THE DREAM IN ACTION

Music is not something I’ve ever really blogged about. I’m not super critical with music because I find that I have a different emotional reaction to different kinds of music, I enjoy that. I’ve recently been inspired and more specific with which music I want to hear. At the same time as I’ve started to think about specific music I was contacted by Dan Kantor. Dan developed a WP plugin called Streampad, an easy to use music streaming program, for blogs. As you well know, I’m a huge fan of early adoption and agreed to help beta test the product. At the bottom of this blog you’ll see a bar that makes it super simple to stream music that I’ve recently posted.

I don’t promise to post a song a day or even a song a month. However, when inspired I may post 5 in a day. Give it a try and please let me know if you have any issues playing the music so that I can report them to Dan and help make the service better and better.

To start, I’ll share the music that has been on my mind. In 2007 I went to Lollapalooza and saw Matt & Kim. They were not a mainstage show but it was one of the best of the weekend. Check out the songs linked below…play them from Stream pad.

No More Long Years

Yea, Yeah

Verbs before nouns

Music is not something I’ve ever really blogged about. I’m not super critical with music because I find that I have a different emotional reaction to different kinds of music, I enjoy that. I’ve recently been inspired and more specific with which music I want to hear. At the same time as I’ve started to think about specific music I was contacted by Dan Kantor. Dan developed a WP plugin called Streampad, an easy to use music streaming program, for blogs. As you well know, I’m a huge fan of early adoption and agreed to help beta test the product. At the bottom of this blog you’ll see a bar that makes it super simple to stream music that I’ve recently posted.

I don’t promise to post a song a day or even a song a month. However, when inspired I may post 5 in a day. Give it a try and please let me know if you have any issues playing the music so that I can report them to Dan and help make the service better and better.

To start, I’ll share the music that has been on my mind. In 2007 I went to Lollapalooza and saw Matt & Kim. They were not a mainstage show but it was one of the best of the weekend. Check out the songs linked below…play them from Stream pad.

No More Long Years

Yea, Yeah

Verbs before nouns

I’m super excited that my good friend Steve Glynn of Milwaukee’s Spreenkler will be giving a Social Media glass at Alverno College. Check out a bit about the glass in the PDF. No download necessary, embed from Scribd.

Alverno Social Media

A few days ago I read a post about document storage from Fred Wilson. His post talked about how his personal document saving practices have saved him on numerous occasions. This along with a few other horror stories I’ve heard recently cause me to purchase an external drive. He went on to talk about how although he’s been advised against saving everything from a legal protection stand point, he’s been helped more times than hurt by “over saving” documents.

Fred also goes on to say…

Here’s my thinking. If you are a bad person who does bad things to people, then by all means destroy the evidence before someone can get at it. But if you try to be a good person and do the right thing, then you should be saving the evidence so when someone tries to paint you as a bad person, you can pull out the email or document and wave it in their face and remind them who did what to whom.

Fred Wilson saves documents because he believes his good actions will help him in the future from bad attacks. The internet and more generally, digital history are increasing the ability and occurrence of ones history being brought into the limelight (for good or bad). Similarly, it is critical for a person to control or at least contribute what is out there about you, thus the importance of a blog and a controlled online presence. If you’re blogging about entrepreneurship for example, and your name is tagged on much of what you write, that picture that someone posted of you hammered a year ago might get buried in the search engines (not that it’s happened to me or anything), This is a perfect example of how contributing to what can be found about you is in a way controlling what can be found about you.

Individuals are beginning to realized during job searches or just Googling themselves that almost everyone has a digital history and something is going to be found out about you. Recently, my fiance had a creepy comment on her blog. I jumped on Google, searched on the guys username, and now I know where he lives, what he does, and could assess his threat level…I’m not worried, but it’s good to know right?

The sooner people accept that involuntary digital publicity is happening and take action toward embracing a public brand the sooner you’ll be able to control what is seen. That’s not to say that you can start a blog and not worry about your “cob webs” but it sure can’t hurt to put your best foot forward. A secondary result and probably more powerful than anything else is the realization that the internet and the ease of exposure will work as accountability for many.

Because you could snap that shot, post it to Facebook, and show the world, I’m not going to do it.

This realization will not happen over night but it will happen, and I truly believe as the level of accountability increases because of the internet and the ease of exposure increases the number of “bad deeds” will decrease. It’s very similar to how crime will drop in an area where the police force increases. Better chance of getting caught = less criminal behavior. The internet is the new sheriff in town.

Now you can comment on this blog and it will post to Friendfeed. There are many great conversations going on over on Friendfeed and I’m happy that I’ll be able to reach and engaged that community with this blog.

During a talk with Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk at CES, Scoble mentioned that Friendfeed has a lot of big things coming. A recent blog post I read entitled ‘Friendfeed could kill Twitter‘ (sorry couldn’t find a link) lead me to believe that Friendfeed does have some really great stuff down the line. I’m pumped for that platform to grow and I think it’s great, but for now it’s still a little too early adopter-ish. I’d love to help them get more main stream which is why I’m happy to be on the early side of integrations like this.

I’ve long been a proponent of opening the conversations up and minimizing platform dependability. I also like services that are platform transparent, meaning they don’t need you to know where or how the conversation is happening, but are more focused on the fact that the conversation is happening. Disqus seems to be that way. They are making partnerships that will take their added value and share it with others. The are closer to the source of the value (the blog) and they know that if the conversations they “own” or host are on more platforms their value will increase as well.

Great work to the Disqus and Friendfeed folks for making this happen.

Below is a view from Friendfeed:

One thing I’ve noticed is that it does not appear that a comment made on Friendfeed will come back to post on this blog. I’m not sure if it should and didn’t or if they don’t have that worked out yet but this must occur for there to be significant platform transparency and value add.

This is not a personal finance blog, but as I approach marriage I have been thinking about my personal financial situation a bit more seriously. Instead of only using CD’s from my personal bank I decided to open a “high interest” online savings account. Through researching with bankrate.com and many other finance blogs I found these 3 options to be the best. My main criteria were going to be 1) interest rate & 2) customer service. I’ll explain more on why I chose the account I did below.

» FNBO Direct (Click to Apply)

This one is my personal favorite. FNBO Direct features no fees and no minimums (though they require a $1 deposit to open the account). Readers liked it for it’s consistently high interest rate, the availability of an ATM card, and because you can easily reach an actual human when you call customer service. According to Bankrate, FNBO Direct is also the safest of the major online banks.

» E*Trade Bank (Click to Apply)

Another of my favorites, E*Trade offers a highly competitive interest rate, no fees, quick transfers, integration with their brokerage accounts, and an automatic savings plan. There’s no minimum, though you have to deposit at least $1 to open your account.

» ING Direct (Click to Apply)

While it doesn’t have the most competitive interest rates, ING Direct was a popular option. The “Orange Savings” account comes complete with no fees and no minimums, and a slick web interface. It’s also very easy to create sub-accounts for different savings goals.

FNBO Direct and ING Direct seemed to be the best 2 non-broker online accounts. FNBO Direct was recently rewarded as the best online account from Kiplinger’s. They also have a bit higher interest rate and they do have a pretty slick online interface. My decision became between E*Trade and FNBO because I wasn’t sure if I wanted the stock purchase/brokerage options available. What the decision came down to is the fact that I’m not big on stocks. I’ve never had great investments in stocks and my 401k is already heavy in the market, so I’m going safe with FNBO online savings account at 2.80%. I’ve also gottent the best feedback on FNBO’s customer service, apparently they are the easiest to get a human on the line, I still like that.

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The best path to business success, according to Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, is the narrow one.

This is the Workstreamer press release in it’s entirety, unedited. I’m friends with Sam and wanted to not only hlep get the word out about Workstreamer, but also congratulate him on this huge milestone.

Workstreamer LLC, a New York based startup software company pioneering the concepts of workstreams and workstreaming, today announced that it has obtained venture seed funding from Austin Ventures, one of the nation’s leading venture capital firms.

Workstreaming technology combines social media, streaming information and professional networking to enable the creation and capture of real-time work activity between individuals and businesses. Workstreaming technology is positioned to meet the accelerating demands of today’s modern workforce, including distributed collaboration, greater corporate transparency and exponential information growth.

The company was founded by entrepreneurs, Samuel Huleatt and Benjamin Schippers. The funding will be used to accelerate development and launch the commercial release of its flagship product, Workstreamer. Workstreamer is currently testing an alpha version of its software and already has a number of businesses and individuals workstreaming at http://Workstreamer.com.

“We are extremely excited to be working with Austin Ventures; both parties understand that we are at the precipice of major change in the world of business. The very nature of collaboration and professional interaction is changing before our eyes enabled by a new breed of technologies and a major shift in work culture. Workstreaming will play a critical role in empowering individuals, groups, and organizations to transform the way work is done and business is operated,” said founders Sam Huleatt and Ben Schippers.

“Our relationship with Workstreamer continues Austin Ventures’ tradition of actively locating and partnering with the most innovative early-stage entrepreneurs and technology. We are very pleased to collaborate with the Workstreamer team and look forward to introducing them into our network of professionals, partners, and customers,” said Thomas Ball, Partner, Austin Ventures.

About Workstreamer

Workstreamer is an early stage software startup operating in “pre-launch” mode and is currently partnering and collaborating with select businesses and individuals. Visit http://Workstreamer.com for more information.

About Austin Ventures

Austin Ventures (“AV”) has worked with talented entrepreneurs to build valuable companies for nearly 25 years. With $3.9 billion under management, AV is the most active venture capital and growth equity firm in Texas and one of the most established in the nation. With a focus on business services, information services, integrated media, computer and communications hardware, and enterprise software, AV invests at all stages of company development, from $100,000 “planned experiments” in early stage ideas to $100+ million investments in expansion rounds, minority recapitalizations, and buyouts of middle market growth companies. Visit http://austinventures.com for more information.

For more information contact:

Kim Hughes, Austin Ventures, khughes@austinventures.com

I recently saw that I’m on the top Glue’rs list on the homepage with some pretty big names! I highly recommend that you check out Glue as it significantly improves interneting. I reviewed Glue early in it’s release because, AdaptiveBlue Glues the Web Together.

3 Reasons Glue improves interneting

1. the Glue bar appears automatically (no hassle or delays)

Try it on these links: Album, Book, Movie

2. Easy to let friends know what you liked- just click the heart

3. User reviews – the 2cents icon gives a quick review of the product

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Dharmesh Shah on why now is a great time to start a software startup.

Constraints enforce discipline. You’ll need to, among other things, manage your expenditure, focus on making products that people actually want to buy, learn the difference between cash flow and profitability and figure out how to market on a shoe-string. Now is an excellent time to forge those skills. You will need them the next time things go bad.

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It may not come as a surprise to you that I was obsessed with comics as a kid. The late obsession has turned into an unfiltered enjoyment for any and every comic book based movie. So it goes without saying that I’m pumped for this movie. Even though Iron Man and  The Dark Knight was absolutely phenomenal this last winter, X-Men has always been my favorite stuff.

Over the past 2 or 3 years I’ve been really excited to see how comic book story lines are turning into main stream films with large budgets and incredible production value. With the re-birth of the Batman and Spiderman series, Marvel and others have realized they can make some good coin from these films. I say keep em’ coming!

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Second Life could totally be a testing ground for everything in the real world. It’s a market researchers paradise, and Linden Labs is going to make a bundle.

I’m not in Second Life, I’ve never used it, and it still seems to be one of those extreme internet things that still carries a great deal of taboo with it. But, as with all things web the early adopters will continue to evangelize and eventually, what I affectionately call the “normal people”, will join too. Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life yesterday announced the acquisition of two inworld businesses – reported here in the LA Times.

As Nic Brisbourne, a London based VC wrote yesterday…

These businesses broker the sales of virtual goods – kind of like Amazon market place, but restricted to virtual goods for use inside Second Life.  It seems Linden has a strategy to become a sprawling corporation, as used to be the fashion for real world companies in the 1960s.

This got me thinking about how Second Life is used and what they could potentially charge for. As more and more people join this virtual world, of which there are others but this one seems to dominate, the “second life” will become more and more like the “first life” or real world. As that occurs the activities within that world become more valuable.

Ideas:

Think about if Ford tested out the consumer acceptance of new car models in Second Life for fractions of the prices they would in the first life? What if JCrew launched a clothing line first in Second Life and only brought the most popular designs to market in the real world? Second Life could definitely charge these companies for the opportunity to launch extensive and valuable market research campaigns within this virtual world.

I still haven’t joined Second Life yet, I’m sure I will, and as the social acceptance increases so will the relevancy of interaction on it. Think if every tweet was just a comment made by your Second Life character! Ok, now I’m just getting carried away with ideas.

The best way to recruit for an idea is to love the idea and know where to talk about it. I’ve spend quite sometime learning the social web and figuring out where people spend time. The service side of our business does outsources community management, so it’s my job to know where to find groups of people. Also, joining conversations is critical. Just like at a party if you stand in a corner and yell, nobody will listen. If you join a group, listen, and then contribute something of value, you’ll create lasting relationships. There are no specific coffee shops or bars to “pick-up” developers, however there are many online communities that attract good developers. Find those communities and join them…also, it never hurts to learn a little code yourself :)

Here are my 5 steps to recruiting great talent with zero dollars.

1. Love your idea

If you’re going to attempt to get someone else to dedicate time and money into your idea, you better love it. It’s only fair that if you ask someone to dedicate themselves to a project or business that you will be dedicating that same amount of time, or more. Unless there is compensation involved, you’re passion for an idea and your commitment towards it is your strongest selling point.

2. Know the community

Find where your target is. The web is full of communities and small pockets of extremely talented people. Since your the recruiter here, you need to know where to find them. You need to dedicate time in learning where, how, and why certain communities are popular. Is there a Friendfeed room, or a Twitter #hashtag you should be following? Maybe and IRC chat or a secluded forum? Find them, they’re there.

3. Interact with your target market

Don’t just watch what’s going on once you find your communities. You have have to contribute to the conversation and you have to know the lingo in order to do that effectively. Learn how and why people say things in this community. If it’s Twitter, you better understand @reply’s and DM’s. Basically become one of the community members and not an outsider. Don’t stand on a soap box and announce your goals, get in with a few of the influential players and ask them questions about the community. If you don’t know who the influential players are then wait longer.

4. Ask for what you want

Any salesman will tell you that if you don’t ask for it, you ain’t gettin’ it. Once you have a good sense of how things operate just ask for what you’re looking for. In my case it was a technical co-founder, and you all know how that worked out. Perfectly.

5. Follow-up, show you care.

Once you have people join your team and your recruitment process was successful you better follow up. The losing a partner part is probably 100 times easier than finding a partner. If you lose passion to the idea or cause the others will too. If your recruiting developers then start learning code. Show that your at least interested in learning a bit about what they’re doing for you.

Originally posted on ‘Get audience, get going’ the SocialDreamium blog.

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Be flexible.

If you have some perfect situation in your head about how your company will be formed, how it will grow, and how you’ll fair, don’t. All of your expectations will likely not be met and your “perfect scenario” will not come true. However, you do need to have vision. It seems like a catch 22, I know. You need to focus on what you want to accomplish, not how you want to accomplish it.

Know where you want to go.

Your destination should definitely be in mind. What type of product would you like to build, what industry do you want to serve, and what values will your company operate on? These are things you do have control over and can use to help guide your business. These things will no doubt help in determining your success (or failure) but this is about as detailed as you will be able to get with much accuracy in terms of what your company will accomplish.

Don’t know how you want to get there.

The less you have pre-determined the better off you’ll be. Trying to force a triangle through a circular hole will not work. So, focus on building the pieces and figuring out what type of team you have to work with then go out with your triangular team and find the market that needs triangles. You’ll be much better of this way that forcing something that just isn’t going to happen.

Shut up and listen.

If you’re focusing on the right things that your focusing on your team. The who is so much more important than the what with your business. Once you have the team in place than trust them, shut up and listen to them, figure out where you collectively will go and no you the “leader”. If you did your job well in creating a team then you got some very intelligent people, no follow in their footsteps and be intelligent by listening to your new team.

Learn.

It doesn’t matter that you’re not a developer. If you’re building software (like we are) then you need to learn. Sit with your developers, learn what they go through, and learn what they love. If nothing else you will learn what to look for in your next hire. Community managers need to sit and learn from developers, developers need to learn how to market their product, finance guys need to figure out how to get a product to market and how price affects that process. But, most of all, you the leader need to have a hand in all of it. You need to realize how your organization is structured, what everyone is working on and WHY. Start learning these things now and never stop.

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Dopplr is the web service that I use to document all my travel online. I also use Dopplr’s widget on my blog so readers know where I’ll be and when I’ll be there. Eventually I’ll attend more web conferences and it will become very valuable to see who else is traveling to that city or conference. I use Dopplr for pretty much any travel outside of my resident city (I dont’ say home because that will always be San Diego). Unfortunately, after looking back at my year of travel I didn’t get out of the country, not  once. Getting out of the US at least once a year is always a goal of mine.

This shows who in my network my travels are most similar to. I went on a trip with Tommy this year to NYC and he’s the only one on that trip who had Dopplr, thus he’s my #1 :) Like I said, I don’t use Dopplr to it’s full potential in a social sense because the type of people using Dopplr are mostly web savvy, although it’s a dead simple service, so I don’t connect with many people on the service. Like most applications I think that Dopplr could definitely benefit from a Twitter integration to encourage people to connect more using the service and take Dopplr connections offline.

This report shows that I spent 313 days at home and 53 days on the road this year. I have nothing to measure that against so I’m not sure if it’s a lot but I’m sure 2009 will be even more. I’m headed to China for a month in February and I’ll be down in Chicago a ton planning my wedding so I’m looking to increase 53 in 09′.

I’m not exactly the most green person in the world but I do think it’s a good idea to conserve where possible. This year and this coming year I’ll be traveling a significant amount by car. Dopplr allows you to input your mode of transportation and it in return gives you your carbon emissions for the trip. I’m happy to say that my Nissan Pathfinder only emitted 1/5 of what a Hummer would have omitted this month. I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m out shopping for a hummer.

Another integration that would be cool is if you could input point A and point B on your daily commute and have Dopplr calculate your carbon footprint there.

And lastly, the point that gets me most sour. I didn’t travel outside the country at all this year. In 2007 I did a 2 week trip to Ireland with @mollstar. Now in 2009 I’ll be in China for a month and I’ll make it to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing …awesome. I love international travel and I try to get one trip in every year. I’m happy to say that with my honeymoon in late November 2009 I’ll be getting a nice bit of traveling in this year.

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