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One of my favorite speeches at TECH Cocktail Conference last week was Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV. Other than his eloquent talk on how being a RAT (real, authentic, and transparent) is transforming business, a piece of the Q&A stuck out — and then slapped me in the face the next day.
Someone asked Gary what motivates him and keeps him going. His response surprised me. He said that he’s incredibly grateful for each morning that he wakes up without getting a call in the middle of the night about a family member, friend, or someone he loves having died, and that this fuels his trademark passion and energy.
The very next morning, I received a call at work that one of my favorite XNet customers had recently died. This man had helped me quite a bit a year ago when I bought my first Mac and, was an absolute pleasure to talk to. It shook me, because though I had enjoyed conversing with this man, I hadn’t taken the time to seek him out and build a friendship with him to the degree I had liked. I rationalized that there would be time. Obviously I was wrong.
We make our lives so complicated with everything we’re running after, trying to be, achieve, or experience. I know that I so often forget about these basics and take my loved ones for granted.
Just last night I forced myself away from a fantastic time I was having with the kind of new friends that feel like old friends–to keep my movie date with my mom. Granted, I was two-and-a-half hours late and I felt terrible for that, but at least I made it (it was a Blockbuster nite). We had a wonderful time, just the two of us as my dad was out of town.
I’m glad I kept my date with my mom.
Today I’m at the Loyola campus downtown at the TECH cocktail Conference. This is the first “tech” conference I’ve attended in a while, and I’m pleased that it’s here in Chicago with the local business perspective that sits firmly outside of the echo chamber. Plus, it’s the perfect combination of an impressive speaker list with a great track record and familiar faces I’ve gotten to know over the last couple years at area mixers.
Here are a few personal highlights from the speakers:
- Mike Domek of TicketsNow, a company that now does over $200MM in revenue (2006 figures), shared highlights from the early days of bootstrapping through to receiving funding and investing in scaling the business to where they are today. He said that too many people start with an exit strategy in mind, and encouraged entrepreneurs to start with a passion instead. Mike also entreated the audience to step out, take risks, and make mistakes.
- Corey Brown of Squidoo highlighted the benefit of speed when working with small teams. He touted Squidoo’s “competitive advantage of being 1/100th the size of everyone else” where they would iterate in the course of an afternoon when larger players would take months.
- Nick O’Neill of Social Times observed in the Social Apps & Widgets panel that if you build a business based on an application entirely within a walled garden like Facebook, you’re limiting your audience. Instead, start with a web site that can gather traffic from the entire Internet, use the Facebook app to augment it, and build the application across multiple social networks. Also, one panelist observed that we’re starting to see “application blindness,” much like ad blindness where users ignore areas on a web page that commonly contain ads.
Nick Fera’s Partner Ecosystem. Photo Credit Leora Zellman.
- Nick Fera, former CEO of Parlano, who was acquired by Microsoft, laid out a quadrant of the “Partner Ecosystem” that provided a well thought out framework for evaluating the strategic partnerships you go after while building your company. On picking strategic relationships between competitors, Nick said “We heard earlier today that 90% of these things fail, if you don’t pick a horse and ride it, you’ll never succeed anyways. Pick that horse and ride that horse.” (Note: I will post a photo of this later, unfortunately I could not obtain one myself while it was on the screen).
- Allan Cox brought the room to silence during the lunchtime keynote “Discovering Your Inner CEO” when he observed that as we build our careers, and sometimes our companies, start families, buy houses, and build a net worth, we discover in our forties that we’ve totally lost touch with what we valued most in our younger years. He also exhorted the audience to be alert to flashes of insight that get you excited but so often you allow to fade, either due to distractions or fear. “I’ve never taken counsel from my fears” -Stonewall Jackson
- I sat in on Jason Rexilius‘ talk on Cloud Computing and Scaling, and most of the talk was way more technical than my surface-level knowledge as a non-coder. He threw out some rather practical tips though that resonate with me being at XNet; The label maker is your friend. Label the front and the back of your server. Label both ends of your cables, and color-code your cables - one color for private network, another color for Internet-facing. A bit esoteric, but it surely stuck out to me.
- Gary Vaynerchuk said definitively on community, “It’s irrelevant whether you’re a traditional business or a new media business, it’s all about the community. The community is the entire thing you should care about 24/7/365. What you need to become is a rat. Real, Authentic, and Transparent. Because you can’t hide anymore, everything you do is documented.” The core of his message is that people, marketers, companies, everyone — needs to be real with their audience or they will be exposed and leave open a vulnerability for smaller players who are authentic to come up and usurp your leadership position. My thoughts: Your character is who you are when no one is watching. Gary observes that the times when “no one is watching” are getting fewer and fewer as people adopt social tools. This doesn’t make character any more important, but your actions are becoming far more public so character flaws and inauthenticity is now more exposed.
For a summary of the tweets relating to the event, see this Summize link.
Overall, the conference was a great event and a wonderful job done by the TECH cocktail crew. It was a bit like drinking from a firehose as so many speakers, panels, and topics were crammed into a one-day conference that could easily fill two days. But that’s good news — there’s no shortage of activities and speakers, and it sets the stage for the next tech conference here in Chicago.
And at that, I’m off to dinner and John Barleycorn for the TECH cocktail Mixer!
This week is TV Turnoff Week, the wonderful initiative started by Adbusters and the Center for Screen-Time Awareness to encourage us to turn off the idiot box. I stopped watching TV when I moved out of my parents’ house almost two years ago. I haven’t missed it. Yes, I have a screen for movies and watch occasionally, but otherwise I find things to do like exercise, read, and further my knowledge via the Internet. My only regular TV exposure right now is when I’m in the gym; there I enjoy watching the History Channel.
I encourage you this week to turn off your TV and discover activities that refresh you. Here are ten things you can do this week instead of watch TV:
- Read a Book - The one you’ve been putting off reading. Or, you can read about the media, books such as Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman or Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg.
- Pick up a new skill or enroll in a class. Right now I’m reading Rod Machado’s Private Pilot Handbook and studying up on my knowledge before beginning lessons.
- Two words: Spring Cleaning!
- Go for a walk/jog/bike ride outside.
- Attend a cultural event, concert, or visit an art gallery if you’re into that sort of thing (then again, if you are, how much TV do you really watch?)
- Go throw a ball or play a game with some friends - it’s about that time of year!
- Cook a meal and eat it together as a family. If you aren’t married or don’t have kids, invite some friends over and cook a meal together.
- Play a board game or party game. Recently I had fun playing classics like Connect 4 and Pit with some friends. Other current favorites are Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples.
- Write something - a short story, a long story, a how-to guide or even some thank-you notes. Start a blog and publish what you wrote.
- Review your goals and catch up on your to-do lists. Don’t kick yourself, just give yourself permission to take a fresh stab and make progress towards things you want to accomplish.
What about the Internet? Shouldn’t we turn that off too?
To that I’d ask: Are you learning and engaging your mind on the Internet, are you doing something interactive? Or are you just surfing MySpace, Facebook, or going from video to video? The Internet is fundamentally an interactive medium. TV is fundamentally one-way. Steve Jobs was quoted in Macworld as saying, “You watch television to turn your brain off and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.” This week, try dialing back your consumption online, and dialing up learning and creating.
Further Reading on TV Turnoff Week and on TV Watching
What are you doing this week instead of watching TV?
I was involved in a group once with someone who was so negative that I’ve even wondered how they are alive. When I would walk into a meeting, they wouldn’t say “hello,” but would creepily come up from behind and softly launch into a complaint, like “some jerk cut me off on the road today, blah blah blah” or “did you hear about what my boss said? wahhh wahh wahh.” With this person, nothing was positive or even pleasant, ever. They laid out their sorry financial and medical situation to anyone who would listen, talking bad about relatives and friends and passing blame. Not surprisingly, nothing was ever their responsibility (and certainly they weren’t responsible for their attitude).
People who act this way suck energy, and if you’re not careful, they can discourage you from moving forward; whether that’s taking on new projects, learning about an area of interest, or pursuing lifelong goals. They can also poison social groups and make them no longer enjoyable for you and other participants.
Are you spending your time with people who cast a black cloud over everything? Or how about with the group that sits in the corner at an event and mocks everybody?
How is that working out for you? Are you happy?
I’ve had to do this reality check for myself many times, and I still do. I’ve been the king of commiserating and a mocker with the worst of them. Nothing good has come out of it, ever. I would leave feeling worse and no closer to my goals. And how do you know you aren’t the target of these peoples’ destructive diatribe when you walk away? You don’t, and you probably are.
Because people and attitudes like this are so common, it’s easy to treat this behavior as acceptable. We live in a society of 24×7 news that’s all negative. War, shootings, economics, scams, scandals, and celebrity gossip. And something about how we’re wired compels us to watch like a bad car accident.
My challenge to myself, and to you, is to stop putting up with it and turn it all off.
Everyone out there who follows a web-two-point-oh personality has probably heard by now about Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Good People Day 08″ initiative (short video), where he challenges everyone to talk about good people you know. Here are just two of the ones I’d like to highlight:
Jason Jacobsohn of Networking Insight
Many of you in Chicago technology know Jason from his work at the Chicagoland Entrepreneurship Center, KMG Enterprises, and through his blog, Networking Insight. I don’t know Jason very well yet personally, but from the several interactions I’ve had with him I can say he’s a great guy and someone who ‘gets it.’ He’s been gracious and helpful to me each time I’ve come to him with a question, and I believe him to be trustworthy. The more I see come out of Jason, whether it’s good content on his site, how he keeps in touch with people, or his upcoming event, the Great Chicago Networking Extravaganza, the more I see that Jason is a good person well deserving of his success.
Kelly McKiernan of BZPower and LEGO
LEGO fans out there will probably know Kelly from the Bionicle community site BZPower. Kelly has been a mainstay in the LEGO community for years and has used his unique combination of web development, administrative, and interpersonal communication skills to be a driving force behind many community projects. In many cases, Kelly taught me the meaning of “cooler heads will prevail” by living it out in the numerous conference calls, emails, and online discussions we participated in together. From working with him, I know he’s an invaluable asset to any team that must bridge the challenging gap between technology and business interests while navigating political minefields without setting off (m)any mines. ;^)
I’ve seen some breakthroughs in the way I exercise recently that I’d like to share. First, some background: I grew up an “athetically challenged” child. I was the classic slow, uncoordinated, last-picked kid who admittedly gave up easily in favor of activities that were less threatening and more comfortable.
Starting in early Jr. high and through late college, I carried a few extra pounds around with me. At my heaviest I was 240, and lost ~75lbs for a low of 167 in early 2003. Since then I’ve kept my weight between 170-185, mostly by portion control and remaining conscious of the food I’m eating.
Through the years - before and after my weight loss - I’ve tried my hand at lifting weights and cardio with limited success. To be honest with myself, I just didn’t put the extra effort into learning the right way how and didn’t set and follow through with plans. No wonder I remained frustrated for lacking the results I desired.
This year I set the goal of breaking through my prior limitations with distance running, as this is the biggest mental struggle I’ve faced with physical activity. Last year when I would run, I hit my limit after an average 20-25 minutes on the treadmill. On two occasions I ran :30 and :45, but I couldn’t bring myself to overcome the mental hurdle of accomplishing that again.
Last winter I had the fortune of meeting Dean Hewson, a triathlete and technical writer, at a seminar I attended. I asked for some pointers on breaking through my wall and his advice was pure gold to me.
- First, Dean instructed me to slow down. To build endurance, I wasn’t in a race. I’m already a slow runner, so this frustrated me, but I gave it a go anyways. After all, he was a triathlete, I was not.
- Second, he told me to think internally “I’m not even going to start this run until 15 minutes in.” This was a real shocker. I hit my limit at 20-25 minutes, so 15 was my valley of death. How the heck was I going to start at 15 minutes?
Since my goal this year is to run a 5k by May and a 10k by September, I started hitting the treadmill regularly about a month ago. I took Dean’s advice, slowed it down, and drilled into myself that I wasn’t starting until 15 minutes in. This alone wasn’t enough to bring it all together though - my early times were in the 30-40 minute range - good, but not great.
Then another thought came to me that brought it all together:
- I once heard a speaker admonish his listeners; Don’t dwell on how you feel before a difficult activity, but how you will feel after you’re done. I’ve lived with that thought in other areas; so I applied it here and started focusing on the feelings of accomplishment I’d have once pushing through (I wish I could remember the speaker and the exact wording).
Thanks to these thoughts, in the last two weeks I’ve been consistently running for 45 minutes and 1 hour on the treadmill. That’s right, one hour! Last night was one of those runs. For the last ten minutes, I thought my legs were going to fall off and my lungs would give out. But I kept my head up, avoided looking at the clock, and laser-focused on how I would feel about accomplishing what I had set out to do when it was all finished. It’s an amazing feeling - I know the athletes reading this can relate. If you’re reading this and can’t relate yet, don’t fret, just get out there, take action, and persist until you reach your goal (and don’t forget to write me when you do!).
Lately I’ve come across more than my fair share of aggressive drivers on the road, and the advent of spring reminds me that when you roll down the windows you often become someone else’s ashtray. But in order to feel justified venting about such things here, I must deliver some insight into the topic.
Everyone has pet peeves, you do and I do. As I’ve pondered some of mine, I’ve come to realize that things set me off because they are counter to values and beliefs I hold strongly. Here are a few examples:
Peeve: Tailgating & Aggressive Driving
Value: People are responsible for their own actions and responsible that those actions don’t recklessly endanger others around them.
Peeve: Smoking in Public
Value: A twist on the above. Do what you want, so long as it doesn’t infringe on someone around you.
Peeve: Passive-Aggressive Behavior
Value: Straightfoward, honest relationships where people are up front with each other, aren’t manipulative, and don’t backbite.
Peeve: Ugly MySpace Profiles
Value: Good, clean design, proper use of the English language in written form, and intelligence. ;-)
What are some of the things that set you off, and what values do they highlight?
Having read many of the criticisms leveled at Sarah Lacy in the wake of her Mark Zuckerberg interview at SXSW (video), I offer this quick thought. In fact, it’s not even mine. Nor is it new, some dead famous guy said it.
“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly…who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Offering my own analysis of the interview itself (which I did watch, though I wasn’t there) would be beating a long-dead horse. The point here is, for the mistakes made, Lacy was the one in the arena. While there’s value in constructive suggestions and lessons learned for improvement, outright (and sometimes mean-spirited) criticism reveals character.
It’s easy to take pot-shots from the sidelines. In some circles, it’s even cool. It’s much harder to get in the arena and put your neck on the line. I’ve played both roles, as I’m sure many of you have. It’s my constant aim to criticize less and do more. Is it yours?
The last few times I’ve driven into the city, I’ve noticed more and more of these LED billboards popping up. They’re like having a bunch of TVs pointed at you as you drive, unavoidable in their bright flashes and demands that you BUY BUY BUY.
Until recently, displays like these have been relegated to downtown crossroads like Times Square, now they’re invading our backyards. I can only imagine the recent growth in LED technology and reduction in cost to producing these devices has contributed to their emergence. Couple that with media fragmentation and advertisers desperate for eyeballs, and what do we get? Advertising that’s more and more interruptive and irritating (as if the stretch of I-294 between 88 and O’Hare wasn’t bad enough already).
I won’t pretend that I don’t revile these billboards. What I don’t have (yet) is a consistent philosophy and belief system as a marketer myself, of what advertising is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad.’
In my pseudo-hippy phase, which was brief (and no I won’t show you pictures), I became a fan of Adbusters magazine. I resonate with a lot of their thoughts on how commercial culture pollutes the mental environment, but I eschew the mag’s hyper-liberal conspiracy theory politics. In fact, the latter is the reason I don’t currently read it, even though I still agree with their views on media. They talk about the “mental environment” the way environmentalists talk about preserving our physical environment. In essence, they brought a phrase to what I’d been sensing — an onslaught of commercials and content that was not relevant to me and that was designed to disrupt thought and create a sense of need that wasn’t there before. The intense, sickly feeling of being sold to at every corner.
From a business perspective, these billboards are a new market opportunity, the result of technology enabling advertisements to be more effective. Now advertisers can fraction off use of a billboard space, presumably making outdoor advertising more cost effective for advertisers, and allowing ads to be more targeted (an ad for morning commuters, for example, who tend to fall in certain demographics). Seems innocuous enough, until you consider how this affects the audience on the road and how these blaring ads stir up more angst in an already frustration-filled part of the day–the commute.
So I must ask, at what cost will we continue to push the envelope of interruptive advertising? In an age where online, marketers are moving more and more towards permission-based techniques and even social marketing that’s far more targeted, mass media is soldiering on with more resolve than ever to annoy the p*** out of people. Continuing, as they always have, to talk AT their consumer (whom they see as an object to sell to) rather than TO their customer (a person who chooses to buy).
We all live in a world of perceptions. Though I didn’t watch much MTV, I’m a card-carrying member of the generation that borrows it’s namesake. Further, I “grew up” on the Internet through high school and college, where the concept of online reputation has grown in importance to the point where the web set obsesses over it.
We’re barraged every day by messages telling us what to be, how to look, and how to live. Mass media and peer pressure insists we wear certain clothes, buy certain brands, and act in certain ways to be accepted. In online terms, article after article shows and tells us what to do online to build your image and reputation: produce a certain amount/quality of content, and even to use certain “cool” web sites and have social profiles that tout not only your business acumen but show that you can party like a rockstar.
With this barrage comes the fear that you don’t look good and that others see right through you, but as Derek Zoolander asks:
I wonder if there’s more to life than being really really, ridiculously good looking?
It’s easy to lose sight of the fundamentals in life when you’re living on the inside of a digital bubble. Life is more than how people perceive you.
Integrity
“Looking good” won’t gain you respect when faced with a difficult decision. The decision or stance you take might not be popular in the moment, but those whose opinion matters will respect you in the long run. Integrity isn’t a badge you slap on yourself and suddenly have. Integrity is a character trait you have as a result of being truthful in a situation even when it doesn’t benefit you, and by living a life where your actions line up with your words and your stated beliefs.
Relationships
“And what about those shoes you’re in today
They’ll do no good
On the bridges you burnt along the way”
– Jack Johnson, “Gone”
“Looking good” and being successful won’t gain you fulfillment without rich relationships and people to share your life with. The most important of these people are family; spouses and children, parents and lifelong friends. Also are those in your areas of influence including church groups, hobbies, civic activities, and your professional network with whom you have a strong connection. Even if you are really really ridiculously good looking–either financially speaking or with a glowing career, it won’t mean much without the love and friendship of others.
This post is a serious self-check, and a bit more vulnerable and less polished than I planned when I started. Dear reader, I hope you are 100% on track for your goals, and if not, that you take my honesty as a kick in the butt to get on track. For me, this year is a year of no longer accepting excuses for my own laziness and no longer tolerating how my mouth doesn’t match my actions.
2008 is now 20% over. Now that most people have dropped their New Years’ resolutions and resumed life as before, it’s time to dust off the goals you set for yourself just two short months ago and review them. Below are a few of mine along with my status updates, here:
- Business: Attend and Present at 1 Conference: I’ll be bold and admit that I haven’t attended any conferences for a few years. Some seminars here and there, but no industry conferences. I’m looking to change that this year. While I’d like to attend more than one, I’m setting the goal there so I at least do that. Progress Report: Still looking for conferences to attend, likely in late 2nd quarter into 3rd quarter.
- Business/Relationships: Cultivate 5 solid relationships with local business leaders: I’m on track with this goal, as I have 2-3 relationships I’m nurturing that would qualify. I need to focus this goal and further define the type of relationship I’m looking to have, though I’m implying a pretty high bar by this. I’m looking at these relationships as potential mentors, influencers, or high-level referral partners.
- Relationships: Write handwritten notes: I’ve had stationery on my shopping list for a while now and will be buying some this week. People don’t write handwritten notes anymore and it’s a good way to differentiate yourself when you do. I was floored when I received one from Mike Maddaloni after meeting him at TechCocktail. While I might not take it that far for starters, Mike sure made an impression on me with that.
- Family: Spend one Sunday each month with my parents: My parents live just across town, and I want to make an effort to spend more time with them. While I haven’t hit the Sunday goal 100%, I have noted more time spent with them overall including impromptu stops there during the week. This is a good check, though, and I’ll work to focus this goal more.
- Fitness: 5k Run by May, 10k by September: In my own mind, I’m falling down on this goal. I actually took about 6 weeks off from going to the gym, and though I have elaborate excuses I’ll credit it to laziness. I’ve been more diligent as of late, and now it’s time to find a race, register and pay for it (so I’m mentally committed), and start training. (Side note: Several friends are running the Chicago Marathon, including two who need to lose a crapload of weight first. I’m still considering it given the mental barriers I’ll have to overcome, I’d love to because I know it would be life-changing).
- Nutrition: Overhaul my diet, eat more fresh vegetables, and learn to cook: My diet has consisted of pre-packaged Trader Joe’s meals, canned chili, and crackers/fresh salsa for as long as I can remember. The diet is heavy on carbs, and many sources including my chiropractor tell me what I already know, to cut out complex sugars and eat veggies. I like veggies, but old habits die hard. Progress? I’ve started to buy fresh greens more, and I do prep some cous cous (more carbs, meh). Next up: getting over my squeamishness of raw meat.
- Discipline: Go to bed consistently at 10pm, get up consistently before 6: My heart is so in this goal, and I’m excited for the success I’ve seen so far. I have to admit I’m still working on doing this consistently. The problem lies in how easily I get distracted in the evenings with reading or surfing, and using that as an excuse not to go to bed. This throws my wake-time off. Today was good: I was up at 5:15, made coffee, spent more time than usual with God, and now am writing this post. The goal behind this goal is to have an hour each morning to hone my writing skills and build presentation materials so I can start presenting.
- Fun/Life Goal: Save up and get my Private Pilot’s license: Ask anyone close enough to me and they’ll tell you how much my heart is in this one. I just ordered a book and have been gathering knowledge online for weeks. Financially I’m not yet on track for this as my car purchase last year has taken away the (nice) cushion I once had in my budget. I’m looking at ways to creatively shave my budget and increase income so I can at least get Sport Pilot certified or qualify for solo instruction this year, and finish the Private next year.
With that, I challenge you to write a similar post on your own blog and send me a note/comment with the link.
