DemoCamp Montreal

Congrats to Austin Hill and Fred Ngo for putting on a great DemoCamp last night - I know they worked very hard behind the scenes. I shouldn't be surprised, but this "self-organized" event was easily one of the better technology events I've attended. It was held at the Société des arts technologiques, which easily accommodated the 100+ people that attended. The presentations were great, and the crowd looked like it had a good mix of young programmers and artists, as well as more experienced angels and VCs. It was a free event, but it was easily worth the standard $50 you would pay to attend events like this.

Best of show for me was Bumptop, from talented young entrepreneur Anand Agarawala. Anand is a Calgary native earning his Masters at U of T. His master's thesis is a new paradigm for the desktop, and his demo on YouTube has created some incredible buzz - so far, over 2.3 million views. He's gotten so much buzz that he was recently invited to speak at TED, where speakers included luminaries such as Bill Clinton, Richard Branson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

I also met Jeremy Wright, CEO of b5media, who tells me that his company is well ahead of plan, burning less cash than expected, and that his board members applauded his presentation at their last meeting! A great story from another great Canadian entrepreneur!

Franchising Queer Eye For The Straight Guy

I spend one day in Montreal, and I'm already feeling a little bit more cosmopolitan. Austin Hill and Alex Eberts, the guys behind Akoha, invited me out to see a group of young entrepreneurs pitch their companies for prize money and gain valuable exposure to angel investors and VCs. I was feeling like a fish out of water most of the evening because most of the presentations were in French. However, one of the best presentations, according to some of the other audience members, was presented in english by Ian Sutherland of MANN.

Ian's concept was simple - MANN is an all-in-one grooming destination exclusively for men. Currently, men have a few alternatives - go to a barber shop and get an incomplete set of services, or go to a standard spa and hang out with the girls. Ian spent some time explaining how "manly" his shop is, but I didn't think that was necessary. The services he offers include "manscaping", pedicures, skin treatments and massages. Let's face it, most straight guys don't care about this stuff, but should. (I'll include myself in this group, as my wife often watches Queer Eye and says stuff like "gee, that shirt would look good on you").

MANN is looking for money to expand and franchise. I think it could be every bit as popular as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - the men that aren't enlightened enough to go on their own will be strongly encouraged to go by their SO's. Congrats to Ian for identifying a niche, and proving it out - MANN's first location is profitable after less than one year of operations.

Link: "Man-O-Lantern", the chest-waxing scene from 40 year old Virgin [warning: coarse language] - probably not good advertising for a men's spa.

Apple Should Encourage Apple TV Hackers

I just got my Apple TV yesterday, after placing the pre-order 2 months ago. I know it's just a box that turns my TV into a computer monitor, but somehow, I'm very impressed. I immediately synced up some of my movies, video podcasts and image library to the box, and started navigating the interface. As with all Apple products, I didn't have to reach for the manuals - they remain in the original shrinkwrap. I expected nothing less than a great interface, but was still floored by how simple and elegant it was.

Then I got bored.

Why? Because I still want to watch television shows on my TV set. Canadians have surprisingly few alternatives when it comes to PVR devices. There's the devices that the cable companies offer - but they're closed boxes that don't allow for IP networking or file transfer. I could go with a Windows or Linux PVR, but then I'd have to maintain multiple OS's and file formats. What I need is a system that will unify my AppleTV with my cable/satellite system, PVR, Slingbox, and iTunes/video iPod set up.

I think Apple should support and encourage their fans and enthusiasts to come up with a solution if Apple isn't going to come up with one themselves. I've been a huge Apple Macintosh fan for the last 23 years, and I'll likely spend a significant amount of money in the next month on a non-Mac PVR. Hey, I know Apple is a busy company - how about crowdsourcing it?

Some people are already busy hacking Apple TV:
Apple TV running on a Macbook
Running xVID files on Apple TV

Buzz vs. Hype

In his book Brand Hijack - marketing without marketing, Alex Wipperfürth studies how Doc Martens, Napster, The Blair Witch Project and other projects/brands were able to rise above the noise of regular marketing tactics and use crowds to shape brand meaning and create buzz. One of the key take-aways from the book for me is that brand must be built into the DNA of the product. It's amazing how companies can go through years of product development, only to bring in a branding and marketing guy at a later stage to make their product "cool". All too often, it's too little, too late.

Here's an excerpt from the book, highlighting the differences between Buzz and Hype:

• Buzz is genuine; Hype is fabricated



• Buzz is co-created with the market; Hype is autocratic, leaked by the brand owner; the market is an audience, not a participant



• Buzz travels through grassroots, peer-to-peer communications; Hype uses mass media and staged events.



• Buzz carries an authentic social message - it's news; Hype carries a biased product message - it's publicity.



• Buzz is seductive and spreads exponentially; Hype is loud and aggressive



• Buzz is trustworthy; Hype can easily be distrusted



• Buzz is a long-term learning model; Hype creates short-term awareness.

Brand Hijack is an outstanding read that is both entertaining and educational, and for that reason alone, it's near the top of my list of essential business books. After reading this book, it's likely that you'll be inspired to create some new buzz for your company, something that is ultimately less expensive and more enduring than advertising.

Link: An interview with Alex on Design Mentor

Zooomr Update - still working on it!

Kristopher Tate is still working on the new release of Zooomr, and in a sure sign that it's not coming soon, he released a video of their enhanced lightbox feature in this blog entry. Zooomr shut down their website on March 13th in hopes of launching their new release within 2 days, but decided to rollback to the old release on March 18th, after experiencing difficulties with the new version. Releasing news on upcoming features is normally a good thing, but in this case, it's a sign that the release may not come for a while.

You've got to feel for Kristopher. Having built Zooomr on his own, he's undoubtedly exceptionally talented. However, as with any other major project, it really helps having a second qualified opinion in the room. This makes me think back to the old days of iStockphoto: I was extremely skeptical when our VP of Software Development introduced pair programming and other extreme programming methodologies to iStockphoto a few years back. By pairing up two programmers to do one task, the methodology was supposed to allow for knowledge transfer and reduce the number of errors in the code. I immediately thought that our productivity would drop in half, but that never happened. I think our developers ended up being happier with their jobs because it allowed them to learn more and learn faster. We often treat developers as if they should be in a dark room programming all day, and forget that they would benefit from working on team projects as well.

I think the biggest benefit of pair programming was the amount of thought that went into a project before coding started. Because two minds never think exactly alike, this essentially forced a discussion regarding methodology and structure, and issues were brought up before they committed anything to code. iStockphoto has some super-talented developers - and this only made them even better. Maybe it's time for Kristopher to find a partner?

30 Days

30 Days is a show created by Morgan Spurlock, the man who ate nothing but McD's in the documentary Super Size Me. If you're A.D.D. like me, you truly admire anyone who does anything for a week, let alone a full 30 days. For 30 days, Morgan's recruits go through some interesting situations:

• A man with staunch anti-illegal immigration views moves in with a family of illegal immigrants.



• A computer programmer who was displaced by Indian programmers moves to Bangalore to live with an Indian family and work in a call center.



• An atheist moves in with a family of evangelical Christians.



• A stressed-out, short-fused dad skeptical of new-age therapies submits to 30 days of new-age rituals, culminating in a fire-walk over hot coals.



• A pro-choice feminist lives in a Christian pro-life maternity home.



• Morgan Spurlock spends 30 days as an inmate.

I applaud Morgan's efforts to bring more understanding to the world. All too often, viewpoints are manipulated until we have nothing but polarizing, right or wrong and nothing in-between debates. I don't believe that Morgan advocates one viewpoint or another in these shows - quite the opposite. He shows that people of seemingly opposing viewpoints can co-exist, and even like one another.

Link: The 30 Days Ning Group

Site Traffic Analysis Tools

For those of us who don't have access to ComScore, Neilsen//NetRatings or Hitwise, here are a few tools to check out:

• Alexa (of course!)



• Compete (a relatively new Idealab offering)



• Marketleap: link popularity, search engine saturation and keyword verification tools



• UPDATE: Popuri [link via Techcrunch]



• UPDATE: Quantcast

Typically the paid services are much more accurate, but also much more expensive. Alexa is currently the standard because of its universal availability, but Compete is looking to provide a more accurate offering, while remaining free of charge.

The most compelling reason for anyone to buy traffic score reports is not to look at relative rankings, but to look at traffic patterns. For example, Hitwise tracks over 25 million users at the ISP level, and can give you both upstream and downstream click information on a competitor. So, if you're HP, or Lenovo, or Acer, wouldn't you love to know how people are getting to Dell.com, including the search terms they used, if they came from a search engine? Then, wouldn't you love to see where they go after they leave Dell's site? Hitwise provides these reports.

I'll have to admit that overall, Alexa is a really fun and addictive tool, but is mostly used for verification and due diligence. However, I think that most competent online marketing managers would be able to turn a Hitwise competitive analysis report into additional revenues for their companies.

Upcoming Road Trips

I recently confirmed my attendance at two Eastern-Canadian events:

• DemoCamp Montreal on Thursday, March 29th



• Mesh Conference in Toronto on May 30 & 31

I'm really looking forward to both events - DemoCamp Montreal will be a great primer for me, seeing as how we're going to hold our own DemoCamp in Calgary next month. Mesh looks like it's going to be as good as any conference I've paid thousands for south of the border, yet goes for a low, low price of just CDN$399.

Mesh is happening just days after Calgary's first BarCamp - it would be great if we could round up a bunch of BarCamp attendees and continue the discussion in Toronto. If you're going, let me know!

DeviantArt & iStockphoto - Web 2.0?

A quick shoutout to DeviantART, which recently topped 33,000,000 "deviations" (images) on its site. I bumped into Angelo Sotira, DeviantART's CEO last fall at the Web 2.0 Conference, and we wondered aloud why his company, as well as my former company, iStockphoto, are rarely mentioned in web 2.0 discussions and lists. It's not that either site isn't popular - DeviantART's Alexa ranking is currently 102, and iStockphoto is 249. It's not that either site doesn't have a ton of images or a bunch of really passionate users, either. In fact, both companies have worked tirelessly to bolster their infrastructure to accommodate the amazing growth in images and traffic.

We didn't come up with any answers, but took solace in the fact that both companies have amazingly sustainable business models, and have done incredibly well - with or without the web 2.0 hype.

Bill Gross Must Hate Google.

Bill Gross, possibly the world's greatest innovator couldn't possibly be happy with Google. You see, he created a company back in 1998 called GoTo.com. GoTo invented Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, the dominant business model in today's internet advertising sector. GoTo sold to Yahoo! in 2003 for 1.7 billion - not bad, right? Well, read on . . .

GoTo sued Google in 2002 for copying their business model, and Google settled for 2.7 million shares of Google stock with Yahoo! after the acquisition. Those shares are worth about $1.257 billion today. Sounds like a lot of money, but you have to look at it in context. Considering Google's main revenue source is PPC advertising, and considering Google took in $10.6 billion in revenues last year, I think they got a bargain.

In 2004, Gross was at it again, launching search engine Snap! with yet another innovation in Internet advertising. Snap! offered PPC advertising AND Pay-Per-Action (PPA) advertising. This meant that the advertiser only pays when a customer completes an action - be it the purchase of an item, or the completion of a registration form. Snap! pitched us a few years ago, and I loved the concept - still do. Unfortunately, Snap! is one of the Internet's best kept secrets, (with an Alexa ranking of just 2,533) and never got to prove out the PPA model with any significant volume.

Now, here comes Google, with a beta of their version of PPA. Go get 'em Bill - and this time, don't settle for a lousy billion dollars. In all seriousness though, is there any room left for innovation in search, or is everyone just incubating features for Google to implement?

President Bush, Harry Potter & Britney Spears

. . . are the most blogged about people in the world, according to Blogpulse, the Neilsen BuzzMetrics company that tracks over 42 million blogs and their respective entries. Blogpulse's most blogged about people in 2004 were: Bush, John Kerry, Harry Potter, and Britney Spears. In 2005, They were Harry Potter, Bush, Pope John Paul II, and Britney. (2006 results aren't published on the site, I assume Neilsen wants to sell you the report). Any guesses as to who three out of the top 4 people might be on that list? Assuming that this trend continues in 2007, it will have been 4 straight years that Bush, Britney and Potter have ruled the blogosphere. Damn.

Some other interesting stats: about 30% of blog entries are diary-style entries, 3% are about movies & TV, 3% about memes, and about 1% each on sports and politics.

Elements of Sustainable Companies

This list is from Sequoia Capital, the people who have funded the biggest names in computer industry, including Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Yahoo!, Google, and YouTube. Other companies in the portfolio include LinkedIn, Meebo and RockYou, showing Sequoia's social networking savvy. They are the most respected VCs in the Valley (and maybe the world), because of their consistent ability to make the right decisions.

Before we get to the list, here are a few thoughts:

• There's plenty of money out there for the right idea. If your idea is getting turned down by super successful VCs, then you should consider re-working it. (If it's getting turned by schmucks, ignore them) Sequoia has all the money it needs, literally. After seeing this (scroll down and read the list, it's interesting stuff), I phoned and asked if I could invest. Yea, right. No surprise, never got a call back. I'd give up a body part to be able to invest in a Sequoia fund.



• Having the right investor is expensive. I've been told about companies that have received term sheets from Sequoia. It's validation that's as good as it gets. However, it will be expensive money, because Sequoia almost never gives you the valuation that other firms would. They think they can make it up by giving you better advice and bringing you more success. Judging from past performance, they may be right.



• Mike Moritz is the billionaire VC at Sequoia who put Larry and Sergei together with Eric, who are arguably the three most powerful men on the Internet today. Mike's their buddy - 'nuff said.

Elements of Sustainable Companies:

Start-ups with these characteristics often foretells the success of a business and the likelihood of it becoming a sustainable, enduring company. We like to partner with companies that have:

Clarity of Purpose
Summarize the company's business on the back of a business card.

Large Markets
Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a $1B potential allows for error and time for real margins to develop.

Rich Customers
Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.

Focus
Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition.

Pain Killers
Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.

Think Differently
Constantly challenge conventional wisdom. Take the contrarian route. Create novel solutions. Outwit the competition.

Team DNA
A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days. All team members are the smartest or most clever in their domain. "A" level founders attract an "A" level team.

Agility
Stealth and speed will usually help beat-out large companies.

Frugality
Focus spending on what's critical. Spend only on the priorities and maximize profitability.

Inferno
Start with only a little money. It forces discipline and focus. A huge market with customers yearning for a product developed by great engineers requires very little firepower.

Calgary Tech Conference: SIGN UP NOW!

DemoCamp Calgary: 4 or 5 company presentations that are strictly PowerPoint free!

Date: April 24th
Time: 6:00 - 8:00
Cost: Free

BarCamp Calgary will be Calgary's premiere unconference. 

Date: Saturday, May 26th
Time: 9:00 to 6:00
Cost: Free

Microsoft's Social Computing Blunder

I've been invited to a Calgary Council for Advanced Technology dinner event tomorrow night, where Misha Jovanovic of Microsoft Canada will speak on the topic of social computing. I'm immediately skeptical - Microsoft & social computing - I've never heard those words in the same sentence before, so I'm doing my research before I show up.

Turns out they did start a venture years ago - Wallop. It was spun out from Microsoft's Intellectual Property Ventures Initiative and took on some VC dollars, and still remains in invite-only beta mode. A little more digging turned up this November 2003 Wired article, where current social networking leader MySpace isn't even on the radar:

"Wallop is Microsoft's venture into the red-hot social-networking arena . . . Wallop enables users to build online social networks in a more realistic
manner than Friendster, the popular social-networking website. . . And while myriad blogging tools and social-networking sites -- like
Tribe, LinkedIn, Friendster and Meetup -- have taken off in the last
year, Wallop may never make it to the marketplace in its current form"

So apparently, it takes Microsoft about the same time to build a social networking site as it does an OS!

Below: Alexa chart: MySpace in green, Orkut in blue, Wallop in Red. Wallop went into alpha testing prior to Orkut's release.

BarCamp Calgary

Well, he flies into town last week, and this week we have set a date for Calgary's first BarCamp. Thanks to Austin Hill for instigating all of this. Also, huge thanks to Sarah at Cambrian House for organizing.

BarCamp Calgary will be Calgary's premiere unconference, a showcase of Calgary's technology community. Sign up now!

Date: Saturday, May 26th
Time: 9:00 to 6:00
Cost: Free, IF you promise to spread the word to attendees, presenters, and sponsors.

We're also planning DemoCamp Calgary for April 24th, which is a 2 hour meeting with 4 or 5 company presentations that are strictly PowerPoint free! Why no PowerPoint? - check this out, and see how great a product presentation can be when there are no slides. Sign up here.

Remember, both events are community-run to keep costs down and to encourage attendance from a wider audience. Your help in organizing or volunteering at events is much appreciated.

Failure Is Not An Option.

"What is the one thing you cannot fail at?" - I've heard this stated many ways in business. For instance you could ask "What is the one thing you're better at than anyone else in the world?" and get a similar answer.

As an entrepreneur, if you're asked this question, one of two things is happening:

1. You're not explaining what your business does clearly enough, and the person asking the question is looking for clarification. The person asking this question is confused about your business.



2. You're explaining your business as clearly as possible, and the person asking this question understands this. The person asking this question wants to see how well you know your business.

I've been in several meetings over the last few weeks where, after hearing a company pitch, a similar question was asked of the entrepreneur who was presenting. In a room full of big headed i-bankers, angels and VCs, you'd be right if you guessed that they were asking because of #2.

The presenting company was an energy production company, and the answer that came back was pretty standard - something about building a plant. A collective "DOH!" went off silently in everyone's mind, because everyone knew that an energy company's most important task is hedging. An energy company makes money by buying production at a lower price and sells that same energy at a higher price. Typically, they lock in most of their profits with sales contracts before they start their work - or, they map out all the risks of not locking in their profits, if they want to play the market. In a market where product pricing changes almost every second of every day, You could be risking your entire company if the price of energy dropped drastically, or strike it rich if it rocketed skyward. Either way, it's a risk that isn't taken lightly by most credible energy companies.

Strip away all the extraneous parts of your business and understand what you must excel at to survive and thrive. Then, make sure all of your employees understand it too.

Startup Radar: Socialmoth

If you've every surfed the best of craigslist and was left wanting more, then you have to check out Socialmoth. This company was founded by Paul McKellar and Evan Levelle, and is funded by Y Combinator. Paul says it was "started as a place to post inside jokes from our weekly dinner parties". Eventually, deep thoughts and insider confessions were being posted as more and more of their friends joined the site.

The social networking component of the site is interesting, in that it's anonymous. To sign-up, you must invite at least 3 friends. Why? - because Socialmoth sends your postings (anonymously) to your friends. Depending on the postings, the debate and guessing-game that ensues is either a very public version of "truth or dare" or a partially-drunken philosophical discussion. Either way, it's great entertainment.

Free Color Laser Printer!!

Anybody who wants a free HP 2600 in great condition (without the toner cartridges) - drop me a line. It's not that it's a crappy printer; in fact, we're quite pleased with it. The problem, you see, is that the black toner cartridge is now empty, and the other toner cartridges are nearly empty.

An entire set of new toner cartridges would cost about CDN$385 at Staples. Over at FutureShop, they're offering a brand new HP 2600N for CDN$299.99, ($50 mail-in rebate included) - with all the cartridges included. That would make the printer worth about negative CDN$85! I could pay someone $50 to take our old printer off our hands and still come out ahead.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. This printer has been in the family for over a year, and it has printed everything from homework assignments for my sons to meeting agendas and strategy reports for my clients. I know that HP has a "razors & razor blades" pricing strategy for its printers, but get real. And the funny thing is - I'll probably go out and buy a new HP 2600, because we've been so pleased with it.

Kodak's new strategy of offering slightly more expensive printers, with ink and toner at reasonable prices is something that will resonate deeply with consumers. Time to look at Kodak as part of your technology portfolio once again?

Does Your WebSite Pass or Fail?

Via fellow entrepreneur Fred @ ActiveConversion:

OnStartups Startup Site Grader: Very cool! What's your grade?

This Site Rocks!

. . . or so says 0.000085% of the "global internet audience", according to Alexa. I may even buy a t-shirt to prove it.

Zooomr Will Sell Stock Photography

Well, it was only a matter of time before one of the many photo-sharing sites decided it could sell stock imagery. iStockphoto was the first web 2.0 stock photography community, and remains the best. Now, Zooomr is taking a crack at the market. My observations:

• Stock photography is a crowded space. iStockphoto was first, but a lot of imitators followed. I can think of only three that have done well, but there are literally hundreds out there.



• Photosharing is also crowded. The difference is that the top players have a lot of traction. From a previous blog entry, I noted the following companies and their Alexa rank in the Alexa top 100 list: Fotolog (29), Flickr (42), Imageshack (50), Photobucket (55),  ImageVenue (82). Most notably, Flickr has also been rumored to start selling images. I'm sure this latest release of Zooomr will be something that Yahoo! watches with great interest.



• Zooomr's 10% commission (paying 90% to the photographer) might be unsustainable. Paypal will charge 6% transaction fees, and credit cards charge about 3.5% - that leaves Zooomr with 4 - 6.5% if it doesn't pass those costs onto the photographer. In the worst-case scenario, $1,000,000 in revenues would yield $40,000 in gross margin, before any SG&A costs. Alamy tried to sell stock imagery while charging just 15% commission, plus a fee to the photographer for storing images. They abandoned that program in 2002. Now, they charge 35% commission. The reason why I say might is because Zooomr has a built-in viral model with their photo-sharing service, which yields them a lot of free traffic that stock photography sites don't normally get.



• Zooomr's search and filtering functions must yield iStockphoto or Getty Images -like results. iStockphoto has a great collection of edited images that are all under $15 each (as low as $1, depending on file size). In iStockphoto, Zooomr has a competitor with great prices, great selection and great quality.

UPDATE: Thomas Hawk, CEO of Zooomr has left a comment. It's a good read. iStockphoto empowered amateur and semi-pro photographers to break into the ultra-exclusive field of earning money from selling images. We did it by standardizing on low prices, increasing selection and  copious amounts of promotion. Zooomr will allow self-pricing, and because of a self-advertising model, will send most of the money back to photographers. This model could turn out to be Stock Photo 4.0 - 1.0 was stock on film; 2.0 was stock on CD/web, pioneered largely by Photodisc; 3.0 was "microstock" pioneered by iStockphoto.

How To Recruit Great Talent

While we're on the topic of Akoha, check this video out. Austin posted this to his blog a few weeks ago, and he says the response has been tremendous. Great recruiting is all about fit - and that's a two-way street. We often forget that employees must love the people they work for. Austin and Alex are essentially allowing themselves to be judged by hundreds, if not thousands of potential candidates. They're betting that after you see their video, you'll want to work for them. Mission Accomplished.

 

Startup Radar: GigPark & Akoha

GIGPARK
Noah Godfrey was introduced to me as a "computer guy" a few months ago, (though a friend who knows Noah's Father) and I was introduced in much the same way to him. It was only after a proper introduction did I learn that Noah was publisher at Dose, a newspaper aimed at young Canadians, MTV, AOL, Salomon Smith Barney, and on top of that, an HBS grad. Impressive credentials to say the least. I'm ecstatic that someone as talented as Noah has chosen to be a Canadian entrepreneur, as his qualifications would allow him to work at any company, anywhere in the world.

Today, he and his partners, Pema Hegan and Paul Dowman announced their new startup, GigPark (currently just an intro page, the blog is here). I've had conversations with Noah about the company, and like their approach and attitude. Right now, they're heads-down working on product development, and should be beta testing in a few months. Congrats, and kick butt!

AKOHA
Canadian Entrepreneur Austin Hill is at it again. Akoha is still under wraps,  but again, I'm very excited to hear that someone as talented as Austin is choosing to stay in Canada. I love Austin's attitude towards Canadian Entrepreneurship, and he is the thought leader when it comes to accelerating technology entrepreneurship here in our native land.

Also watch out for a few other ventures that Austin is working on, now that he has left RadialPoint. He's got some ideas that will change the startup environment in Canada - and I'll leave it at that for now. Definitely put this guy on your watchlist!

The Flickr for Words

Scribd has rocketed to the top of Alexa's movers and shakers listing,  moving up 60,000% in the last week or so. Their most recent weekly rank is 1,984. The site allows authors to easily upload PDF, Word, PowerPoint, XLS, text and other file formats to the site. All content on the site can be shared and reproduced with limited rights, under a Creative Commons license. Currently, there is no advertising on the site, nor are there any costs associated with uploading or downloading images. A document printing and delivery service is available, giving Scribd an opportunity to bring in some revenues and pay royalties to its authors. Reminds me of the DeviantART business model, which currently has over 32 million images online.

Take a quick look at the site, and you'll find well over 8,000 documents. It will be interesting to see how they deal with classifying and filtering content, as searching through just 100,000 medium-sized documents properly will be significantly harder than searching through millions of images.

Wireless Carriers Gang Up on FreeConference

FreeConference is the "Skype" of conference calls. I remember arranging a conference bridge years ago, where a one-hour conference call for 4 people cost over $100. Soon after, I discovered FreeConference and never looked back. Now, it looks as if the carriers are fighting back. Here's the email I just received:

Dear FreeConference User:

AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, and Qwest Are Blocking Your Conference Calling

As of Friday, March 9, it's come to our attention that Cingular Wireless has begun blocking all conference calls made from Cingular handsets to selected conference numbers. If you call our service, you receive a recording that says, "This call is not allowed from this number. Please dial 611 for customer service".

Earlier this week, Sprint and Qwest joined in this action, blocking cellular and land line calls to these same numbers. This appears to be a coordinated effort to force you to use the paid services they provide, eliminating competition and blocking your right to use the conferencing services that work best for you.

Don't Let AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, or Qwest Take Away Your Right to Use the Conference Service of Your Choice!

We Need Your Help! Please Take the Actions Below:

Whether you are one of their customers, or an organizer who is being impacted by these uncompetitive actions, please file a complaint with the FCC or send an email to your State Attorney General to complain about this monopolistic practice to limit the choices of consumers.

You can also let these companies know how you feel about their attempt to block competitive services:

Sprint Customers can click here or dial *2 from their Sprint Phone

Cingular Customers can click here or call 1-888-333-6651

Qwest Customers can click here or call 1-800-860-2255

Your FreeConference Team remains steadfastly committed to bringing you simple, convenient and reliable conferencing services at the lowest cost possible. We appreciate your support in this endeavor.

Your FreeConference Team

Alexa Down

Ack! Going through Alexa withdrawal! You know you're addicted to a site when you encounter an error page, and hit the refresh button over and over again, hoping that it will spring back to life. Alexa must be resolving these technical issues now, as the site does continue to work intermittently for some sites.

Citizen Marketing

Meme Alert: Jon Fine at BusinessWeek has coined terms for "consumer-generated marketing": Citizen Marketing, as well as Citizen Advertising (link). Here's his reason on why citizen advertising will never work for products like Clorox bleach:

Not every company
has wild-eyed devotees. So thus far, citizen ads mostly push products
that people adore—Chevy asked fans to submit ideas for its Super Bowl
spot—or those that target young men, like Doritos. The people who
create them have already joined the fan club and bought the T-shirt (or
they're so rabid they make their own). There's a reason why the
National Football League asked fans to submit Super Bowl ad ideas.
Football freaks get very geeked-out about their sport, as do those who
post homemade Apple ads to YouTube.

Makes sense - but go a step further, and you'll find a few more interesting things happening in the internet commercials space. A search for "commercial" on YouTube yields these interesting top-ranked results (YouTube doesn't give a true 'sort by views', which sucks - a topic for another day):

• Conan O'Brien's fake iPhone commercial: 3 million+ views**



• Apple's 1984 commercial: 550,000+ views**



• Rolling Rock Beer Ape commercial: 1,212,096 views



• Chevy HHR Super Bowl commercial: 256,645 views



• Flea Market Montgomery - worst commercial ever: 479,582 views

** exact number of views are undetermined because of the number of times duplicate files has uploaded.

Note how the last link, the "worst commercial ever", has more views than the citizen ad for the Chevy HHR which aired during the Super Bowl. This shows how sometimes, a well-orchestrated train-wreck can get you close to 500,000 views! Compare that to the classic Ridley Scott-directed 1984 Apple SuperBowl commercial.

Parody commercials, whether done by citizens, or TV networks, have also done spectacularly - note the number of views for Conan's fake iPhone ad. And see how some companies, like Rolling Rock, are creating a little positive controversy by saying that they pulled their ad off TV because of complaints. What a great way to save money on airtime, get free PR, and take advantage of free bandwidth at YouTube!

Stock Video Explosion?

One of the events we were very thankful for at iStockphoto was the release of the Canon Digital Rebel in late 2003 (US$999, complete with an 18 - 55 mm lens). It was one of those watershed moments for us, as the D60 was about $3,000 - $4,000, and point-and-shoots were only 2 or 3 MP. At 6.3 MegaPixels, the Canon Digital Rebel produced photographs that were good enough for printing 8 x 10 images at high resolution. It enabled our photographers to spend more time producing great images, rather than developing film, scanning slides, and dusting images in Photoshop. As a result, both the quality and the number of images really started to increase.

Now, Engadget reports:

With a release set for "early 2007," Red Digital Cinema just took the important step of outing the price list for the range of RED gear which could hit as early as May 31st.
Intent on keeping both wedding videographers and indie film makers
happy, it all starts with the $17,500 RED ONE base system (center).
From there you can add your choice of the $1,250 Basic or $2,750
Premium production packs (top right and left, respectively). But don't
stop now, go ahead and throw down for a $1,650 RED ONE Power Pack
featuring 2x RED BRICK 140Wh batteries and charger, a $1,950 RED
Electronic Viewfinder, and the $1,700 5.6-inch LCD. Optics accessories
include a $3,500 B4 lens adapter and both Canon and Nikkor 35mm photo
mounts costing $500 each. There are also several RED branded media
accessories for CF, SATA disk, and something called the "RED RAM 64GB"
for $4,500 -- extortionate if that's just a RED-branded SSD in an external housing. But hey, no one said that a 4k resolution and 60p frame rate would come cheap.

It's not quite the "everyman's camera" that the Canon Digital Rebel was, but the Red Digital Camera will be an amazing tool towards the development and maturation of the stock video market. Content from Red Digital Cameras will start showing up on stock video sites like iStockphoto and ShutterStock, and the technical quality will be markedly better than all the existing content on either site. As the price of these super-high quality cameras continue to fall, the proliferation of stock video could mirror what happened in stock photography.

Online File Storage & Transfer Roundup

There is a proliferation of online file storage and transfer services on the net these days, and most of them are free services supported by advertising, with additional revenues from premium subscription services. The new leaders, according to Alexa, are Megaupload and RapidShare, both of which are in the Alexa 100. Mike Arrington reviewed a variety of services last year, and of the sites he reviewed, it looks like Mofile, a Chinese YouTube-like site, has the only site that is significant in terms of traffic. Here are some of the services that have top-ranked Alexa placements or Google search rankings.

Least Restrictive:

Megaupload
The big daddy of all the file transfer sites, Megaupload currently has an Alexa rank of 16. Free accounts get up to 50 GB of space, with files up to 1 GB each. Free users must wait up to 45 seconds between downloads to show advertising, while premium accounts take away that restriction.  Premium accounts get 250 GB of storage with unlimited file size upload for $9.99/month, or a lifetime membership for $199.99

RapidShare
Unlimited free uploads for files 100 MB or smaller, with no download limits, although heavily downloaded files don't have parallel downloading and may encounter a maximum MB/hour limit. Also, files that are not downloaded for a period of 45 days are removed from the system. Premium users can pay 6.99 Euros/month to have these restrictions removed.

sendspace
At less than 2 years old, this company has an impressive Alexa rank of 108. Offers free file transfers of up to 300 MB, and files up to 1.5 GB on premium accounts. Premium accounts range from $11.99 to $49.99 per month, with unlimited uploads & storage, as well as 4 GB of daily download bandwidth.

YouSENDit
YouSendit claims
transfers of over 1 million files adding up to 30,000 GB daily. You
upload files to their servers, and send an email to the receiver with a
download URL. Files are available for download for up to 7 days. You
can transfer files up to 100 MB for free, but can pay to send files up
to 2 GB. Subscription plans are between $4.99 to $29.99 per month, and
allow for more downloads and longer file availability.

Xdrive

This AOL-backed company offer 5GB of free online storage, with 50GB for 9.95 a month.

Most Unique Offering:

VMN.net
Possibly the stickiest online storage service of the group, if they could get everyone to download their software. With 1 GB of free online storage, this Canadian company offers its services through a Google/Alexa-like tool bar, with Yahoo!-based search, Alexa rankings, RSS feeds, popup blockers, and more. Offers 15 GB of storage for CDN$12.95/month.

Other:

Yourfilehost
Allows files up to 25 MB to be uploaded and served from your website. With no premium services, this service is supported entirely by advertising. A file remains active only if it has been downloaded in the last 14 days.

4shared
1 GB of free space, with unlimited access and bandwidth. Premium accounts get more space, and start at 2 GB of space for $5/month, to 5 GB for $10/month.

Yahoo! Briefcase
Not a lot of fanfare for this Yahoo! offering, probably because it's largely hidden and offers only 30 MB of free storage space, without any upgrade options.

Box.net
This Mark Cuban backed venture has drag and drop access to a online hard-drive through widgets and RSS feeds. 1 GB: free / 5 GB: $4.99/month / 15 GB: $9.99/month

There are plenty more out there. Like most other businesses, the 3 biggest players will dominate and thousands of smaller companies will follow. Although all of these companies are private and no sales breakdowns are publicly available, I suspect that advertising will drive success on storage sites. Note, for example, the success of Megaupload, which offers generous file size limits but forces users to view 25 - 45 seconds of advertising for free downloads. Those relying primarily on subscription revenues will be relegated to niche markets.

For the entrepreneurs out there, most of these sites continue to be great resources, providing free or inexpensive access to infrastructure that used to be prohibitively expensive. One less excuse to not starting that online venture!

Integrity

Earlier this week, I attended a dinner honoring local heroes in our community. The honorees ranged from people who had opened their homes and hearts to refugees from third world countries, to people helping the homeless, to those advocating women's rights in Afghanistan.

One of the honorees in his acceptance speech, recited a quote that set my mind in motion:

There's right and wrong, and not much in-between.

How true, especially in the business world these days. That speech set me upon a search of quotes amongst business authors:

There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity. - Tom Peters

Guy Kawasaki, in his commencement speech at Palo Alto High School in 1995 advised the students to obey the absolutes:

Playing to win, however, does not mean playing dirty. As you grow older and older, you will find that things change from absolute to relative. When you were very young, it was absolutely wrong to lie, cheat, or steal. As you get older, and particularly when you enter the workforce, you will be tempted by the "system" to think in relative terms. "I made more money." "I have a nicer car." "I went on a better vacation." Worse, "I didn't cheat as much on my taxes as my partner." "I just have a few drinks. I don't take cocaine." "I don't pad my expense reports as much as others." This is completely wrong.

Preserve and obey the absolutes as much as you can. If you never lie, cheat, or steal,
    you will never have to remember who you lied to, how you cheated, and what you stole. There absolutely are absolute rights and wrongs.

Warren Buffet, the world's most successful investor says:

In looking for people to hire,
you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And
if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.

If we all took our lessons from Peters, Kawasaki and Buffet, we would never end up as subjects of SEC inquiries.

Y Combinator

Nick Gonzalez from TechCrunch reports on the latest batch of companies from Y Combinator:

After Condé Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Y Combinator funded Reddit,
people took notice. This wasn’t just some quirky incubator where they
gave college students a few bucks to kick start their new companies
(although it is that, too - their standard deal is $5000 + $5000 per
founder, for 6%ish of the company) - real products were coming out of Y Combinator, and people started to notice.

Y Combinator funds startups twice per year, in batches. Funded
startups that have previously launched include Reddit, Kiko, Loopt,
ClickFacts, TextPayMe, Snipshot, Inkling, Flagr, Wufoo, YouOS,
PollGround, LikeBetter, Thinkature, JamGlue, Shoutfit, Scribd, Weebly,
Buxfer, and Octopart. Today, Y Combinator invited in TechCrunch and a
select group of investors and industry experts to view the current crop
of companies, just getting ready to launch. Michael Arrington and I
attended the sessions, and our notes on the new companies are below.

Many of the new companies are in private beta:
Zenter, Weebly, Virtualmin, Octopart, Tsumobi, Whitenoise, Buxfer, Writewith, Socialmoth, View3, Auctomatic, Snipshot, not to mention the ones who are still in stealth mode.

I think Paul Graham, the man behind Y Combinator, is going to be wildly successful with this portfolio, which is a testament to his incubator model. Taking entrepreneurs and giving them nice office space and administrative support is like taking tigers out of the wild, putting them in cages and feeding them ground beef. By not offering office space, he's kept his teams entrepreneurial, yet offers the essential mentorship and networking they need.

Some entrepreneurs have commented on the high cost of Paul's financing. While it is true that equity could be the most expensive form of financing, you also have to look at value. If I were a young entrepreneur, I would jump at the chance to be a part of Y Combinator, given Paul's experience and track record.

The Threadless Commandments

Founder Jake Nickell and Chief Creative Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless (skinnyCorp) presented the 4 commandments of creating a great community at Community Next (Link via Guy Kawasaki) a few weeks ago. Threadless runs t-shirt design contests, then produces and sells the winning designs on shirts and hoodies. The winners are decided by votes from the community. They are projecting 18 to 20 million in sales for 2007. (CNN news story here)

Here's the summary, excerpted from the speech entitled "The Patent-Pending skinnyCorp Method for Creating Online Awesomeness and Other Stuff":

Since Moses had 10 Commandments, each of these commandments are 2.5 times as important.

1. Allow your content to be created by its users. For example, Threadless is 100% user driven, as all t-shirt designs have been created by members. As a result, it has 500,000 registered users, but only 27 employees.



2. Put your project in the hands of the community. For example, always be accessible to allow for comments and criticisms to reach you. Reward your community by responding to their needs.



3. Let your community grow itself. Traditional advertising is not effective. Run a great community, and your community will spread the word for you. Currently over 150 new designs are submitted daily, and many submitters are recommending Threadless to their friends.



4. Reward the community that makes your project possible. Threadless has grown its prize money as the company has grown. Currently, and winner receives $2,000 for winning a design contest. The prize money will continue to increase in the future. In addition, the company has created themed contests, where winners get an additional $10,000. Although Threadless is constantly approached by advertisers, it has only taken sponsorship-in-kind, in the form of "cool merchandise", so that this merchandise can be given away as prizes to the community.

These guys have a lot of fun doing what they do - you know this when you watch their presentation, as they worked pretty hard to make it funny and entertaining. For example, they presented a graph displaying their progress in terms of "awesomeness". As long as they got more awesome as they grew, everything remains cool. It's hard not to like these guys!

Alexa Global 100 Breakdown

I was surfing the Alexa Global 500 today, and decided to breakdown the english-language sites in the global 100, just for fun. I was hoping to compare the results against Compete, but it doesn't look like they have a top 100 listing feature yet. Here are some thoughts:

• Search is crowded - Starware.com is 96 - has anyone ever heard of them? 96 is a great Alexa rank, but what good is being anything other than 1, 2 or 3 in search?



• Google.com is ranked #3, most likely because it has a different tld strategy than Yahoo! or Microsoft (www.google.br vs. br.yahoo.com)



• While YouTube dominates video sharing, the photo sharing space is still very competitive, with 5 (english-based) services in the top 100.



• Only 6 sites are primarily corporate/e-commerce sites: Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, ebay, Amazon and Craigslist (wasn't sure what other category to put Craigslist in)



• The newer social networking sites (MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, Facebook) all rank ahead of the older ones (Friendster, Xanga)



• Whoever said that the Chinese are going to rule the world once again was right: 15 Chinese language sites in the Global 100

Alexa has its biases, but it has been a "good enough" ballpark estimate of traffic for sites down to a rank of 100,000th place. While no Internet professional would use Alexa rankings as an absolute measure, most would agree that they have been a Godsend to those who are either seeking trends or performing cursory due-diligence on web businesses.

Search Engines/Portals: (rank in brackets)
Yahoo! (1), MSN (2), Google (3), Windows Live (7), Go (38), AOL (51), Rediff (84), Starware (96)

Non dot.com Google sites in the top 100: 18

Non dot.com Yahoo sites in the top 100: 2

Video/Photosharing:
YouTube (4), Fotolog (29), Flickr (42), Imageshack (50), Photobucket (55),  ImageVenue (82)

Blogging/hosting:
Blogger (15), LiveJournal (66), Geocities (67)

File Transfers:
Megaupload (16), RapidShare.com (22), RapidShare.de (77) 

Social Networking:
MySpace (5), Orkut (8), Hi5 (19), Facebook (28), Friendster (32), Xanga (58), Adult Friendfinder (73)

Corporations:
Microsoft (13), Apple (77), Adobe (95)

e-commerce/listings:
ebay (14), Amazon (23), Craigslist (39)

News/Reference:
Wikipedia (11), BBC (31), IMDB (35), CNN (48), Digg (79), About (93)

Open Source Software Community:
SourceForge (97)

Chinese sites:
Baidu (6), qq (9), sina (12), sohu (17), 163 (18), Yahoo China (21), Taobao (26), Wretch (36),  Tom (44), discuss.com.hk (64), uwants (68),  Alibaba (80), vnet (81), Soso (83), pchome.com.tw (88)

Don Tapscott: Wikinomics

Don Tapscott presented the findings from his book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, at a Cambrian Lounge event last week. Great content and great delivery makes this a must-see. Click below on the image to watch, or click here to get a chronological index of the presentation.

Calgary: Stock Photography Capital of the World?

While Seattle is home to Getty Images and Corbis, the biggest players in the stock photography sector, Calgary has a rich history of stock photography professionals and companies. It all started back in 1985, with Greg Kolodziejzyk's Image Club Graphics. In 1994, he sold the company to Aldus/Adobe, and Greg retired soon after that. (Today, he's doing some pretty crazy stuff, like setting world records.)

Adobe divested Image Club in 1998, and the management team, in a management buyout led by Brad Zumwalt, rebranded the company as Eyewire. A few years later, Eyewire was sold to Getty Images. Getty operated Eyewire for a few years, before deciding to close the Calgary office and consolidate the remaining resources in Seattle (The eyewire.com domain was eventually sold to Fonts.com). A few years ago, most of that team collectively created another stock photography great venture, Veer. Dizzy yet?

Eyewire retained only core management and employees after Adobe's divestiture. This caused a scattering of former employees with varying degrees of stock photography experience throughout Calgary. Some moved to other cities, including product manager Niall O'Driscoll, who went on to become VP of Content at Hemera (now a part of Jupiter Images).

Some former employees of Image Club/Eyewire, including Bruce Livingstone, went on to start new stock photography ventures, most of which are now defunct. Bruce  and I were both former employees of Kolodziejzyk and Zumwalt during the Image Club and Adobe days, but we were not a part of Eyewire. Bruce went on to start iStockphoto in 2000, I joined him about a year later, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So there you have it. You may need to read this post twice and email me for a diagram.

For those of you thinking of starting the next great stock photography company, where would you locate - Calgary, or Seattle?

Determination: Defined

Rich Christensen is the host, executive producer and creator of the drag racing reality show Pinks. I love what he says about his job:

"I sell tv shows for a living. There is almost a 99% failure rate doing what I do. I wake up each day with one goal – to fight as hard as humanly possible for that 1% opportunity. It’s that simple."

Rich just nailed it for every sales, marketing and business development guy out there. Direct Marketing (DM) guys send millions of catalogs, dreaming of a 2% response. DM consultants get paid six figures to boost response rates by a tenth of a percent. For guys in sales, it means getting told "no" a lot more often than closing a sale.

Sales and business development people are wired differently. They celebrate their wins, and consolidate their losses, with full understanding that it is a numbers game, as Rich explains so eloquently. It takes years and years of training to be a good salesperson, but this determination is the foundational characteristic of all great salespeople.

Links: If you haven't had the chance to catch an episode of Pinks, here is one that was uploaded on YouTube. The winner in a best of 5 series of drag races takes the loser's car home! The negotiations and emotions involved are simply amazing:  part 1   part 2   part 3

Pitch4Profit Winners

You gotta love a great pitch. Here are six great pitches, from Canadian Business Magazine's Pitch4Profit Contest.

Under $1,000,000:

• WaterKiD Baby Carrier:  pitch   site



• Wiper Shaker:  pitch   site



• Beck Technologies:  pitch

Over $1,000,000:

• Cambrian House:  pitch   site



• ViaVol.com:  pitch   site



• Telegle:  pitch   site

It's great to see some diversity amongst the pitchers - it just goes to show you that as long as you have a strong pitch, it doesn't matter who you are, or whether you speak perfect english or not.

Good Micromanagement?

Search for micromanager on Google, and you'll get about 134,000 results that all vilify micromanagement in one way or another. So, after reading all of this nasty press, you'll hear most managers say stuff like "I don't like to micromanage, I let my employees succeed or fail so that they can learn from their own experiences". However, a manager that is completely "hands-off" is just as bad, and maybe even worse, than the manager who is a constant micromanager. The "hands-off" manager is abdicating her leadership when she doesn't coach her employees to success.

Use the right tool for the right job. A good manager will assess the strengths and weaknesses of her employees, and act accordingly. It's obvious that most employees will want freedom in their areas of strength - and a good manager will allow this freedom, as long as good communications are maintained.

It's less obvious when employees actually want micromanagement. Not possible, you say? Have you ever had a situation that required some serious input from your manager, only to have her say "do what you think is best" after a 30-second briefing? This is certain to be de-motivating to most employees. And how does that  "hands-off" manager ever manage to complete your annual performance review?

I've always used a little bit of micromanagement in my management toolbox, and I think my employees have appreciated it. For example, I've monitored phone calls and offered critiques for our sales staff - and as part of the learning experience, they monitor some of my calls and offer me their critiques. (Bonus lesson: always look for opportunities to teach leadership and coaching skills) On certain projects, I'll offer to take one or two tasks, just so that I can interact with my employees, and understand how they work. After I've gained this understanding, I can get out of the way and be a better manager.

Don't do your employees' jobs for them, but do show that you're willing to roll up the sleeves and work with them. Don't second guess your employees, but do challenge them to develop more than one solution for complex problems. Most importantly, recognize that some of your employees will seek your mentorship, and in return, they will reward you handsomely with their loyalty and hard work.

Calgary's Homeless

Last week, I went on a tour of the Calgary Drop In and Rehab Centre with my good friend, Executive Director Dermot Baldwin. While some have called it the "Homeless Hilton", I would challenge anyone who has a home to stay at the Centre for just one night - it is far from luxurious. As we went from floor to floor, my emotions went up and down like a roller coaster - some floors give you so much hope, and on other floors, you can feel the utter despair.

Think of the CDIRC as a place with no other purpose than to deliver compassion. The staff and volunteers are amazing - all good hearted people who are helping to make this world a better place. The Centre accepts anyone - whether they are homeless because of economics, addictions or disabilities. There is a special floor where inebriated and stoned people can sleep at night, so they don't freeze to death sleeping outside. Otherwise, people in "good" condition sleep on a floor where there is more peace and quiet. People who have shown initiative to work themselves out of this situation are given counseling, as well as training and work opportunities - and, the holy grail - a slightly more private place to sleep. There were many areas where the clients of the Centre were actively training - in the computer lab, the kitchen, the second-hand clothing store and the bicycle repair shop, to name a few.

The most disturbing floor is one that was dedicated to allowing the sick to sleep during the day. You are only allowed on this floor if you have a sickness that requires sleep and rest. Otherwise, you must sleep and eat according to the schedule outlined. The smell was rancid, and it feels like you would catch some kind of infectious disease if you stayed on that floor for too long.

Some thoughts and reflections:

• I support organizations like the CDIRC, which are open to helping everyone in need, with no prejudices. My support is both as a benefactor and as a volunteer - and if your support is currently neither, I strongly encourage you to volunteer or visit a homeless shelter. You will quickly understand where your interests and passions for supporting the less fortunate lie.



• People with illnesses - both mental and physical, addictions, and those who are simply less fortunate deserve our compassion. I applaud those who work or volunteer at homeless shelters for making this world a better place. Without you, our world is less compassionate, caring, empathetic, charitable, friendly, and most of all, less understanding.



• Extremist arguments used in any debate, whether it be religion, race, politics or homelessness (ie, "they wouldn't be homeless if they worked harder") are simply uninformed. Thirty minutes in any homeless shelter would tell you that there are more complex issues at play. Educate yourself on key social issues and do your best to inform colleagues, friends and family when you encounter uninformed viewpoints.

Link: A commercial for the Calgary Drop In and Rehab Centre:

Best of TED TALKS

TED is the Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference, where over 1,000 "thought-leaders, movers and shakers" gather to hear the latest ideas in Monterey, California. The conference is being held March 7-10, and since I wasn't fortunate enough to get a ticket (you have to prove you're a mover and shaker, so I'll apply and try to get a ticket for 2008), here are some of my favorite talks from previous years:

Richard Baraniuk, Rice University professor is on a mission create a free, global online education system, Connexions. Richard's system will transform the way that knowledge gets distributed throughout the world - truly game-changing.

Nicholas Negroponte, Director of the MIT Media Lab, is creating the $100 laptop to help educate children in third-world countries. Affordable technologies like this are key to lifting these countries out of poverty.

Ze Frank - contained within this 2004 standup routine, he talks for a few seconds about his viral video. His current site is at http://www.zefrank.com/theshow.

Jehane Noujaim, creator of the film Startup.com, talks about bringing the world together through the power of film.

Career 2.0

Since my "retirement" last year, I've been searching for projects to participate and invest in. If you've got an entrepreneurial venture and have a penchant for changing the world, email me! Read more here.

Pitch With Passion!

When was the last time you heard a pitch that you liked? Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs don't have great pitches. Ask them what they do and they either give you a buzzword filled explanation that doesn't mean jack [if they're MBAs], or a physics lesson on how their product works [if they're engineers].

Pitches need to capture hearts, minds and wallets - in that order. People don't care how a product works or how much money it will save them if they don't want it in the first place.

• Hearts: Convince the customer that they need your product. Tell them how will it change the world. [or at the very least, change their world]



• Minds: Convince the customer that you're the best at delivering the product. Explain how it works, and quantify the benefits it will bring.



• Wallets: Finally, tell the customer how you will save them money or add value they can't get otherwise.

One of my personal favorites on pitching - a 90 second how-to pitch scene [WARNING: coarse language] from the movie Boiler Room.

It doesn't matter whether you are looking for money, advisers, talent, partners or sales, you need to need to pitch. In that regard, we could all use a little help. Constantly practicing your pitch [especially at meetings and parties], as well as listening to and critiquing other pitches are great ways of getting better.

Links:

• To refine your personal pitch, check out 15SecondPitch.com



• StartupNation.com has some great elevator pitch contests as part of their podcasts.



• Sean Wise has some advice on how to pitch.