There is a new trend on the web and both startups and investors are taking note. Fred Wilson has called this trend, “taking the web offline”. Others call it the challenge of “local”. Companies like Loopt and Foursquare are taking this problem head on. As the only web nerd amongst my group of friends I love applications that are appealing to the non-techies (makes me feel normal). I really like the notion of using the web as a tool to improve life, not just keeping eyeballs and activity on the web, and I do think there’s serious lifestyle change and revenue potential in it. The key that makes this all possible is that the web is now mobile.

With the combination of smart phones with decent web browsers and the ability for developers to make applications on these machines, people can “check in”, connect with each other, and find reviews on the fly. I love seeing the Yelp stickers in bar windows because it tells me that the owners care what customers think and if that’s important to them than my experience at that venue is sure to be better. The web is moving away from just the office or home pc and moving into the actual establishment, into the venue, via our pockets. Because we now have the web in our pockets we can interact with a business via the web in real time.

Consider this: Prior to walking into my local pub, I “check in”, pub tender is monitoring Twitter or Foursquare, she see’s that I’m coming, she pours my drink without me even ordering it yet, it’s ready upon my arrival… yea I’d pay an extra couple bucks for that. Extreme example I know, but the information that venues can now access is awesome and will continue to increase. IMHO, they’ll definitely pay for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how and when this transformation will really pick up speed and I’m going to write about it a bit over the next week or so. I think that local is already big and going to increase in importance. Companies like Everyblock who was recently acquired by MSNBC bring you hyper local news, and other services make exploring your city and meeting people close to you easier than ever before.

What location based applications are you using? Everytime your iPhone or BB asks, can we use your location, how often do you say yes?

What I’d like to see more of in Chicago is…

1) VC’s and Angels who blog – so that they communicate what is interesting to them and so that they are more accessible or even appear more accessible to the areas entrepreneurs.

2) An increase in the understanding that failure won’t kill you – in the Valley, as well as in NYC, people understand that successful businesses often come from trial and error. Here in Chicago, with the strong industrial goods trading culture, failure is BAD. We need to get over that.

3) Midwest cities need to stop fighting for control – none of you are as big as the hubs (SF & NYC) so work together so that you can pull resources to create a single, strong, job pool and start to create really solid companies.

Next week I’m speaking in Milwaukee about a startup that I started and how/why it failed. That’s my first step.

The reason why I’d like to see more of these 3 things is because from what I’ve seen through the people that I’ve talked to here in Chicago, there is absolutely no reason that Chicago shouldn’t have as strong of a startup culture as any other ecosystem outside the Valley (like NYC or Boulder). People always ask the question, “can you start a successful tech company or web company outside of Silicon Valley?”

Hell yes. Here’s why.

All huge companies with extremely large exits. Here are some other reasons.

Two awesome Venture Capitalists wrote about this topic back in July 09. Fred Wilson (who made this list of companies) argues that it’s a ‘crock of shit’ to think that great tech companies can’t start outside the Valley. And Matt McCall talks about the higher deal valuations in the Valley, hyper-competition, and other factors, that actually hurt entrepreneurs.

I completely agree with Matt and Fred’s point of view on this topic. Which is why my mind immediately wanders to the question, “What’s the solution?”. So these 3 issues serve as my proposed solution, but I can’t do it alone.

We need Chicago’s tech & entrepreneurial & investor folks to understand our challenges and act to fix them! There is no reason that a failed venture should be such a huge negative, other companies should be chomping at the bit to retain your experience within their companies. Out in the Valley it’s almost encouraged to try and fail or at least easier to explain and embrace. Starting a startup and not being successful is all part of the process to starting a startup and being successful!

We desperately need more VC’s and Angel investors like Matt and Fred, accessible and blogging, talking about the challenges from both an investment perspective and a entrepreneurial perspective. We need to close the gap between money and entrepreneurs with ideas and businesses. Chicago VC’s need to start giving talks and attending entrepreneur meetups and events. Be in the community and help foster it.

Hey Milwaukee folks, I lived their and enjoyed my time there, but you have to stop having younger brother syndrome toward the Chi. There is an incredible community of creative talent in Milwaukee and Chicago companies should be tapping that pool. This day and age employees don’t have to be in the office 5 days a week so jump on the train and get down here 2 or 3 times and lets work together to build a strong Midwest startup culture. Also, don’t give me this bunk about universities. Mark Andreeson went to U of I and so did Max Levchin, there are brilliant technologists in this area, just give them a reason to stay.

image via sergilvs

Fred Wilson recently posted about the value of sharing on the web, which he called extroversion. Fred, and I, are both fairly open with our identities on the web and by doing that we’re taking a bet that the value of sharing is larger than the small chance that some web stalker will do something stupid. Personally speaking, this bet has definitely paid off.

In the comments I expressed an interest in identifying some sort of non-cash currency that could help measure the value that we receive from sharing on the web. Whether it’s specifically via knowledge sharing or something more tangible I’ll have to work that out, but it is an idea that I’d like to continue to develop.

Then shortly after that conversation, Blagica recently asked a similar question on her posterous blog:

Do Local Communities, Businesses, and Organizations still not get or want the social web?

I began to answer in a comment, but will further expand on my answer here…

Blagica, I don’t think it’s a matter of local communities not getting or wanting the social web. IMHO it’s not rocket science to understand how the tools work, and it’s easy to understand that they help you connect with people. In my eyes it’s that the value proposition of using the social web still hasn’t been defined well enough to clearly communicate how to “fully embrace” the tools. There are not YET enough use cases of success such that the majority of people will know what to do with the tools, and why. There no social media for dummies book to make it mainstream. (Which is a good thing.)

The confusion, I think, stems from the fact that people are still trying to measure everything by using the dollar. I believe the value of sharing on the social web will be best identified, and communicated, when a non-cash currency is used to evaluate this value. Currently, if they don’t see a way to directly ‘monetize’ their time spent on social media platforms, they give up.

What I’d like to see more of is measuring input to the social web with another output than dollar bills (ya’ll).

Now the challenge, defining that currency. I’ll take a preliminary swing at it here.

Opportunities As Currency

If there is one word to sum up the benefit that I’ve received from being open on the web and using tools like Twitter and my blog extensively, it’s been opportunities. I’ve met CEO’s of companies (10 opportunity credits), best selling authors (9 opportunity credits), and had enlightening conversations with people I absolutely never would have met outside of those circles (6 opportunity credits). I’ve not even had to reach out for all of those experiences, I’ve been contacted without solicitation numerous times with these kinds of opportunities. I completely believe that the mantra, “it’s not about what you know, but you know” is true and the social web has significantly benefited me in that way.

I’ve also had the opportunity to read and review books (9 opportunity credits) and products (5 opportunity credits) before they’ve even hit the shelves at Barnes & Noble. As an avid reader, and kind of a nerd, this is exciting to me! It’s not always been the author who’s reached out to me but to get a book in the mail or a ‘Alpha released product invite’ I’m pumped by that.

The last opportunity, that admittedly is less tangible than networking or pre-release product insights, is the opportunity to receive feedback, validation, and challenges of my ideas )2-6 opportunity credits). Every week I post a 2 or 3 times something that I’ve been thinking through, or something that I want to share with the interwebs/world. And almost every post I get valuable and intelligent feedback on that idea. If I’m completely off base with my thesis, it get’s challenged, and I’m able to work that out. If it’s a travel experience that I’m sharing, I’ve gotten recommendations of where to go or travel tips getting their (3 opportunity credits). When I discuss entrepreneurship and social trends people validate that my assumptions are correct or not and help me to clarify my understanding on certain issues, which in turn prevents me from making mistakes and wasting time, a huge value to me, roughly 7 opportunity credits.

So, I’ll continue to share on the social web, I’ll continue to be a Extrovert as Fred calls it and I’ll continue to rack up my opportunity credits by the boat load. I will also continue to look forward to your feedback, thoughts, and insights to the often dumb, but sometimes halfway intelligent topics discussed here on ‘thedreaminaction’. After all, sharing is a two-way street right? I’d love to share some opportunity credits with you!

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• Extroversion (avc.com)
• Questions: Are Social Tools Making Introverts into Extroverts? (successful-blog.com)

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.

Great interview with Fred Wilson by Nicole Simon for the pre LeWeb podcasts series.

Click here for the interview.

Image by Cia de Foto via Flickr

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures was interviewed for BigThink a few months back and recently posted the interview on his blog. A topic that came up in the middle of the interview stuck out to me because Fred shared the exact advice I gave to that boss a couple years back.

Fred said:

“This generation is going to be a different kind of workforce than the ones businesses have known in the past.”
“This generation will be a lot less loyal. They will be interested in maximizing the value of their career vs. the value of stock of the company they work for, unless they own or control that stock.”

“This is a mercenary workforce.”

“This transition is already happening in tech industry. Software engineers are being poached similar to the way a film star would be offered a better contract to work for someone new.”

“That mindset about talent is what this generation is all about. They are going to be building their own personal brand, own personal career, and portfolio of what they can do, then they will put themselves out to the market to the highest bidder.”

If you aren’t in the Gen Y category you’re probably thinking, “Those spoiled brats with their entitlement issues!”, and you may be right… However, whether we are right or wrong in our thinking this is definitely the sentiment among us. The reason this is so important is because YOU HAVE TO ADAPT! It is absolutely critical for any company whether you are GE, Google, TechCrunch, or startup XYZ to know where the workforce is going and what your employees will want from you. Without them you will not have a business so the fact is, they are more important than even your customers.

Today was awesome. I had a productive day at work, I started early (about 6:50am), got to work on some video editing which was fun, got news about a potential stint in Paris, and left a hair before 5 (always nice). Then when I came home I realized that it was an awesome “social media day”. That may sound a little “douchy” but I’ll tell you, it was awesome.

For a blogger, at least for me, its all about quality and quantity. I want tons of people to come to my site, and I want big names to come to my site. Often times big names can mean tons of people, if they share. Plus, they’re big names for a reason…they’re awesome! Two of my favorite blogs are…

• Fred Wilson AVC.com
• Gary Vaynerchuk garyvaynerchuk.com

… and both of those bloggers came to my site today!

Fred Wilson‘s blog is probably top of my must read list so having him read my stuff is quite an honor…he’s got a style that is second to none. He has over 150k readers of AVC.com and has grown that by simplifying the mysterious world of venture capital for the everyday entrepreneur and investor. He respects his readers and he understands community (he replies to almost every comment I make).

Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV is one of the largest personalities on the web. At the very least he’s the most energetic! He hosts a 20 min wine show 5 days a week and is the icon of personal branding. ActionsTalk will be having Gary V on next week so don’t miss it!

The list doesn’t stop there…

Blake Samic - co-founder of ActionsTalk and all around bro

Joe Budde – my college roommate from sophomore year that I haven’t talked to since (sorry Jbud1)

Dave Cohn – an ActionsTalk contributor and good friend who runs Spot.Us

Soren MacBeth – founder of StockTwits.com

Frank Gruber – founder of TECH Cocktail (I’m going Nov 6th in Chi) also SomewhatFrank

Gregory Ng – a social web brethren – check out Gregs new frozen food site FreezerBurns.com

So, in growing a blog its all about the community and the content. Celebrating the small victories like this one are important. They are what keep you writing and excited about you blog…so really those victories are what keep your blog awesome. Thanks to all the readers…without you I’d quit!

So, in an effort to grow the global reach of Ryan A Graves.com (currently over 3k/month) I’ve added another widget to blog. I’m going to use the Google Translate widget to allow readers from all over the world read this blog. Currently, there is not a way to translate comments but I know Fred Wilson has made that feature request to the Disqus team. I would just like to thank anyone who has been reading this blog with English as a second language. I hope that the translate feature will help you enjoy even more. If you are one of those people I would love for you to leave a comment so that I can get in touch with you.

I love when new tools like this become popular and even the standard on the web. It just re-affirms that the time and effort we are all putting in to grow the web and help people develop a presence on it is not in vain. Obviously this is a great Google tool but these opportunities are out there for startups! Go out there and make a valuable tool!