He’s been around the block; helped found companies, worked for Apple, and most recently starting an international movement called Appsterdam. He’s spoken at more events than I can count, thankfully that includes my events. Of all the speakers I’ve worked with, Mike raises the bar. He preps like no one’s business, and puts his heart and soul into the presentation. And he doesn’t repeat and recycle his talks. Each is a unique work that he puts a lot of energy into.

But this isn’t about Mike as a presenter. It’s about Mike as a super smart guy. A while back Mike did a thing where he announced he was charging $1,000/hour for consulting. That’s a steep price tag, but when you consider that it’s not just an hour of slinging code, though it could be if you wanted. It’s an hour of Mike’s time. Having been the recipient of an hour or two of Mike’s time I can tell you, it’s worth $1,000 easy. Thankfully he hasn’t sent me the bill yet :)

Mike doesn’t hold back or sugar coat things, or tell you what you want to hear. He tells you the truth, but it’s couched in an honest desire to help you. I’m making changes to the way I do conferences because of Mike’s input. Spoken honestly and intended to make my events better. It’s eye opening when you hear stuff that makes you realize you’re doing it wrong or going down a bad path.

On the smart people thing, Tom has started something new. Tom and Mike are really similar in that they want to help others. It’s not ego, it’s giving back, and helping people. Tom and I have talked a lot about this and I’m, glad he’s giving this a try. One of our shelved business ideas was antiMBA. A business consulting service aimed at offering real world practical advice.. you know counter to what most MBAs dish out. We’d seen businesses we worked for and businesses we liked do truly stupid things, that had they asked someone who had some common sense and real world experience they wouldn’t have done.

Tom excels at solving problems. We’ve written code together and he’s a great coder, but his strength is solving problems. Lots of people can code, few can solve problems. Tom decided that maybe his business should be just that, solving problems. I think it’s a good move.

Whether you’re starting a business, or just trying to solve a problem in your existing business, Mike and Tom are two people you should talk to. The money you spend getting their feedback will be money well spent, and likely to save you far more money in the short and long term. During 360|MacDev I got to watch Mike be Mike and it reminded me (I didn’t need to be reminded, but still) how awesome he is. The night before the conference a bunch of folks gathered in the hotel bar. I had only met one or two of them at 360|iDev or MacDev in the past, most were new to the conference. Mike came and hung out and while having my own conversations I watched Mike. He engaged folks, met new people and really made them feel a part of the community and the conference. He wasn’t holed up in his room or out with the A-List crowd or anything like that. He was talking to attendees and sharing a good time. Tom is much the same. When we started 360|Conferences and started holding evening receptions, he made it his job to work the room, find the person in the corner and go talk to them. He’d learn about that person, and then walk them over to a group he knew they’d click with based on that short conversation. Then he’d bow out and do it again, and again. Introducing people to each other, ensuring that no attendee ever felt that like they were alone at the conferences. I try to follow his example still, and it’s not always easy, but the feeling you get is incredible.

Mike and Tom are two people I count on tremendously. I’m not normally a decision by committee person, but when I don’t feel able to make a decision myself I’m glad I have awesome, crazy smart and insightful people to ask. Oh and Mike and Tom aren’t the only smart people in my arsenal of brains, but they’re the two who have things that you can pay them for.

Oh and some companies that I think might benefit from spending some money on Mike and Tom;

• O’Reilly (love ‘em but they’re way too into themselves to see what they’re doing wrong)
• DC Comics (see above)
• Marvel Comics (see DC)
• CBS (the CEO is on record as saying ‘cutting the cable’ is a fad, and people will come back. We’re actually tormenting your content you dork)
• Hulu (i pay $8 and see just as many ads, BUT have access to the Buffy and Angel back Catalog, AND shows still expire like 30 rock. WTF)
• Netflix (Quickster….)
• HBO (I’d pay good money for Game of Thrones, but HBO Go is tied to a cable subscription…. To The Torrents!)

Those are just the ones I can think of right now that Have either seriously blundered lately or have fallen to new lows of lameness because they no longer see past their previous success/fame and need new perspectives. They’re also all companies that I as a consumer, would gladly give money if they weren’t being lame about it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I’m interested, but still skeptical. I DO however LOVE my kindle 3 lest someone immediately jump to “Hater”

The touch model is uninteresting, I don’t see value in an e-ink touch screen. Even with improved refresh rate and such, I just don’t see a long term usability there. Add on the whole, “touch in the middle for menu, touch on the sides to change pages” thing, i just don’t see the use. in the long run. Typing might not suck completely but I’m guessing it’s not awesome.

The one with the D-pad but no keyboard. Ok but i think it’ll be only slightly useful. If nothing else entering wifi credentials is gonna suck, and I assume it still has note making capability, which will get old fast hunting and pecking across an on-screen keyboard. I do like the look of it, very clean. While I love my keyboard when I need it, it’s a definite space waste 90% of the time I’m using my Kindle. That 10% however is huge. I don’t surf the web or tweet (who are these people that bitch about the browser ON THEIR E-READER. YOu guys are doing it wrong) but I make lots of notes. Sometimes I share those notes out, most of the time I don’t. But I take lots of notes when I’m reading non-fiction. Since getting my K3 and seeing the shared highlights of others, it’s clear I’m not the only one. Tapping out a lengthy note to myself or observation on an on-screen keyboard that refreshes like e-ink… no thanks.

I hate typing my passwords on my AppleTV using the stupid remote, and dread when I need to do it on the PS3, all for the same reason. hunting and pecking via a direction pad is a terrible way to use a keyboard. So yeah the keyboard less one and the touch one likely will be huge to readers of fiction or those who see no value in adding any type of annotation. That’s not a criticism just an observation of usage.

Now the Nook color… oops the Kindle Fire I mean.

I don’t read on backlit things. I read way too much, and just can’t do it. I might read a page on my Xoom (kindle app) from time to time, but when it’s sit down and enjoy a book time, it’s not on a reflective backlit screen.

I love the size. The only thing RIM did right in the playbook in my opinion was the size. The OS was nice and had they executed in a way that in any way resembled a real world view of the market I have little doubt the playbook coulda been a real player. But that’s a different post. The size was great. It fit in my shorts pocket. My coat pocket, and the small outside pocket of my laptop bag(s). No I probably wouldn’t use it as an every day tablet for catching up on news feeds, or things like that. but for quickly reviewing email or twitter, for a quick (who am I kidding right) game of Angry Birds and such it’s perfect. The playbook had an incredible screen, I hope the Fire does too.

Watching things. My other big use case for any tablet is watching stuff. I’ll be leaving for Adobe MAX tomorrow and my Xoom is loaded with a movie or two and some episodes of TV I haven’t watched yet. Prior to the iPad and Xoom I watched stuff on my iPhone. The larger tablets are great, but my eyesight is fine, so a smaller screen is also cool. And the Playbook size screen i found to be just right. Not so heavy I get bored/tired of holding it up, and not so small I’m squinting to see the show. So I think the size of the Fire is a good choice and keeps it on my “I’m watching you” list. Had it been 10″ I probably wouldn’t care since I have the xoom. It does just fine.

Content is king. This applies over and over and you see things fail for this simple reason (cough RIM, HP, most android devices). Amazon unlike HP and android and RIM has content. It’s got amazon prime and cloud drive music. Remember why we all love our iDevices? The content and the ease of managing that content, and the ease of using that content. Amazon has a shot here. I thought HP did too, but frankly HP is clearly run by people who don’t get that it’s 2011 not 1992.

As Amazon adds more content to Prime, it gets more and more interesting to me. Since Netflix as a company is beginning to annoy me, I might just redirect my $ and attention to Amazon if they can get a bit more content. I know they compete but it’d be awesome if Amazon Prime VOD was added to AppleTV, that’d be a Netflix killer for me at least.

What wasn’t talked about and what I’ve said over and over in regards to Android vs. Apple user experience is the content management. Android is catching up a little with Google Music, etc but has a LONG way to go, and if your media isn’t in their cloud, it’s a PITA to get it on your Android device. Lock in… gotta love it. But if Amazon makes managing my on device content easy and seamless (even if it means a simple upload from iTunes to Amazon to download to device) way to manage the stuff on my tablet, well they may be the alternative to Apple that Android promised to be. Of course the Kindle aspect of the device much like the Nook aspect of the Nook Color, not at all interesting, but the device itself… hmm

Of course nothing at all was shown in relation to that type of thing which doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzies, BUT the Fire doesn’t even ship for 2 more months so…

So my haven’t-even-seen-or-touched-it-yet opinion. I’m cautiously optimistic. I didn’t pre-order anything and I’ll wait for some hands on reviews before I make an moves.

Did you pre-order? What’d you get?

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No Hulu, no netflix, no Kindle, no Email/calendar, no twitter client… just to name a few glaring shortcomings.

Awesome screen, great size, interesting and capable OS just to name a few of it’s strongest points.

I got my playbook (finally) about 2 weeks ago, and was holding off on my review to give it a little while to stabilize. It hasn’t yet, so this review may see a part two but I thought I’d get my thoughts down on on the playbook at the time of it’s launch.

In short, it’s not there. If you own a crack berry phone, it might be just what you need/want, since you’d have the missing apps on your phone, and email/PIM stuff via the bridge.

I love the size, I know Apple thinks a small tablet is stupid (though they seem to think shrinking laptops is ok) but I love the idea of something I can throw in my bag or my shorts pocket and be productive. Since getting useful tablets, my iPhone is basically a twitter/checkin device, and I suppose a phone. Everything else is done on the tablets. So a nice usable small device to supplement my main laptop or even another tablet is nice.

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The screen is truly awesome. I’m very impressed with it, when watching video. I don’t need a dedicated video device, when I have a Xoom, an iPad and an iPhone, but if I did, the Playbook would be it.

The OS is interesting, for sure, the interactive bezel is great, though it takes some getting used to, and to remember what swiping this way and that do. BUT it’s nice that those bezels are more than just space wasters. Kudos to RIM.

The gestures are great for getting around. It doesn’t capture well in a screen shot, but things are active when switching, Up kept playing until I picked a new app, Need For Speed was rotating my car until I selected a different app. It’s nice that things don’t immediately stop.

The AppWorld.

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What a nightmare. I’m honestly surprised by the app world. I know RIM was giving away devices to anyone who submitted an app, yet there’s no twitter app? really? No one built a twitter app? Apparently someone built an Email app (the same devs who built the VNC app I bought) but it’s still in review (sounds like there’s some suspicion it’s intentional)

The thing that makes the Playbook useless, is it’s lack of apps. It’s a serious bummer, given how hard RIM was pushing to get developers on board. I honestly can’t imagine someone didn’t build the missing apps. Either all the devs assumed someone else was building the twitter app and the gouge reader interface app, or RIM for some reason is not approving those apps. I don’t know which, but it doesn’t really matter. The apps that are most important are missing from the Playbook.

Stuff like hulu, and netflix I can understand, tho I hope they at least tried to get a deal with netflix and failed vs. didn’t even try.

Stuff that right now requires the bridge I can understand (tho it’s a collossal fuck up) and my understanding is it will be fixed come a ‘future update’. But things like twitter, google reader (there is one, but it doesn’t work), alternate browsers, google docs! and more are missing and basically leave the playbook dead in the water.

I have hopes (not high ones) that RIM will be very quick with OS updates (by the time my device arrived, one was already out) that fill in some of these really glaring gaps in usability. I also hope that some of the developers who had apps approved, were holding them

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back to test on a device, and the app world will see moderate flooding of good apps in the very near term.

I did pick up a VNC App (aVNC) which sorta works, but has a ways to go. But in a pinch I could make do with it.

Desktop integration

There isn’t any (for the mac). Ok that’s not 100% true but here’s my experience. I plugged my playbook in and it was detected (as an IP address oddly enough) in my finder. I could browse the file system, move files to and from, etc. On the PB screen it said, go get the desktop app. I did, it installed just fine, even found the previous data file from when I had my torch. It never saw the playbook. I told it to look for new devices, nothing. I cleared out the torch, nothing. I unplugged and re-plugged in the PB while the app was running, nada. I closed the app, then plugged in the device since it has a helper that runs, still nothing. I don’t know if the desktop mac app just hasn’t been updated or if it was my machine, but in either case, no joy.

Verdict.

I like the Playbook for what it can be. I like my Xoom and iPad for what they are. They have huge potential too, and I’m not worried they’ll live up to it. The Playbook is more of an uncertainty. I’ve decided that RIM has two months to get their house in order. They pushed one OS update out very fast, in two months, I expect at least 1 if not 2 more. I think that’s fair, you can’t compete today if you take 6 mos. to a year for every update. If in two months, there’s no native Email, twitter, news reader apps… well I’ll see what the Ebay market is like, probably not good, maybe it’ll be a gift to someone who doesn’t need better tech.

Of course it’s almost summer and there’s always HP and WebOS to hope for.

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