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Today is BlogDay.
Hugh over at Gapingvoid suggests we offer up some link love and point out great blogs that should get more traffic.
My top three:
Rachel Clarke's License to roam. She is in the UK and a really super smart person.
James Shaw's Cover Your ASP. A text book case of a smart business owner and super nice guy. Lives in Atlanta.
Nicole Simon's Cruel to be Kind. She is also a super smart lady currently living in Germany.
Alphabetical by last name, that's how.
You just knew it had to happen. With thousands of employees getting thousands of email messages a day, you knew somebody up in Redmond would say, screw this, lets get a modern form of communications rolling.
I've had the Windows OneCare Live beta on my machine for some time now. For those that aren't aware of the product, Microsoft has announced a product that is supposed to be a combination Firewall, virus protection, and what they call "tune up" products all in one under a monthly subscription model.
At first, the product appeared to be a fairly simple and easy way for people to get a unified compliment of protection and basic utility from the core system. My view? Don't toss Zone Alarm, Registry Mechanic or any other utilities you have as the product, even at V1, will fall well short of what should be required as well as particularly bad methods and interfaces.
One example. If you are a Zone Alarm or other firewall user, you know that typically when an application goes out to the Internet, the firewall lets you know and gives you the option of allowing the access. It gets right in front of the application and asks before taking action.
Microsoft's product doesn't. Microsoft's product blocks the access, then asks you if you want to continue blocking it or let the app access the Internet next time. Right. The next time.
In fine print, P.S., you may have to restart your application regardless of what you want because we already stopped the access as we aren't like 90% of existing software and don't appear to know how to do what all the shareware guys figured out, sorry, but can I interest you in a free MSN update?
Ok. I made most of that up, except the restart part, they do actually say this.
Here is an example with the Toshiba Update Services that comes on the Tablet PC. 
Yeah, the Tablet PC that every Microsoft Employee has or can get.
This is monumentally stupid. And probably lazy.
Given that Zone Alarm, McAfee and others give you the option BEFORE any action is taken, applications don't barf. So, yes, if you are installing an app, and OneCare blocks it; saying don't block can mean a restart of the app install unless that install deals with this via 'retry' or back button. I've found a number of applications that do, in fact, barf on this. Just stupid.
The "tune up" section is a front end for stuff that already exists in the OS like deleting temp files and MS is trying to get people to take seriously, the idea of backing up data. But useful stuff, like dealing with the registry, device drivers, etc, sorry, not here today.
So, after speaking with somebody inside the company who gave me some amazing babble about why they think this is better, I decided to get this stuff off my machine but also try and leave some feedback in the hope that somebody reads it.
I go to do that and get this contact option for the team.
Yup, that's mail with real letters, envelopes and everything.
So, you've seen and heard it here first. Microsoft, in cooperation with the U.S. Postal
Authority and various postal unions worldwide, will be announcing Snail Mail, version 3.11, enterprise edition.
As soon as I can find a stamp and somebody who still likes licking envelopes, I'll get that feedback right out.
As an American living in Canada, events like Katrina pain me as I am viewing from afar; a devastating hit to my country. I know that America can pull together the resources and take care of each other which is some comfort, I hope, to the many who have been hurt by this tragic event.
I’ve dug deep, donated to the Red Cross, and will be doing whatever else I can to help as most of my fellow citizens abroad (and at home) will no doubt be doing as well.
Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, and many others are doing a great job of pointing meaningful items of interest.
As I suspected would happen, there have been some in the blog world and “main stream” who are growling about the lack of international aid being rushed in. The standard, we are there for everybody else commentary is happening as I type this.
I can tell you that here in Toronto a number of “pass the hat” exercises happened along with offers of assistance from various local and provincial offices (fire/police/medical). Various Acadian towns in Atlantic Canada, who have Cajun kinship with New Orleans, also have been sending in donations. I’ve heard from my friends in a number of places worldwide (London, Munich, Bodo Norway) that local efforts and acts of kindness are everywhere.
Typically, most of these things won’t get reported but lots of the complaints and growling will. So my hope is that when somebody goes searching for International Aid and Katrina, this post will pop up.
To those of you who have offered help, made a donation and said a prayer, my fellow citizens thank you. We are all neighbors here on the planet.
NOLA has this photo. Time for a donation to the Red Cross, folks, this is the big time even for the US. My thoughts and prayers are with the good people of the Gulf Coast.
I've been working with some folks on designing welcome, caution, and instruction pages/dialog boxes for a new application.
We struggle with making things totally clear but not getting to the point where you just treat people like morons.
Consider this sign on the lighthouse at Peggys Cove:
Seems simple enough to me. Ahh, nope. We had to get this sign in place.
I guess I understand the need for "ARE YOU REALLY SURE" dialog boxes. It's like thinking of format c: /s just like dark coloured rocks.
This week’s blast from the past is really a two part story. More then once my former employer Microsoft gets slammed over the issue of bloated programs or having to be tied down because of legacy issues surround this or that feature. The other part of the story is about the true first “blogger”, Jerry Pournelle.
For years, Jerry Pournelle was known around the world as one of the lead science fact (and fiction) writers. And still is today. Jerry has been doing Chaos Manor for well over 20 years and has been a favorite of mine for years. If you loved Byte, you loved Jerry. (note: Byte.com is up and has some good stuff.)
June 4th, 1998 you will find an excellent sample of the good ol days.
Consider:
"I also brought down Royal Armadillo, the 266 mhz Compaq Armada 4220T portable I use for nearly everything. Of course at the beach we don't have a network. However, Cyrus has a SCSI Zip drive; and Iomega just sent me a new parallel/scsi ZIP, which I have installed on Royal Armadillo."
"…….Niven and I are exchanging 150,000 word files by ZIP sneakernet. Works like a charm, and if we had only the one drive, we could still operate; it's quicker to carry the drive between two machines than to use floppies.
ZIP continues to improve, and at least one ZIP drive is now essential to any serious computer operation. I have several internal IDE zips and they work fine, but this external parallel/scsi looks to me like the one to get."
Or this:
“Do not count on competent advice anywhere. We got to the beach to discover that I had not brought the Microsoft Intellipoint Wheel Mouse (with PS/2 connector) I use for for Cyrus; the only mouse down here was a Microsoft serial mouse, and the adapter was lost. Went to Staples to buy a Microsoft Wheel Mouse and found they were out of stock. Bought a Logitech First Mouse +. The computer products manager at Staples was certain that we would have to install the Logitech software, so for insurance I bought a Microsoft non-wheel mouse as well (at twice the price of the Logitech!). When we got back here I plugged the Logitech First Mouse + into Cyrus. The machine doesn't know this is not a Microsoft wheel mouse; everything including the wheel works as before, with the Microsoft software, and works very well indeed. I see that the Logitech software has more bells and whistles than the Microsoft, and I will try that another time; at the moment Niven is using the machine and I won't do anything to upset him since we are doing the climax to the novel…”
But here was an interesting comment about a feature inside of Word that I suspect not too many people know about and/or use:
“I use white on blue for working on books: it's called the "Pournelle feature" at Microsoft because Chris Peters added that at my request way back about WORD 3.0 or so. If you don't know about it, look in tools/options/general and look for the check box white text on blue background. Very restful for working on text, but be sure to change out of it when doing HTML.”
It’s still there and, I suspect, Jerry is still using it.
Jerry talked about Word, Netscape and Windows 95:
“If you use Windows 95, either have a lot of memory, or don't keep a lot of windows open. I tried editing web pages in Word 97 while staying on line with Netscape open. Crashed everything on Royal Armadillo, the Compaq Armada 4220T laptop I currently use. I expect it would have happened with any machine.”
It’s interesting to see what was “cheap” then:
“When W 95 gets low on memory it panics, and sometimes that panic can take drastic forms. Of course memory is cheap now. Fry's has 32 megs for under $30.”
Jerry, like Dave Winer, Doc Searls and many others, is pretty much an open book via his web site and entries. It’s an amazing read to take a look back and where we’ve been and who has helped get us there. If you can tear yourself away from my friend Mark’s all Google all the time reporting (
), you’ll find some great stuff at Chaos Manor.
So, here’s to Jerry Pournelle, this week’s blast from the past.
With all the technology out there and all the new, latest, greatest, gizzmos, you have to wonder why the SOS just never seems to get resolved.
Consider this issue.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has basically said to all the people out there with VoIP, yo, you need to acknowledge the fact that there are some issues with E911 services. The providers have to tell customers and there is supposed to be 100% compliance with “Yup, I got it.”
There is a story in ZDNET which talks about the 30 day extention happening. If you don’t acknowledge, poof, your service is being cut off. Great intention here, make darn sure everybody on VoIP “gets it” with regard to 911.
The issue is that about 100,000 people, for whatever reason, have not acknowledged it and are faced with being cut off with respect to service. All the VoIP providers (Voice on the Net Coalition) are scrambling around trying to get this rule changed. And the analysts have concluded this isn’t the best idea since it might mean cutting off a bunch of people where this is there only access. Right, thanks guys.
Solving the problem, let me count the ways.
1 All the services offer voice mail and most offer voice mail to your desktop via email, web browser, whatever. Simply leave everybody a voice mail and then use an auto dialer to call down those that don’t do the acknowledgement as in press one to deal with this, press two to have us cut off your service.
2. Failing that, do what the paid WiFi guys do. When you go to, say Starbucks or the Hampton Inn, you get a sign on screen regardless of what URL you first type in (or what your default home page is). You do the voodoo and then, off to the internet you go. In the case of VoIP, route the call to press one to, etc, etc.. In other words capture the calls and route em until you get whatever acknowledgements are required.
The point of these two examples is NOT to give complete answers, both have flaws/issues, for sure. My observation is that instead of lobbying groups and analysts doing what they do, hows about using the technology to solve the problem thus proving we actually have moved beyond the SOS.
Don’t believe me?
Click here and note where this lad is from. Well done Jamie!
[via Robert Scoble] Canadian Customer, Robert, Canadian! :-)
I’ve been in a bunch of meetings and presentations today. As you all know, Google announced the beta of Google Talk. My impressions of the product are what you’ve probably read from others. Clean interface, good compression, etc, etc.
Here’s what I’ve seen today with respect to GoogleTalk. In 6 presentations/desktops, all of these folks (geeks) had downloaded the product and it was on the desktop.
Question one: What are you using today? 5 had Skype, one used Yahoo.
Question two: Why’d ya download it? All said, more or less, “cuz its Google”
All of these folks (except my Yahoo friend) said they had downloaded it and would keep it on the desktop in case others called, etc. None of them said they were dumping Skype or anything else to switch to Google.
My Yahoo bud, loved the compression and sent out invites for others to join him.
This will be interesting to see in six months from the perspective of what numbers get tossed around. I suspect we will see downloads being tossed around but watching who switches from what to what, will also be interesting.
For your start up: Lock down the name of your company (“newco_support”) in every service so you can have all of them consistent, regardless of what service your customers use. Google Talk just means yet another way for customers to talk to you.
(Live on the road) We're currently on the last part of our road trip from Toronto down through upper New York, Maine, ferry to Nova Scotia, up through New Brunswick, back along the St. Lawrence river home.
Woodstock, New Brunswick is where we are just stopping for some photos.
At one point this year, Seth Godin had made a point about wireless access points just being open and being something like a flower box on a ledge or some such. I think it was him. There were ( and still are) great debates about security, etc, etc.
Well, here's an interesting observation.
All along the lighthouse trail in Nova Scotia, there are public internet access points. They are contained within various places like tourist offices or libraries.
All of the ones I saw/used were open access wireless in addition to having a desktop for people to use.
It cost two bucks an hour to use.
Totally open. Which, of course, meant you could sit in your car or outside most locations and hook up.
I asked the women working the counter if anybody worried about control, or security, etc. Nope. She just pointed me to the "Toonie Tip Jar" where people paid. Lots of people, including me, paid.
In fact, every place I went said the same thing and had the same gig, a tip jar more or less.
It was nice to see and a fairly good way for access to be available pretty much everywhere.
It was fairly low tech for much of this trip. The reservation system at one B &B was a three ring binder and a pencil.
Or course that B&B was also the home of the best breakfast of the trip so the tech trade off was clearly worth it.
A great trip. Looking forward to posting my photos later this week.
[Live from runway 26R - LAX]
I wrapped up my Monrovia, California stay by doing laundry.
The Hampton Inn didn't have the facilities and said I could use the Embassy Suites next door.
Off I went. The nice front desk person, Shiela, says "Welcome!"
After she tells me where the laundry room is, she says:
"We have a great fitness center, free wireless, free breakfast, free evening drinks. Please walk around and enjoy your stay. Perhaps, next time you will consider staying with us."
As I waited for the rinse cycle, I thought about Jeff Jarvis.
Why Jeff?
The whole episode of Jeff's Dell showed the power of Blogging to get the word out. We've learned that this customer feedback loop is going to be a serious force to get company attention.
Hopefully, smart companies will get it.
But I hope the Shiela's of the world can benefit as well. This young person, non manager type, was amazing. I am going to give em some business and it is because of her.
I'm blogging it so that you know about Monrovia, the Embassy Suites and Shiela.
Maybe we should all crank up the positive venting, so to speak.
When we see good service, find good talent, a blog entry serves (I hope) the same purpose on the positive side as the bad stories.
And let's hope the companies who tune in for the bad news, pick up and act on the good as well.
The medium is powerful.
Here's to Shiela.
Up up n away!!
[Live at 3:15am eastern time]
I’m a big fan of making my own travel arrangements and just dealing with issues myself. I needed to get a flight booked on Air Canada and, of course, headed on over to the Air Canada web site.
Put in my request: <Barf> we are experiencing technical difficulties, try again. <growl>, back up try again and barf-o-matic.
Call Air Canada. While on the phone, working on this travel, live, I get a piece of Air Canada mail with the “TIME RUNNING OUT” on the exact travel plans I want to make.
Me: Umm, the deal I want just showed up in my email. It’s code xyz.
AC: That’s web only, sir.
Me: Web’s down, I’m there now, the error code is xyz.
AC: Yes.
Me: Right, so can you go ahead and give me the deal that is mentioned in this mail, plz?
AC: That’s web only, sir.
Web site down with Email marketing machine directing people to said down web site and happily creating pissed off customers. Thank you, sir, may I have another.
[Me, playing the burger king “Have it your way song”]
Me: Hello Delta. Can you accommodate me with this deal the AC has?
Delta: <click click> sure, you’ve got that typed into delta.com, as I see it?
Me: Yup.
Delta: <click click> Okay, the record is updated, just pay for it, pick seats and you are done.
I tell ya, if Seth Godin wanted to make a really big fortune, take the All Marketeers are Liars book, re-do the cover with the Title: Clueless, and re-sell it to the same goofs that already bought Liars, didn’t read it, and continue to allow companies to be this, um, well, clueless.
I’m in the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Burbank.
This is a conversation I just had with management:
Me: “Hi”
Them: “Hi, may I help you?”
Me: “I was wondering why you have a sign in the window that says “Have you checked out our selection of books in Spanish?”
Them: “Well, sir, we have many Spanish speaking customers and we want them to know about our selection.”
Me: “Oh. How come the sign is in English?”
<Blank Stare>
As Seth Godin said: “Clueless”
Since last Friday, I have being going 12 hours a day in spec/code/requirements mode with a team working on some products. It's been awesome and brutal all at the same time. Awesome because these folks are brilliant, brutal because the days have been long with tons of details being worked out at every level.
Marc sat next to me with his MAC laptop. I have my Toshiba Tablet. For 4 days, I've watched, up close -n- personal, cool. I've watched true instant on. I've watched widgets, smooth scrolling, transparent pull downs, and just amazing eye candy. I've watched a guy put a cloth over the keyboard so as to not get finger grease on the screen while I shove the tablet into a bag. I've watched a guy treat that device like a piece of art, something to be cared for while I treat my tablet as a hunk of stuff to get my damn job done.
When looking at our application and implementations on both devices, I had this sinking feeling that I would have to send a grovelling note to Chris Pirillo saying, uh, this MAC thing? Yeah, there is more innovation, cooler eye candy, more love, etc.
I started thinking, maybe I should get a MAC mini and have it at home to feel some of this. I started thinking, jezz, Robert Scoble needs to give serious equal time to the MAC team inside Microsoft. Excel for the MAC is really something and makes my Windows version look, well, let's just say that all things/functions being equal, I'd take the MAC version in a second.
Maybe 50% of the Scoblerizer should be making Channel 9 Videos with the MS MAC team and just taunt the Windows/LongVista team with no mercy. Okay, just kidding, I don't want the guy to loose his job either.. :-)
It was only at the very end of today when I need to draw something quick inside my Word document, flipped my laptop into tablet mode and begin to crank it out that I was saved from seriously thinking about going MAC.
I think on the a downloads blogs, I read that the MAC/Intel hack it out there to get the OS up and running on my Intel Laptop. If it can be done inside Partition magic or Virtual PC, hmmmm...
Another point: When playing with William's MAC or Marc's, I am immediately in the mode of give me a 3G card, WiFi everywhere, BlueTooth on Steroids, whatever. With that always on, lots of bandwidth, bye bye desktop applications, seems like a very interesting goal. You have an experience happening vs. trudging through the days work.
By that I mean the less you worry about a MAC version vs. a Windows version, the more you can see why, well, the Internet and Internet services/apps can be a better experience within the MAC environment.
But my Tablet rocks. I love this Tablet PC because it is an amazing platform for what I do. So I'm here in WINTEL Land. For now.
But for many many others who have years of PC focus, I'm here to say, with some level of surprise: You can teach an old dog new tricks. It's called a MAC.
Fascinating stuff.
And hows this for timing? Alan Herrell (The Head Lemur) reports on his Sony love. Wow.
This week’s offering comes to us via Doc Searls, Monday November 29th, 1999.
The Cluetrain Manifesto was getting ready to roll out the door and the collective authors had a weblog up.
There are some great quotes in here; remember the date.
Consider this:
“You know how we write this page? By typing right into our browsers.
The main difference between what we (the fourCluetrain authors) see and what you see is a button with three words: "Edit this page." Any one of the four Cluetrain authors can come in and do what he likes, from any browser on any platform. It doesn't require client software. It doesn't frost you with a line like this one from Blogger: "If you use Internet Explorer 4 or 5 for Windows, here's an even quicker way ..." You don't even need to know HTML (unless you want to do fancy stuff like bold faces and graphical runarounds).”
(Sounds like a WIKI, doesn’t it! 1999)
Or This:
“Bottom line: it changes the game. What game? Consumer hunting. That's the game marketing has played ever since Sales discovered market also worked as a verb. Hence the game of "targeting" munitions called "messages" at "consumers" (which they further diminish with labels like "seats" and "eyeballs") looking for "penetration," "impact" and other sporting effects.
No more. We have seen The Third Wave and we are it.
The Internet isn't just another business development. It's a monster meteor that has smacked into the world of business and pushed out a great tsunami of demand. The Net equips demand not just with more ways to buy, but more ways to talk. Now Demand has email. Demand has browsers.”
Now more than ever, Demand can supply more information than Supply itself. And in much more credible voices.”
You can read the full entry, done by the authoring team of the Cluetrain, here.
Doc also had a story called “Advanced Hell” which is also Circa 1999.
We all know about the current who’s blog search engine is best, links vs. whatever, debates, right? New ground, right? Not exactly.
Consider this:
“And let's take a quick look at which search engine is really most "advanced." Let's do a search by phrase for a piece of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, one abridgement of which I authored myself. We'll search for the line "He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own." The results —
(Qualifier: Metacrawler, Dogpile and Ask Jeeves all agregate results across multiple search engines.)
For what it's worth, I conduct this test every month or two, and for several years the winner was either Hotbot or Infoseek, with Altavista a close third. Now Fast leaves them all in the dust. Impressive.
Now: am I alone in noting a more-or-less inverse relationship between utility and popularity?”
(I added the underline and bold. Sound familar?)
This is a really great mind that has been contributing some amazing things for a very long time. The best part is that Doc’s past musings are as relevant today as they were when first written.
Special note: At the risk of being labeled (again), a Dave Winer groupie, it is interesting to note Doc’s first weblog page, November 11th, 1999, which was a note from Dave to Doc on getting things rolling. Of particular interest, was this item:
My goal is to get you up and running smoothly, and then step by step to integrate design expertise into this site. At first, let's keep it really simple. I want you to feel on solid ground before we start adding advanced features to the site. We're all newbies here, me too, I'm learning how to nurture one of these sites along.
When you and your team decide to change the world, remember the paragraph above.
Doc Searls, this week’s blast from the past.
I got this link sent to me by nine people, on a Saturday, from three countries. (Thanks all)
I think this is going to sell tons of the Penguin. No, really.
There is no truth to the rumor Robert Scoble commissioned this. ;-)
[Update] As you can see by the couple of comments, this is rather old. I was interested in why now, all of a sudden, it popped back up as was making the rounds. A bunch of people saw Brad Feld's Blog and it turns out he referenced it which led a few people to send it to me.
Not sure if there is somebody else out there bringing it back but there you go. I hadn't caught up with my RSS feeds so I didn't see Brad's entry until now, checking with some people, etc, etc.
It's still funny and now just one of those interesting data points about the internet and stuff nevering dying and getting 'hot' all of a sudden.
We all see em, are probably on em, and usually use them to figure out email addresses or if that's the guy that owes you twenty bucks.
And they are all the same, yawn..
Well, maybe not. Maybe it's possible to set a little tone and let people know a bit about the company's vibe.
Consider Technorati and the about page they have.
Yes, yes, the dog is all dot com, 90s like, but take a look at the full page and see if you can figure out the other fairly interesting messages this page sends. I'll wait here.
Did you notice its the team and not some executive Bio page? Good.
But did you also notice how the alphabetical order of the people was laid out. Alphabetical by first name. David Sifry, the CEO, is just one of the gang; as it should be.
That's a nice touch in addition to a real about page.
For your company, think about this. The next time you give the we are all in this together speech to the team, put up the "about us page" on the big screen behind you.
Could you?
P.S. That's him! Faulkner! He's the guy that owes me 20 bucks. See, it works.
Reid Hoffman, CEO, of LinkedIn responded to my posting about making it easier for customers to get in touch with you. It’s a thoughtful response that deserves higher notice then in the comments. In addition, it provides some additional lessons that you, start up types, can learn from.
And, as a reminder, I use the service and, in general, I’ve been happy with it.
I’ve put my comments in between paragraphs of his full response below. Thanks for dropping by, Reid
——————————————————-
Rick,
Thx for your comments.
First, we publicize the "ceofeedback@linkedin.com" address for a simple reason. it's a mailing list; while I read every eMail feedback, so do several other folks here @ linkedin. It allows us to quick absorb feedback, and structure replies. (We have recently received so many and fairly diverse, that it's taking a little bit of time to craft the replies to each thread of comment.) And, fyi, I don't read every eMail from feedback -- just ceofeedback.
Fair enough. Again, tho, when you look at the note, the talk to me vs. the email address is jarring and can cause an impression not intended. rhoffman or r.hoffman or any other variation accomplishes the same mailing list point while being more personal. If it had been some variation of a human email address, I probably would have zipped right over it. I point it out as a lesson for others while acknowledging I may have too much time on my hands.
Second, as we offer a completely free basic service (ability to reconnect with old colleagues, ability to network out to 3 degrees, ability to connect and stay synced, etc.), we have a small and overworked customer service staff. This will get worse before it gets better for the free accounts, because we will treat all communications from subscribers as top priority for all the obvious reasons. People who like the service enough to subscribe will get preferential service.
I think this is a core lesson for start ups. I’ve mentioned this before. People who use free have the same expectations of those that pay. Personally, I think free should have a separate set of expectations but that isn’t reality. I’ve spent countless hours on this with portfolio companies as well as potentials and the message is clear: If you don’t love the free person, they won’t move up to the paid version. People reading blogs, forums, etc, will see bad comments about customer service and won’t actually make the distinction between free and paid. Nothing is truly free on either side of the equation. LinkedIn has a cost to support “free” and my time using it/getting help has a cost. I’ve sent a LinkedIn customer service request in and it was handled just fine and timely. Others do complain and the implied answer of upgrade is just the wrong approach in my view.
Third, one aspect of LinkedIn. There are a large number of business people (I am one) who are only interested in interacting with approaches from strangers when those strangers arrive via referral from a trusted friend or colleague. There's a reason for this. You wouldn't believe the number of unsolicited resumes (for jobs), deals (for LinkedIn), sales pitchs, investment inquiries (for LinkedIn or for me), that I get every day. Even if I wanted to spend all of my time tracking them all down, I simply couldn't get to them. And, a trusted referral really helps you pay attention to what's important. That's why I encourage anyone who wants to get in touch with me through a referral. People can choose what's important for them; for me, and a large number of Linkedin members, referral is essential
I was trained in the art of interrupt driven work days at Microsoft. At the peak of that gig, I was seeing 800 emails a day, every day. (I think Robert Scoble told me he is around 500). Lots were “cc” stuff and I was a rules machine, filing for read later. The critical thing I wanted to do was be responsive. As the President of Chapters Online, same thing. Tons of “where’s my book” email and yours truly was on the receiving end of lots of it. As as new VC, I pretty much want the world to come by and pitch me both for deal flow as well as my being able to keep up with everything that’s happening. I track 200+ emails a day now which is nothing compared to the good ol days.
My manual LinkedIn method is fairly simple. If you worked for Microsoft, was in the U.S. Air Force, or worked at Chapters, you go to the top of the list after family and friends. I’m not sure I am a fan or supportive of the idea that in order for somebody to get to me, they need to go through somebody else. It’s probably simple minded on my part. I suspect that if I was President of some massive enterprise or a country, my answer everybody rule just breaks.
In reading Reid’s paragraph, I’m just wondering where that line is and when you to start to “filter” it. I don’t know but I suspect that for most people, most start up/new business types, taking Josh Einstein’s approach or Blake Rhode’s approach of just answering it all will serve you well. Jeff Jarvis, Fred Wilson, Doc Searls, Dave Winer, Marc Canter, Chris Anderson, and a host of other “A-List” (busy) people, from what I can tell, talk to pretty much everybody and then filter it after the first encounter. To repeat, tho, I don’t know where the point is where it breaks.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying Reid’s approach is right or wrong. It is certainly worth thinking about as you grow your company, your personal brand, etc.
Anyway, I hope that these commments help clarify some of these discussions. And thx for the feedback, even critique. It is important for us to keep trying to improve the service that we offer.
thx,
Reid
p.s. thx for using Typepad as well. :)
——————————————————-
Dialog is always helpful and the time spent to respond is a testament to your professionalism. Again, thanks for stopping by.
Doc Searls has a single line post which says “This is depressing.”
The link he sends you to is a “shock -n– awe” story about people who might be stealing your Internet connection.
One juicy tidbit:
“ Someone could be stealing your Internet service right now - - and you would never know it. Thieves are using wireless technology to help themselves to your connection. Debra Hobbs never suspected the wireless router that links her desktop and laptop computer might give someone else a free ride. We showed her how easy it would be to use her connection. "That's scary," Hobbs said. "I think we need to do something to get rid of the wireless or protect it somehow." ”
or this little hunk:
“ Experts say you can get software to help secure your computer. But putting passwords on your network can be a complicated chore, so you might do well to pay an expert to do it for you.”
A local 5 on your side type reporter named Greg “gimmie my hayes modem” Barnes wrote the story.
There’s so much to be depressed about, I’m not sure what Doc meant.
– Depressed because every technical person in Fayetteville is probably so embarrassed by this silliness, they don’t want to be seen in public?
– Depressed because some putz is going to be going door to door playing on this nonsense offering to install passwords?
– Depressed because the myth of “criminals” wandering the streets armed with laptops and really good batteries are sucking away America’s bandwidth?
– Depressed because, well, you get the point.
I think Seth Godin, months ago, blogged something about everybody just chilling out and not worrying so much about the pringles can brigade.
Stories like this just don’t help. Slow news day, Greg?
Rachel Clarke is currently hanging out in the big apple, staying at the W hotel with a $17 a day charge for Internet.
She writes:
“However, this evening I got a call from the hotel Customer Services performing a satisfaction survey. Now, this is the first time I've been subject to this - a small annoyance but at least they are trying to establish what their customers think. I mentioned my annoyance over paying for connectivity and how many other hotels don't, then thought nothing more of it. But then there was a follow up call 30 minutes later from another section of staff just to checkup on my complaint. After informing me there was free wi-fi in the ground floor public areas he then proceeded to remove the charges from the bill and promise to take up with the manager.”
Hmm.. After reading this, I am reminded of the auto industry and the secret warranties. Back in the late 80s, early 90s, there was this huge stink over car makers sending notices out to dealers which in effect said, this is a problem and if the customer comes in and complains, fix it and it’s covered but don’t be telling everybody. Enter the Internet, people posting this up on web sites, etc, and the practice pretty much went away (mostly, not completely).
So, maybe the drill on finally getting all these high end hotels to wise up is to simply take one of the following approaches:
1. Pro-actively complain, Rachel style, and don’t wait for the “hows it goin” survey. Pound on em 30 seconds after you arrive promptly mentioning Mzzz Clarke got it comp’d what am I, chopped liver?
or
2. Pretend the Internet connection is like the in-room porn movies you don’t watch. Do the shocked routine at the desk at even the suggestion that you would be so geek as to actually log in and do work while relaxing. Or in the spirit of the picture was fuzzy, couldn’t make out the sounds either mode, just complain the connection was complete crap and scream about how much time you lost just trying to log into the damn thing.
If enough people get this stupid charge off the bill, maybe the industry will see the errors of thy ways.
Jet lag’s a bitch, eh Rachel!
The tale of two people.
Meet Andrea Learned, co-founder, of the consulting firm ReachWomen who is currently a consultant, writer and public speaker on marketing to women.
Meet Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.
Andrea has an about page with the best intro line I’ve seen to date:
“(If you'd rather call than read about or email me, my number is: 802-658-8319.)”
She has her full number (twice) on her about page.
Getting in touch with Andrea is dead simple and totally your way. Andrea, Blake Rhodes (Founder, IceRocket), and James Shaw (Founder, Dozing Dogs) are excellent examples of smart people that just play the odds correctly and make is easy to learn about their respective companies and be reachable. They are a pleasure to do business with and I’ve never met any of them.
Back to Commander Hoffman. (Sorry, Reid, I happen to get a LinkedIn request, happen to see the new home page and well, tag yer it.)
The way to contact LinkedIn is via the Contact Us page. No phone, no direct email, nothing except a form. Reid has some exciting new things he shared with all of us in his message from the CEO note and he wants to hear, directly, from me. No, really. I got his email address: ceofeedback@linkedin.com.
There is a business upgrade to LinkedIn. Did you know that for $500 bucks (via PayPal, nice touch) a year, a part of the new paid service is one business day customer support? Cool, eh?
Meanwhile, start-up maven, thank you king Blake Rhodes has made it a point of pride for his company to respond to everything/everybody within 24hrs and you don’t need to send him a penny.
My point is not to pick on Reid or LinkedIn, I’m a customer.
I think “ceofeedback” type email addresses smacks of old school.
I won’t accept, by the way, the comment which is surely heading my way, i.e. Reid reviews every feedback comment. Sorry, you signed up with the words “SEND ME”, you own it. If Steve Ballmer can give his email address out to the world at large, Reid, sir, you can too or just put feedback @ on there and be done with it.
I think having no phone number for a company is just points off but that’s my personal opinion, no biggie.
My point/tip for you. Make it easy for people to get in touch with you. Period.
Founders like Blake, James, and Andrea, all make it easy for you to do business with them.
Make it easy.
Bonus Link: Andrea has a great commentary about the Blackberry and Pizza. A great read.
Hire people smarter then you and stay out of the way.
The details.
I had a meeting this morning with the founder of a software company. For the first 6 minutes (he timed it, not me), Tim explained his vision of what he thought would solve a particular problem. Painted the picture.
Next, was the crucial comment: “I’m not smart enough to pull this off so I got way smarter people in here. I’ll let them tell you the plan.”
One by one, they offered up how they were going to solve or deliver on their particular piece of the puzzle.
You are probably thinking, well duh, this is how it always works. It actually doesn’t. The number of founders who try to impress us with control, grasp of everything, etc, etc, is shockingly common.
Tim was brilliant. He didn’t interrupt people, didn’t correct people and was sitting in the room with obvious pride in the team. It was great to watch.
You don’t have to prove to my partners and I how much you personally know when you can prove/show a crack team that can deliver the goods. In that world, enjoy the founder title and enjoy the ride.
Bonus: On this topic, read Fred Wilson’s VC Cliche of the Week. His message is pretty much the same, check your ego at the door and surround yourself with smart people.
There has been an awful lot of digital ink being used up these days on the topic of A-list bloggers, lists at all for that matter, and what impact all this new transparent dialog will have on you, me, and the dog.
I think we still have a ways to go given the amount of SOS still happening. Here are some examples of the SOS.
Robert Scoble of Microsoft vs. Andrew Orlowski of the publication The Register
Without spending an hour creating links for you to chase/read, here is the gist of it. IE7 goes into beta and acts like, surprise, a beta product. Orlowski reports it, Scoble jumps on it and we’d be ops normal except for the pesky detail of Orlowski going over the line and reporting a piece of email that was supposedly sent by Scoble. Scoble denies it, says the email is fake. I, along with many others, send email to The Register and to Orlowski asking if they’d checked out the claim of the email being fake and if not, why not. Also, how come you don’t report Scoble’s denial. Silence. This publication doesn’t check it out, doesn’t respond and, as of this typing, doesn’t at least report that Scoble denies the email was his.
Unfair to Scoble, unfair to the readers of The Register, and plays into people’s general belief that the “press” is not the prime source of trusted information. In other words: SOS.
37 Signals, Blogware and Dell
37 Signals makes a product called Basecamp. It is a nice product that does a good job of letting teams manage projects and to do lists. The kids at basecamp screwed up and caused the system to go down. Not for long, not a major big deal. In addition, the RSS feeds were broken for a bit longer. They put a “we are really really sorry” note up as well as that obnoxious “Thanks for your patience” stuff.
Mark Evans had to prod Blogware into finally fixing a Technorati issue with getting entries indexed. He makes the comment “ Now, I'm looking for some love from Blogware for coming to their Technorati rescue.”
Dell computer, to the best of my knowledge, has still not done anything about Jeff Jarvis and his “Dude, I ain’t gettin no Dell” rant(s).
In each of these cases, nothing.
37 Signals, we pay by the month. How hard is it to say Ooops, here is a free month. The cost is nothing, totally nothing and I’d be singing the praises. Nope, SOS.
Blogware had a top tech reporter from the top newspaper in Canada debugging a problem. Gee, think think, what to do, what to do.. Ooops, SOS.
And Mr. Jarvis? I actually do expect the big companies to stay firmly in SOS mode so this one isn’t a surprise.
So, if you are doing a start up, just got hired to clean up the other person’s mess, or feel like shaking things up a bit, here are some ideas/rules you might want to think about to break out of SOS.
Patience my butt
There are only three times I find “thanks for your patience” acceptable:
1. I’m working on a better approach for landing in this storm, thanks for your patience.
2. I want to take a bit more time on this heart transplant, thanks for your patience.
3. I’m just correcting our calculation and sending back the taxes you overpaid, thanks for your patience.
You cooking up some software? Services? I have no patience. Pay me. Show me you care. Show me that you really do value me, my time, and my wallet. Break out of the SOS cycle and always be thinking of me before even I’ve thought of me.
Fairness
Otherwise known as my personal pipe dream.
I (and you) got to watch a public Microsoft person (Robert Scoble) go at it with David Berlind, Andrew Orlowski, and Mary Jo Foley to name three. It’s interesting to examine the blogs, comments, blogs back, etc, on all three with Scoble because you get a sense of what people’s particular sense of fair play is as well as how they approach reporting on particular issues. In the end, all this blogging stuff sends out messages about your personal brand. David’s stuff? I read it all the time and believe that in the face of push back, error, or issues, he will address, debate, and correct as appropriate. Andrew? Not a chance. But more importantly, The Register gets ignored along with the advertisers and if enough people ignore it,, so it goes.
What this means to you is simple: Be fair. Be reasonable. Don’t say dumb stuff and talk in corporate-babble. You are going to make mistakes, your team is going to screw up, so report it and discuss it in a fair and reasonable manner. Do this to set the tone/style of your company. Break the SOS cycle and try being fair and reasonable in your dealings with suppliers, customers, and employees.
Be passionate or simply don’t do it
One of the reasons that I like Hugh Macleod over at Gapingvoid so much is that he can pull off hawking products without being a slut about it. He called himself a marketing consultant in a blog posting, I think, and he is damn good at it. If you ever get a chance to meet him in person, buy him a beer and simply say “I don’t understand this bespoke stuff.” Then, watch. Listen, yes, but watch. Here’s a transplanted yank, Madison avenue dude, who will not only tell you more then you want to know about suits but will do it with a passion and (dare I say) love that you rarely see. Watch the eyes, watch the hands, the body language, etc. This is not some marketing dork hawking what’s hot so long as he is paid well. In my humble opinion, it is this level of raving passion everyone should try to achieve when doing anything. After two month of doing the wine thing he has going, I suspect, he will know more about wine then the grapes.
I point out old posts of Dave Winer for reasons other then entertainment. Passion. Go back 20 years and read forward. 20 years! Love em or Hate em, he is a pretty good lesson in passion and consistent behavior doing what he loves. Adam Curry would be another person that sets a high water mark for passion and consistent behavior.
What this means to your business is simple: No passion, self select out. You know your own limits, your strengths, loves, etc, better then anyone. Do what you love, what keeps the passion going and let others do what they do. My title advice: Take Founder and leave all the other titles for others. Nobody can take that one away and leaves you title free to just be passionate about what you do.
There you go.
Being fair, showing passion, and feeling my pain are three simple things to set you apart from (unfortunately) the normal SOS stuff that goes on despite all the new new things happening around us.
Jeff Jarvis has a post about the Chartered Institute of Journalists going nuts over all those ‘other people’ crashing the journalist party. It’s a good read and makes the point; Same Old Shit, Jeff, Same Old Shit.
Break the cycle, it’s not that hard.
After read Doc Searls amusing post regarding the hotel internet service, I find myself at the Hampton Inn of Arcadia. Cheap price, free internet and free breakfast.
But not cheap.
For pretty much the same effort as any other hotel chain, look what they do. The do not distrub sign, the smile sign, the soap, etc. Classy. Just as nice as any Westin without having to pay for the internet connection and 6 bux for a glass of Orange Juice.
So far, all the Hampton Inn properties I've stayed at are great. I'll pay these folks for my hunk of free.
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