Concepts by John Stack

(Taking a break from thinking tech today)  A friend called me this morning and told me he had been laid off.  He took the layoff as a sign that he was dead weight or perceived as not pulling his load.  I was not in any position to judge; however, we took the opportunity to talk about it and his recent experiences at his job.  With his permission, we built a list of signs to recognize and questions you might as yourself to help turn the tide of negative perception:

Over time, your email and voice mail volume has experienced a gradual reduction: Are you interacting enough with everyone?  Are you reaching out and contributing what you know?  Are you adding to your department’s intellectual capacity?  Do you reach out to people?

You don’t get new challenges or ones that matter:  Are you asking for interesting assignments? Do you know why you’re not given anything?  Have you trumpeted what you’ve accomplished?

You bring up something that is important to you and no one listens or if they do, they change the conversation: A tough one to crack but you’re up to it!  Perhaps they think your position is not important enough.  Do you have bandwidth to take on something more relevant?  Do you detail things to death? (I’ve been very guilty of this.)  Do you always make people think when you interact with them?  Sometimes this is tedious for people.  Some like the conversation to be light.  What do people talk about when they’re with you?

Your company is not focusing on the area that you work on: Is your job bricks and mortar or optional? Can your job be more integral to the rest of the department or organization?  What is it about your job that adds value to the company?  Can you add something to your responsibilities that is in line with the company’s priorities?

Your last few performance reviews were average:  Did you take this as a sign that your boss “just doesn’t like or appreciate you” or did you take it as constructive criticism and work to resolve the issue?  Are you happy with average?  Some people equate average as having a good work-life balance.  Don’t get confused about these two.  Average people get laid off right after the poor performers.  Why?  Well-managed companies continually strive to raise the bar.  Do you?

In any economy, we’ve got to keep raising the bar – increasing our relevance, our knowledge, and our capabilities.  What are you doing about it?

Social networking can be heard and seen.  A tremendous power. Here’s proof:  100 Twitterers who changed their icons  in support of “Where’s My Vote”  or the hashtag: #iranelection.

There are countless more – this was just from about 5 minutes plus a few who DM’d me today:

http://facebook.com/johnstack

At precisely the right moment:

My wife and I are planning on taking a trip to Europe to stay at a friend’s family cabin in Norway in July.  I thought I would try out Bing to check on ticket prices.  I found fares from JFK to Amsterdam competitive to Sidestep and other airfare sites similar in price and the sites themselves, similar in functionality.

What intrigued me most was the Fare Predictor, which looks at fare history and determines if there is any seasonality to the price.  I decided to put it to the test.  Here are the results:

On June 3rd, fares were $780 (Vayama on Delta).  The Fare Predictor suggested that I wait and I did.

On June 6th, they were $768 (Vayama on Delta).  If I were to take the predictor’s price, I would have saved $22, which is what, dinner?  It still told me to wait, so I did!

On June 10th at 7 AM, fares were $667 They told me to buy. 

On June 10th at 12 pm, I decided to try again.  It told me to wait.  They had gone back up to $779.

Had I purchased our two seats early this morning, we could have saved approximately $230 – enough for a hotel room for two nights!

Without any doubt, CIOs and enterprise strategists will take be taking a hard look at how Wave works and what it can do for them, specifically with respect to how Information Worker may benefit.  They’ll also be making big comparisons to the standard products that now rule corporate collaboration and content management: Microsoft SharePoint and IBM/Lotus Domino.  To me, it is also evident that over time, Wave will be a credible player and strong competitor in the enterprise. Why?

Wave leverages the best functionality from both platforms, and in some cases, does it better.

Isn’t that to be expected? I can imagine that my friends, former co-workers and employees, and acquaintances at both Microsoft and IBM are both excited and apprehensive at the same time.  Excited since it will push them in new and unanticipated ways to build better product and apprehensive since it introduces new FUDD to customers and architectural demands on their products that they might not be able to realize very readily.

Having been installed in the enterprise for over ten years and deployed (collectively) to over 90M users, both Domino and SharePoint are mature products.  Both product teams continue to innovate, extend, and embrace.   Originally supporting asynchronous communication and collaboration, both have sat up and taken notice of the increasing importance of synchronous communication, unified communications and the increasing influence of the XMPP standard.

A latecomer to the enterprise game, Google might have a significant, albeit temporary advantage – not because you might think they’re smarter (there are smart people everywhere!) but because once you plant a stake in the ground architecturally, it is difficult to adopt new standards and new technologies.  Microsoft’s and IBM’s advantage?  Domain experience.   Is Wave a game changer?  Absolutely! 

In creating Wave, Google had to assume the following about Information Workers:

• They’re constantly connected. 
• They need increased peripheral (contextual) vision and linkages to other applications out of single collaborative application.
• They need both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration – together in one interface and most importantly, in a single thread or Wave, as they call them.
• That the companies they work at will not be resistant to another SaaS protocol and paradigm (the Google Wave Federation model) in their IT infrastructure.

As such, achieving enterprise adoption of the Wave platform is going to come with mixed success.  Here are Long and Short Long and Short Pulls that Google Wave may experience in the Enterprise:

Long Pulls:

Frequently, IT has to accommodate the exception and not the rule; especially when it comes to the Information Worker.  Both Domino and SharePoint support the frequently connected, or “not always connected” user.  They are the road warriors, the folks in remote areas, the people who don’t have VLan or WWan access but still need to be productive.  In a great many instances, the frequently connected user might continue to be the accommodated exception until the last mile is travelled.  (The last mile, in this case, is WWan access everywhere.)  Of course, mobile applications go a long way to reduce the lack of connectivity but they’re not a replacement for the real thing.

Replacing Office?  Sorry, that’s a tired debate.

Getting companies to change directories (and their related security infrastructure.)  This is not only an expensive proposition for companies but a risky one as well.  Google will have to provide a cogent co-existence strategy as well as support migrations of existing collaborative solutions.

Medium Pull:

Increasing contextual (or in-context) access to silos of information sitting within brittle ERP systems has long been a target for developers of collaboration applications.  (In 1998 through 2001, we tried to solve this at a company called InfoImage, a Microsoft/IBM partner.)  RESTful services and other SaaS efforts have helped in this regard a great deal.  I expect Wave Robots will take this further.  ERP vendors have experience in extending their product and they’ll will get on board with Wave – sooner than later.

Business logic owners and Information Workers want a new collaborative paradigm.  Both Domino and now SharePoint are great products; yet, organizations who have implemented them suffer from islands of unused, yet valuable information.  The nature of the products (thematic or single use databases) coupled with an enterprise’s constant organizational churn in the structure, product, and informational architecture creates a huge problem not only for administrators but product companies as well.  A more federated model and different thinking about collaborative patterns is long overdue.

Over the years, IBM/Lotus Domino and Microsoft SharePoint have offered portals, exposed SaaS-capabilities through APIs and various protocols, portlets, sites, and increased search capabilities. SMS-like anything seems to be the hot ticket.  Having parallel access to short messages and ERP records (inventory items, sales orders, purchase orders) increase a knowledge worker’s ability to do their job as well as suggest improvements - simultaneously.

Short Pull:

I believe that Wave will be rapidly adopted by independent developers hoping to develop new products.  In addition, we should expect a new flood of robots and extensions.  If they can keep the platform stable, I don’t think it will be difficult to get Java developers, who are already using GWT (Google Web Toolkit) to try a few things out.

Lastly, here are a few key features that very likely raised some eyebrows at Microsoft and Lotus:

• Synchronous (or what appeared to be) synchronous in-place editing.  (Already in the hopper @ Microsoft)
• Wavelets (spawned waves) not inheriting security attributes from its parent wave (This is contrary to conventional thinking but very interesting to see.)
• Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, no differentiation between conversations and where they happen to actually reside.  Its all just one stream – like twitter; however, I believe this feature is fungible.
• Is the document in the form of an attachment going away?

What do you think?  I don’t think it will be a matter of if but when organizations consider Wave as an alternative.  How long before they register measurable conversions?

Its interesting how the press and communities of users have the expectation that the free software service they’re using should have a business model or be public about their business direction.  We saw it in Facebook and now we’re seeing it in Twitter. Today’s article in the WSJ:  Twitter Tripping on Rapid Growth seemed to be all about the Jessica Vascellaro’s opinion and not the founder’s.  I’m certain they have their struggles; however, with $55M in investment, I’m pretty certain they’re being cautious. 

They have time – not a great deal of it, but they have time.  I think we ought to give it to them and see if the crowd can be patient enough to let them determine the best avenues for profitability. 

To me, while it appears that there are millions of Twitter users promoting products, chatting with their friends, and virtually hooking up, I believe there are very useful ways that Twitter could leveraged by businesses large and small.  Certainly SMS might work; however, considering that twitter is free with relatively limited administration, here are five ideas that I think could fly – without Twitter doing anything except taking a very small fee for every transaction:

• Training:  A Day in the Life of an Executive.  An executive at your company tweets approximately every 20 minutes sharing what they are doing on behalf of your company.  A salesperson shares their various dialogs with customers – almost real time.
• Inspiration and Ideation: A company exec tweets once or twice a day about what is inspiring them in their business.  Anyone within the company states they need a quick solution to a vexing problem or brainstorm on a much larger problem.
• Machine Status: In this increasingly connected world, it is highly possible that machines can be hooked up to the net, spewing out status messages on what is running – perhaps these are coded so no one really knows what the code is or perhaps there is a server in between the net and the actual machine itself translating outbound messages; however, it is highly possible that a press,  robotic paint booth or other critical manufacturing device can relay its status.
• GPS Tracking: One of the companies I am consulting to, Wherephone, is considering tweeting locations of vehicles in their fleet tracking system.  Personally, I think that this might be one way for companies to track drivers on an ad hoc basis.
• Psychographics:  To some degree, Twitter captures real time sentiment.  Is there a way to add meaning to that sentiment through psychographics?  Can it be measured? I touched on a bit of that in a previous post.  There already is a market for this kind of thing as well as APIs (Lingpipe, for one.)

Are there other practical uses for Twitter in corporate America?  Let me know your thoughts and let’s inform the press that there’s smart folks over at Twitter.  They’ve got time!

All startups need capital. Presently, potential funding sources are limited to friends and family, angel funding, VC, second mortgages, private issues, credit cards. Each of them have their own constraints.

• Friends and family, credit cards, and second mortgages keep the risk personal but are limited to your own network and personal financial situation.
• Angel investors, VCs, and private issues mean that other investors like your idea and are willing to invest. Most investors require a long track record and/or revenue.
• You might consider a private company stock placement (amongst a limited number of "knowledgeable investors"); however, it will cost you upwards of $25K to $100K to complete the deal; that is if you can find private investors.

What about the in-between space? When you don't want additional personal debt or can't afford it? When your idea doesn't quite pass investor muster? What if you're stuck in the paradox between the great idea and no means to deliver it; yet you still have the personal grit, plan, and potential to execute if you had the funding?

This idea has been floated many times; however, I'm inspired by lending programs like Prosper, Lending Club and Zopa where borrowers put up a prospectus and lender/investors subscribe to the debt in amounts they are willing to invest . Certainly the technology exists for this kind of thing.  What’s keeping us from doing it?  The US Government.  Perhaps even the current financial community.

What might a Small Public Stock Offering look like – a Stock Class called “L"?

Is this possible?  A highly structured, highly transparent, market driven small issue, small fund stock exchange, where big players and big underwriters focus on what they do best – big issues, and the smaller players – moms and pops, small businesses, and smaller players get to play, make smaller bets, etc?  How come this hasn’t had the support?  Is the “against” lobby too big?

Write your congressman if you agree!  I’m writing mine.

This week, I decided to conduct a limited study of Boston-area tweets to see if I could see if there was a relationship between the number of followers a twitterer had and the type of tweets they made.  Specifically, I was trying to see if users with a higher number of followers tweeted about different things than those with a lower number of followers.

For a little background, there are different ways to perform the study and of course, all studies are subjective (see below.)  With my limited study, I found the following:

In real English, I found the following:

1. In general, two-thirds of all twitterers sought to seek accommodation from readers.  In other words, they sought agreement in some way or asked the reader to change their perspective.  One third were making statements about their particular situation without seeking any accommodation.
2. Most twitterers made downward social comparisons.  In other words, they were not highlighting that they looked up to other users.
3. It appeared that twitterers with a larger number of followers sought accommodation and make downward comparisons.
4. I found that I naturally selected tweets that had atypical statements and most of those ended up being from twitterers having less than 1,000 followers.  Of course, this might have also been due to my selection criteria (below.)

I did not find the following:

1. There does not appear to be a relationship between the number of followers a twitterer had and likely expectation confirmation.  If the tweet had atypical information (things out of the social norm such as statements about nudity, swear words) people were less likely to follow them.  In other words, socially, people still tend to ignore statements that are atypical – for those in their norm.

My process and fine print (the fine print that takes almost as long as the study itself):

1. I am not a sociologist.  I’m a technologist.  You are free to disagree with the results.
2. Out of approximately 600 tweets in one hour within 25 miles of Boston, I took what ended up being 46 tweets due to various filters I set; therefore, the statistical significance of the study could be questioned.  A real study would take more than 10,000 tweets and gobs of money and time.
3. I purposefully avoided tweets quoting someone (like FDR, Descartes, etc) since those are inevitably are upward social comparisons and are likely seeking accommodation. 
4. I did not include tweets about the news or anyone drawing attention to a product or company (except I did include one about radian6 or something or other since it was comparative.)  By their very nature, they’re seeking accommodation.
5. I did not filter anything based on the number of followers someone had.  Interestingly enough, I didn’t follow any of these folks save one.
6. I don’t necessarily follow any of these twitterers.
7. I did not include the twitterer’s name in the results.
8. The opinions of what is upward, downward or expectation confirmations are mine – and hopefully open-minded.  The correct way to do this might be to sample a large number of users for their opinions about whether or not the tweets are upward, downward, or if there is a likely expectation confirmation.
9. The results might be different in a different region.
10. There could be a correlation between the time of day and the type of tweets or in fact, my evaluation of those tweets.
11. There are an unlimited number of ways to do this better!

If you would like to find out more or conduct a different study, I would love to hear your ideas (seeking accommodation.)  The results are here.

The product ideation process has always intrigued me.  To me, asking for, getting, and acting on feedback is practically an art form.  When I was younger, I would fight tooth and nail to make sure everyone understood why my idea was the absolute best and the most thorough.  Nowadays, more art, less self-assertion 

These days I’m interested in hearing about the softer underbelly of a product feature, what might otherwise be perceived as tangential notions to the original concept, and if a particular feature is developed, how do you make it shine. 

Most importantly, I have also learned that, if at all possible, get industry feedback and ideas first, followed immediately by getting your idea in front of a VC – preferably before writing code.  I realize this might fly in the face of the whole agility trend for startups but this is how I roll.  I like knowing there is a market first, ok?  If you need a prototype to illustrate the concept, by all means, do it.

Last week in Phoenix, I had a great meeting with some folks I used to work with.  Both are successful software execs who, in addition to their other roles, they help startups.  They’re some of the best I know to help build a rational idea into something executable.  We spent about an hour or so discussing an idea I’ve been kicking around.  When we worked together in the 90s, everything was a good idea.  To be elevated to “great idea” status, the idea was stuck on the whiteboard and it had to endure repeated all out assaults.  (I should note that the first question was “What is the value proposition?”)

The idea I presented to my friends is my favorite kind:  A great idea that has a large target market that is also a paradigm shifter, a disrupter.  (Read: Risky but if it takes off, HUGE or massive flameout.)  My friends liked the primary value proposition and the justification for doing the project, we discussed how it might be marketed, and I explained some of the routes to market.  It was at that point, it happened:  They suggested a feature that I hadn’t completely considered! 

Most entrepreneurs who have made VC presentations have experienced VCs making suggestions.  I find that it is absolutely the best time to get critical feedback to your baby.  In most cases, a suggestion (beyond being a great idea offered in earnest) could be perceived as:

• An idea that makes the product more complete.  You might ask yourself if you did enough primary research.  Did you miss something?  This is a head-scratcher but in all honesty, it happens.
• An idea that is a competitive differentiator – one that competitors can’t do very easily.  Will your product be the disruptor? Are you prepared to defend it in the marketplace? (See VRIO for more information about this.)
• A great idea that might be a distraction to your original product vision.
• A suggestion that takes you in a completely different direction.

In the case of a potential disruption or something that might take you in a completely different direction, you might ask yourself if you’re wed the original notion or if what they’re suggesting really has legs.  Its very likely that you’ll have enough industry knowledge to know the answer.  If not, get second and third opinions!  Be careful and don’t turn into a ping pong ball – taking one idea, then another, then another.  If you’re like this, perhaps you’re not really behind your product after all.

VCs, mentors, and other folks who have been in the industry for a while don’t just throw out ideas.  They’ve given you an audience to hear about your opportunity and how to act on it, how to make it better; however, if it is too rough or not fully developed, you're not likely going to get a second chance with them.  Whatever the case, take advantage of the meeting and embrace their feedback.

In my case, while I work on market sizing and base application requirements and ways to execute, I’m going to include the new idea as if it is already part of the minimum shipping product.

In that of one of my client’s cases, the ideation part is not so easy.  They’ve developed a very fundamental technology that can be applied to all sorts of things.  Literally nothing is a tangent since the technology itself is at the root of their value proposition (similar to someone building a new engine, the body style doesn’t matter too much.)  In their case, we’re going through the market sizing process as well as trying to understand the nature of each market with respect to the go to market challenges, potential routes to market, whether the market is fun, and how long the base technology has a life if we take it in a certain direction.  Needless to say, it is an entirely different process.

Whatever the case for your startup, you’ve got more than a few things to figure out once you have that initial idea.  In my case, new features might take us away from our principle goal or they might just be the differentiators we need.  In my client’s case, the technology is the primary feature and the implementation is not as important as the market.  I hope to be able to say more about each very soon.

I love reading twitter profiles!  They’re just as diverse as the tweetstream.  Here are a few that left me wondering about the person or made me grin or both.

Hmmm…….

Helping Others Succeed by applying their common sense

CEO of XXX, Willing to do whatever it takes

Dedicated Los Angeles Urbanite

XX has the ability to make rocks and trees sing and people ecstatic

I’m a Three-Legged Pup named XX, Nice to Lick You!

Stay at Home Dad (Yes, my wife wears the pants!)

Helping People Get Out of Debt by Using Social Media

I have several passions.

Cat mom.

Interested in Child Labour.

Xx found me in the gutter ….

XX Pooh Pooh

Livin’ Lovin’, Lovin’ Livin’

Native American Pagan Mom Who Suffers…

A tweeting expert with a coding problem

I’m a big fan of information

Random Stranger Guy

Get and give help in 140 characters

I loved these:

Searching for Enlightenment…cuz I’m frigin’ Unemployed right now

Be cool, be calm, be happy.

I’m kind of a big deal.

I live in a freezer and need more caffeine and money.

Frequent finder of unanimity.

Purple-haired Jersey Girl

If it bothers you, it bothers me.

The problem is that the world is a few drinks behind.

I like cheese.

Currently in the hunt for gold bunnies.  Help me.

I like giving homemade gifts.  Which one of my kids would you like?

….consult budgies….

Concerned World Citizen

Bringing Rich Women Together

Terrible Scientist, Ok Writer.

Become a banana and a brand of choice.

I’m awesome!

….surprisingly single.

Happy Smiley Girl in General

Invading the planet, one corpse at a time.

Everything but….  Usually folks pick one or two things to focus on.  These folks decided to be “searchable.”  Some of the order was interesting, some I found interesting because of their diversity.

I like rad times, good people, and sushi.

Personal Coach, Internet Marketeer, Yogi, and Lover

Photographer, New Biz Starter, speed skating, reality tv, blogger

Exploring the razor and blades market that is the…

Raconteur, bon viveur, cad, rapscallion, hedonist, gastronome

Circumspect, Introspective, Democratic Geek , open source, open standards developer

Internet Marketeer, Social Media Evangelist, Father, Athlete, and Musician

Network Marketing Coach, Criminal Defense Attorney, and a bit of a rebel

SEO Expert, Musician and Pastor

Dog lover, Father, Husband, Internet Geek, Online Marketeer, Project Manager, and Business Consultant

Profile Names I liked that can get extremely popular or completely ignored:

@Successinator

@howtofail

@piratepotato

@bingogoddess

@lamaduck

@absurd_human

@wongaman

@ifiredmyboss (and his profile:  stop workin’ for the man!)

@metaphoric

Misspellings – I don’t know what to say here:

Working on social butterfly statis

tradittional and emaarketing

My names Kenny and I’m an Internet Marketer.

what is importance..follow me as I make a few discoveries.

@BostonRdSoxRule

Do you have any that you’ve found insanely curious?