One Flew Over the MOOC-oo’s Nest

A good retrospective from Tim Lepczyk on his experience this Fall with MOOCs, and an assessment of why he thinks he “failed” in his experimentation.

Burning the Ships

Cortez, during the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, was said to have burned his ships, so that there was no returning to the Old World – and ensured that his men were 100% invested in the success of their endeavor.

Daily, we read about the latest out-of-this-world valuation on some startup, from someone who isn’t a programmer, or has no formal business training, or has only a partial working brain in their head. Rarely do you hear of the level of commitment that those people have invested in to obtain their “overnight” successes.

Being an entrepreneur isn’t about going to cool parties, or hanging out to make a connection that will make or break you, or getting that killer round of Series A funding.

It’s about creating value where none existed before – and giving 100% of yourself toward reaching that goal.

When I started my company in 1996, my wife and I both quit our “day jobs” in the same week. I triple-booked business to ramp up. And worked my ass off 6 or 7 days a week until the checks started coming in. It wasn’t glamorous – but it was sustainable, and most importantly, profitable.

I wouldn’t have had the level of commitment to my enterprise if I hadn’t metaphorically “burned my ships” (i.e., quit my fallback, my day job).

If you think you’re ready to strike out and create the next Facebook, the next Instagram, the next Twitter, you have to be ready to scuttle the ties that are keeping you close the the shore, and head into the jungle.

Cause that’s where the gold is. Not on the beach.

Geek Breakfast Article in the River Valley Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Very nice article by Dan Marsh of the Dem-Gaz. Crossing my fingers for a good turnout… and that Bob’s Grill will withstand the onslaught of Conway Geekdom.

The Breakfast will be held from 7 until 8 February 23rd at Bob’s Grill in Conway, AR. More event detail may be found here.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 50,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Cobbler’s Children Have No Shoes

You know the old saw.

“The Cobbler’s Children Have No Shoes.“

Same’s been true with me and updating my own marketing material lately.

To correct that, I’ve been playing around with Animoto this week (http://www.animoto.com).

Verdict: Me like. Me like lots.

Anyway, here’s the result:

iPhone Apps

Android Apps

Blackberry Apps

Year’s End

I know most people look forward to the last two weeks of the year.

As the owner of a small business, I’ve always looked at these last two weeks of the year with Trepidation… and with Hope.

Trepidation, in that even with folks flitting to and yon for the holidays, I still have people depending upon me to bring home the bacon – regardless of merry making.

And with Hope for the coming new year, and the unwritten promise it brings.

May you and yours have a safe and happy holiday season.

And may the coming year fulfill the promise of better days ahead for us all.

How to Find (and Land) a Job in This Economy

Pssst… wanna know a secret?

NOBODY can tell you how to find and land a job in this economy.

But I can say for sure the following:  It’s not gonna be a killer resume.

It’s not gonna be a memorable business card.

Or that guy you knew fifteen years ago, haven’t spoken to since, and are now hitting up for a reference.  With a cold call.

People, there are folks losing their jobs who have been doing what they do for the past 25 years because of the historic economic times we find ourselves in – you think a humorous Moo Card is gonna help you, how?

I can’t think of a single job I’ve landed – as a W-2 or a contractor – since 1985 that I didn’t get through a personal connection or through a network of people that knew my work.

(1) Knew.

(2) My Work.

If you’re just now building your network, only after you lost your job, what can I say.  You’re behind in the game.  Not impossibly behind, but I ain’t gonna lie – it’s not good.  The competition is tough.

You’re gonna have to get above whatever noise you’re contending with to get noticed.  That’s what a lot of well meaning advice on resumes and job fairs and business cards are meant to convey – stand out.  Problem is, EVERYBODY is trying to “stand out.”

The one positive benefit that working on resumes and revamping business cards has is that it does get you doing something.  Anything.  Better than sitting around moping about not having a job.

If I seem to be flippant about this, I’m absolutely not.  Quite the contrary, I genuinely want anyone reaching out to me for a hand to get a job.

But I can’t in good conscience dole out a bunch of bromides about leveraging your LinkedIn network to land gigs.  Or go to your local chamber of commerce mixer and expect to get anything other than a bunch of “come ons” to buy life insurance, financial services, or be otherwise “rushed.”

You want to land a job?

Get your story out.  Get it out in a way that tells who you are, what you’ve done, and what you’re capable of doing.

What’s the best way to do that?  How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?  Nobody can tell you that.  And I won’t pretend to.

But chances are, you’re not going to land your dream job reading this post (or any other post) sitting in your kitchen, den, or bed room.

Get out.  Tell your story.  Show your work.  Persist.

Good luck.

When a Standard Isn’t

Since I’ve been in full bore “old fart” mode for the past week or so, I may as well get this gem off my chest to cap off the week.

A recurring theme this week for me, professionally and personally, is the use (or misuse / misappropriation) of the meaning of words.

Take Standards. I wrote a post earlier today about “the emerging standard of OpenSocial” (emphasis mine). A standard is usually one thing by which some other thing is measured. Since there is an absolute dearth of any applications supporting OpenSocial, how can it be called an emerging “standard?” Hell – it doesn’t even purport to be a specification. At the very most optimistic is a very strongly worded letter with very strong recommendations as to what should be supported – but you can define any extensions you like. What the hell is “standard” about that?

Out here in the wilds of the World Wide Web, people bandy about “standards” as if they are passed down on high, when by and large standards are the most flimsiest of figments of the imagination.

Don’t believe me?

In reality, most “standards” come about because someone is first to crack an idea or concept, make it wildly popular, and everyone follows a “compatibility” formula to success. It is only after the market leader has been established that someone comes along behind, codifies what is in fact a fait accompli, and declares a “standard” now in place. Rarely has it worked the other way around, where someone publishes a document, calls it a “standard” and a successful market spring up around it.

I can think of a set of successful “standards” documents that arguably worked this way: the Q’uran, the Bible, and the Torah – but they are entirely outside the scope of this discussion.

I can cite several early technology examples: the IBM PC compatible (possible because IBM published the ROM code and opened the door to the wild success of PC compatible systems); the Hayes Modem AT command set, which revolutionized the ability of PC software to control modems of any make or manufacture as long as they could recognize the Hayes AT command set; the SoundBlaster audio card and command set, which allowed anyone who could communicate with SoundBlaster’s original code set to talk to anyone else’s SB compatible plug in cards.

This is just a handful of the pioneers who were wildly successful, created the “standard” first, and then had it codified by the marketplace. Again, the emphasis is mine.

Even in the web world, though there exist many so called “standards”, all of the successful ones came about as a result of one company dominating (for a time) and everyone else following behind and calcifying a “canon.” Netscape (plus their extenstions) for HTML; 3COM and Ethernet; Internet Explorer and DOM and XMLHTTPRequest (“Ajax” to many of you); with very few exceptions, the “standard” always recognized the de facto market leader, and THEN became codified canon.

Working code is always the coin of the realm.

If we all had to wait around for specification bodies to waive their hands and declare what standards we’d all use nothing would ever get done. Perfect is the enemy of the good.

I had a conversation with a new Facebook contact yesterday and he was talking about how things would get so much better for communication across social networks once social networking “standards” equivalents like XHTML and Acid were adopted. I reminded him that having a standard like XHTML and Acid codified did not force anybody to use them. How many websites follow XHTML? Far too few. How many browsers are fully Acid compliant? You could count them on one hand and 99 out of 100 people don’t use them.

First movers who capture the market set the standard. Twitter isn’t the best designed site, it’s not the prettiest. But they were first out the gate to capture lightning in a jar and it would damn near take a stroke of timing and luck to knock it out of position merely on the basis of looks, speed, and technical merit. The market has spoken, for good or ill.

So, the next time someone starts yammering about the OpenSource “standard” API, be polite. Smile. Nod. If you’re from the South, think “Bless their heart.”

The market always dictates the standard, not the other way around.

This old fart is now going back into his house and you kids can get your ball out of my yard before I call the cops.

Morning Chuckle Over Sarah Lacy’s Latest BusinessWeek “Piece”

I LOVE IT when an employee of a news organization or the press lectures Entrepreneurs on the need to get “business savvy.”

How savvy does one need one need to be to cash an employers’ paycheck, Sarah (did I say that out loud)?

Granted, too many Entrepreneurs equate “funded” with “profitable” – but someone who can’t even do THEIR job competently, working for a big employer paying their way to conferences week in and week out has ZERO cred with me in discussing how web idealists need to get “serious” about business.

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound” – Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Getting Beyond

Perhaps the question I am asked the most when approached by connections I make on the web is a variant of “how do you make money doing what you do?” A close second is “what in the hell are you doing?!?” – but that’s a different topic for a different day.

In short, I make money by pimping myself (or those that work for me) on an hourly basis (sometimes per diem, rarely fixed bid). Simple.

That model has altered a bit with the advent of the social web. In that arena, I have sent forth development sorties in directions I would ordinarily not have done in the past, in the name of Business Development and brand building for (a) myself and (b) for my company, Sumner Systems Management (SSM).

The vast army of social network widget code monkeys (present company included) toil away trying to find a way to make this nonsense pay. Some do it by trying build traffic and eyeballs for ad revenue, or to pawn off their traffic and eyeballs to another code monkey trying to build his or her little empire in some corner of the semantic / non-semantic web.

My take is slightly skewed from the majority.

If I am going to invest time, capital, sweat, and intellect to the cause I need to know that there is a tangible long term benefit beyond dwarf tossing, ghoul poking, and general time wasting. Is there a business market for social networking applications, and if so, how does one bridge the gap between the early adopters and the mainstream majority vis a vis businesses engaging the social web to build and extend their brand?

I try to look across the wasteland that is the current state of Social Network applications development and identify (a) underrepresented brands in the social networking sphere, (b) underrepresented features in the social networking sphere, (c) underdeveloped marketing channels in the social networking sphere, or (d) a melange of all of the above.

Having made such an identification, the next step is to determine a way to embrace and extend the underrepresented (let’s say in this case) brand. What is the brand about? What makes the brand special? Is there already community of loyal customers / followers / fans existing around the brand that are simply waiting for an outlet on the social web?

Having answered that, I try to determine the best way to express the brand on Facebook, or Bebo, or whatever network I am targeting in a way that repects the brand. By that I mean, whatever I intend to do OR do, it must add value to the brand and not detract from it; complimentary to this end, if I am doing a “spec” type social application for a brand that I do not own it is important that I do not drawn attention to myself as someone trying to “hijack” the brand for my own profit (other than attracting the attention of the brand owners for the purposes of directly engaging them with me). I have found that it is easier to do this with smaller brands than larger ones, because it is an order of magnitude easier to reach the decision makers at the smaller startups / boostraps, and the decision makers are usually more engaged on the social web that their larger company counterparts (I say usually, not universally true).

What is the end game? To attract and engage business / brand owners underrepresented on the social web, by doing either what they will not, cannot, or want to but have other pressing priorities: build a ready made social network presence for them that they may either acquire outright or negotiate for engagement our esteemed (harumph) insight and wisdom.

This strategy of brand engagement has had mixed results. I have had some satisfying successes, some disappointing near misses, and some downright cones of silence from brand owners.

But where it has been stunningly successful has been in the building of my personal brand. Someone DOING in the social networking arena. Not talking, speculating, bitching, moaning, complaining. Doing.

As John Lennon said, Life is what happens while we are making plans.

To get beyond, you gotta do.