The Post Money Value

Google vs. Microsoft (VC Style)

In the course of doing the voodoo that VCs do,  I’ve started to ask a number of questions of new companies in order to get a “man on street” view of this or that battle, this or that standard, and other things that might (or might not) matter to start up companies.

One question I’ve been asking:  What do you think of the Microsoft vs. Google battles, both today and ones to come?

Obviously, this is fairly opened ended. It was designed that way to see what pops into people’s heads first as well as not leading people toward any specific answer.

First observation: A ton of people do not read the web site of the firms they go visit. I think I’m making a reasonable conclusion when people come by, get the question above and lead off with “All Microsoft people are amazing jerks and I’ve yet to ever meet…” Happened 4 times recently.

Folks, just go with “Even tho I/We know you used to work there…” and then dump away.  Fake like you did some VC homework.

Second observation:  Google’s plan of just giving away as much as possible and sharing revenue with everybody on everything is a dead simple message that everybody just gets. Regardless how evil or not you think Google is or isn’t, the message that developers are hearing is this: Use our stuff and let’s make money together. 

Head on over to the Head Lemur’s place where he pointed out some pretty interesting language in Google’s licensing with respect to content.  Some people, like Alan, will hit the “you’ve been warned” button but the larger message: Nobody appears, today, to care.

For example, I’m seeing all kinds of applications that use various mapping features, all with Google Maps, none with Virtual Earth.  Licensing restrictions was the number one issue mentioned, the second being the richness of the API set.  Think about that for a second.  Even if you believe Virtual Earth is better or has better, the licensing is what gets mentioned, not the technology.

Third observation: Good vs. Evil is an overrated point.  Most of the developers I spoke to said, they believe for a fact that Google is just as “greedy” as Microsoft only Google appears, today, willing to share more of the pie then Microsoft.

Fourth observation: Let the ‘war’ continue. Most would love it if Microsoft and Google went at it for the next ten years because, in the end, features, functionality and opportunities, come out of all this.

Fifth observation: Robert Scoble gets mentioned often among developers. No single Google Blogger is called out by name at least with any measurable consistency. I’m not sure if this is a good thing/bad thing or anything, just interesting. Actually, the other thing to note on the people side is that within various specialties, like maps, database, code, etc, virtually everybody mentioned a specific blog they read or found useful that specifically related to the product/service they were using.  To you, I know, duh, but if you think back a short while, this wasn’t the case. It’s an interesting trend.

Sixth observation: While nobody wants to ship 50lb bags of dog food for free in return for advertising, the whole notion of free whatever making money by highly targeted advertising seems to be taking on a bit of bubble 1.0, make it up in volume, kinda hype. Worth watching because at a certain point, somewhere, advertising can’t cover it all. At least I don’t think so, could be wrong.

Thankfully, more and more start ups are just showing up with a plan to solve a problem, give great service, and grow a business versus trying to ride the dot net, or web 2.0, or any other hype wave.

In the end, for me, that’s all that matters.

Embarrassments from the Tech world

For some time now, I’ve been trying to keep a small (but growing) list of things that just should be so amazingly embarrassing to geeks that they rise up and unilaterally fix them so as to be able to sleep at night; guilt free.

These are the really really simple things that should bug technical professionals.

Consider un-subscribing to an email mailing list. Some just say, hit the reply button, type remove in the subject line and you are outta here. Others give you a link, you head there and you are outta there. 

So, it seems to me that a site which, after you say take me off your mailing list, would have a set of technical people extremely embarrassed when a web page pops up saying it will take up to 7 days to remove your email address from the system.

Meet James Sherman, Founder of Sherman’s Travel. James has a nice site with lots of “unbiased” reviews on stuff, good travel deals, etc. James, yet another Harvard MBA/Bain Consultant type, has a mailing list that comes out weekly with some decent deals in it. I signed up for it, read it for a bit, and liked it.

In pruning down the mailing lists, James and his crew got the axe. I’m in Canada, not all that helpful, see ya later, bye. After clicking to un-subscribe and doing so, I get this screen:

This should just embarrass technical people everywhere. Every geek who works for James should just refuse to touch a keyboard until this is fixed. I’m not going to go into the english parsing of the arrogance this “realize for unsubscribe…” dribble has me thinking about.  No that’s just Bain/Harvard/East Coast speak for “thank you for allowing us to serve you.”    James and his travel site are not alone. This is just one of many I’ve come across. Although James gets additional points off for the 7 days because most of these embarrassing sites usually give me 3 – 5 business days as the limit.  Bad, all around.

Next up, the out of office (OOF) message.

I’m on a couple of mailing lists and every now -n– again, somebody’s out of office message spams everybody. This is embarrassing from several perspectives.

First, how hard it is to just OOF once per in bound address. This means that if I send you ten emails, I only see the OOF as a reply to the first message. Simple, yet some systems are too stupid/lazy/whatever to fix this

Second, mailing lists.Again, it is not hard to simply tell the email client only send an OOF once and only to email addresses not mailing lists. Yes, you are going to probably flip me email about how tough it is to figure out which is what. It’s not impossible and simple V1.0 steps like only sending OOF messages to people in my contacts would be a good start. The point: this annoyance could be fixed.

This is a case where lots and lots of email systems are POP/SMTP or Web/Host based. Lots (tons) of open source, free love everywhere, but nobody, it appears, is embarrassed enough to fix this.

A particularly smart guy named Leo Notenboom, once did a podcast on why he thought Out Of Office messages were evil. Leo’s points about telling the world you are out of the country so please rob me as well as validating your email address with spammers are both good points. But, the evil part is the geek squad not fixing this.

Naturally, there are 100s if not 1000s of places where some technical thing is broken, has been broken for years and continues to remain broken.  It should be embarrassing and that embarrassment should lead to stuff just getting fixed.

I know, dream on

You're Pre-Approved = A Real Family Application

My mother in-law got a new cat. My sister in-law is up in Seattle doing the family visit thing where she found out about said new cat. Soon, via email, everybody knew about the cat.  “Everybody” on the email started writing cat stories, sharing cat training tips and all this other stuff.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, my brother in-law, is commercial claims adjusting. Lots of stories, pictures, etc, all floating around. In email.

I’m thinking, hmmm, there’s gotta be a business in bringing all this family stuff together.

I mention this in a few places to a few people.

(Cue Michael “did not’ Jackson’s Thriller video)

Up from the ground, bodies bust out of the graves and begin to wander, zombie-like, saying things like Wiki! Blog! Personal Portal!, yikes!

Nobody. And I mean Nooobody, has done the family app right. Why? Geek-Speak.

The obvious here is really scary.  Lots of people have suggest family versions of JotSpot. Or how about a shared blog via Typepad. Pay once, everybody is an author on it. And so on. There are even some interesting ‘portal’ applications that are there pretending to solve this problem. Heck, your favorite personal photo sharing application is someplace where families can set all this up.

But none of it really does it for the average, super NON-technical person that is used to calling people or (shudder) writing a letter that is only now getting used to email.

A simple family gathering service that uses ALL of the geek stuff with NONE of the geek language. No wiki-talk, blog-talk, portal-talk, etc. 

This stuff really can make money. If you have twenty five (or more) members of a family/extended family all banging away, you have: Buying power. 

There is lots more, obviously, but to my mind this space has not been cracked and will be a nice gig with good revenue opportunities.

Operators are standing by.

Memo to Movie Industry: Hurricane Teenager is a Category 5 and growing

It’s always fun to roam the aisles of Fry’s Electronics .

Fry’s has a DVD section that is pretty good. Lots of titles, series packages and reasonable pricing. You need to walk up and down the aisles because lots of DVDs, reasonable ones, are on sale at any one point in time for as little as a couple of Yankee dollars.

Here’s a scene from the Irving, Texas location; where I was this past Sunday.

Kid is browsing with Mom. He is probably 13 or 15 tops. Grabs a few Star Trek DVD sets and wants mom to pull out the credit card. Mom says something to the effect of too expensive, pick out just a few episodes that you want and then you can buy more later. Kid says, Mom, they don’t come that way, you have to buy the whole series. Mom says, too bad, they should, too much money.

Kids storms off to where his friend is. Kid growls to friend about mom. Friend says, no worries. I’ll buy this one, you get that one, and we’ll set up a torrent and trade.

High Fives all around, done.

 

Exit Stage Left - Your last chance

You’ve got a company of ten, somebody decides to leave. You’ve got a company of 60,000, somebody decides to leave.

Which company gets the most benefit out of an exit interview? Which company should do an exit interview?

After talking with a number of former Microsoft folks, I circled back to them as well as adding some others to the mix as a look see into this whole notion of  former employees, the value of, etc.

The longest was a MFST guy that did a 15+ year tour of duty, the shortest being a 10 month process at one of our portfolio companies. All left on ‘good terms’ or they resigned vs. being overtly fired.

For me, there were no surprises. IBM/Sun/Microsoft/Intel all started these interview with a reminder/review of the confidentiality agreement. Right out of the gate. Everybody got the COBRA briefing (Cobra, for non-US folks, is the law that allows you to pay for your own benefits at the group rate, unsubsidized, for a set period of time. Designed to keep you from having zero health benefits immediately).  Everybody got reminders of vesting issues, if any, and the checklist of what not to steal, err, reminders of what to turn in.

As I said, exactly what I suspected.

Here’s what nobody got. Free software. Employee discounts for 6 months, or a thank you. Over 15 years of service, last words are, yeah, bummer, I might quit too but, hey good luck to ya.

If you assume 500 people a year leave, say Microsoft, that’s 500 people going some place else that should be 500 people talking up, using, and still being involved in, at a minimum, cheer leading from the side.  Or at least there is the possibility of those folks being ‘on your side’, if I can phrase it that way.  This is just a talent going to waste.

Here is my take on the Microsoft (or other) Exit interview checklist with the lessons for you and your company, regardless of size.

1. Do the interview yourself until you hit 100 people

If you tell me you are too busy to do this, you’ve got a turnover problem.  Don’t get all anal on the number, you get the concept. Clearly, Bill/Steve can’t/won’t do it, but, get some people that aren’t in HR (when you have an HR Department) to do this. Not the person’s boss (Duh), but others. Like, say Robert Scoble doing Mini-Microsoft’s exit interview. Now, that’s an exit interview. Get your most vocal, kool-aid drinking, troops (just kidding, Robert) and let them get the unvarnished stuff. And report on it to the management team. Hey, we lost a person X because he didn’t feel like his code mattered. Here that enough, unfiltered from the HR drones and maybe, just maybe it gets heard. No shot at HR intended.  HR has a process role to play but there is no way, in my opinion a HR person can hear, really hear what a good coder leaving is really saying about the why. And the why matters.

2. Say Thank You.

First words spoken at an exit interview. Thank you for working here and contributing, all of us appreciate it.  And mean it. Say thank you.

3. If a re-hire, then give them a priority “come on back” pass.

After you say thank you, simply say, if you decide to come back, here is the priority way to go right to the head of the line. How hard is this? If you are a ten person team, give them your home phone number. If you are a Microsoft, create a priority system for these folks to get immediately noticed, interviewed, and dealt with.  Folks with 3, 5, 10, 15+ years of experience? Good people?  American Airlines, after you hit a million miles flown, you get Advantage Gold Status forever. A tiny bit of special treatment forever. This is a non-cost, easy thing to do and will mean something to people.

4. Free software/services/equipment for over X number of years.

If you’ve been at Microsoft for over 5 years and you leave in good standing, you get a year of MSDN and a year to use the company store to get stuff. Again, how hard is this? Back to my 500 people a year, gee, seems to make sense to have 500 people a year going off to other companies armed with Microsoft stuff; who knows, they might inject a little into that new whatever company they are doing/going to. Cost is a bunch of DVDs.  If you are IBM, after 5 years (or ten), a thinkpad at cost or a Notes package for your start up, whatever, you get the point.  For your company, think about what you can give your former employees so they can continue to spread the word and feel the love.

Case in point. Dave Winer supporting Doc Searls and Robert Scoble with the blogs. Nothing to it and the love just keeps on flowing. Dave is a great guy and a friend to both but that notwithstanding, it make solid business sense. Scoble as a former employee, good business sense, Doc being helped out, also simply good business sense.  Do you think Symantec is still giving Winer code drops/product for free? Probably not. A check every now and again, yeah fine, pesky detail, but you get my point. I don’t think Marc Canter is still getting free stuff from Macromedia. And so it goes.

5. Keep a connection.

Give your former employees and email address and put em in an alias for the former employees (again, all assuming good standing). It’s one domain and simple Linux, err, exchange box. @fmrmsft.com or @fmrYourcompany.com, etc.  Simple, cheap, single point of contact to talk, reach out, etc, to a group of people that, at one time, roamed your  halls. Mike Maples, to this day (and to the best of my knowledge) still has a Microsoft email address, he is that well thought of.  There is a big/smart lesson in that for you.

6. Respect

Over and over again, I hear about former IBM/Sun/Microsoft people after having spent 10+ years at the company being treated like some goober a the county fair pie eating contest. Here’s an extra special message to the 26 year old that I had the pleasure of meeting with in Redmond. I and three other former folks that represented about 25 years of MS time.  Put away the smart phone, get your feet off the table, stop slumping, and remember that all three of us were coding for a living when you were crawling up to Cafe Mommy for a swig.  It is a fundamental mistake to think you used to be one of us and now you’re not. It’s just bad. Respect will get you armies of people you aren’t paying for, perspective you probably need, and help you won’t have to ask for. Respect, its not just for breakfast anymore.

The U.S. Military has this down pat. If you wore the uniform, you are always part of the family. And the Marines have it tuned to a fine art.  Your company needs to be built like that. The few, the proud, the 37signals machine, the icerocket rangers, Team Technorati, whatever. All of these companies are growing or will grow. All of them will have former employees, veterans if you will.  Think about how this impacts your company and what you are doing about it today.

This isn’t a slam on Microsoft or any other company, rather a good lesson for you and your company, large or small. Good people move on for lots of reasons and assuming bad stuff wasn’t the prime reason, it makes good sense to retain some value in that relationship.

Macromedia: Corporate-Speak is alive

Most people will have completely missed the little brush fire happening with respect to a free flash player being pulled then put back after developers kicked up a fuss.

I think it’s actually an important exercise for software companies that are even remotely thinking about building an ecosystem around their particular product or services.

First, an important note of caution: Bill Perry, the subject below may or may not actually be a Macromedia employee. I say that because I’ve found a couple of different explanations/bios. This one talks about him as a freelance guy. At the bottom of this article, Bill is referred to as an employee. So, Bill, if you aren’t an employee sorry sorry, as an independent volunteer for Team Macromedia, no abuse intended.

Let’s dive in.

The Pocket PC or Mobile Windows as it is today, has not, yet, become a massive [fill in the blank] killer or whatever. Steady growth, nice products, continuing evolution, etc. One of the things these devices can do, and do well, is play Flash stuff. 

The Flash player was ported and available for these devices pretty quickly and, for the most part, has been well supported and works.

On Oct 3rd, Macromedia decides to kill a free download for the Flash Player 6. The total post was this:

“As of this morning the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC is no longer available for download from the Macromedia site. This page provides answers to some FAQs that you may have regarding this. For those of you who are developing Flash content for Windows Mobile devices be assured that we are still supporting the Windows Mobile platform (Pocket PC) and will provide new articles and sample files on a continuing basis.

If you have any questions about this you can send them to mobiledeveloper at macromedia.com. Feel free to also post any comments here as well.”

You can read the comments here or assume, correctly, the developer community hit the roof.

A full three days later, another posting appears with some so-called answers.  Again, a short little, well, nothing, in total:

“There's been some discussion in the community about the recent removal of the free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC download and I wanted to provide more details as to why it was removed from the Macromedia mobile and devices developer site. You can read all about it here but to summarize the main points:

• The free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC was created and tested on Pocket PC 2003 OS devices back in 2003. Because of changes to the operating system and hardware of new devices, Macromedia cannot guarantee that Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC will work consistently when playing Flash content.
• The Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit (previously known as the Stand alone Flash Player for Pocket PC) is meant for developers to distribute their content with the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC to end-users. Because of this ability Macromedia sells the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit for $499.
  
• Macromedia's approach since 2001 has been to work closely with OEMs and partners so that they pre-install Flash Player on their devices.

If you have any additional questions about this please send them to mobile developer at macromedia.com and someone will reply within 24 hours.”

Same thing. You can read the comments here or assume, correctly, that most developers picked up on the note that for five hundred bucks, you could solve this so-called issue about the player working ‘consistently’.  So the screaming rages on with the developers royally pissed.

Finally, on or about Oct 11th, a miracle happens. Bill Perry announces to the developer world: WE HEAR YA! WE LISTENED!. And, just like that, this as-is free thing is back along with your continuing ability to shell about 500 bucks.

Yowsa.

The whole notion of ‘we listened’ is, frankly, offensive. Nobody listened because nobody asked the developers first. We listened is corporate-speak for making a dumb mistake, looking really stupid, being called on it, and then simply claiming victory. “We listened” is a crock. 

Lesson for you: If you sign up to build an ecosystem, proactively talk to your developer base. Not all that hard.

These posts above are, at best, poor. This is about as impersonal as you can get. When Scoble is giving out his cell phone, office number, email address, places where he is having dinner, and he works for le borg, it’s hard to understand this impersonal stuff. Bill, where’s the love? Or at least your personal email address. The page where you give the non-explanation for this exercise, no email for you, Bill.

At the risk of getting slamed for showing excessive Scoble love, here’s a story. An intern from a portfolio company saw a comment I made in a blog and sent a note to Robert. He asked Robert some career advice. Within hours, Robert answered the guy. Didn’t know em. Didn’t know I knew em. Just was an email machine, zipping through 500+ emails a day.  Doc Searls, as another example, blows through 1000s of emails a day. Seth Godin has been publishing his Yahoo email since, gee, since his Yahoo days. Billionare Basketball bad boy Mark Cuban answers email from 4 accounts that I know of.  And the list goes on. 

There is no, none, zero excuse for Macromedia’s head of developer relations to not be out there with his email address.

But they do have a link for developers to send feedback and totally promise not to give you a personal reply. No, really. That’s what they say on the feedback page.

Lesson for you: Developers Developers Developers. Sorry, couldn’t resist. The real lesson is humans matter. The days of this impersonal stuff is over. Even if our friend Bill wants to hide, the easy way to do that is create bperry type email address which goes to the whole developer team while b.perry goes to him or whatever. The key, these days is to bury people in the personal touch, not go the other way around.

And it just gets worse. Why? Monopoly. When you are the only show in town, the first thing that happens is your corporate DNA becomes infested with arrogance.

Don’t touch the keyboard, I know it applies to Microsoft in a number of cases. Microsoft’s best friend, Alan Herrell (aka the Head Lemur)has a great post with links about the state of MA doing a number on the Office group. If that doesn’t give you a roadmap on what happens when you hit 90% + marketshare and what not to do, I dunno what else will.

You heard it here first. When Microsoft launches Sparkle, it will be the best thing to ever happen to Flash, Flash Developers, and customers.  I use IE but please download Firefox, it keeps the IE guys on the improvement trek.

Competition is a very important component of innovation, long live the Fox and the Penguin.

Toronto BarCamp

TorCamp, as it is called, will be held on the 26th of Nov, here in Toronto. Should be fun.

 

Woot - Sometimes, yeah whatever, can work

Woot is an interesting site. It’s the one deal a day place where, at midnight PST, they post a new item that, if it is super hot, is gone by the time anybody on the east coast gets up. Which is fine, snooze you loose, etc. Woot is also defined here.

The Q and A will give you a sense of the tone/culture of the company. For example:

I missed yesterday's item, can I still get one?

No. Each woot.com product is discontinued at 11:59pm central time. That's that. Period. We may get more at a later date if we're lucky, but we offer no guarantees, we allow no backorders, and we have no waiting/notification lists. Too bad.

 

I want to talk to a live person there, can I call you?

No. We are busy sourcing new products and shipping orders. You can post a comment to our community board, but we don't guarantee we'll respond. You should Google for the manufacturer contact to get product answers – we suggest a dating service, magic 8 ball, or ouija board for general life solutions.

 

Will I receive customer support like I'm used to?

No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don't end up liking or you have what marketing people call "buyer's remorse," sell it on eBay. It's likely you'll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn't work, find out what you're doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it's probably your fault. Google your problem, or come back to that product discussion in our community and ask other people if they know. Try to call the manufacturer and ask if they know. If you give up and must return it to us, then follow on to the next FAQ entry.

As you can see, it’s part of the, well, culture.  Woot has a blog which is in my RSS reader. There have been a couple of items I want. The steps to order?

– Read the feed

– Click on the link which takes me to the blog entry

– Go up to the top of the page, click on the “todays woot” page.

– Figure out if they have any and, if they do, proceed to get the item I want.

Kinda dumb, right? Simplest thing in the world to put a link in the blog entry to “I want one.”  Yeah, you’d think so. I’ve sent a couple of notes and, surprise, no response. Am I taking my business elsewhere? Nope, I’ve bought stuff and, if it’s a good deal (to me), I’ll keep doing it.

In the case of Woot, it is all about price, period. Not worth it to you? Hit the road, see you tomorrow. Worth it? Pay for it and we’ll ship it. Done, finished.

It’s been said they do 40 million dollars worth of business a year. Contrast this to Seth Godin’s numerous examples of ‘remarkable’ and ask yourself where this fits.

40 million bux just doing it.

Amazing.

The Scoble/Mini-Microsoft Debate

First, let me say, clearly that both of these individuals are human beings with families and lives. I point out the stuff they do for the purposes of study not for the purpose of grading or passing judgment. So, no flames on/for either.

I’ve gotten a number of emails asking me various questions on the Robert Scoble vs, Mini-Microsoft thing I laid out in a previous posting.   I’ve tried to put the answers into this one post. Thanks for sending the emails, I appreciate all of them, keep em coming.

I’ve been watching the corporate blogging thing for some time, both from a VC (aka Greed) perspective as well as a management study.  I’ve debated, on/off line with many people the long term value and impact of blogging.

To me, the Scoble/Mini thing is an excellent case study on a number of fronts.

Comments/Conversation.

Robert, for example, calls his comments the mud pit and are not really followed by me. I value the post itself and see the impacts from others who quote/link to his stuff.  Mini, on the other hand, has had some really raging debates inside the comment sections. Reading his posts without the comment section will cause you to miss much. So, for me, it’s an interesting situation. A public, here is my phone number guy (Scoble) and an anonymous, I don’t want to be fired guy (Mini). Both well read, well debated, and both having some interesting perspectives but very different things happening in the comment sections.

Value

Value comes in a number of flavors. Let’s talk about value to the host company (Microsoft in this case). If you were a super smart person with two job offers, does anything of this blogging stuff impact your job choice? In some of the mini comments, you see various insights into the company that might impact your decision. Robert’s blog also might impact your choice because he spends a fair amount of time on products and development activities.

Would either blog be considered must read? Well, if you are developing on a MSFT platform, you might consider Robert’s must read as keeping up on your platform developer is probably important to you. 

There is, of course, the personal brand issues for both bloggers. If Mini decides to do an inside book, does the blog have value? Dunno, but it is interesting.

Other

To answer the question on anonymous v. named, I personally believe that with minor tweaks, like dropping the direct personal attacks, the Mini blog could easily be a named blog. I still believe, perhaps wrongly, that all the blogging has done is expose to a greater public what has been going on since almost day one at MSFT, that being raging debates on everything. Again, I admit that it’s been a very long time since I’ve been there and these are different times, but I’ve always admired the company’s ability to have anybody at any level, talk to anybody else at any other level. So, strictly from that point, it would be a shame if the company had evolved away from that culture to the extent that Mini truly believes he’d be fired if people knew his name. Could be, but that would be a true shame.

To answer the numerous comments about apples/oranges comparision, understood. To me, in order to get a full understanding of your partner, supplier, or competitor, it helps to get a full view of what you are dealing with.  Knowing the thoughts of ex-employees, mini/scoble, and all the other people who choose to blog in/out/about Microsoft, should be of value to you.

To answer the question on who will ‘go out the door’ first, sorry, my opinion doesn’t matter. I’m assuming both of these guys go to work because they want to and will make the changes when they get to the point where it is an ‘un-fun’ thing to do.

On the reading question: I have Robert in my RSS Reader, Mini I hit from time to time for the comments. Yes, I’ve met Robert in person.

Thanks for the emails, I greatly respect/appeciate civil dialog. 

Katrina - Some 2.0 thoughts

Jeff Jarvis is leading the Recovery 2.0 charge with the hope of trying to do a better job when disasters strike and we need to put places back together again. There are some good causes/thinking going on and I suspect the efforts will help lots of people.

Somebody had a link to a very personal blog about family hit hard by Katrina. It was full of pictures showing trailers wiped out, tough survivors, and raw emotion.  It was very powerful. I have also spent some time reviewing many of the other personal blogs out there trying to get below the surface of the obvious types of recovery.

In the end, I was struck by how many people didn’t have clean underwear. Stay with me.  When the donations of clothes came flying in from everywhere, several bloggers noticed that people, while appreciating the efforts, mentioned the lack of clean underwear, socks, and other things that normally do not end up in the clothing donation bins.  It was, to me anyway, striking.

So, I dug around, found a church group, and I’m working creating “clean paks” that are basically some underwear, socks, and an toiletry kit.  This package will be sorted by sex/size, boxed up and positioned for use in these types of emergencies.  I’m hopeful that after I get some of this rolling, it can be expanded.

I’m blogging about it as a reminder to you, kind start up, to remember that sometimes, with all the technology, all the options, all the everything, its the simple things that get overlooked.

The KISS Principal applies to lots of situations.

It's official - It's rude (and other survey lessons)

In my line of work, I do a lot of listening. I look for trends, try to spot things which can prove or disprove various thesis points that I might be working on.

Recently, I’ve been making the rounds with a number of Microsoft Alumni asking a number of questions about post MS life and about things they’ve been doing with the MS training/experience. I’ve done this with IBM former employees as well as a group of folks from AEtna where I worked a very long time ago.

Naturally, I’ve gotten lots of interesting data, some of which I’ll share with you as it might be helpful in your business building exercises. Or it might just be entertaining. No flames, it’s just data.

This is a sample size of 25 people who had an average of 5.5 years with the firm, all but 4 having line management responsibility the remaining, coders with no management responsibilities.

Do you think your MS experience gives you an edge in face to face meetings with your, now former, employer or help you in you new interactions?

60% said no. Personally, I was shocked. I thought it would have been the other way around. In probing it, the best comment I got was this from a 7 year guy with the OS team:

“I never knew just how arrogant, snotty, and rude it is to flip open a laptop and read mail while in a meeting. I feel like I need to find the hundreds of people I dealt with over the years and apologize. It might be this swaggering, hot shot crap, works with internal meetings, but man is it rude.”

Memo to Mini-Microsoft: While you’re busy pounding on management, leave some room to remind your fellow co-workers to put the Smart Phones, WiFi Laptops, and other stuff away when outsiders come -a– calling. It pisses them/us off.  For the record, most if not all of senior management at MS, follows Ballmer’s lead as doesn’t do that stuff. He has stated, on more then one occasion, it’s seriously rude. 

Memo to you: be nice, you never know.

If you got a call from Steve/Bill/Jeff to come back, would you?

80% said no, with the others saying maybe. None said yes.

The why was more interesting then the numbers. In this case, it boiled down to “the company changed” or “not the same place” or “not what I originally signed up for”.  Obvious, maybe, but the lesson for you, the start up, is to remember you will be changing and sometimes the changes will result in one set of people no longer being right for the job or simply feeling right for the job. 

I point this out because company growth and keeping people aligned with the where the company is going, needs to go, etc, will be one of your biggest challenges. 

In your new/current role are you using a MS based technology solution or “open source”?

75% said Open Source or some non-Microsoft variation.

In probing this, most former employees were not members of the Alumni group and thus not using the MS products discount (essentially a company store allowance) to help get a start up off the ground. Interesting on a number of fronts.  Message to you is this. Former employees should be your best friends if they leave on good terms. Giving them comp accounts or discounts, etc, are smart/cheap ways to get additional feet on the street with respect to what you are offering. MS, at least in my view, isn’t using it’s former employee base as much as it could be doing.

How much “Microsoft Way” management do you think you are applying to your current position?

65% said a significant amount with 20% saying a fair amount. 5% said a little and 10% said none at all.

Given that all of the people are in companies that ship stuff, not consulting gigs, this actually makes good sense to me. The folks inside the company know how to ship products, love shipping products, and can certainly bring those skills into other organizations. It was an interesting data point.

Who do you think is making a larger internal contribution to the betterment of Microsoft, Mini-Microsoft or Robert Scoble?

90% Scoble. The biggest reason? As expected, measurable results. Increased blogging across the company resulting in closer customer contact resulting in a great feedback loop and data for actually developers. Virtually everybody thought Robert was setting a good bar for the company when it comes to communications about the company, products, etc. 

I did ask the ‘why not mini’ and, also as expected, the anonymity and the true belief that the company, at its core, large or not, bloated or not, encourages and thrives on healthy, loud, at times obnoxious dissenting screams to ensure all voices are heard and the company doesn’t go too far of the deep end on anything. More then one person pointed to J. Allard and his telling the then CTO Nathan Myrvold, yer pretty much wrong and an doofus when it comes to the Internet.  Fish story or not, most people (in my survey group) use this as “proof” that passion and being right trumps it all. J. Allard now runs the XBox group, still going, as they say.

Who do you think is making a larger external contribution to the betterment of Microsoft, Mini-Microsoft or Robert Scoble?

80% Scoble. The interesting point here was the Scoble drop. In probing, I got some views that Mini actually helps show the human side or that the company is not a bunch evil minded, borg drones, rather a normal large company with growing pains like everybody else. Interesting perspective.

What’s the single more important technology leap you need to make your new thing wildly successful?

Various answers but the one that stuck out and was repeated the most was “always on/always connected masses of people” or “where being ‘on’ is second nature and completely natural.”  This translated into examples such as broadband to car to get music downloads over the air or more computing power on the hip to show richer content in a smaller formats, etc. Richer services, etc.  Lots of NDA stuff so I can’t say much.

This data was compiled over the course of the last three months, no bribes paid.  It was fun and I hope you find the data interesting.

Inside the MSFT Checkbook

I’ve mentioned Don Dodge in the past as somebody who is doing some good work with Microsoft’s newbie helper squad (nobody seemed to like the high tech dumpster diving thing, so version two).

Don’s important for several reasons.

First, he is a Microsoft newbie and that has certain benefits. It typically takes about 7 ~ 9 months for the implants, combined with the Redmond Kool-Aid, to fully settle into a fresh host body. So, quick, while there is time, you should meet Don. He’s actually on the east coast which gives you an edge since you don’t have to trek to Redmond.

Second, he has had real work prior to Microsoft and he has the battle scars to prove it. It’s always interesting to get a note from a satisfied developer, CEO, or other person screaming about some obnoxious snotty nosed kid getting all I’m Microsoft and you’re not in some meeting.  A quick check with somebody inside the company almost always reveals the offending chap was some straight out of school, newly minted MBA who overdosed on the welcome to Microsoft punch bowl. 

On the other hand, if you dig around, you will see that the folks having the most positive influence on Microsoft these days, are the ‘outsiders’ who bring a sense of reality to the daily grind. Don is one of those smart, reality based, good people.

I bring all of this up because Don has written another good piece about Microsoft and how companies do (or don’t) get acquired. You can read the full post here.  If you’d like to take a look some history, Microsoft maintains a page listing the company acquisitions done since around 1994.

One paragraph is a pretty good summary of the process that’s been in place for a very long time:

“It comes down to this; if the company in question has a product that is squarely in the domain of an existing Microsoft product than the valuation is some multiple of the internal development cost. If the company has market leadership in a new product space or market segment than the valuation goes up significantly.”

It’s really not much more complicated then that.

It’s a good read by a been there, done that, smart person.

Robert Scoble and Karl Rove - Same problem

Hmm.. Search is problematic everywhere.

Check out this story from Newsweek and read slowly the last paragraph.

One snip:

“Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used”

It could be worse, Robert, it could be worse.

 

 

Fixed Search - some other examples

If you’ve read my last note on scoblesearch.com, you know that I’m all for making maximum use out of what you already have and making computers do 90% of the work.

Consider this other post about a geek dinner from Renee Blodgett happening in San Francisco. In that blog posting is the name of the place with an address.

So, whattaya do? Open your browser, Google it, map it, find directions, etc, etc, etc.  Lame and a giant time waster. You should be able to right mouse click on that blog entry right over the location and get obvious results from the search you are about to undertake.

But wait, theres’ more.

Another blogger mentions this geek dinner and says the following:

“Keep in mind it's Fleet Week, so parking might be difficult to find.”

How’s about that one, sports fans? Parking, San Francisco, Fleet Week, etc, etc. Lots of searching, mapping, etc.

But, what happens when I put this whole thing into my schedule? If I put the geek dinner with the address on the correct time/date and save it into my calendar, shouldn’t my computer already know what I’m going to need? Parking? Public transit? A time machine cuz this event has already happened?

There is a major shake up coming. Google, et al, have done a great job getting everybody, everything, and then some, convinced to have an online presence. From tickets, to schedules, to maps, to available parking spaces, its all there with more coming.

Now is the time to make maximum use of this stuff. While the Web two dot oh folk continue to pass gas over the rubber chicken circuit, you go code up some solutions that make this computer of mine work harder for me.

I’ll leave the light on and the check out for you.

You're Pre-Approved - ScobleSearch.com

Robert Scoble, wrote a particularly good piece with respect to search and why there are a number of critical deficiencies within the current search products from various vendors. In others words, the stuff sux. And he’s getting pounded on by the usual suspects with the exact stuff you’d expect.

– Not using enough words

– Not explaining enough of  what you mean/want

– Talk to humans first

– Shilling for Microsoft.

In this case, tho, he’s so dead on that if he left Microsoft today, I’d write em a check to solve this problem because it is totally and absolutely something that needs to be fixed. And when fixed correctly is going to make Google/Yahoo!/MSN all look like black -n– white TV with rabbit ears for reception.

Not improved. Not Web two dot oh. Fixed. 

Read on, figure it out, get a check.

First and foremost going to Google or MSN is nothing more then poking around in the hopes you will get something useful.  Poking around is a term that Seth Godin put in his latest e-book missive which you can get here.  I suggest you pay particular attention to page 11, where Seth says:

“Searching online should really be called poking online. Because that’s what you do. You poke around. You poke in Google or at Yahoo! and you poke at some ads.”

The e-book is a lead in for his new business called Squidoo which is an interesting take on people being experts on something, marshaling that expertise with the goal of helping people get answers.  It will be fun to watch.

To understand my thesis on ‘it’s broken’, you can try the list of examples Robert laid out for you in his posting or just do this. Open your browser (click one), head on over to Google (click two), type in Java and hit the enter key (click three).  In three clicks, you’ve accomplished nothing. It is one of those duh type moments.  Scoble (or yours truly) will bitch that the search engine doesn’t know the difference between Java the coding language, the slang for coffee, or the travel destination. The ‘community’ will say, duh, you gotta do, blaah blaah blaah.  The computer can’t read your mind, duh, it needs more words, or more whatever.

Wrong. It’s broken. All of what the computer needs is available right here and right now.

Consider this blog posting. If you go up and look at the sentence above which talks about “the travel destination”, you might say to yourself, hmm, I didn’t know Java was a travel destination. So you might go off, type “Java and travel” into your search engine and voila, pretty close to what you are looking for when you ask. Why?

Context. 

Most of you have at one time or another, right mouse clicked and seen the “SEND TO” options.

For example, in WORD:

As you can see, it’s all about context. Send means these things in the context of where you are and what you are doing.  Just as this example off my desktop also has context:

The next example is from Outlook.  Consider what happens when you right mouse click on somebody’s name:

Again, context. I can call, email, schedule meetings, add, etc. And the additional actions place which has been empty since there are approximately zero ISVs actually exploiting this.

The point to all of this? Context.

The desktop and associated applications we all use need to have search implemented with context as the leading indicator of what you want.

First, the obvious, the right mouse click over a word:

What I did above, was to right mouse click on the word whatever in a Word document. As you can see, it gave me the options that are contextually relevant right at the time I’m working with the word whatever. 

The right place for search is right where I am, inside of what I’m doing, right then.

It’s all about context.  Right where the Synonyms option is, you find yet another pull down with results. You also see the option to “Look up…” and that’s the key. 

Remember my Java example way above? Doesn’t it make sense to you to be able to highlight the words “travel destination”, in the context of the sentence where it is mentioned, and get the results about Java as a travel destination in the exact same way as you get synonyms above? You don’t need to type anything else. I can right mouse button you some options before we go into Google-land.

Or when you are inside this blog entry and see Seth Godin mentioned. It’s not linked so you have to open another browser window and type in Seth Godin, wade through the results and then click on something that looks like it might answer the question, who is Seth Godin.  Doesn’t it make sense to be able to highlight his name, right mouse click and get some options that make contextual sense, like “who is Seth Godin” or “find a picture of Seth Godin” or whatever.  The point here is context.

And this isn’t confined to the text applications.

Let’s say you are currently on Virtual Earth,  and type in Toronto, Canada. Well, scratch that, Microsoft doesn’t have it running yet. Instead, we use Google’s map service to get to Toronto, Canada.  Doesn’t it make sense that, in this context, search is going to mean different things to you?

Scoble had an example of HDTV.  In Google’s map product, you can search for a local business. Bring up a town, type pizza and you get, surprise, pizza places. You don’t get companies that sell wholesale supplies or pizza ovens because the going in assumption is that you are on a map looking for a slice.  But what happens if you are looking for a pizza oven or, in Robert’s case information about HDTV?  Therein lies the challenge. If you were to highlight HDTV in this blog entry, right mouse button and get contextual options like what is HDTV, show me blog entries about HDTV, etc, you could narrow down the hunt for what you want. 

And by creating a bit of an RSS like open standard, this SSSS (Search Solved Scoble Style) architecture would then be able to bring in tagging and all of the other things that help with context.

I know somebody is going to point me (and you) to writings about the semantic web and other such things. I’m not suggesting anything new here, rather the observation that we should use what we have. When you are on a shopping site and you highlight the phrase HDTV, there are a few obvious possibilities for search which could be presented to the user before they go off a hunting.

We can fixed a ton of what is broken and move ‘search’ closer to ‘results’

Scoblesearch.com was, when I typed this, available.

 

Funding - Reality TV Style

[Via Rachel Clarke, thank you.]

You knew it just had to be a matter of time before somebody would do a reality TV show about raising money.  Brought to you by the BBC, and into the second season, Dragons’ Den is a delightful show about a group of friendly business types going all Andy Griffith like and dispensing folksy advice as well as (hopefully) some money.

I mean with a name like Dragons’ Den, you know it’s just like going into Floyd’s Barber Shop, right?

Not exactly. Here’s just one of the friendly faces you’ll be greeted by:

Ol, Duncan Bannatyne here is actually a good guy, successful, and donates lots of money to charity.

And deals are getting done. Go here and take a look at the “done deal.”  I believe Hugh and Thomas should be dancing in the streets. You can apply to be on the show, here.

My total tongue in cheek brit riff notwithstanding, ideas can find funding and these are interesting times we live in.

Web 2.0 & New World Order?

Yep. Let’s give up our applications and go with just the browser. Okay. Because, after all, you don’t need apps. Okay. Microsoft is dead (again), the browser is all you need, network computers, hosted everything. Right. Scoble and 60,000 other people in Redmond, polish your resumes, it’s over kids.

Oh, and we don’t need desktops because we have the big network in the sky taking care of back ups and your life. Okay. Right..

Heres’ the, whoo hooo, new features in Gmail.

Right. Auto-save and Exporting for back-up. Back-up? Isn’t that Web 1.0? Isn’t that yesterday? We don’t do back up any more because it’s hosted, it’s “up there” and why on earth would the good ship Google want to encourage you to back up anything? It’s all free, remember? It’s all up there, all comfy cozy, safe on the network. Oh that’s right, silly me, they are good guys telling the truth which is “app or web service, doesn’t matter, back yer stuff up, bunkie.”

I’ve seen bitching about security with browsers (aka IE). I’ve seen complaints about crappy performance, no tabs, no this, no that. I’ve seen the firefox team claim all kinds of things (lots of them true) about why Firefox is better then IE. And for sure I’ve had Microsoft office crash on me causing me no end of grief.  But rarely can I find a time that I’ve been entering a blog posting, commenting on a forum, or doing any text entry in yahoo mail, where the browser crashed. But I’m sure it happens and Google is right to offer a solution that you find in, shhhh, applications! Auto-Save in a web services application, yessss, we have arrived.

(The reverse argument here is that this shows that web services can be both as rich and feature complete as a desktop application, understood but it also means that as you stuff all these features/requirements into the rich web app you get, well, you get an app. You can argue hosted is better, etc, etc, that’s for another day, I got it, tho..)

So while Jonathan Schwartz spouts his desktop is dead , give up your applications nonsense, let me suggest this to you:

1. Ignore browser vs. app debates, they are for tech people with too much time on their hands.

2. Focus on solutions. You have a problem and there are options to solve your problem. Solve the problem and the features that solved it are what you want/need. It’s a nice closed loop that gets you satisfied.

And this isn’t a rant on Google, I use everything they offer, this is my observation that what’s ‘new’ isn’t always so ‘new’ rather much of this Just Launched!, is simply what you have to have in order to be a serious solution for people’s problems.

 

Napster: Learning from History

Don Dodge, part of Microsoft’s high tech dumpster diving team, is a guy that you a) want to know and b) want to read.

In particular, this latest entry about the history of Napster version one dot oh.

This snip gives you a clue as to an excellent post:

“Never start a business focused on solving a big company’s problem. They don’t know they have a problem…and they are probably right. That is how they got to be so big in the first place. The record labels didn’t know they had a digital distribution problem and were not interested in our solution to it.”

This is very nice way of telling you to avoid coming into my office with “Microsoft will buy us” as your lead strategy. They might, just don’t lead with it.  Read the whole thing.

Oh, the dumpster diving team comment. Done laughing? Good. These are some seriously important people that you might want to learn about as you think up that great zillion dollar business. Don is on the team that, slightly more officially, is known as the Emerging Business Team.

You can read about them at http://www.microsoft.com/startups and find the full list of technologies that MS wants to get out of the labs and into your hands. 

When Don sent out his note about this, the last paragraph was pretty telling:

“Please contact me directly if you would like more details. As part of my role in the Emerging Business Team I will be taking on responsibility for making deals for these technologies. Terms are flexible. Exclusive, non-exclusive, and exclusive for “field of use” licenses are available. Payment can be in the form of cash, royalties, or equity.”

Yep. The words Microsoft and flexible in the same sentence. See, buffalo can skate and you should pack a warm coat when heading to hell, it’s now frozen over.

On a deadly serious note, check this stuff out and contact Don. He’s new to MS, has years of experience at all levels of business and is a genuinely nice guy.

An important Microsoft Speed Test

This is a test

I’m sitting in a starbucks in Bellevue. There is a blue bag named Craig Rowland sitting at a table, working really really hard on some work. Not a resume, don’t worry.  I’m testing the speed of the internet.

If you know Craig Rowland, email/IM him immediately and just say, Craig, look to your left.

This is only a test, no microsoft people will be harmed during this exercise.

Yeah, there’s a point, play along.

 

Don't Blog this!

I'm leaving Vancouver heading to Seattle for a latte. What?

After going through customs and all of that, I'm at the gate for the AC flight.

There is a nice guy checking people in. He calls me over because he needs some additional information. He starts grumbling about all this, in his opinion, extra nonsense.

After about 5 minutes of this rant, he looks up and say "Don't blog this."

Now, there's no way this guy knows me, none., so I say, with a straight face, "Whatsa blog?"

He says, laughing, "oh, never mind it's just this thing people do now. They write everything down and put it on the internet for other people to read."

Live from Runway 24R, it's flight time.

Important Stock Tip

I feel it is important that people with blogs who have more then three readers, give back to the community.

Practicing for the day when I’m there, I’d like to offer up an important stock tip: Companies that make popcorn.

Seriously. We are about to embark on the greatest Internet entertainment live action happenings since Pong showed up.

And we all know what goes good with great entertainment: Popcorn.

The desktop is dead (again).

First: Robert Scoble points to it, then Jordan Running over at the Download Squad coughs up his opinion. Sun’s big banana, Jonathan Schwartz pointing out that an entire room of people at a keynote would give up every desktop app vs. the browser. Everybody, completely, 100%, sez see ya later bye to all the desktop apps.

uh huh. Every writer is going to switch to a web application. uh huh. Every photographer is going to switch away from photoshop to a web app. uh huh.  Right.

I’m not going to debate it except to say if you are working on a desktop app that solves a customer problem and they will love it, you, and pay for it, come see me, your friendly VC here in Canada.

We’re open for business and we’ll happily live in the stoneage world of the desktop actually having an application on it that people will pay for. I’m old fashion, I saved my bell bottoms, they are coming back.

So let’s get up into the comfy chairs with the big bag of corn cuz this is going to be an amazing show.

Cut -n- Paste: Be careful out there

Jeff Jarvis has a blog entry regarding the latest choice for the Supreme Court.

This is the first part:

“With so many incredible legal minds in the country, the best we could do is the former head of the Texas Lottery Commission?

The Times’ most fascinating fact:

Ms. Miers is a regular guest at Camp David and is often the only woman who accompanies Mr. Bush and male staff members in long brush-cutting and cedar-clearing sessions at the president’s ranch.

Which may or may not be related to Wonkette’s take:

We’re not even that excited about her being gay.“

Whoa! A gay surpreme court justice? Cool, way to shake em up Mister President.

Click on the Wonkette, scroll down and find this:

“Not even the president can think of much interesting to say about her: In 1996, at an Anti-Defamation League Jurisprudence Award ceremony, Bush introduced Miers as a "pit bull in Size 6 shoes," a tag line that has persisted through the years, in part because colorful anecdotes or descriptions about Miers are notoriously difficult to find.

We're not even that excited about the possibility of her being gay.”

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff… It’s ctrl-c and then ctrl-v for pasting the full quote. I know, it was ha ha.. But still, all you A-list types, gotta set examples for us youngsters…

Web 2.0 != a check

It’s great people are reading my blog before sending me a business plan. I’ve gotten a bunch of business plans, podcasts, etc, that I would have otherwise never had a shot at.  I’ve had over 50 ‘no harm, no foul’ meetings, participated in over 25 meetings with angels, start up groups, and various bar mitzvahs.  Love that blogging, it’s great for business.

So with that in mind and seeing that it hasn’t made Fred Wilson’s cliche of the week yet, here goes.

Don’t put “Web 2.0” in your presentation. Don’t quote me Tim O’Reilly, Bill O’Reilly, or anybody else talking about Web 2.0.  Don’t tell me in your email that you are on the leading edge of Web 2.0.

First these kind words: Tim O’Reilly is my hero. I worship the ground he walks on. I met Tim many, many years ago while doing my thing for Microsoft. Tim’s a very polite person. He asked about me. I mentioned that I had daughters. He said, get em horses, trust me, keeps them out of trouble. The money you spend now, will be saved against what you will be spending rolling through the teenage years.  I did and my daughters are amazing individuals. Between the girls having a brilliant mother and Microsoft stock options feeding the horses, I made it as a Dad, whew! So, Tim can do no wrong in my book.

Having said that, enough already with this Web 2.0 nonsense. We are doing the same thing we always do when “new” has “newer” come along. We hype the snot out of it and crap all over the ‘old stuff’.

The modern version of a Tired vs. Wired chart is currently floating around the web. This attempt to categorize stuff as Web 1.0 vs. 2.0. is, well, interesting.

For example: Content Management is Web 1.0 while Wikis are Web 2.0. Gimmie a break. Wikis ARE content management dressed up a web service on top of a database engine that tracks content and, wait for it, changes to that content, in other words: Content management. 

Do not get caught up in all this stuff. Right now, if you are working on solving a problem and looking to make money from the solution,  focus on the customer and take advantage of what your ancestors, those Web 1.0 old farts, have done for you.

Lots of Bandwidth = You can do it on the web as a service

Lots of Storage = You can give people rich content because they can get it quickly

Lots of users = “Everybody” can get to an Internet connection

Free is good = You can do a lot, code a lot, market a lot, without spending tons of money (This is bad for my profession. We need VC 2.0)

So, while I’d wash Tim’s car with a toothbrush (or muck out the O’Reilly barn), I’m not going to Web 2.0 conferences and am going to take a very dim view of start ups who think a Web 2.0 badge is a waiver for actually doing the fundamentals of a business, those being: Solving a problem with a solution customers love and will pay for. Don’t look for the buzz words to get you into the game or get you a check.

Note: The “!=” thing is geek speak for does not equal. Somebody else used it recently, I saw Dr. Scoble explain it and I can’t remember the original place where I first saw it, so I apologize in advance to that person.

Geeks and the Technology Feedback Filter

Which one of these emails makes more sense to you?

“I’ve set up a wiki with an RSS feed so the team can collaboratively work on the documentation”

or

“I’ve set up an online white board of sorts so we have one set of notes.”

If you are a technical type you probably don’t even see a difference with either.  Being technical, you might of even said they are the same thing. 

And that type of thinking is a potentially dangerous thing for a start up. Read on before you flame on.

Enter 37signals, that group of wild -n– crazy kids, with a product called writeboard. This is a product that is pretty good for sharing work, some basic version control, revision tracking, etc, all over the web and its free.

It’s not really a virtual white board because it’s not live and not really something you can share in a live fashion but actually is like a white board because typically people get up, one a time, want to write something and more often then not, say ‘Can I delete this?’ 

And this insane habit of every phreakin conference room in the world stuffed with white board pens that are dried out! People, throw them out. Don’t put them back on the tray, toss the damn things. Sorry, I’m watching Dennis Miller and it’s 4am. Anyway..

So, it’s pretty neat.  In a blog entry about something else, Robert “Checkbook” Scoble adds a note with the following:

“Oh, by the way, 37 Signals' Writeboard is already out… Looks interesting… It looks like a dumbed down Wiki, to tell you the truth.”

It’s a clip, go read the full thing but keep your guns holstered, this has nothing to do with Robert. He has a mostly technical audience, he didn’t slam the product and no animals were harmed in the making of his blog.

That being said, there is a tendency for geeks to compare products via the technology filter which sometimes can get in the way of finding simple solutions to problems.

Writeboard is a good little app that is a good solution for, let’s say, a class project where 5th graders can work on something together while at home, as a class.  If a teacher wants to set something up, she might not want to get a geek tech filtered answer of, “set up a Wiki” which is both overkill and overly complex for this particular task example.

Talking about Writeboard vs.Wikis will be a fun technical exercise but can be a dangerous exercise if that talk influences products and target markets in a way that causes the problem being solved to get lost in a sea of flavor of the month buzzwords (currently OPML, Wiki, Web2.0)

Consider, Jotspot Live, another collaborative, web based, white board product. It’s pretty good as well and also attacks the issue of virtual white boards.  You could easily say, from a tech/geek perspective, this is a user friendly Wiki machine and launch into this product vs. a full Wiki implementation debate.

It’s overpriced (in my opinion) and as soon as Jason Fried and crew wakes up (!!),  links Writeboard  into BaseCamp, Jotspot’s pricing will come falling down. You heard it here first.

But, check out both sites and see how they explain themselves. They don’t use the term Wiki, rather then go after the simple stuff, white board and note taking. These are the things that the average person just get and relate to. 

My point is that as you go off and build your great company with your great app or service, remember your audience.

It doesn’t matter if you are using AJAX, Cobol, Wikis, or whatever.  What’s the problem you’ve solved and who can use it.  Then, service the customer and let the 5th grade teachers rave about it vs. hoping the technical world talks about it.  In the end, the users don’t care, they just want stuff to solve problems, give good value and just work.

I’m reminded of this incident to sortta make the point:

While at Reboot7 this year, I happen to be at a table with Cmdr Scoble, Hugh Macleod, Robert’s wife, and a number of other speakers/attendees.  Jason Calacanis, CEO of every weblog in the world, (Weblogs Inc.) plops down after a talk.

Jason: “What the heck is the next thing you guys are going to listen to? Where’s the agenda or talk list?”

Somebody: “Well, they have do have a Wiki.”

Jason: [stops, pauses, looks up] “I don’t want a fucking Wiki, I just want a conference agenda.”

Bonus:Memo to Geek Upcoming Moms: 

Consider the name Jason for your bouncing baby boy. It appears to be the perfect Web 2.0 name, all the new CEOs have it. Just  make sure your kid exercises all those stock options before Bubble 2.0 explodes.

Technology Update: MP3s are not Porn Videos

With all this talk of Web2.0 and other flavors of the month, I think we have reached a point where technology has, once again, gotten way out in front of the average citizen, law abiding or not.  As an industry, we need to slow down and get people educated on the basics before dumping even more technology, buzz words, and other assorted gizmos on people.

Go read the entire two page police report, paying close attention to the last line on the second page of the “ADDITIONAL INFORMATION” section.  Remember there is going to be a quiz.

Be careful out there.

Duo busted for Car Porn Screening.