Category: General

Over the past few years, I’ve worked on a number of projects exploring the the value of capturing & sharing a fleeting moment in ‘real time’.

These projects included;

• Cullect; which proved to me how infrequently ‘real time’ ever passed into ‘relevant’.
• RE07.US; which was a URL shortener that self-destructed after 5 minutes
• iTunes-to-Twitter; where I continually sent my iTunes playlist into Twitter to no one’s enjoyment.

While these efforts hinted at the uselessness and annoyance in focusing on ‘real time’ for goofy side projects. I needed to find out if there was significant business value in focussing on ‘real time’.

So, I landed a project with a client in an industry I assumed would convincingly show me the need to focusing-heavily on ‘real time’ message delivery and communication.

In a round of customer interviews, I asked – “how frequently do you want to know the status of X?”

“90% of the time, within 4 hours.”

Turns out, more than 90% of the time – everything is work as expected. That remaining 10%, when additional coordination is needed – the parties involved pick up the phone and talk to one another in real time. And that was the constituents who looked at the data most frequently.

In my email today, I received a ‘Thank you, I needed that.’ for a message I sent 2 months ago. The message referenced a podcast I recorded 4 years ago. The podcast was a retelling of an experience I had 8 years ago. An experience about patiently waiting for the right moment.

All this makes me wonder when Google will stop indexing the ‘real time’ web ^[1] in the name of spam-prevention and focus their attention on the under-appreciated “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

This pursuit of ‘real time’ is a distraction. A distraction from building and sharing relevance and timelessness. A distraction from being present.

Elsewhere:

“The breaking news mindset isn’t just annoying, it may be distracting you from what really matters.” – Seth Godin

1. I’m holding on my prediction that by March 2011, Twitter – the company – is no longer relevant.

“The region has just a few large tech operations left (Lawson, Digital River, Seagate), and venture capitalists say most local software startups are tiny and will never grow into market leaders or large companies.” – Dan Haugen.

Most businesses, local or otherwise, are tiny and will never grow to market leaders or large companies. Minneapolis’ thriving restaurant, music, and art scenes immediately come to mind. Not to mention – my 2 favorite auto repair shops aren’t owned by large companies (though – they are market leaders within this 10 block radius).

I don’t hear many stories of restauranteurs struggling to get venture capital funding for their newest dining concept. Nor do I hear similar cries from other ‘industries’. Yet, the local zeitgeist in the web tech community defaults to getting early stage funding for ideas that aren’t capital-intensive or significantly innovative at a changing-the-world level (changing-our-world level: yes, that’s entirely different) ^[1].

“But not all industries are as capital efficient as the Web or Information Technology. Biotech, medical devices, semiconductors, communications and CleanTech require significantly more capital to build and scale before they can generate profits. It’s in these industries that the lack of a public market has taken the heaviest toll on entrepreneurs and their startups.” – Steven Blank

Re-read that statement from Blank. His list of industries hurt by the non-existant IPO market is a list of all the industries Minnesota is, or wants to be, known for.

From this angle – the acquisition of ADC Telecom is a success story. They beat the odds. Minnesota’s tech community should be celebrating. ADC found a $1.25b exit in a tough market.

Congrats.

In a world where IPOs and acquisitions are non-existant, the question isn’t – what local entity will grow to fill ADC’s shoes (assuming it vanishes from MN’s landscape)?. The question is – What does our tech community look like where everyone…

“…can find 2,000 people to pay … $40 a month for a product … make $1 million a year. The economics of that are liberating. When I can build a company that costs nothing to operate, that changes the way I can live” – Dan Grigsby

Grigsby paints a very compelling vision of Minnesota entrepreneurship. A vision less reliant on state policies, big funding, and big exits and more on a sale-able product to a global market. A vision that resonates with me, and I suspect many of you.

P.S. There’s been chatter over on Minnov8 on this topic as well, where Minnesota’s ‘risk-adverse’ culture (as compared to where?) is brought up as a negative.

If anything, it’s a list of positives.

If you want to have it all; raise a family, bootstrap startups while making a living contracting and consulting – Minnesota is the perfect place.

I’ve had enough conversations with people that have moved elsewhere to get funding for their company, find developers, and build businesses to know – it’s not any easier anywhere else. No place guarantees success.

1. The most recent example comes from Gene Rebeck, Twin Cities Business Senior Editor
“But one thing’s for sure: Start-ups are going to need access to capital.”

“We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds…Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting.” – Alaine de Botton

For the past 10 years (as long as I’ve been noticing) March has been tough month for me. It’s as if my mind and body finally succumb to the winter’s weight. The smallest things start to seem overwhelming and their failure inevitable. Rather than magical place full of opportunity and wonderfulness, the world seems trite, annoying, and unhelpful.

It’s not an enjoyable way to spend one day or 31.

Yet, despite the calendar marking the end of May and the mercury forecast to hit 90°F, my mind is stuck in March.

Theodore Sturgeon is credited with saying, “90% of everything is crud”

In this age of always-on, real-time, democratized media there’s so much more of everything – 90% isn’t what it used to be.

Even if we determine the remaining 10% of everything isn’t complete and utter trash. We still need to cull for relevance, importance, and action-ability. Another 90% gone?

Yes. I think so.

“Most things in the world don’t need you, you don’t need most things in the world” – Dave Slusher

It seems to me, that like XML and violence, the world would be a better place with less Javascript.

Back in art school – I spent some time with a designer-turned-fine-artist name Eric (last name since forgotten).

Aside from his crash course in contemporary fine art of the late 1990s the thing I remember most about him was his answer to my question:

Why did you switch from design to fine art?

He looks up, while adjusting the positioning of a Deutsch Mark on a string and a piggy bank in a sculpture spanning the diagonal length of his apartment, and states:

“Graphic design is ephemera. It’s meant to be thrown away. I want to create something that’s meant to stay.”

Great talk from Linda Stone on what comes after ‘continuous partial attention’. She argues that it’s filtering, engagement, discernment, and a striving for intimacy and a quality of live. “Understanding Workers” vs. “Knowledge Workers”

Conversely, being tuned into the always-on, real-time stream creates a constant sense of crisis. Additionally, this constant fight-or-flight actually prevents innovation and creativity.

I wholly agree. But you already knew that.

Good stuff.

May I have your attention please? – Linda Stone – SIME 09 from Ayman van Bregt on Vimeo.

My mobile phone is starting to show it’s age. More sketchy connections, increased static and general inability to hear the other person on the line.

All independent of who I’m talking with or whether I’m on T-Mobile’s GSM network or a WiFi network.

All making me more unhappy with a device that increasingly feels like a buggy whip.

This weekend, I stopped by the T-Mobile store in the nearby mall. It was disheveled, half the demo phones were missing, and the displays were falling apart. Like their website, I couldn’t get a good sense what interesting phones they had – let alone which ones they wanted to sell me. The associate behind the counter was more interested in determining if my account was eligible for an upgrade than upselling me on a sexy new handset.

I kept thinking – maybe I should just buy an unlocked Nexus One.

Though – all I’m really looking for is an easy way to make voice calls- all that other smart phone stuff? Between a laptop, iPod Touch, and iPad, I’ve got it covered.

Two years ago, I predicted that once it expired, I wouldn’t be renewing my monthly mobile phone service plan.

If you’re a betting man – it still looks like a good bet.

The question is – if I drop my monthly mobile phone service, how do I make voice calls?

I’d like a mobile device optimized for the voice call experience. I don’t see that anywhere on the market.

So, what should my next phone be?

Upate 27 May 2010:
Early tests show Peter Cooper may have the answer.

“Ooh, a docked iPad + Skype == an awesome desk phone (sound is great both ways) even stuck with the scaled-up iPhone app for now”

(NOTE: Like many of my other ongoing lists, this post is primarily for my memory – rumor is it’s the first to go with age.)

I’ve been fortunate that to date – and been able to maintain a very omnivorous diet. Surpassing 35 has brought with many changes. Most notably – I now have a list of foods that make me feel worse that I did before I ate them.

The list so far:

• Milk
• Pistacchios
• Anything from IKEA’s Cafe
• Anything from Chipotle