it was probably a good thing, since I could focus on 360|Flex 2011, which for the second time ever, sold out.
For 2011 we decided to move from our 2x a year schedule to a annual event model. I loved doing two events a year for the various communities, but as more me-too confs started popping up it got harder and harder, plus the community it turns out doesn’t have 2 events a year in them for the most part. Many treated the 2/year model as 1, just picking one to attend and skipping the other. Plus as Flex matured there wasn’t much new stuff happening every 6 months. Adobe released major versions closer to yearly, so the odd event wasn’t a news event. It definitely helps to have big announcements at events.
360|Flex has only sold out one other time that I recall, the very first one in 2007 at Ebay. Since then we’ve gotten very close, but never hit it. This past year we sold out, and over sold by 22. It’s typical in conferences to have a no-show rate close to 15%. the last 2 360|Flex’s had rates closer to 3% which is incredible.
Towards the end of 2011 Adobe thru some serious monkey wrenches my way. They made some very big business decisions, that coupled with their truly terrible PR efforts made it seem like the world was ending for the Flash/Flex community. In the end after a whole lot of damage control, it’s clear the future is still bright, if not a little less shiny for Flex. At first my heart sank, coming out of a hugely successful 360|Flex 2011 and lots of excitement for 2012, to “OH no, Flex is dead” was a huge bummer. After talking to Adobe, and making sure I was on the same page tho, I’m very excited for 360|Flex 2012 and what the future holds.
360|iDev 2011 also sold out. It went to an annual model and sold out more than 50 over what we planned. That of course was a problem given our venue’s size, but the event was still a huge success. 360|iDev has never sold out before that, so that was a huge milestone for us! The iOS community is incredible! I can’t wait for 360|iDev 2012 and some other stuff that is still in the planning phases.
2011 taught me that too many businesses are out for theirs, fuck you. They’ll act nice, they’ll smile, but in the end they want their money and to hell with you. That’s counter to how I run my business so it pains me to have to act like that, but 2011 showed me that in the end, no one is interested in my business succeeding but me. That sucks. Business (to me) should help each other when they can. It’s not a zero sum game despite what they think. Screw you pay me, is a terrible business motto that leads to bad things, and everyone loses.
Ignite Denver had an interesting year. We ended 2011 with a GABF themed event. Much like communism and other -ism’s GABF/Free beer seemed like a great idea on paper. By intermission much of the beer was gone, and the crowd was very drunk. That kinda sucked and the second half presenters really had to work to be heard and i hate seeing that. Overall everyone had a blast, but from an organizational standpoint it was a night mare. Ignite Denver in 2012 is up in the air.
Never one to bitch about being too busy, i just keep finding new things to do. Along with my friends Jake and Rich, I opened a coworking space. Denver has no shortage of coworking spaces, but few are aimed at actual community and none were aimed at creatives alone. We don’t want realtors, lawyers, telemarketers, or acupuncturists at Uncubed. We want developers, designers, startup’ers, etc. Our goal is to make Uncubed the Tech hub of Denver. Sadly until now there really wasn’t one. Tech meet ups had to suffer at Forest Room 5 and their shitty meeting space, or at other bars that were happy to have them and their money but provided little else, least of all internet! Denver needs and deserves a space that the tech community can rely on and hang out at, that’s Uncubed. Whether a member of coworking or not, techies are welcome. Meetups are welcome. let’s Hack!
It’s been a long time since I had an office to go to, and it’s been nice having a place to show up each morning and hang out with other people doing awesome things. Conversations on coding, business practice, etc break out, and it’s awesome. We’ve even entered an autonomous vehicle competition with some of our members, so Team Uncubed will be rocking a robot soon.
Travel wise 2011 was a slow year. Since we home based the conferences in Denver and went to an annual model we didn’t have excuses to travel. So long status with Frontier. I definitely miss traveling, I love Denver but love seeing new places too. 2012 is shaping up to be a heavy travel year, which is cool, and stressful, LOL.
My sort of personal motto is don’t talk about how busy you are, be busy.
Personally 2011 was a good year, it marked one more year with my awesome wife Nicole. It marked the first full year with our new puppies Paco and Winston and it showed me that while things are tough, there’s good to be seen and had everywhere. It also more than any other year saw me thinking more about mortality. Steve Jobs passing was a huge hit for me. Not because he was an idol of mine, all evidence seems to point to his being a complete dick head. BUT he was a visionary and we need those, we have too few, and they’re getting fewer. I thought about my legacy should I die sooner than I plan, and the legacy of those around me in technology and business. Not a cheery thing to think about but needed.
2011 was shitty for more folks than it should have been and that’s never good. Especially since in most cases it wasn’t their faults. I’m glad to see the economy is starting to turn around, even if only a little.
Lastly I guess 2011 was great in that I spent as much time as i could with friends and family. Whether out camping or just enjoying Denver’s warmer months on rooftop decks and bars enjoying good beer. I’m sure there’s a lot of things that happened this year that I’ve overlooked, but hopefully I caught the important ones.
Thanks to all my friends and family for 2011 and here’s to making 2012 kick ass like Chuck Norris.
Tags: 360Flex > Business > community > Conferences > Ignite Denver > Technology > Work
The Kindle Fire is a great second tablet
Posted on | December 9, 2011 | 3 Comments
My friend Jeffry sent me a Kindle Fire last week. He’s awesome! You should check out his Flex components if you’re a flex/AIR developer looking for some awesome turn key components. Ok that said, he sent me a kindle Fire.
I’ve been a Kindle owner since the K2 came out, and I paid almost $400 for it. I dropped it one morning and busted the screen, and bought a K3 for 1/3 the price of my K2, and I love it. It’s light, easy to use and great at the one thing it does, display words on a readable screen.
Enter the Kindle Fire.
I’ve been using the Fire since I got it, and like it, mostly. We’ve drafted it into service at Uncubed as a digital lending library, loading up PragProg books and the Magazine on it for any member that wants to check it out.
But I’ve been using it as well for various things.
Reading.
I’m very much anti reading on backlit screens. I’ve tried it on the iPad and end up staring at my eyeballs and falling asleep. Same with my Xoom, even when both had screen covers to make them less mirror-like. I tried on my iPhone, nope, same issue.
The screen on the Fire is definitely shiny but the default look of the Book reading app is a pinkish tinted background with black text (I dunno if it’s me, but the text seems to change color randomly in places, which helps focus my eyes). That color/contrast actually is quite readable. I’ve been using the Fire to read at night or at my desk. Both use cases work great.
The page turning is a bit sensitive, I’ve accidentally changed pages a few times, the lightest touch in the wrong place and it’s a new page. That’s something you get used to though.
Where it doesn’t work is the gym. The Fire is heavy. I don’t know if there’s lead shot in there somewhere or what, but it weighs A LOT. so the gym is out, I don’t want my reader to be my resistance training.
Amazon Experience.
From the moment the rumors started to fly about a Kindle Tablet, I said they were the only ones who had a snowballs chance to compete (maybe not beat, maybe, who knows) with Apple. They have the closed system with lots of lock in. My books were immediate available on the fire, I just had to re-download them. If you have an Amazon Prime account (you really should get one) then you can stream all kinds of video content, You can borrow books, you can upload music. The Amazon eco system is really a strong player. I immediately had music, books and video content at my finger tips and it was easy to access.
The other thing I think Amazon has going for it is, they can take the opposite approach Motorola and HP took to compete with the iPad. You can’t be the same price or worse yet more money, than the iPad. But if you’re half the price, and can offer an awesome foundation of apps, video, music and more, then there’s very few
Apps.
The app store is, meh. Everything I’ve bought from the Amazon App store that was compatible with the Fire was there and ready to be re-downloaded, which is nice. A lot still isn’t Fire friendly, but can be side loaded which works ok. But in general the app store is as much a mess as the Google one, with shit quality apps mixed in with really great ones. That’s likely to fix itself tho. My favorite news reader isn’t on the Fire but I found one that is ok. It’s good enough considering reading RSS feeds on the Fire is likely to be a not very often thing.
Video.
Vide on the Fire seems ok to me. I tried out hulu and Netflix, both were great. Dear Hulu, the Fire can run your app by my Xoom can’t? that’s craptastic, just sayin’. I also tried out the Amazon Prime streaming video and that was fine, it wasn’t HD and that was clear, but much of (that I’ve seen) the Prime video library right now is older TV shows and movies. Overall It’s a great little movie watcher. The lame amount of internal storage precludes you from loading your own movies on it. You can, but only 1-2 movies are likely to fit. But if you’re in the net, stream away and enjoy.
OS.
To the casual user, I doubt they’d ever know it was Android, it’s so heavily skinned and modified. To someone like me that’s annoying. I want to tweak settings, etc. and Amazon has taken a very Apple-like stance in that you can change the most basic of settings, and that’s it. The rest is locked down.
The carrousel thing SUCKS. I’m guessing it’ll be gone in the next major OS revision. it’s retarded. It’s a running history of everything you do on the Fire, apps, movies, books, etc in one big ass list. And it takes up most of the screen in portrait and all of it in Landscape. It’s terrible. Amazon find a better UX for the home screen.
There’s things Apple just gets, that others need to shamelessly copy. Changing screen orientation is one of them. Rotating your iPhone you see a nice animation of the screen kind reshaping and fitting into the new size. Rotating the Fire and you see the old orientation, a blink of nothing, and the new orientation. like the damn Matrix redrawing when something is changed. It’s really terrible. Not OMG I can’t use the device, but OMG how did no one flip out about this before launch?
Magazines and Comics.
I was really excited about comics. I’ve tried every reader made for the iPad and Xoom, they all blow. Amazon secured some awesome exclusives so I assumed the comic reading experience despite smaller screen would be great. I was wrong. I’m glad I sampled the comics first before buying. It’s close, I’ll grant you, but having to double tap the panel you want to zoom into, and then again double tapping to get back to regular page view is terrible. Why not once zoomed in, allow me to swipe panel to panel, in the proper order? Reading comics was the pits.
The magazine experience wasn’t much better. Mostly because of the screen size. Zinio is a great app, I can see why it isn’t on the Fire, but that’s a loss for users. It might blow on a tiny screen too, who knows, but the amazon magazine viewer is useless. Bummed I didn’t sample the magazine I bought.
Hardware.
I already mentioned that the Fire is heavy, like small dog heavy. Really the hardware is probably my largest complaint, even beyond the stupid carousel UI. Where to start?
The power button. Clearly someone who’s never seen a kindle and never unplugged a device one handed did the design work on the Fire. Every Kindle since the beginning of time has had a slider for sleep/wake. the K3 it lights up all pretty etc. The Fire has a button, like most other tablets, but it’s right next to the USB connector. I can’t be the only person who unplugs devices with one hand, grasping the cable and pushing against the device on both sides of the plug. Doing that withe the Fire presses the power button. LAME.
Speakers, not including speakers might have been better. The Xoom has them on the back of the device, which blows. The Fire has them on the side, on the same side! Watching a video or listening to music, it’s very clear the sound is coming at you from only one direction. It’s a little off-putting.
Did i mention that is’a heavy device?
So, second tablet? For me a Tablet is a news reader, email browser, and web client… mostly, sure I game little, and other stuff. I’ll remote into a laptop once in a while, manage my torrents, write notes in Evernote, etc, but for the most part it’s browsing and reading content. The Fire is just not right for that. Too small screen makes reading more than books, a pain. I love the size, it fits in my back pocket and the pockets of my coats, which earns it some serious points. Of course it’s weight pulls my pants down, so…
I think the next version of the Kindle Fire, both Hardware and OS will kick ass. This one is very much a “let’s get it out and see what people love and hate, and make the Fire2 (forest fire? Blaze?) the best Kindle Tablet possible”
Tags: Business > Google Android > iPad > iPhone > iTunes > Kindle > Mac > Technology
An Open Letter to the Hospitality Industry
Posted on | December 6, 2011 | 1 Comment
I’m writing this hugely annoyed, so my first draft was simply “You Suck”
You know an industry is bloated and corrupt when they’re first and only motivation is profit, even and especially at the expense of return business. That’s the Hospitality industry. They don’t care if your event sucks, another is dying to book the space next year.
It’s a lot like banks being too big to fail, hotels are too needed to fail, at least in the conference organizer world. It’s hard to do a conference without a hotel, even if you host the event elsewhere, you need hotels for your attendees, whether you make any special plans or not. It’s way worse when your event is at a hotel, then they have you.
Don’t sell enough tickets and fill guest rooms? They can charge you for possible losses whether losses actually happened or not. Kind of an insult to injury scenario since not selling enough tickets is a huge hit on it’s own.
They deliver a crappy experience? so what, you still owe them nearly 30% service charge for bad service.
This is super generalized, and I’m not naming names, but my current situation, is a direct reflection on this corrupt industry. Hotels are not conference organizers’ friends. Some are awesome and nice and I enjoy working with them, and they earn their 30% service charge (I still think that’s a ludicrous amount, and is highway robbery, but they at least work for it) busting their ass, not for me, for my attendees. When attendees compliment me, i pass it on to the hotel staff who deserve it. Great meal, i didn’t cook it. Great staff who helped solve problems, not me. Others simply suck, say they’re sorry, smile and hold their hand out for their check. It works the same here.
All things flow to the organizer, whether it’s a good or bad experience, whether it’s his fault or doing or not. Hotels love to hear the compliments, they smile, they nod, they give each other awards for it, etc. But telling them where they dropped the ball, well that’s helpful, but please pay your bill as you leave.
As a small and struggling businessman it pisses me off. When things go right, the model of conferences that don’t cost and arm and a leg works really well, but it’s a fine line for sure. I knew that going in. I still do conferences like this because I know it can work. Not because I’m an idealist and haven’t made any money, but because I have made money. Sometimes it’s enough to make sure I can eat and pay the mortgage, sometimes it’s enough to look back and smile at a job well done and know the next event has a bit of a buffer in the bank.
example:
When someone emailed me to complain about the video quality of a session recording (he bought the bundle, $85 worth) i refunded him the entire order. Told him to keep and hopefully enjoy the rest of the videos, and that i was sorry and session videos are something we’re trying to do better at.
What I didn’t do, was say, you bought hundreds of hours of video, for $85, and you’re complaining about 70 minutes? On their own the videos are only $3.50 because they’re not super great. they’re good, some are great, some aren’t, but at $3.50 you’re not out a lot of money, and you most definitely get AT LEAST $3.50 worth of value from them. Most often you get way more than that. I didn’t say anything about that. I didn’t say other events charge way more. I didn’t point out that video sales help cover hosting costs, and buy coffee. I didn’t point out that he probably pays more for Angry Birds levels, and that one video is less than a grande latte. I certainly DID NOT apologize and thank him for his money.
I apologized, and refunded the money. I have no idea if he thought the other videos were bad or not. Frankly i don’t care. He had a problem with one, and to me making sure he remembers that my event is run buy a stand up guy is more important. Will he attend next year? Probably. Hopefully. Sure $85 and what the hotels want isn’t the same, BUT it’s less about the money and more about that customer service, and frankly not being a money grubbing suckwad. And yeah it’s a little about the money too. I’ve refunded conference passes in the same fashion before.
A recent conference I organized had basically 50% crappiness level. Thru no fault of my own, no balls I dropped. No loose ends I neglected to tie up. The first two days had useless internet, tons of balls dropped, things not set up like I asked sponsor tables not where they should be, my reg table not set up right, etc. etc. Worst of all the A/V was useless pretty much 80% of the conference. The guy was never where he was needed, feedback was everywhere, etc. It was terrible. One general session was effectively ruined, as was the session recording) by feedback that made your head hurt. Things got ok the last two days (AV not withstanding), not stellar, not OMG you’ve raised the bar, just good.
As a businessman this is where i get annoyed. I’m the guy who’s gonna write a check for 100k and you can’t get my reg table right? or my sponsor tables? Sure if I had the space for free, you were doing me a favor etc, I couldn’t and wouldn’t complain, but I am paying. I’m paying A LOT. and things like power strips aren’t put where I asked?? Really?
Did the hotel offer anything for those fuckups? no. Well to be fair I got lots of ‘sorry’ and ‘our bad’ and ‘we fixed that eventually’ and of course ‘next time you don’t need to use that AV company’. When I complained, nicely because I’m a nice guy, and I try to compose myself in business as partnering with vendors and customers, I got song and dance about discounting the service charge on Food/Beverage would make that team think they sucked. I finally got a tiny (relative to the bill) discount on NEXT YEAR. So it’s back to, “we’re sorry we did a bad job, please pay your bill in full as you leave” never mind that in this case, i’ve yet to get a bill that’s correct. Every bill has had errors in my favor and theirs. You can’t adequately bill someone? Hell I’ve tossed invoices when I messed up and just given the sponsor a free ride to show I wanted their future business. THis hotel is busting my ass about a bill i’ve yet to agree is correct.
This has happened 2x, well kinda 3x. Each one was a hotel that didn’t see me as a valued partner, but as the guy who no matter what happened the next four days, would be writing a check for more than 100k. When you think like that you don’t do your best job because you don’t have to. Every year I bust my ass to make sure my sponsors know I want them to succeed, because at the end of the conference, they will either come back or not, based on how I did. That is 100% NOT an issue for hotels. Because of how I think business should be run, I did exactly what they expected. I wrote checks for bad or non existent service. MY sponsors wouldn’t, not for a second, they’d say thank you, we won’t be back. Sadly some have, and I’ve regretted each time, and tried to make sure I learned from those mistakes. Attendees who were treated by me, like I am hotels, wouldn’t come back, and might ask for a refund. Heck I refund people 3 weeks from the conference. Hotels fuck you 6 months out if you need to cancel. Too bad so sad!
It’s a very one-sided relationship. Sadly the conference industry doesn’t help. Most organizers are marketing departments or internal event organizers, etc. While they have a budget target, etc, at the end of the day they don’t care. They still get paid, they can still eat. So what if there’s a 30% raping on top of $4 cans of soda, and $6 cupcakes. It’s not their money. I know they don’t care, because that’s how business works. If hotels didn’t have people lining up to pay $4/can for soda, they wouldn’t charge that.
So this is also kind of an open letter to my fellow organizers. We can do better. We should do better. I’m going to start doing better. To the hotels, well fuck you guys, you don’t care about me, and I’ve hardened my heart to you, so now we’re enemies and fighting each step of the way. That’s not how business should be, and really not how I want business to be done, but it seems in the short term, there’s no choice.
Tags: 360Flex > Business > Conferences > Technology > Work
Dear Gov’t please fix existing problems first
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | 2 Comments
I worked on the title of this post for a while, and it’s often tough to be clear and succinct at the same time. I think it works.
Take a minute and click the bar over my top banner or this link. It’s definitely important.
I don’t think anyone (well maybe the 1%) would argue that it’s a pretty fucked up time in America right now. Record unemployment and foreclosures. The Middle class is vanishing faster than Bengal tigers, and the wealthiest 1% is quickly rising to essentially a ruling class. Didn’t we have a revolution about that notion? Before anyone jumps in. I don’t care if the rich are rich, nor do I think they should just give away money to balance the scales. That’s not the same as expecting a bit more equal playing field to compete and earn money.
We’ve got banks making terrible decisions, doing shady ass deals to get richer, and then being bailed out by the government because we let them get so big, failing would further damage our fragile economy.
We’ve got small businesses struggling (mine included) to stay afloat while big businesses get loans and buy outs. You know, I’d love it if the American public owned a portion of my business, can I get a small bail out loan?
And while all this is going down the government is trying to install a kill switch on the internet. You know like what Egypt and the rest of the middle east, and of course China, like to use when their citizens get uppity wanting peace and freedom from oppression.
I’m against anything that puts the internet in the control of anyone, especially a government or corporation. I think it’s a US responsibility that the internet be free, open and as makes sense unrestricted. I remember watching the news feeds, and of course tweets about shit going down in Egypt and elsewhere. People rising up against their corrupt and sure I’ll say it, evil, governments. The first thing almost every government does in that situation is kill the internet. I remember thinking how strong and brave those folks were not having twitter, Facebook, etc to use to rally. Having to rely basically on old school approaches, and risky in person exchanges before rallies to spread the word. I thought how impressive for one thing, and how sad. And mostly how lucky I felt that such bullshit didn’t happen here. Heck we’ve got popular revolts in many major cities right now, enabled, supported, and enboldened by the internet.
How many occupy(city name) websites do you think there’d be if the US government could simply turn off the net. Block sites they don’t like or that disagree with their world view?
It bums me out when people we elected to office do things that are so far from what the general population wants, let alone cares about. I mean really, do our law makers think the guy who’s struggling to make his mortgage cares about whether the internet has a kill switch?
Think he’s concerned right now as he decides which bill to pay and which to put off until the second notice, that the government is enabling big business to come in and shut down sites that they think might be poaching their shit. Sites where someone made a disparaging comment on a blog post, etc.
He doesn’t care, he can’t. Oh wait, i guess that’s probably their plan… silly me.
Go click the link up above, it really is important.
Tags: Business > Conferences > government > politics > Technology > Work
Tips for Travelers. To Make MY Travels easier
Posted on | October 25, 2011 | 3 Comments
This isn’t a ‘help others’ post, so much as it’s a ‘help me’ post. By that I mean if I can get your in and out of the airport faster and more efficiently, well that helps me! Travel season is rapidly approaching, and in fact I’m traveling soon. I thought I’d share some tips for making travel out of DIA easier. For you, and not very indirectly and more importantly, for me. You see, your not knowing what to do and how to do it, messes with me and my travels.
Travel sucks, it really does. The TSA has made it absolutely miserable to go between two places in our country. BUT you can try to make it as painless as possible.
So here we go, a few helpful tidbits to help you (and me) get through security and on your way.
- Nothing has changed in the last few years with regards to shoes. Take your shoes off. Flip flops, sneakers, sexy boots, they all gotta come off and go on the belt, just do it. I actually have travel shoes i wear sometimes. They’re slip on deals, not really pretty and when not traveling their house shoes. Not slippers, they’ve functional shoes, I’m just not a slip on guy. BUT at the airport, shoes that go on and off fast are a big deal. I can’t say how often i’ve seen someone in fancy shoes (LADIES!) struggling to balance and take them off, then put them back on.
- If you don’t know if your laptop needs to be out of your laptop, it does. Err on the side of not slowing down the process. There’s like 2 bags that laptops can stay inside of and maybe 3 laptops that don’t need to be removed. Unless you know for sure you’ve got one of those, take it out. It always makes me wonder who those people are that in 2011 that don’t know laptops have to come out of bags.
- Is your phone in your pocket? OMG really? Pockets EMPTY!
- Got kids, maybe do some drills at home? Nothing messes up the line more than the freaking out mom, annoyed dad, and kid with toys in his pockets, shoes on, who’s picking up on mom and dad’s mood and starting to freak out too.
- Prep your kid, we all benefit! I’ve seen pro families, and I’ve seen families I’ve wanted to murder. Preperation is key and you can tell the families that travel a lot or prepped ahead of time. It makes a ton of difference. I don’t have kids, so I can’t offer prep tips, but I’m pretty sure candy and rehearsals would be perfect! Or worse case, robitussin. But seriously, beready to go through security with your kid
- Airports tend to bring out the worst in us, but keep in check. Karma is a bitch. I thanked the gal from the front desk, apologized again to the line behind me, and dashed off to my gate.
OK that’s all I’ve got for ya, it should at least help you get through security and out of my way as efficiently as possible. I hope ;)
See you at DIA.
This blog post has been sponsored by CLEAR, the service that speeds you through airport security. CLEAR members save so much time at the airport, it’s like having Daylight Savings every time you travel! CLEAR, the (self-proclaimed) Official Sponsor of Daylight Saving Time, is celebrating the extra hour we get on Nov 6th with a series of travel and time-savings posts on their blog - and here, on my blog too.
To help you see what CLEAR is all about, they are offering my readers a special 3-month FREE trial! Don’t settle for just one extra hour this Daylight Savings. No need to deal with unpredictable security lines, the stress of rushing to your gate, or the time you waste getting to DEN extra early. Click here to get your pass and try CLEAR’s enhanced travel experience for yourself. Just enter my code (CMNDST12) in the promo code field on the payment page.
Startups, who’s in to be Apple?
Posted on | October 24, 2011 | 4 Comments
Like most of Nerd America I started Reading the Steve Jobs Biography last night. I got in some good reading at the gym this morning and started thinking. I haven’t made it to the Apple years yet, but as I was reading it, thinking about Apple, about Jobs, startups and about death, a notion started forming.
Who’s going to step up and be Apple? Heck, where are our Hewlett and Packard? Our Michael Dell? Bill Gates?
I work in a space with a fair amount of startups, and being so close to Boulder I hear about a lot more of them, and of course I’m in the Silicon Valley for events a fair bit too, and of course I follow my friend Eric Norlin. So I’m not uninformed when it comes to startups.
I know there’s awesome startups out there doing cool things (like Bloom). I work in the same building as one. But in looking at them and at most other startups, I wonder, who’s solving tomorrow’s problems? Who’s working on making the next big thing? NOT the next thing for AOL or Google to acquire. It seems that most startups are starting to be bought by someone, existing more than 5 years isn’t in the plans. That certainly is the exit that makes the most financial sense for their backers, and the founders even. I wonder sometimes if our VC and Angel worlds are so wrapped up in ‘quick bucks’ and early exits, that they’re encouraging young founders to not focus on building companies that can or will be around 20 or 30 years. Let alone build companies that are focused on tomorrow’s problems. Sure messy contacts, old school comic readers, and lack of robot balls are problems worth solving, that’s not my point. My point is there should be a balance, and I don’t see it.
Looking at Techstars and Ycombinator I see awesome companies making cool things like gMail plugins and robot balls with LEDs in them, and new takes on training sites, sites about treating musicians like stock, and such. But I wonder will any of them exist in 5-10 years? I suspect not. They’ll either have folded up and moved on, or been absorbed into some other larger thing. And that’s ok in it’s own right, but where does that leave us? The Country of Dell and HP and Apple and Microsoft? I feel like it leaves us with a sad lack of innovative long term tech companies. VCs are bitching about immigration policy not letting tech founders into the country in high enough numbers. I’d argue the gov’t should be looking at these VCs and asking where the companies that will lead innovation are and why they aren’t helping build them? I’d be thrilled to let the next Bill Gates in on a Startup Visa, but not if he plans to simply build something he can sell to Microsoft for a quick buck.
I know in startup circles and no doubt in VC circles getting acquired is a win. In my book it isn’t. I remember sitting around beers with some friends talking about a company in Boulder that was bought before it even left private beta. To me that was a fail. Sure they made out like bandits, everyone got paid. But they were barely a business, they had maybe a few customers, maybe a few hundred, but they were beta testers not paying customers. I suspect that’s why I’m drawn towards brick and mortar style businesses. Conferences, coworking, etc. Because those businesses are immune or less politely often excluded from the hub bub of tech investing. Therefore for the most part they require bootstrapping which it seems so many startups can’t or won’t do. I’ve seen ideas live and die based on acceptance to Techstars. While I have no doubt Brad Feld and co. know a winner or at least a good horse when they see it, I’m sure they’d agree they can’t see all the winners (or losers) all the time.
That kinda brings this all back around for me. I’ve never asked for money or (at least yet) taken out a bank loan for 360|Conferences or Uncubed. I live and die by what I can do on my own (or with partners as the case may be). In both cases i think to myself often, are these businesses that will be around in 10 years? Can they be a legacy, can I actually do something good with them? I think both can. I don’t know if either will, but I think both can, and I’m happy to try and find out. I think both started for the right reasons. Trying to change systems that exist, for the better of the communities they exist in, which to me is the right reason to start a business. Will I get rich? be acquired by someone? Probably not on both counts, but that’s ok because that wasn’t and isn’t my motivator. I like money don’t get me wrong :) I want to live a comfortable life, but that’s the extent of it. I don’t need to make something someone else wants to buy so I can pay back investors and retire at 35.
I wonder if startup founders go to bed at night thinking about the future. Not the future where they get bought, where tech crunch writes them up and they secure yet another round of funding. A future where they employ thousands. A future where they and their product/service are shaping lives. A future where they make a difference for more than a year. Sure payroll next month is important, press is important I’m not discounting that, but if they’re not thinking about 10 years from now, I’d say they’re doing it at least a little wrong.
Tags: 360Flex > Apple > Books > Business > community > Conferences > Mac > Microsoft > Technology
Thinking About Death
Posted on | October 21, 2011 | 1 Comment
So obviously with Steve Job’s passing Death has been talked about a lot lately. Of course having such a visionary pass away is a huge loss. But closer to home our downstairs neighbor at Uncubed, Jim recently passed away.
I got back from my trip to LA and found out. I didn’t know Jim all that much, he ran the motorcycle museum below us, mostly opened on the weekends. He’d come up and chat once in a while, lend us a tool during the construction before we opened. He was a good guy, who loved motorcycles.
His kids came by shortly after his passing and held a wake in the museum, and since then it’s been closed up.
Last night I left the office and was taking the trash out and walk passed the dark windows of the museum. Now the lights would never be on at night anyway, but walking past I knew that they’d never be on again, at least not for Jims’ museum.
Death is a funny thing. I’ve been fairly blessed in that my family hasn’t suffered many deaths. At least deaths of people I knew or had met. Great grand parents passed when I was a child. That’s changing of course as grand parents are getting older, but they’re still kicking.
But now other people in my life are passing, and it really does (as Steve said at Stanford) make you think and evaluate.
This is kind of a navel gazing post, but i just wanted to share that it’s weird as life goes on, that deaths start to occur and you really do start thinking about life, goals, that kind of shit.
I almost wrote this up and deleted it, but meh, I figured I’d post it just to put it out there, so that next year I can come look at it.
Denver’s Initiative 300. Good idea, bad implementation
Posted on | October 17, 2011 | 5 Comments
I just had a twitter chat (twchat? twat? Chitter? I dunno) with my friend LeVar about Initiative 300 on the Denver ballot.
I’m voting no, he’s voting yes.
The right answer, there isn’t one, at least not in the current initiative.
Here’s my understanding of 300. It forces small businesses to provide paid sick time for employees. This is great, and it bums me out we need a law for what should be a no brainer. Employees shouldn’t have to choose health vs. income. If you’re sick don’t go to work (obviously that can be gamed to no end, and happens all the time).
However many small businesses (Mine included) exist on the knife’s edge. Thankfully we don’t have any employees beyond Nicole and myself right now, because if we did, something like 300 would likely force us to lay off those employees and/or close our doors. No one wins in that scenario.
I’m an altruist. I admit it, and am not ashamed of it. My conferences are cheap because I think thats the right thing to do. I could probably charge more now, and make a lot more money. But that’s not what I believe is the right course of action. In my perfect world businesses do the right thing for all concerned NOT just shareholders. When they can they offer benefits, 401k, etc to their employees, they do it. When they can’t, they don’t. The obvious goal being to provide for your employees because they’re hugely valuable.
Things like 300 make the assumption that small business owners are slime bags, who choose to work their people to the bone and treat them like disposable resources. Some do, some don’t. 300 doesn’t care which you fall into. 300 forces a single course of action no matter what.
My solution? It just now occurred to me while thinking “I wish I had a better answer”. Now I do. I’m very anti laws to enforce behavior. They never work out like expected, and tend to do more bad than good. So how’s about this.
Instead of forcing small businesses to provide something they may not be able to provide therefore forcing them to close their doors (hello, bad for the economy). Give a tax credit to those who can/do provide paid time off? Those small businesses that can’t do it lest they go under, don’t suffer and can try to become a business that can provide for it’s people. Those businesses that can provide paid time off, get a break. Maybe it’s 50% of the total paid time off they offered over the year, i don’t know.
I don’t like adding laws, but if we have to add them, let’s make them rewards for doing the right thing, not barriers and limiters. Heck, you could even make the reward something that comes out of quarterly taxes, so that employers see a more immediate return on their trying to provide a good work environment?
What do you think? I’m still voting no on 300 because it’s a bad idea as it stands. I’d vet yes in a heartbeat for something like what I’ve proposed.
Tags: Business > community > Conferences > government > Work
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