Archive for the 'future' Category

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Now…not later

Published on January 19, 2007 in business, future, goals and personal. Closed

My friend Andrew had a good post up (not sure why I just spotted it) on Jan 1st offering advice for people hoping to make progress in the new year. He is talking about creating profitable web properties, which he’s very good at, but I really think this approach is true for just about anything anyone of us sets out to do.

Here is my #1 secret tip for 2007. If you have an idea for a web site, find a way to make that site live within hours — not days — not weeks — and most certainly, not months.

I think people tend to over complicate things, waiting for just the perfect moment before acting, instead of moving forward. It’s so much easier to talk yourself out of making a move because you don’t have this, you are waiting on that, or you are waiting on this person. Are you really? Or are you just stalling? Stop talking about doing it, stop waiting for the perfect conditions, and start acting. Remember, it’s about progress not perfection. (talking to myself as well)

Predicting the Trends

Published on January 16, 2007 in business, future and tech. Closed

As I’ve said before, the more shopping, communicating, news gathering, and just flat out living people do online the more capable good web stats are at predicting trends, sales, and even votes.

Once again today Hitwise announced their successful prediction of a winner in the the UK version of Dancing with the Stars named Strictly Come Dancing. Utilizing website traffic trends, especially search trends and search market share, Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer correctly picked the winner 7 weeks before the finale.

strictly come dancing small.PNG

The consciousness of the crowds comes through clearly in closely watching website traffic patterns. I wonder how many companies truly use website stats as more than just a way to monitor their own site traffic but instead as ways to innovate existing products, spot sales trends, and follow interest in the competition.

Choose

Published on January 15, 2007 in future, goals, health and personal. View Comments

Do you ever sit and wonder how some people seem to have it so easy? How they seem to make things materialize out of thin air? I do, a lot. Where you are in your life right now, is a direct reflection of your beliefs and perspective. You welcomed the job you work in, the people you’re friends with, the family you love, the relationship you’re in, the health and energy of your body all with your beliefs.

Whether your job/work seems and feels perfect (great!) or you hate it, you’re the one to blame/thank. Think about it. How did you end up in the working situation you’re in? You at some point made the belief in your mind what you’re worth right now. If it’s a job you love, most likely you decided that it was possible and probable for you to go out and find a work environment that really suits you and feels great. So when you searched out work opportunities, you opened the doors of possibility to these types of situations. But if you’re in a job you hate, you most likely went out with the belief that you HAD to take whatever you could get. So feeling desperate, and that you have no real value you took the job you NEEDED.

How about the relationship you’re in? Was this someone you really sought out because you really enjoyed being with them, respected them, and was very attracted to? Or is this someone who (for lack of better words) just fills a need? If you have a strong sense of personal worth, and feel very comfortable as who you are, you most likely approached relationships as a possibility to truly find someone you wanted, and believed you could be happy with. So you were able to sort through some of the temptation of just picking someone, anyone who you could be with until you found that match. On the other hand, if you are someone who sees themselves as lucky to get anyone, or if you have ever said “who would want to be with me,” you’re more likely to “settle,” for anything that comes along. Don’t, you are better than that, I’m better than that, and we all deserve a relationship that makes us feel great about who we are, and who we can become all at the same time.

The point I’m trying to make here is that your life is what you believe it can be. There are no doubt things that come your way that will cause you to doubt, and question who you are and what you’re capable of. These are the moments where we can expand our beliefs and open more doors to more opportunities. In a world filled with so many potential hurdles, why would you want to make those challenges even larger by weighing yourself with personal doubt?

I’m always amazed when telling some people just what they’re capable of, how they want to argue with me. I’ll tell them they can truly do anything they want, and they can surely handle whatever they’re facing. They (I do this as well, I’m working on it) want to push back, and tell me all the reasons why I’m wrong. They can’t do it. They won’t be able to do it. Who cares if you can’t do it, if you don’t believe you can, you’ll definitely NEVER be able to.

I’ve found in the end that I can’t control what happens in the world around me, but I can always control my perspective and outlook. I choose to believe I can have everything I want, and in the end that is my greatest asset. With that, anything is truly possible.

Lessons Learned in 06

Published on January 8, 2007 in business, future, goals, personal and uniqe ability. View Comments

1.Do what feels good…
I think it’s too easy to complicate life with rules we always think we need to follow. Who made all these rules anyway? How many crazy rules do you have for yourself? In 06 I saw more and more the benefits of filling your days with moments of joy. As difficult as that sounds (and as horrible as it sounds that living with joy is something that can be difficult and require work), it truly is the way to living a fulfilled life. Instead of trying to figure out what’s right, what you’re supposed to do (supposedly), go with your gut, go with what feels best to you truly and I promise you that the results will amaze you. I’m only starting to understand this, but I can see the profound impact it can have on life.

2.Honesty works best
I’m still working on this one. No I’m not a constant liar, but I have found that to avoid conflict, especially with people I care about (weird, huh?), I will bend the truth to prevent them from being hurt or upset with me. I can assure you, this is not a good strategy, and ultimately it makes everything blow up in my face. So next time you are tempted to hide behind a “white lie,” resist and try the truth. You’ll feel empowered, lighter, and closer with the other person.

3.Yes and…(applying improv to life).
I really enjoyed my improv classes this year, and wouldn’t mind exposing myself to that again this year as it provides a wealth of life knowledge. One of the fundamental rules of improv is the “Yes AND,” rule, which requires you to always respond to something someone else said (or did) with “yes, and.” It’s really amazing how hard this is to do. I was so accustomed to just saying, why, or but, or ok, and especially no. But you realize that these are all endings, things that stop the momentum of the moment, and prevent further progress. The next time a challenge pops up in front of you, try taking the “yes, and,” approach and watch where it takes you. You’ll see that by realizing a no is merely an opportunity to improvise, the world is full of opportunities. Yes…and

4.Just do it
At the risk of being sued by Nike, I had to lay that out as one of my lessons from 06. It’s way too easy (for me at least) to get so wrapped up in the whys and hows of doing something that I never get around to doing it. No more. The best time to move forward with your goals, your dreams, your lessons, is now. A quote from Mark Twain:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Explore. Dream. Discover.”–Mark Twain

5. Attitude is everything (I’ve written about this before)
If you know me well, you know that I obsessively pour over autobiographies of successful athletes, entrepreneurs, scientist etc. I love reading the stories of these people who create so much from nothing, and do it with a smile on their face. If you go looking for exact answers or techniques as to how these people do what they do, you won’t find it. If you go looking for exact childhood experiences as to how these people get to where they are, you won’t find it. The only theme that runs throughout these stories (and those I haven’t read) is positive mindset. All of these people had unbelievable confidence in their ability to do what they wanted to do, never let no stop them (yes, and), and never lost site of their life purpose. Feel good about who you are, where you are, and believe you can do anything and you’ll never go wrong.
5.5 Live in the moment as much as possible
I realize that so much of what I talk about above, seems to require constant work on your thoughts and perspective. It does, but it’s equally important to take time daily to really absorb the moment you are in. Whether you’re walking through a park, settling into a cozy bed, talking on the friend with a loved one, sharing dinner with someone special, whatever…just empty your thoughts for a moment, and completely soak in the good feeling you’re in. Life is more about the little moments, than the big events…you should enjoy both.

inspired by Ryan Allis…

Concerned

Published on January 2, 2007 in future and nyc. Closed

I’m glad to see I’m not alone in my growing concern for global warming, encouraged by this winter’s extremely warm temps. Of course this is not the first time we’ve had warmer than normal winters, nor is the first time we had 60 degree days in December. But it seems to me that it’s really the first time the winter warmth has been as widespread and strong as it is. In fact Duluth, Mn reported, for the first time since record keeping began in 1875, a brown Christmas, or one without ANY snow on the ground. That’s 130+ years! That to me signals an accelerating worldwide trend to warming, and climate change may be more of a now than a then.

But I have to say, for now the weather is amazing in New York, so I’ll just do my best to enjoy it.

Google OS and embedded affiliates

Published on December 29, 2006 in business, future, links and tech. Closed

Jason Calacanis has a post with pics and rumors of the Google operating system. He thinks that Google will partner with a major PC manufacturer, such as Dell or HP, over the next year and will sell a pc that comes equipped with a google OS (that is instead of windows) at cost or slightly below (thinks $300 for a high powered pc and flat panel monitor). The revenue model would be to split the future advertising revenue generated by that pc’s owner on google’s services. This would open the door for Dell or HP to a stream of high margin, recurring revenue and Google would ensure that their ads are shown to the majority of pc users for the foreseeable future.

I think this is a really good idea, and something I’ve thought of quite a bit myself ever since I read about how much money firefox makes. Firefox gets to share revenue generated by it’s millions of users using the toolbar to search google, and then clicking on ads. This is pretty much how Dell and HP could structure a deal with a google OS.

I think there’s significant opportunity of someone really smart just going ahead and doing this overseas (China, Brazil, India, Spain, etc) with some high powered linux boxes, and a custom built linux OS that somehow ensures that the manufacturer gets not only a revenue share of google advertising dollars (just as you do when you insert a google search box on your site or as firefox does), but also embed ebay affiliate, amazon, and just about any other international affiliate out there into the system. If you can get the cost of the pc down low enough, it wouldn’t take very long to get in the black on each unit, and then everything after that is pure profit.

I think that local coffee shops should abandon their whole, let us charge you for $2 for an hour of access model, and instead get google revenue split and amazon, ebay, walmart, etc affiliate commissions for any ads their customers click on while browsing. I would imagine there would be someway to embed cookies or something on to the coffee shop browser’s computer when they agree to terms of service for the free wifi access. It seems to me that would be far more lucrative than attempting to charge $2 an hour. It’s also a win/win, which should always be the goal.

linkedin worth $250 Million

Published on December 27, 2006 in business, future and tech. Closed

Mashable has a post about LinkedIn supposedly being valued at roughly $250 Million in their latest round of funding. LinkedIn is expected to generate $45 to $65 million in sales in 2007, and $100 million in 2008. They are also profitable and boast 8 million users. I think this seems like a reasonable valuation, and quite frankly seems even ridiculously cheap after hearing facebook buyout rumors in the $1 Billion range or even higher than that ($8 Billion!?!?). I’m not really sure what Facebook’s numbers look like, but I would imagine you would be hard pressed to find a social network with numbers that look as good as LinkedIn’s. They are really the only social network that have services the members themselves would actually pay for in addition to the standard advertising revenue model.

I am not really an active user of other social networks, although I am a member of Facebook and do find it a lot of fun, I see LinkedIn as the most useful. I believe that it sits nicely in a great space (business networking) surrounded by people who not only will find it incredibly powerful, but will be willing to pay to use it multiple ways. I’m a paying member which allows me to send mail to people I otherwise would not be able to contact, and to see people I otherwise would not be able to see…which is very powerful (see my past post on networking). The minimal amount they charge me to send messages to others in the network really has 2 benefits: 1.) it really cuts out spam 2.) it shows the receiver that the sender really values their attention, and will not waste their time. Finding people that you only used to bump into by either knowing the right person, or just luck now only takes a search and an email or phone call. If used properly, LinkedIn could really propel your business or your career to a whole different level…and that is why I think its revenue numbers will explode over the next 24 months and a $250 Million valuation is a steal for any current investors. This thing has more money making potential, in my opinion, than Facebook and surely is worth more than them.

See what others are saying about LinkedIn:
Jason Calacanis

The Future of the web

Published on December 13, 2006 in business, future and tech. Closed

In this month’s Fortune Magazine, there is a great article on “Finding the next Google,” in which they talk about the next big thing on the web. They believe that Google rode the wave of finding to incredible profitability, realizing that people would use the web to find specific items or bits of information. The future, according to the article, is in discovery,that is showing you things based on your current likes and dislikes that you are not currently aware of but will probably be interested in.

The most obvious examples of success in the discovery space are sites like last.fm and pandora, who are both building extremely popular communities
around the concept of music recommendations (discovery). They know that if person A loves Jack Johnson and Dave Matthews, and person B loves Dave
Matthews then they will probably like Jack Johnson, and they’ll then play a song of Jack Johnson for person B. These optimized music introductions are incredibly effective at pushing your music limits very quickly because all the new songs you are exposed to have been carefully screened…by others.

This is also clear on Amazon.com, where they have watched the buying habits of others and have your buying history handy, so they can easily create targeted, automated product recommendations to you on the homepage instantly. This creates a far more effective landing pages, than just a bunch of categories or instant products. This is about personalization and automation.

I believe, as Fortune mentions, the next wave of the web lies in the ability to assist in targeted discovery. People want to explore the endless supply out there, but have no idea where to start. It’s extremely complicated to ever think of recommendation engines knowing if you like BMW’s then you’ll like Starbucks and Kenny G, but with enough connections (ie connections to your existing personality online…myspace, email, amazon account, last.fm account, ebay account) and enough computing power, it’s possible to start building comprehensive personal profiles, which in turn would allow for more and more relevant recommendations. Imagine taking it a step further and offering a last.fm like scrobbler, that sits in the background of your internet browsing quietly building an anonymous (anonymous in the sense that NO ONE ever would have access to it with your name on it…it would only be viewed by machines for the purpose of recommending things to you) profile that could offer you the perfect vacation designed just for you, the ski jacket you’d love, and a news site right up your alley. I’m in a situation where people are asking what I want for Christmas, and I really have no idea what’s even really out there. If had a stream of recommendations, it would be easy for me and everyone I want to share those recommendations with, to know instantly.

Another way these profiles could be built (and maybe this is why google is offering discounts to people using google checkout this holiday…to build a user base and profiles) would be to have access to, and analyze your real life spending. I would imagine that most purchases over $30 are made with a credit or debit card, which of course means they are entirely electronic and can therefore easily be analyzed for patterns, and used to build a preference profile around you. What if google check out was an easy, back end way of doing this? If they got enough people buying across all sorts of sites, they’d be able to start building recommendations as well. Or even more possible, would be someone partnering with a credit bureau to build personalized shopping recommendations based on current credit and past buying history…just rambling here.

It’s a scary tight rope to walk between big brother and making sense of all that is out there, but I think we’ll get there in a way that ultimately proves to be a major win/win for companies and consumers alike.

Another company moving into this space is Aggregate Knowledge, see them here.

good quotes

Published on October 24, 2006 in future, goals, mom and personal. View Comments

I normally ignore the junk that is displayed above my email messages in gmail, but today this quote caught my attention and I thought I’d post it: Continue reading ‘good quotes’

One year later

Published on October 23, 2006 in future, grieving, mom and personal. View Comments

We recently just passed the 1 year anniversary of one of the harder moments of my life. A year ago this past weekend while driving up to spend the weekend at Lake Erie with Julie and her parents I received the most difficult phone call of my life. Continue reading ‘One year later’