Thought Shift

Well, its been over a month since my last post, and I don't want to be another technorati statistic of bloggers who start and drop off after 3 months, so why not begin posting about my current thoughts. My thought focus has shifted to a business idea in the Web2.0 social software space, I have been hatching for the past few months, that is finally starting to get some traction to move me down the entrepreneurial path. Getting a startup going is hard work! ... To me, it is frustratingly slow wading through the entrepreneurial process quagmire. However in retrospect, it seems to be moving along at a decent pace.

So what did I do to start moving... After I had the idea somewhat fleshed out in my own head (enough so that I could describe it in oh 30... minutes or so:) I put together a concept deck and started going to peers to get their thoughts on if the idea was viable. Once I had talked over the idea with almost a dozen people, and had a number of shifts and refinements, I felt like it might be worth continuing. Plus, I now had my elevator speech down to about 10-15 minutes, so if I was in empire state building I might be able to tell someone about it. I then decided to move ahead and start drafting a business plan and recruit a team to help breath life into the concept.

This is the start of a very interesting journey (that hopefully keeps going) and its amazing all the things you learn, so after some coaxing from a colleague, I am going to start journaling some of these here. In the mean time, for other new entrepreneurs, here is a quick read no nonsense article that just came out around building a bulletproof startup. It would have been nice to have this a couple months ago, but in reading it, I felt better as my path seemed similar so far...

Virtual Life - Real Opportunity

Virtual gaming has morphed into a cultural trend to an online world where you can take on a second persona, and not only play games, but have 'real' businesses, with real money. Second life which has grown from 20,ooo users to 170,000 users in about a year, in an amazing social phenomenon. There are actually people making real world money in there (the exchange rate is about 300 linden dollars, the second life currency to 1 US dollar). If people can have virtual lives, and virtual businesses, it then begs the question - what about virtual advertising for those businesses within the SecondLife world? I then start to think about possibilities for current online services. Why couldn't you take that same service, and apply it to virtual customers within the game. Is a virtual avatar (that is associated to a real person) any less real than a real-world virtual user? You could build buyer profiles off them, and offer them similar products that you would offer real people, except it would be based on the wants, needs and habits of the avatar rather than the real world user.

Check out this new article in Business week entitled My Virtual life for more insight into SecondLife.

The business of Social Networking

What was once thought of as a fad, is now proving to have some staying power. Sites such as MySpace and Facebook are showing with their large user base and investment funding that the phenomenon will be around for some time to come. Advertisers are also starting to shift their thinking on how to utilize these sites to their advantage. Check out Socializing for Dollars. Most of these sites however are mostly about meeting people, making friends, trying to show how cool you are, fitting in, and just finding yourself and your place in the world. We are social beings and this concept definitely has it place, but how can or will this trend or model transfer into the business world? Linkedin, and Simplyhired take the concept of social networking and put it to work in a business application, but I feel that this is just scratching the surface as to where we could go to create social networking applications that can actually drive economic progress inside company walls as well as the business community in general. Plus, think about the the MySpace generation as it (eventually) grows up and enters the workforce. Applications that use the social networking model should be adopted easily, as long as it increases productivity, and not just killing time at work.

Mind B(l)oggling

Most people would agree that blogging has definitely reached mainstream pop culture, and is getting to be just yet another communication channel in the new internet era, but take a look at these stats on the current state of the 'blogsphere'. For example the blogsphere is 60 times larger than it was 3 years ago, doubling every 3 months with 75,000 new blogs created each day. These numbers are staggering, but how much of it is new, worthwhile (relative) content, and how do you filter through to find what you need. It just points towards more need for even more advanced content and information filtering, and tagging tools to help us wade through the sea of information and find those gold nuggets that are hidden out there in all the silt. The difference with this too is that what is gold to one person is plain rock to another.
Another set of numbers they had in this report was a chart of daily posting volumes mapped to current events. It was amazing to see the correlations between the two and how some events generated greater flurry than others.

Contract to hire works

I have seen and been hired by both methods. Contract to hire, as well as a very rigorous, analystic recruiting/hiring process, and for the vast majority of tactical/execution roles, I tend to lean towards contract to hire as the best option for both parties. For the company, you save the expense of an expensive hiring process, you are able to bring in candidates to begin working almost immediately that you needed somebody working on last week, and you have almost zero risk if you make a mistake since you can cut them lose at any time. On the other side of the fence, for the candidate, you get the chance to 'try the company out' before committing, you get to show the company that you are worth more than what is printed on your paper resume, and you get to ensure that there is an appropriate cultural fit between you and your potential employer. In fact I would go as to say that contract to hire can even give the candidate the upper hand in negotiations for hiring positions. Being through both methods I have seen the rigorous method work, however I feel that one of the biggest negatives to this is that we tended to hire people that fit a mold the company was looking for, which produced good results, however having a bunch of clones (a bit of an exageration) does not allow for diversity of thought, and it is this diversity of thought that can often move a company from good to great. Being a little less structured through a contract to hire, might just allow you to bring in some new blood that might have been screened out through the standard filter technique.

'Entreprendre' Alive and kicking in Idaho

Entreprendre - to undertake. The origins of the word entrepreneur, as Bo Peabody, General Partner of Village Ventures, 6 time entrepreneur and author of 'Lucky or Smart', explains to a crowd in Boise Idaho at the Keynote for what our Governor has deemed Entrepreneur week in Idaho. Bo goes on to jest about the ironic parallels between entreprendre and the job of an Undertaker, where most entrepreneurial ventures are usually at some point close to death. All in all, a short but inspiring talk from one of the great, yet humble entrepreneurs of our time. This keynote is part of the second annual 'Kickstart' Entrepreneur event, with topical seminars as well as the Northwest Venture Championship which draws teams from around the world. This spirit is one of the great things about Boise - the area exudes a creative energetic feel. Its hard to explain, but ask others from the area, and they will tell you as well. Maybe its the wide open west that draws creative people to it, maybe the clean air and lifestyle that allows ideas to grow and flourish, but whatever it is, it seems to be working. The town is also small enough to get to know lots of people in the industry. You are likely no more than one degree of separation away from anyone else in the technology space. A group of us get together informally for coffee every Tuesday morning to discuss industry trends, business ideas, leadership tips, books, etc. It started with 3 and grew from there. I also have a number of close colleagues that I feel completely comfortable sharing and vetting business ideas with after only being here for 2 years now. This is what you want in a business community. Big enough, yet small enough at the same time. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, make your way to Boise Idaho and join a community of like minded individuals and let your ideas take shape.

Never Standing Still

In a leadership course I took in 05 one of the comments that always stuck in my head was: With your personal development you are either moving forward or moving back - there is no standing still. I try to keep this in mind at all times whether it be work or home life. At work it helps me decide which job to take, projects to work on, self study areas etc.

With the current pace of business and technology though, it seems like the more accurate statement would be running forward and barely catching up, or falling back too fast to change momentum. It never seems like you have enough time to digest all the information out there just in your interest areas alone. Not just magazines and books but websites, RSS feeds, your favorite blogs, podcasts etc. My email box alone fills with business articles of the month, and no matter how much I read, scan, flag and prioritize, I never seem to be able to get caught up. For example, In an effort to organize, I delete articles that haven't been opened after about 3 months - my reasoning - its likely old news. Talk about the age of information overload. Even this blog is not mere bandwagon attempt - its a way for me to capture fleeting ideas as I filter information - even if just for my own recollection. Luckily, there are a few tools that are part of the Web 2.0 generation that are starting to pop up that give us some ability to organize this information. Check out Del.icio.us. Even this concept will likely evolve into something more - some type of personal (yet sharable) information warehouse, that helps you organize, connect, relate, filter do advanced query/analytics on, and have the application help find/refine new incoming information.

I don't see this overload as bad - I look at the positives - I have fostered a culture within myself of continual learning, and by coming to grips that the pace of things will never let up and likely get worse, I am working on sustainable continual learning without getting burnt out, which is much harder to achieve.

Continual learning even has a good physical affect on your brain. I read a recently in the Wall Street Journal about a medical study that showed brains stay more nimble as they age if they are kept in shape by continuous learning. The study proposed that age is less of a factor with declining mental capacity - it is more likely due to the routine and relaxation of retirement.

Another thing to watch out for is getting lulled into standing still without knowing it. Recently I have been doing some consulting work, and I am convince that this even keeps you sharper on what's current. You are always looking for trends, what's coming next - what skills you need to build, what type of project/work experience you should be driving towards for career progression, because you know there is finality to your assignments. However I would go as far to say that even having a job within a company - you need to stay sharp, because in this age of change, no position is forever so be ready with knowledge, and look forward to the challenge.

Water, Water....

For all the old school software developers out there (whether you know it or not...) who are now unfortunately driving IT strategy Sign up today!

Renewable Energy

A couple of bright spots in the movement towards renewable energy sources.

Although wind turbines wind farms have been around, I thought it was a great step recently when I read that John Deere, who has helped farmers for 150 years to work the land is now offering investment stakes to farmers for wind turbines. Farmers earn cash by leasing the wind rights to their land, or investing and selling power to utilities. Seems like a good fit - farmers have trusted them with tractors and other machinery - why not wind turbines. Plus - what a great way to boost financing revenue.

Stirling Energy Systems has come up with a revolutionary solar collection system that is twice as efficient as photovoltaic cells that uses an old idea of a sterling engine. Their solar setup will be able to generate electricity on a similar scale to coal, gas, or nuclear with no emissions by using solar dishes nearly 1000 sq feet. Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric have also signed up to buy solar power from Stirling. Recently Bruce Osborn, their CEO was named 1 of the 50 people that will most likely change how we live and work over the next ten years in Fast Company.

The New Digital Marketing Channel: Microchunking

We all know about podcasts as the current trend in getting your information out to the masses, and the uses that this has around marketing products services etc, but here is another soon to be hit in the marketing space to think about.

Microchunking: the concept of breaking something down into its smallest usable parts. Content companies breaking down digital media into bite sized pieces so that they can be shared, posted and linked to. This could be a skit from SNL, news clips, a clip of an amazing goal from the NHL. It is the new era of video distribution. It also means a new medium to advertise and marketing. The content is free, so what if you have to sit through an add before it starts. Plus who is viewing, posting it on their blogs, sharing these different media clips could provide valuable customer profiling. Popular clips released the morning after airing could be viewed hundreds of thousands of times in just a few days. The term isn't even in Wikipedia at this point, but here is a brand new article on it.