Undoubtedly, the first procedures that can extend the human lifespan will be clinical in nature and sinfully expensive. I envision large, electronic devices that do all sorts of interesting things, making the prospective immortal little more than a bedridden cyborg brain. Why would anyone be interested in this? Well, people have done stranger things, like flash-freezing themselves until medical science can revive them. If the prospect of living on machines for just long enough for just long enough to be released from the machines is even remotely possible, someone will shell out the millions it takes to actually do so.

This will create a huge uproar, because… well, who doesn’t want to live forever? Limiting this benefit to those that can afford it is going to create a whole new concept of class separation, which most democratic societies will censure almost immediately. As we can see with Stem Cell research, countries that hamstring medical advances of a particular type find themselves well behind the times, and the nascent immortal population will find that they’re strapped to machines far longer than their budgets had originally projected. Expenses will rise, and only the extremely-super-rich will be able to sustain themselves… unless everyone emigrates to more lenient environments.

Yet even here there’s an interesting benefit. While the parent’s amassed fortunes would previously have gone to their heirs, they’ll now be spent on keeping them alive for long enough for medical science to advance to the point of no consequence. A trust fund only goes so far- chances are the first two or three generations of immortal offspring will be forced to fend for themselves or join the dirt with the rest of us.

Sooner or alter we’ll then reach the point of no consequence. This is the point where life-sustaining procedures no longer requires hospital time, and immortals can continue their normal lives with only token effort on their part. While this may sound great, it really is just the first step in the commoditization of these procedures. Privatization of the industry will occur, prices will come down, and soon enough immortality will be accessible to everyone.

This will really set off the simmering ethical battle, where the religious and the evolutionists will find themselves to be strange bedfellows: On one side, those that choose immortality will be cheating God’s plan, while on the other they’ll be halting evolution. Once again there will be cries for both social and legal limits on immortality, yet now the deck will be stacked against them vis.a.vis numbers. The funny thing is that it won’t really matter, because those that choose immortality at this point will eventually realize they’ve paid the price of genetic obsolescence.

Consider: 100, 200, even 1000 years from now, human intellect and physiology will have evolved significantly, and immortals will A) have all the money, but B) be unable to compete with the newer generations. This will either create a rich aristocracy begging for a revolution, or a zoo-like environment where the ’spoiled little rich kids’ are allowed to exist in their little obsolete world, while the rest of the species goes on without them. That is assuming, of course, that they aren’t euthanized due to massive overpopulation.

Either that, or we’ll start seeing human upgrades, at which point the entire evolutionary theory goes out the window because we assume we know better. Given how far we’ll have come to even reach this point, there’s no reason to believe these upgrades won’t be ubiquitous. Who even knows what humans will look like by then: Will you have a small Apple logo under your ear, indicating an iPhone implant? Will your hair naturally grow in rainbow shades? Will your clothes reshape themselves to be in-line with the latest styles?

And in that kind of environment a few rich little immortals will fit right in.

Before we get into the meat of this article, however, you have a decision to make: Will your organization truly benefit from such a celebrity? The benefits are significant- both your company and brand are affiliated with one of the names in the industry, and that comes with no small amount of prestige. Business will come to you simply to be associated with your celebrity(ies), and their name can be a valuable asset when converting new customers. The downside, however, is that celebrities are a pain in the ass to manage. They demand that their input is heard on everything that falls in or even remotely touches their domain of expertise, and will seed dissatisfaction if their input isn’t heard or integrated quickly. If your organization isn’t ready to support them, be very cautious- the last thing you want is for your celebrity to leave dissatisfied and publicly discredit your organization.

Identification

So let’s assume you’ve decided that a celebrity can add significantly to your business. You have two choices here- you can either attract existing talent, or you can nurture one from your existing employees. In both cases, it behooves you to be selective about their domain of expertise- attracting an expert in finance isn’t going to do your manufacturing business one whit of good, so make sure their knowledge matches your own business objectives.

Identifying talent should be pretty easy. Chances are they are already well established within your company or the community, and you won’t hurt for individuals willing to recommend them. The real trick here is substance- there are tons of individuals who have blogs that are little more than regurgitated trends, so what you’re looking for is someone who is adding to the conversation by providing their own ideas and insight. Just because someone has a twitter account doesn’t mean they’re adding to the conversation, it could just be that they’re a habitual retweeter or shameless self-promoter. A good rule of thumb to use for this is the “Holy Shit” effect- if, while reading a blog entry or paper of theirs, you have a moment of true “Holy Shit” insight, then you know that this person is capable of inspiring ideas and is an expert at quality content generation (Note- you’ll need to adjust for your own self-confidence, experience, and… a-hem… arrogance).

The other option you have is to nurture someone within your own organization, which provides the added loyalty benefit of gratitude. Again, identifying them should be easy- everyone knows them, they are frequently sought out for advice, and at meetings they are the ones willing to bite the bullet and ask sometimes stupid, sometimes compelling questions, and not just to hear themselves talk. Chances are that their hobbies are social in nature, and when given the opportunity they thrive in the limelight.

Engagement & Support

Having identified your desired celebrity, the next step is to establish a working relationship with them. It’s your choice on whether to engage them as a direct employee or as an affiliated consultant is up to you, though each comes with significantly different expectations. The former is an employer/employee relationship, where you can directly leverage their expertise to support your business (as well as promoting it). The latter is more of a client relationship, and convincing them to consult on internal projects will normally cost you a commission. Support is also fairly straightforward, and should already be in the skill set of anyone who’s worked in PR for a decent amount of time. Speaking pitches, convention appearances and invites, book authoring and more are things your celebrity might be interested in, and usually it’s only a matter of presenting an opportunity to get them to bite.

Fact is, being a celebrity is hard work. Authoring presentations, writing whitepapers and blogging each take quite a bit of time, and one has to remain image conscious at all times. Add to that the constant industry monitoring that these individuals engage in, and without support it’s practically impossible for one person to do it as anything other than a full-time job. This is where you, as an employer, can speak from a position of strength. As long as you provide them an environment in which their skills are applicable and their public identity is supported (with a little judicious image coaching in extreme cases), you present them with a rare and invaluable environment.

The Point of Arrogance

There is a point in time when you will realize exactly how arrogant your celebrity is. This is a crucial point, where they feel they could cut loose and do their own thing- in short, you need the celebrity more than the celebrity needs you. This point can happen anywhere: Raise negotiations, Watercooler conversation, a happy hour comment like “What are they going to do, Fire me?”, and it’s up to you to recognize that point and understand that all the investment and time you put into this celebrity is about to walk out the door. (Caveat: This doesn’t always happen- if the individual is already substantially invested in other ways in your company, chances are they need the company as well and recognize this fact).

Let me let you in on a little secret: The vast majority of professional “celebrities” out there have gotten to where they are with a significant amount of corporate support… and whatever you do, DON’T TELL THEM THAT! Instead, spin their own arrogance against them: If they think of themselves as an entity easily separable from the company, then frame the conversation as a mutually beneficial partnership: You get to promote through them, while mitigating the workload of their own self-promotion.

This can be as easy as changing the nature of your conversation with them. Instead of directing them to promote a particular product or attend a particular convention, you simply ask whether they’d like to do so (Frankly, you should have been doing this all along). Most humans have a really hard time saying no when a friendly favor is asked, and while it will appear as if you’re granting them the right to manage their own appearances, in reality you’re simply taking advantage of human nature.

Leader of the Pack

So what now? Well, at this point you’ve shown your organization that you’re capable of engaging and retaining a celebrity, and are reaping the benefits of their affiliation and advocacy while providing them with the recognition they desire. Unfortunately, this is also going to bring all the hopefuls out of the woodwork- sleepers that desire the limelight and see it as a source of long-term professional advancement, but have not until this point had the energy to pursue things themselves.

This halo effect is perhaps the most dangerous effect of having a celebrity in your organization, because no matter how experienced they may be, your hopefuls either consider themselves equal or firmly believe that with the same level of company support they would be. The question “Why them, and not me” is inevitably asked, and will generate substantial professional dissatisfaction through your entire organization.

You have two choices on how to deal with this: The first is to really understand everyone’s personal value structure and assist them in realizing that. This should work for most, though it might mean a few unscheduled promotions or raises. For the others, chances are most hopefuls are not willing to trade fame for their free time, but nothing short of personal experience will convince them of that. To assist with this you might do well to create a group much like Adobe’s Tech Evangelism program. A basic coaching program should suffice to give them the exposure to the hard life of self-promotion, and should weed out anyone but the most determined individuals.

The important thing to note here is that you have to support your hopefuls, if only long enough to convince them that they’re not cut out for the celebrity life. Giving someone the Standard Lecture About Community And Corporate Values (TM) is just going to sound like a lot of sensationalist crap.

Parting Ways

Fact is, the United States is culturally very focused on the individual, which means that sooner or later someone will make your celebrity an offer you can’t match. The more famous someone is, the more likely this is to happen, so get used to the idea; hopefully you’ll already have someone ready to take their place.

Having said that, all of your investment in this individual is hardly in vain, because they won’t forget all the support you’ve offered them. You can go the extra mile and commit to any future speaking engagements you’ve scheduled on their behalf, but that would just be icing on the cake. Make them feel welcome, support them in their new career path, and with this continued positive support you will ensure that you will get free advocacy from them in the future.

So lets talk about the consumer for a bit, in particular the consumer described in The Long Tail. Here is an individual who knows his/her own lifestyle and needs, who like particular applications over others, whose preferred experience with one service might be different from his/her neighbor’s experience for the same. This is an individual who, when presented with a Smart Phone, wants to have features and applications behaving a particular way, and will only put up with the provided options of the telco because there’s no other choice. In short, they have a craving for personalization, and will gladly move to any platform that has applications that meet their needs.

Deploying a mobile application to meet these needs is, in its simplest form, the following: First, you must have a developer able to access your SDK, platform and testbed with minimal fuss. Then, that developer must be able to deploy his application to a location where a potential user may download it onto their device. Lastly, the device must be able to run said application. These three tenets of Develop, Deploy, Consume can be easily seen on the regular web. Developers have their SDK’s, Deployment happens on a web server, and browsers allow consumption of the offered services.

In the mobile world this isn’t quite as simple. Yes, there are many websites now that have mobile components, yet lets face it: The form factor and memory constraints of mobile computing devices make it so that few applications can offer full functionality and experience while constrained by regular browser controls. Additionally, we are back to (for the time being) the computing world of the early 90’s, where applications are restricted by processing and memory constraints. Back then, however, we could load applications from Floppy disks, something that’s not so easy on a mobile device. The development platforms exist, but deployment (as noted above) is extremely difficult, and the broad diversity of devices makes your target installable base problematic at best.

So let us take a look at the various players in the mobile market right now. First of all, let us look at the telecommunication companies, those that have the aforementioned problem with getting something On Deck. From their perspective, they have control over their delivery platform, and getting something from their platform to a mobile device is simple enough, however their process is such that they have completely lost their developer base. There are too many devices, too many different platforms and form factors, and deploying an application is simply too difficult for any developer to bother building something. Imagine the computing world in the mid-80’s, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Next let’s take a look at Microsoft, which in our case will also double as any company that has a mobile application which they want to deploy. Microsoft has historically been brilliant in its developer support tools, so much so that it’s stupidly easy to develop an application for their operating system. Similarly, the fact that they are in the software and not the hardware business lets them sell a platform rather than a device, which allows mobile manufacturers to create devices that can run any application built for it. The place where they have failed, however, is in securing and simplifying the delivery platform, which remains under the control of the telco’s.

Third, let us look at Google and Android. Here, the development platform is easy to access and has some brilliant development tools. And… then what? Well, frankly, we don’t know a whole lot about how Android will be delivered, because while many manufacturers and providers have jumped on the bandwagon, we as of yet have no idea whether Android will use an open application deployment platform, or even whether phones built by their manufacturing partners will come with Android pre-installed. The suggested promise of Android is Build Once, Deploy To Any Phone, but if it means that a developer still has to get something On Deck with a Telco, you will once again be in the same boat as Microsoft- a common platform, but no control over application distribution.

I should note here that I doubt Google will not have some central application service, it simply hasn’t been announced yet.

Lastly, let us come to Apple. In this case I have to make a special note, in that while I recognize the SDK is publicly available, it is unfortunately not available for Windows (No, Aptana junkies, that’s just a web browser). Thus while they have alienated a good percentage of computer users overall, the additional cost of an OSX development platform is comparatively minor, and won’t detract a company interested in building an iPhone application. Taking that into consideration, they have everything buttoned up. Developers can access the SDK, they have an established and largely ubiquitous deployment platform not tied to the telco, and they have a device that will run any software built. This end-to-end solution is exactly the same thing that made the iPod so successful, because it got a user from Purchase to Play in one smooth experience.

And no, I don’t own an iPhone.

Lets take Twitter as an example. Their service statement is, in a nutshell, “We let you microblog”. They don’t do it particularly well, their online interface sucks, their features are extremely limited, and the service goes down so often that the “Fail Whale” has entered the colloquial as a term unto itself. And yet their users remain loyal, the service continues to be used, and it’s probably the most popular microblogging service out there.

Why? Realize that 80%+ of twitter activity goes through their API, not the website. In other words, the guys at twitter have opened up the doors to the kingdom and allowed the community to decide how they wish to consume the service. That same community has risen to the challenge, providing a plethora of applications, widgets and plugins that allow people to consume and update twitter where and when they want to.

Lets take a closer look at what actually happened here: Twitter provided an API… and let the community (whether individuals or businesses) suck up the cost of developing use cases and interfaces, do usability testing, write requirements and eventually write the software. In short they just made someone else pay for the entire involved and expensive front-end development process.

Not only that, but they also neatly sidestepped the need to perform strategic market analysis to manage their own growth. Rather than focusing on meeting the needs of a single segment (and expanding from there), they boiled the service down to its absolute essentials and let each segment figure out how they want to use it.

This approach isn’t particularly new. AOL IM and Jabber have been around for a while now, Google and Yahoo have been making their services available for years now, and most of all the world wide web itself is… well, a communication platform built on the premise of a server/client relationship.

The key is integration. There are so many services, websites and widgets out there today that only the truly exceptional will be able to stand independently on their own. All the others are fighting for search engine placement, social tags, advertising and community buzz to promote themselves, but are never likely to hit the big-time unless they can integrate themselves into their user’s pre-existing day-to-day activities.

Wouldn’t you call that the value statement of any new company? “Provide a service that improves a users day-to-day activity so dramatically that they can’t live without it”. Whether this is done via process improvement (Make a task more efficient / less frustrating) or activity enhancement (Now you can tag your pages while you surf them) doesn’t really matter, because the core task remains the same.

My favorite example of this phenomenon is Firefox, because it provides a platform where users can customize their browsing experience with all the ancillary services they want. Plugins exist for del.icio.us, livejournal, myspace, gmail, etc etc etc- all tasks and activities that may not be directly related to the core browsing activity, yet provide a sufficiently compelling experience enhancement that they’ve become part of day-to-day web surfing.

So in summary: If you’re providing a new service, put some serious thought into building an open API. If your services and your data (’cause that’s what it boils down to) are compelling enough, you stand a good chance of having the community take care of segmentation, marketing, and implementation.

Most startups start off as LLC’s, largely because it protects the partners from liability while still being a valid corporate entity. The catch is that these organizations can’t have more than 99 shareholders, which puts a serious limitation on the micropayment idea. If you’re looking for $1,000,000, your investors have to be able to pony up at least $10,000 each, and there’s nothing micro in those payments.

Therefore, for the concept to be viable, the company has to take the role of the investor on behalf of the fund contributors (either directly or via a subsidiary), which means it must become a financial entity structured like a credit union or a mutual fund. This then means SEC regulation, transparency, due diligence and most of all a cubic boatload of fiscal liability.

These are not insurmountable- in fact we’re fairly confident the model remains viable and profitable, however none of us felt confident enough to continue development on a prototype without getting some better expertise. It is, in short, an idea for mature and experienced entrepreneurs- One Security Lawyer, One Finance Guy, and One Technical Genius.

So where does that leave us? Well, we realized we had to get out of the Equity field and into offering Grants, because that removes the liability. Yet nobody’s going to offer a grant to a startup without equity, unless they are personally invested- and there exist plenty of companies that address the philanthropic market.

So where does that leave us? Scholarships. Create your own Scholarship. Students can display a YouTube video explaining why they should get a scholarship, and visitors can pay into a scholarship fund. All I have to do now is deliver in 24 hours.

This is an Idea Foundry post. For more information on what this is all about, take a look over here.

This weekend is Startup Weekend Columbus, a three day skunkworks convention where 150 people walk into a building for a weekend and do their best to get a few companies started. I registered for it a few months ago with the thought that it’d be cool to really dig into something new and shiny for a short amount of time, and have some good fun networking with others. Unfortunately, three things happened that I wasn’t expecting at that time.

First, I didn’t realize is that I would decide a week beforehand that the idea I’ve been kicking around my mind might actually be worth pitching.

Secondly, I wasn’t expecting this idea to be extremely popular- it swept the vote during the first elimination round, and now there’s a bunch of people here who’re interested in making this happen.

The third thing I wasn’t expecting is exactly how far out of my league I feel right now. I’m a developer- a damn good Developer, Sysadmin and Architect. I’m also really good at identifying trends and turning commonly held assumptions upside down. Strategic thinking comes fairly naturally, but writing a Business Plan? Identifying revenue streams? Not exactly my forte.

So, first things first, I’m going to stop referring to this as My Idea (TM) and start referring to it as Our Idea- I’m part of a damn good team from what I can tell, which is the entire reason Startup Weekend exists in the first place. Everyone’s bringing their expertise to the table, and creating a company.

So what will this company do? Well, we want to Crowdsource Startup Capital.

Startup (or Angel) investment has so far been the realm of individuals with enough net worth that this risky pursuit is offset by existing capital investments. Normal people don’t have five, six, or seven digits to drop into a new company, yet many people would be interested in doing so if they could. So… why not take a page out of the book of Barak Obama and Howard Dean, and source startup capital from smaller donors? Open up the field of Angel investing to people able to contribute $100, $200, maybe $500 each, and facilitate crowdsourced investment. Individuals seeking to fund their pitches would list their credentials (via LinkedIn or reference) and their business idea, including any supporting documents and research they may have.

That’s pretty much it. Conceptually extremely simple, with a target market of “everybody who wants to get in on that startup thing”. Once you get under the hood a little you realize there’s a lot of things one has to worry about- SEC regulations, how to handle the money, do you structure yourself as an investment firm/bank/communications business, how do you handle Fraud and so forth. And most of all, what’s the first step in the business plan? This is an industry so heavily regulated that releasing functionality and additional features are dependent on lawyers and accountants rather than developers and project managers, so the first thing we have to do is identify a revenue stream that will get us to the point where we can afford people like that.

In other words, the trick is finding step one, and executing on it by Sunday. What happens after that … well, one thing at a time.

This is an Idea Foundry post. For more information on what this is all about, take a look over here.

Background

We all know Wikipedia. Fewer of us know about WikiBooks, the offshoot that is attempting to use the community to source free and open (and current) academic textbooks. If anything, the Wikimedia foundation has been the flagship of what can be accomplished with community sourced content. The catch is that they remain reference sites. WikiBooks comes the closest, yet even that content isn’t present in a truly pedagogical way (few of the books have exercises), and from the completion rate it seems that convincing a community to complete a goal the scope of a full textbook is a bit of a challenge.

In contrast, most standards and initiatives in the eLearning industry are build with a vision of modularity, flexibility and sequencability. The SCORM standard (no matter how much of a pain it is to implement) is an incredibly flexible method of delivering electronic educational material, including dependencies, pre-requisites, adjudication, validation, and even metric and content quality analysis. Yet all the business models that have been developed to serve the eLearning market are based on keeping the content proprietary and locked behind the doors of corporate interest, so that the only ones who may benefit are those that can afford it. Even forward looking efforts like MIT’s project to put all of their lectures online are not deemed profitable. Whether for continuing education, homeschooling, professional training, certification or any of the many other applications, the true power of an openly available educational repository has been hamstrung by the misconception that content is this market’s competitive advantage.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

The Concept

We know that there are many people who have something to teach (and are willing to teach it), and many more that are interested in learning. In Marketing we call these people contributors and consumers (or appropriate buzzword of the day). The sources have been identified; their motivations are known… so why not really push the education aspect and use the wiki metaphor to build eLearning? The tools already exist, and I’ve build proofs-of-concept of several of the technology bridges required to make this happen. Mediawiki as the CMS, a service layer for distribution based on most of the common protocols. The only large piece ( and likely the reason this hasn’t been built yet ) is the learning management system. These systems are traditionally a huge pain to implement, and no good open source options exist yet. Their size and complexity requires a full software development team, project managers, business analysts and most of all funding.

Business Model

While my vision of this project has always been in the non-profit sector, I propose that you can not only source eLearning content from an open community, but can also make it available to anyone, world wide, free of charge, and still be profitable, simply by taking a page from MIT’s book: Make the content freely available, but charge for the degree. In this projects’ case, users would be able to consume, review, edit and test themselves against every single line of text and every course in the database, yet if a student wants a validated transcript there’ll be a small processing fee: $1, maybe $5, no more than that. There would be a similar deal for corporations- if you want to use our e-learning you can either have the SCORM package for your own LMS, or set up a validation gateway with our system so students can easily take their training certifications from job to job.

Delivery channels can vary- you could complete a short module on a mobile device, download one to a Kindle, take it on your home PC or laptop, or even download it to a remote machine, kiosk or testing center. The key here is to make distribution as easy as possible, to build eLearning into a Rich Networked Application that is available via every reasonable channel of media consumption.

The best part of this project is that the company would be building a treasure trove of community approved and vetted educational content. This could be freely distributed to OLPC, schools the world over, universities, etc etc etc. Can education be free and easily accessible? It should be, and I don’t see why it can’t.

This spits in the face of my own personal philosophies: “Inspiration, no matter how trivial, should be pursued and encouraged”. I just don’t have enough energy, time, or brain capacity to pursue all this crap, whether substantial or whimsical, so I figured I’d start posting some of the ones I really love (but don’t have the capacity to pursue) here, just in case someone else wants to pick something up. I’ll be labeling them with the project names I used when I first started investigating them, so if you see a blog post come through called “Project [something or other]” you’ll know that it’s an idea open for grabs.

I’m really not happy about publicizing them. None of these ideas will do anyone any good if I keep them to myself, yet I’m still possessive… and admitting that I do not have the capacity or time to pursue them myself is little better than admitting defeat.

Lastly, I make no guarantees about the profitability or viability of any of these ideas. It sounds like legal boilerplate (and to some extent is), yet once you hear some of them you’ll understand what I mean: For example, I once was infatuated about starting a chain of high-end dairy bars to challenge Starbucks. Profitable? Unlikely- milk isn’t caffeinated… unless you have a very hyperactive cow.

Bovine jokes aside, I hope you find something interesting, or at the very least something inspiring.

When designing an application strongly focused on UX, we too often fixate on the customer and not the client, even though the client has the proverbial power of the purse. By doing this we risk alienating them- what good is a simple, well designed customer experience if maintaining it is costly and unmanageable? Our client has just as much right to a simple UX as their customers do, and if an agency is incapable of delivering on that… well, I can’t imagine how they maintain positive client relationships.

Once I’d come to that conclusion, the natural extension was to realize that our client’s UX is as much process design as it is the design of the deliverable. An agency must be a joy to work with, from RFP to kickoff to design to delivery and post-launch maintenance. Finding the sweet spots on how many meetings to have and how much information to share is always tricky and requires personal skills worthy of a PhD in Psychology, and I as a developer certainly don’t have the wherewithal to analyze a client’s expectations (tacit or declared) in a 15 minute phonecall. Yet I do have control over the implementation and the deliverable, and to make absolutely certain future options are well researched and distributed. A solid knowledge of strategy and marketing are par for the course, since they assist communication of those ideas…

…and if it means that tech happens to be driving the project, who am I to complain!

You cannot own social media

There were a few really good articles on corporate response to social media here, here, and especially here, and the originating post that got me to really think about it here. In a nutshell, the desire to organize around social media campaigns is… well, Jeremiah says it best:

“It’s important to note, that in the end, these skills (the ability to communicate online) will disperse and grow to many employees. Generation Y comes to us with these abilities built it as a “digital natives”– yet the need to organize will still occur, it’s a knee jerk reaction to every corporation.”

The bottom levels, or ‘fringes’ of our workforce are starting to fill with people accustomed to communicating online with such speed and frequency that most senior levels of management have a hard time even comprehending. Normal corporate reactions such as blanket internal social media policies inevitably feel heavy handed, and the inevitable reaction is an unfortunate social backlash.

In the long run tweeting, blogging, Facebook, etc etc etc will be seen as ubiquitous as chatting or texting, and we all know how useful restrictions on those have been over the last decade (that is to say, not at all). The long-term shakeout will likely be similar: Keep it to yourself, don’t do anything discriminatory or illegal, and in return we’ll respect your right to free speech.

There’s nothing new about Social Media

Methinks I’m going to piss a few people off by saying this, but there’s really nothing new about Social Media. We toss around these terms and definitions to try to give shape the world around us, and when we come across a neat new interesting way in which people are communicating we like to slap a new label on it. Social Media is no different - we all love it, it sounds cool, it’s the hip word of the day, but in reality all it comes down to is that the social networks that used to exist in communities, neighborhoods and college campuses have increased in speed and scope. All the same social rules still apply: insulting people is a bad idea, buying people off is cheating, and actually smiling and listening to someone will earn their trust faster than treating them like a random statistic (regardless of whether you act on it). Even the ability to create communities isn’t new, it’s simply grown beyond the local.

Titles are meaningless, references are everything.

I had an interesting exchange with Steve Weiss at O’Reilly, in which we talked about the term “creative” and how it’s used. It’s no secret that I feel standard classifications are nonsense ( Designer vs. Developer? Strategy vs. Marketing? Leadership vs. Management?) but even moreso I take the statements of pretty much every self-proclaimed expert with a grain of salt. Anyone can call themselves a Guru, so without the reference of someone who’s opinion I respect I treat them with a rather large grain of salt.

Furthermore, the prevalence of reference sites, spam referrals and self-flagellating social cliques makes such trusted references suspect in and of themselves. See, I can find 100 people who will say something nice about me (say, on linkedin) simply if I ask them. Why? Because it’s rude to say no, and spin is easy. It is in-person face-to-face referrals that are far more substantive, especially if they’re unsolicited. Does someone casually mention another name during a conversation? Do their eyes light up about someone else’s ideas? It’s this complete lack of formatting that makes a reference more genuine, believable, and far more valid.

You can talk a lot. You can blog a lot. But can you act on it?

Self-declared expertise is all well and good (or not, as you see above), but unless you can take your ideas and implement them you’re just another windbag. That’s why I have such a strong love of Google’s internal policy to let the engineers drive the company - say what you will about the lack of advancement opportunity there, they certainly know how to execute. Similarly I have a strong distaste for any company that only shows their marketers, sales people, or public relations guys to the customer. Give me a project manager, give me an product designer, give me a financier (in the case of investment firms), but please, don’t give me someone whose key career skill is based on saying what I want to hear.

Unfortunately, the field is incredibly hard to break in to (Especially in software), and books on methods and methodologies are few and far between. So when my User Groups’ book shipment from O’Reilly came in with a complementary copy of Adaptive Path’s “Subject to Change” I was intrigued. From the title, the book is about “Creating great products and services for an uncertain world”. Think I was interested? You bet! Here was a book that seemed to be all about how to create and manage a product in the everchanging world of the internet! Unfortunately this particular edition was earmarked for a colleague of mine, however it took me precisely 30 minutes to track down a copy in a nearby Borders and start reading it that night.

You should note that I rarely, if ever, read professional books, that’s what blogs are there for. But I digress…

It turns out that my initial enthusiasm was a little naive, since the argument presented in the book was substantially different than what I was expecting. In fact, one of its chapters is titled ‘Stop Designing “Products”‘, which made me more than a little concerned. Yet having said that, and taking into account the often blatant plugs for Adaptive Path, it turns out the book was exactly what I needed, even though it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.

Merholz, Wilkens, Schauer and Verba, Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World (Adaptive Path), O’Reilly, 2008

Chapter 1 lays out the foundation of the argument, which is that customers aren’t attracted to features, they’re attracted to an experience. Note that this does not mean bells and whistles - I can have an experience at a circus, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a laptop. Instead, it is critical to look at what your customer is actually trying to accomplish, and to make the experience of accomplishing that task as positive as possible. Layering on feature after feature is good only if the original intended task experience is not compromised, otherwise it simply adds noise to what should be an all-signal experience. In other words, good products are well designed, by which they don’t mean pretty, nor that they have an elegant software implementation. Design is instead used in the inclusive sense- all aspects of the product, experience and execution are carefully considered and integrated into one seamless whole.

This foundation is then built on in Chapter 2 by presenting the idea that the aforementioned experience is a strategic decision, and then clearly defining what that does and does not mean. Those of you who are trying to achieve some flavor of competitive advantage (aka differentiation aka edge etc etc) should definitely read this chapter, because it provides a long list of clarifications given the context. Quite frankly, the whole thing reads like a snopes article that slowly dismantles many lessons learned in academic marketing classes. My favorite one is the ideal of Parity - the misconception that a product can be competitive simply by matching features with the competition. See, a feature is simply that: An implemented piece of functionality on a product spec sheet. If accessing and using said feature requires an advanced degree in astrophysics doesn’t matter; the mere fact that the feature exists makes the product competitive.

With the supporting framework of their argument is clearly established, and Chapter 3 puts in context of previously established marketing approaches. When your focus is on the experience and the user’s motivations, habits such as market segmentation rapidly get turned upside down. You can no longer assume that the consumer is some faceless drone who exists to give you money, but instead have to give that person a face, a background a motivation, and an objective. A segment rapidly evolves into a persona, and eventually loses its distinction altogether- you’re no longer sculpting your message for a particular group or persona, but are instead approaching individuals to discover how you can best meet their needs and improve their experience.

Yet none of this can be accomplished without information, which is usually garnered by research (Chapter 4). Interestingly enough, the book does not necessarily go into individual research methods, but focuses more on the importance of qualitative over quantitative research and the need to involve every team member. Research, as is stated, too often happens in a strategy or research group independent of the team that will actually implement their findings, and thus the opportunity for consumer or persona empathy is lost within minutes of the powerpoint presentation. It is only by keeping everyone involved up front (though perhaps not directly contributive) that information gained is relevant, actionable, and provides durable insight.

Chapter 5 then takes us full circle back to the beginning, and really drives the idea that success is not driven by features, capabilities or marketing, but by the experience of the customer. It’s not just the experience of completing a specific task that is meant here, but the entire support system ancillary to that task. You might have an iPod, but without an iTunes all you have is a pretty piece of plastic. Find out what the customer wants to accomplish, figure out what it’ll take to perform all steps of that, and build a system to do so simply and elegantly.

At this point, the book could have ended and been a pretty effective piece on product design theory based on experience. It has taken us from the initial presentation of the idea all the way through the strategic advantage and full circle back to the beginning. Instead, it continues on and picks apart the actual implementation strategies, beginning with Design in Chapter 6. This is a beast of a chapter and not for the faint of heart, but is nevertheless utterly critical for understanding the depth of the argument. Design is picked apart by discipline, target, competency, strategic importance and implementation, and the chapter itself does a remarkable job breaking down common misconceptions. Design is necessary, strategic, and is presented as a mindset rather than a discipline, one that everyone must implement to properly contribute to the delivery.

Chapter 7 then goes into the nitty gritty of implementation by speaking about agile development methods. This is where the developer in me went squee, because for the first time I saw Agile presented within a strategic context rather than a reactive context. Too often when management hears “Agile Development” the first thing that comes to mind is “Development will be faster”, or more responsive, and in many cases this is true. Even so, the book presents it as an integral part of experience based design, and discusses how its rapid iterative nature can be used to convert a design or motion prototype iteratively into a fully functioning application, while allowing user research and experience evaluation (and revision) at every step of the way. If you’ve ever had to say “That’s what’s written in the requirements, we can’t change it now” this chapter is for you. Lets face it- issues and problems will arise during development no matter what happens, but if you keep everyone on deck (and not siloed into different expertise groups) you’ll be able to confront it much faster.

And with that, Chapter 8 closes the book. I’d copy the two pages that compose it here verbatim if I didn’t think there’d be conflict of interest issues, but safe it to say that it is the conclusion and summary of the entire book. The only thing certain is change, and here’s how you deal with it.

Personal Observations

Overall, a very good book, but I do have a few pointed comments. First of all, the cases presented within the book too often follow the pattern of “Here’s company X, known as a genius at Y, and here’s their process/methodology/etc.” The academic in me chokes at statements like that, because they imply causality - that their process is the reason why they are so well known and respected, when in reality it could be something completely different. The book itself warns of making surface level assumptions like that, so I’m fairly irritated that they do so themselves.

The other one is the mixture of authoring tones. At times casual, at times formal, it’s clear that more than one person wrote this book. When I’m reading a structured section about research and am suddenly approached in a conversational tone, my brain kicks me out of the narrative (and thus my experience with the book is diminished). Even so, I’d recommend this book to any marketer, strategist, developer… or, well, anyone who plays a role in a product production process. At 165 pages it’s a light read, the ideas are straightforward and well explained, and though they aren’t often supported as rigorously as I would prefer, the book itself make an excuse for that: If you spend too much time backing up your argument, you lose the time you’d spend on determining where your argument should take you.

I’d like to close with a quote from Jim Hackett, President and CEO of Steelcase: “Simply put, we make the same mistake that most organizations make when they undertake an ambitious project- having come up with a fine notion, we put all our energy into execution before we had thought the idea through.”

Words to live by.

As someone who’s started to dance late in life and has been doing it for a few years now, I figured I’d offer a few pointers on how to make that wish a reality. But first things first, lets dispel some myths:

1. Dancing is Hard

   The learning curve of any new skill begins with a sharp incline, and dance is no different. It takes a certain amount of bull-headedness and determination to work your way up that, but every subsequent dance becomes measurably easier once you’ve made the first ascent. I won’t lie and say it’s a breeze, but I will adamantly stand by my statement that it’s the first one that’s the hardest, and that it’s not as hard as you might think.

   Having said that, imagine yourself just having walked off a club dance floor, heart pumping, endorphins running through your system, sweaty and out of breath. Now imagine not having done the standard generic club bump-and-grind, but instead a full set worth of coordinated partner dancing.

   In other words, yes. It’s worth the effort.

2. It takes Years of Practice

   It takes exactly one hour to learn a dance, though it takes a lifetime to refine it. Even professional dancers never stop learning, and they have the added handicap of having to keep up with every style there is, which is no small feat. If you want to be a professional that’s one thing, but if you just want to learn enough to look good on the dance floor and have fun doing it, you’ll quickly realize it takes far, far less time. No guarantees about dance addiction though, once you get hooked, you’ll never stop wanting to learn more :).

3. Lessons are Expensive

   This, to some extent, is true. Ballroom studios are businesses, and since they are the only places where you can learn some of the more formal dances (Viennese, Foxtrot, etc) they will charge you somewhere between $75 - $125 per private lesson. Group lessons at studios are generally cheaper, but they are usually used as tasters- they’ll teach you enough to whet your appetite and then hand you the bill if you want to learn more.

   What they don’t want you to know is that there exist vibrant, active, social dance communities that will charge you far less than they do. Here, the “taster” group lessons are attached to a clubs’ themed dance night and are usually part of the cover charge, and if you want to learn more there are intermediate and advanced group lessons that will cost you somewhere between $10 and $15 a session (at most). In other words, for every expensive lesson there’s a cheaper alternative, you just have to know where to look.

4. I Have No Sense Of Rhythm

   Believe it or not, you do, you just have to know where to find it. The best place to look is your heartbeat, though the second hand on a clock could serve as a good substitute.

5. I Need a Partner

   This is a two-sided problem- either your Significant Other isn’t interested or you’re afraid of being left on the sidelines when the music starts.

   Believe it or not, there are fewer couples in the dance community that you might think. If Dance isn’t a defining element of your relationship already (or you don’t really want to make it one), it’s probably best if your partner doesn’t join you on nights out. Not only will it prevent jealousy when you dance with others, but it’ll ensure that you don’t ruin the scene for each other if things don’t work out.

   As for being left on the sidelines, make sure you go to the group lessons first. They never require a partner, and are an excellent way of introducing yourself and making friends. Soon enough you’ll be expanding into the social scene and meeting all the cool people out there, and won’t be hurting for a partner.

Step 1: Decide to Learn

Also known as “Get your ass off that couch”. Seriously, people, the largest obstacle standing between you and that dance floor is the motivation to start learning. I won’t lie and tell you it’ll be easy, and it will certainly take a while until you feel really comfortable, but I can guarantee that you will have fun every step of the way. So take a long, hard look at that nascent dream of sweeping across parquet flooring and dedicate yourself toward achieving it.

I have two specific notes here, the first for guys: It’s ok to admit that you’re intimidated by it- skill is a hard thing to achieve, and the last thing you want to do is look like an idiot on the dance floor. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve fallen over in front of everyone. It will take you about two months of weekly practice to really feel like you’re comfortable, but after you overcome the initial hump you’ll be happy you did. Why? Because for every guy that’s on the dancefloor there are 10 wallflowers wishing they were you.

The second note is for everyone: While social convention has it that women follow and men lead, in practice this is less and less the case. I will be referring to partners as leads and follows, and furthermore want to point out that there is no difference in difficulty between each: Follows have to learn just as much as Leads do, and while the skills are often different one is by no means less difficult than the other.

Step 2: Pick a Style

The Style you choose to learn is perhaps the most important step, because it’ll greatly affect how much you enjoy learning. There are some styles that are extremely difficult and can be quite frustrating at times, while there are others that are so simple that you’ll wonder what’s kept you so long. It’s my personal recommendation that you start with what’s known as the “Social” dances: They’re easy to learn, have active vibrant communities, and most of all learning them won’t break the bank. For those of you who are determined to really dig into the entire breadth of what’s available, there are plenty of ballroom studios that do a series of broad introductory lessons, but they can be much more expensive.

East Coast Swing

This is the bread, butter and foundation of all of the swing dances, and serves as an excellent springboard into West Coast, Lindy Hop, Balboa and Charleston. It comes in two different styles, single-time and triple-time, the former of which is much better for faster tempos. The music ranges all the way from Big Band Classics such as Sing, Sing, Sing to far more contemporary Ska, and chances are you can find a vibrant and local swing community anywhere.

Speaking personally, Swing is fun. Fun, fun, and more fun. You can look absolutely spectacular doing it, but the focus of the dance is more about enjoying yourself than pulling every move off flawlessly. Contests exist for the super competitive, but even there you can tell that they’re not doing it for the medal, they’re doing it for the enjoyment.

Salsa

Salsa is, much like the condiment, characterized by the fact that it’s hot and composed of lots of different individual styles. There is no single right way of dancing Salsa, and local flavors color the steps practically everywhere. While you might learn the basic steps of one style, soon enough you’ll be blending in moves that originated in others, and as such your breadth as a dancer will spread rapidly without you even knowing.

What is important to note is that there are three distinct “major” styles of Salsa. On-1, On-2, and Cumbia. The first two are effectively Mambo danced on different beats (On-2 is much harder to figure out than On-1) and the last is almost an entirely different style that’s danced extensively throughout Latin America.

Speaking personally, Salsa is all about passion. Latin Dances have a very sensuous reputation which can really add to an amazing experience on the floor, but it comes with a cost: This same reputation attracts sleaze, which can be a major turnoff for both leads and follows. The secret? Sleaze gets discouraged easily, and only the most misguided and desperate return night after night. In other words, it’ll be obvious whom you should avoid.

Rather than braving it alone, I recommend you find a friend or two to go with the first few times until you can get a better idea of who’s safe and who isn’t. It’ll be pretty obvious, just take a look and find the dancers who clearly know what they’re doing.

Argentine Tango

Where Swing and Salsa are all about energy, Argentine Tango (not to be mistaken with International Tango) is all about subtlety. Even basic students will quickly realize that the amount of control and communication that can happen with a simple step or weight shift is extremely difficult to master, and the fact that the music is very straightforward makes this an excellent dance for the beginner. It is by far the most challenging of the three, but the lessons of balance, control and physical communication will give you a foundation that will make learning any new dance much, much easier. You can brute-force your way to a reasonable level of skill in Swing and Salsa, but in Argentine it simply won’t fly.

Other Styles

While I’ve only listed the popular social dances above, they are by far not the only ones out there- they are merely the ones I recommend to someone trying to get their feet wet. They also happen to all be extremely popular in the western world (I know nothing about China and India), so you should have no problem finding lessons or places to go dance. If you have questions about any other specific styles (Waltz, Viennese, Foxtrot, Tango and whatnot), I’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments. They are by no means lesser than the ones I have mentioned, and are fantastic in their own way.

Step 3: Find Some Lessons

This is the easy bit, especially if you’re anywhere close to a university. Lessons are often as little as a google search away, and chances are there’s a dance scene right under your nose- you just have to look.

When looking for your first lesson I recommend either going to a club group lesson or, if you can find it, an introductory group series provided by your local dance community. Expect 4-8 lessons series that’ll start with the basics and get you through some foundational turns and embellishments, and they’ll cost somewhere in the $40-$100 range for the entire series. Many times they’ll be coupled with an open practice session where nobody will think twice about helping you drill and refine what you’ve just learned.

Step 4: Enjoy Yourself!

Relax and enjoy yourself. You’re learning something that’s new, fun, social, and while you’ll run into a few bumps along the way I can guarantee that those will seem trivial in hindsight when compared to all the fun times you’ve had.

And, if all else fails, give me a ring. I’ll be glad to join you if I’m ever in town!