Class V

Microblogging: Second Chance

After blogging previously about my inability to see the utility of a microblogging service such as Twitter ... I've changed my mind to the point that I'm willing to make a good go of it, and really try it out.

Not sure if I am going to continue to publish my Twitter feed on this blog, so if you're interested, you may want to officially "follow" me on Twitter now.  My Twitter name is advencap.

What changed my mind?

1. Inability to type as quickly as I once did, thanks to an elbow injury suffered this week (separate blog post later).  The 140 character limit is very appealing, at least for now.
2. Lance Armstrong's Twitter.  Twitter name: lancearmstrong  It's really him (not a PR professional), it's cool to read about his day to day life as he juggles his Foundation work and his comeback on the Tour, and great motivation when I'm just sitting around being lazy.
3. The fact that I can link all of my status updates to one source, that is, Twitter now updates my Facebook status automatically.

On a totally separate note: yes, the format and design of Class V has been altered a bit.  Still a work in progress, although the aforementioned elbow injury may put future changes on hold for a while.  But suggestions always welcome!

When Genius Isn't So Sharp

I'm no expert on artificial intelligence ... heck, I'm not even sure that's the applicable field here.  But one of the greatest challenges for technology that I can think of is matching items that are full of subjective "data": music, people, etc.  (I would have placed visual art into that category too - but it's amazing how far image recognition has come in the last few years.)

For the sake of my current profession, it's a good thing that "people" will likely be the last nut that matching technology cracks.

Getting back to music, I've been playing with the "Genius" feature of iTunes this morning.  Bottom line: there is still a way to go here.  There have been services out in the market for far longer - iLike comes to mind - and none have really completely solved the problem.  For example: let's take one of my cheesy seventies tunes currently on heavy rotation: "Let It Ride" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  Another blogger described this music as "big dumb rock" that is undeniably "catchy".  I can't describe it any better than that.  In fact, I'd love to have nine more songs just like it.  But no service to date has really given me good answers.

The wisdom of the crowds - social data that is generated from other people's playlists and listening habits - can be helpful, but at the end of the day, music tastes are so subjective that the match is not completely precise.  I get a lot of recommendations for random seventies hits this way, but that's not necessarily what I am looking for.

Technical data - the actual notes - could also be useful, but the problem can be summed up this way: any band could learn to play the music of "Let It Ride" and it still wouldn't quite capture the actual "feel" of the original.

So I am left playing "Let It Ride" on repeat - neighbors be damned - until something better comes along.

Technorati Tags: music recommendation, iTunes, iLike, Bachman Turner Overdrive

personalversusprofessional

Met with a couple of entrepreneurs this week who are developing an "Enterprise 2.0" application.  Without going into the details of what they are up to, I can share one point I raised with them.

At a DEMO conference I attended a couple of years ago, the distinction between consumer and enterprise applications was discussed, specifically as it related to product definition and features.  The distinction was blurring then, and that trend has only accelerated.  (For example, Chris Shipley's recent summary of DEMO 2008 continues, in a way, to touch upon this theme.)  Despite the best efforts of IT departments everywhere, consumers will use those tools that improve their professional productivity ... whether or not such applications are "allowed".  For example, there is apparently a well known investment bank which forbids its employees from using LinkedIn.  But the reality is, that over 300 of this bank's Managing Directors use the application anyway.  So IT policy be damned, this consumer application is a part of this company's day-to-day business processes.

In my opinion, there are a number of reasons why there is increasing convergence between consumer and enterprise applications:

• widespread adoption of portable hardware such as laptops and mobile phones
• globalization of workforces and project teams, requiring support through multiple time zones
• growth in workplace trends such as telecommuting and flex time
• increasing influence of Generations X and Y, who first developed workplace habits in high school and college (and used tools such as Instant Messaging and social networks to complete projects)

The so what for budding Enterprise 2.0 firms is that enterprise application marketing and sales processes may start to look less like an IBM or Oracle direct sales force backed by traditional marketing efforts ... and more like the low cost, viral model of Facebook or digg.

This blurring of lines between the personal and professional is not necessarily a bad thing.  However, I find myself needing to learn a type of self-discipline to separate the two.  To that end, I've recently begun to separate out my Facebook and LinkedIn contacts.  There will of course continue to be some overlap, but from this point forward ... I am going to try and keep my Facebook network focused on my personal relationships and my LinkedIn network focused on my professional connections.  So please don't be offended if I've ignored your Facebook friend request, if our connection is generally professional.  The truth is, I want a platform for expressing opinions that may not be appropriate among my professional colleagues, but that would be of value to my personal friends and family.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0, work life balance, LinkedIn, Facebook

More Time for Riding

And more time for blog entries because last week, I said goodbye to an online community of which I was a member since 2003.

Message boards are strange phenomena to begin with, and my time with this particular community was marked not only by strange phenomena but by cyberstalking, disruption of my life in the real world, and even a Federal lawsuit.  Friends and family IRL ("in real life") asked me repeatedly why I bothered with this online community.  Truth be told, the answer - more often than not - was boredom.

That answer just isn't good enough anymore.  This community held some real value for me at a couple of key milestones during my life over the last five years, and for that I am incredibly grateful.  But the reality is, is that there are far fewer moments of boredom in my life at this point.  And while I cannot prove in a legal sense that the same person (or people) who were behind much of the grief my family, colleagues and I went through is (are) still strangely obsessed with me ... I suspect as much. 

So the purpose of this blog post is to let my many friends, family and colleagues who have been giving me the side eye for years now about this whole message board thing, know that they can rest easy now.  I have finally come to my senses.  It's long time that I took the minutes spent on this message board and applied them to real life relationships, reading a good book, snowboarding (the picture above is from Kirkwood earlier this month) or running, or 476 other activities or interests that could be seen as healthier diversions from boredom.

Note: I will be curious to see how much traffic this post generates.  As an example of how strange online communities can be, I have never shared this blog's address with the online community of which I write (except for a handful of trusted community members via off-board channels) and yet I suspect that somehow this wall of privacy has already been broken.  I am purposely withholding the name of this online community, because I do not want it picked up by the search engines and my comments have less to do with the specific online community than with message boards in general.

Technorati Tags: message board, boredom

One Way To Lose a Customer

I don't know whose idea it was at Plaxo to develop a product rollout strategy for Plaxo Pulse ...

... but I can tell you that it is someone whose contact information I will never want in my own address book.

And because I am bitter about the tens of e-mails I am receiving every day as a result of this product rollout, I am not even going to include a hyperlink to it, or the company, in this blog post.

Technorati Tag: product rollout

Authentic Blogging: Private Meets Public

This is a topic I have thought a lot about, for many years.  In fact, my undergraduate thesis in Philosophy (how is that for a useless major?) was on Aristotle's concepts of public and private as they relate to who is responsible for educating children, the future members of society. 

Several people have asked when I am I going to blog, really blog, about Africa.  And the truth is, I've tried a few times this summer to write an entry that could truly capture the experience, and I just cannot come up with it.  Those who have communicated with me since my return either in person or through e-mail, could probably confirm that there is just an energy, an aura that is the direct result of my time there that simply cannot be conveyed over a blog post.  It's not any one thing ... it was everything from being up close to wildlife I only dreamed about, to attending a conference addressing issues which I personally believe to be defining ones for my generation, climbing a mountain, and so much more.

Since returning from Africa, there has been so much going in my professional and personal lives, very little of which I would be comfortable sharing with the World Wacky Web.  And since I've always blogged about things that are simply top of mind, it's been hard to come up with a blog entry recently.  I guess I would rather not blog at all, than write an entry that isn't authentically representative of what's going on with me, or what I am thinking about.

One of the many outstanding people I met in Africa, told me about how he had read my blog ahead of the conference, and enjoyed it in large part because of its authenticity.  That I wrote exactly what I was thinking, with little filtering.  And that meeting me in person ultimately proved to be remarkably similar to "meeting" me via my blog ... in other words, there was little difference between my online persona and my real life character.

Am not sure how I feel about that.  I have to believe that a blog - even the best written, most personal ones - can only begin to capture a fraction of the complexity that makes each of us individuals just that: an individual.   Certainly, at least I would like to think there is a lot more going on in here [pointing to my head] than what I express on my blog.  And what I've learned the last few weeks is that sometimes, a lot of this [again, pointing to my head] cannot be conveyed in this medium.

Technorati Tags: blogging, privacy

Note: Even though the date for this entry reads 29 June 2007, that is simply when I started the draft of this entry.  I published this entry on 15 August 2007.

Great Use of Technology: Spotlight on Darfur

Lost in the alleged news today (in the rather silly brouhaha over the paternity of a deceased Playmate's baby), was an announcement from Google regarding a joint effort between Google Earth and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Excerpts from the announcement follow:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today joined with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to unveil an unprecedented online mapping initiative aimed at furthering awareness and action in the Darfur region of Sudan. Crisis in Darfur, enables more than 200 million Google Earth™ mapping service users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth. This information will appear as a Global Awareness layer in Google Earth starting today.

"At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action," said Elliot Schrage, Google Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs.

The free Google Earth application can be downloaded here.  The screenshot below depicts what the application looks like on OSX (Macintosh); just look to the lower left under Layers and it is relatively easy to find the Crisis in Darfur section. 

It is inspiring to see modern multimedia and technology leveraged in such a valuable manner.  Moments like this honestly make me feel very good about what I do on a day to day basis: who knows how technology is next going to genuinely improve lives - whether on the scale of a five person family living in Cedar Rapids or as part of the global community - but we are busy seeking those answers.

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, Darfur, genocide

Enough to Move Me

I am not a huge video person ... part of that may stem from just never having been a television person, either growing up as a kid or later as an adult.  Honestly, between reality television and local network news and cable shopping channels, I just never felt like I was missing out.  But I do feel handicapped now when it comes to understanding video as a medium for content delivered through the Internet.

In any case, one of many good things about being inundated by business plans, startup pitches, and entrepreneur meetings is that when I step back to evaluate the general level of noise (an exercise I try to engage in on a weekly basis) ... there truly does exist a high threshold to help focus in on those ideas or people that warrant further diligence. 

It's clear even if it sounds banal: the idea, or the person, must move me.  For example, inspire me to download the software and spend more than thirty minutes on my own exploring it.  Entrepreneurs (and Limited Partners) may be surprised - or discouraged, even - by how infrequently the average venture capitalist actually does this.

The video above compelled me to finally establish a YouTube account.  (I know ... like I said, not a big video person.)  But this performance moved me.  How cool is this fingerstyle guitarist, Andy McKee?  Television is not completely dead yet: it was McKee's performance on tonight's Last Call with Carson Daly that drove me to YouTube; Daly mentioned something about two million views.  Turns out there are also over 17,000 ratings and 4,000 comments on this one video alone.  Many have apparently been moved.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Andy McKee, fingerstyle guitar

Another Sign of Trouble in VC Land

This article from the Sunday New York Times three days ago is frightening for any number of reasons.  With all due respect to the professionals mentioned in the article, I personally do not support this particular method of due diligence ... even though I do look at and invest in the areas of technology that the article refers to.  Should I feel that I am at a professional disadvantage because I am an investor who explores these kinds of technologies, and do not have children of my own to solicit opinions from?

Someone once gave me a piece of advice when I entered the field of venture capital a few years ago: do not invest in technologies that you do not already understand or are unwilling to make the effort to understand.  So, for example, I tend to stay away from areas like semiconductors or pharmaceuticals. 

On the other hand, emerging business models that at least partially rely on blogosphere marketing are of interest to me, so I have taken the time and effort to immerse myself fully into this particular channel through this blog.  I find constant invitations from LinkedIn (and its European based equivalent, XING) and MySpace annoying, but put up with them in the name of understanding the social phenomena associated with these kinds of networks.  I have not created a supplemental income through my existence on Second Life, yet was still a relative early member of that community just so I could explore virtual worlds.  It takes time, it takes effort ... but I just assumed that this is part of the reason our Limited Partners pay our management fee.

It's not that I am opposed to primary research.  In fact, I think methodical, statistically grounded primary research with regard to target demographics and market acceptance is powerful.  What frightens me is the anecdotal nature of the kind of primary research that the Times article refers to, and the obvious fact that children of venture capital partners represent an exceptionally narrow demographic.

Technorati Tags: venture capital, due diligence, social networking

Dimensions To Communication

A very thoughtful venture capitalist I met at DEMOfall made my day a few weeks ago by surprising me: he had a Nabaztag delivered to my office.

These quirky electronic rabbits left a strong impression on the conference participants, including yours truly.  Whether that impression was positive or negative is still unclear to me.  To describe this gadget in twelve words or less is impossible, but here is one attempt: one way web services client in the form of an electric bunny.

The best answer to "Why?" in this case may be a snide "Why not?"  But in reality, I think the Nabaztag plays on a larger trend.  Data, automation and the rest of it is all well and good, but the average human being still yearns for personal connections.  Those connections may not be personal in the traditional, literal sense but importantly they have a face and they have a voice.

Whether they will need to have moving ears and blinking lights remains to be seen, but to experience data through text on a screen is so 1975.

Technorati Tags: DEMO, Nabaztag, web services