I’ve been way too busy lately and should probably have filled you in on what the hell I am up to these days much earlier. Anyways – here’s the lowdown.
As I alluded to a while back, I’m co-founding a new tech startup in the social/local/mobile space. It just took a hell of a lot longer than expected to assemble a willing and able crew of bootstrappers to make it happen, but now it’s finally happening!
Did you ever find yourself wondering if you are missing out on meeting interesting relevant people around you right now? Gauss (@getGauss) answers that question for you; It discovers, helps you with approaching, connecting and actually meeting up with the people relevant to you around you right now.
Gauss (@getGauss) is a real-time proximity based discovery and introduction engine. The first product we’re shipping is an iPhone app; a People Magnet for your pocket.
You connect the app with the social networks and services that you currently use (like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc), pocket the magnet and carry on. Gauss will instantly start with discovering and attracting relevant people to you.
Gauss aims to reduce the seeming randomness of serendipitous encounters and the hassles related to approaching and connecting with relevant new people in lasting and meaningful ways.
Gauss is also the unit of measurement of a magnetic field, named after the legendarily awesome German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Be sure to sign up and spread the word for an early beta access if this sounds like your kind of thing! You can read more on the Gauss Blog.
I (and most likely almost all of you) never thought it would come to this; I actually completed a half-marathon, the Hella Hamburg Half-Marathon. Yay!
Albeit on inline skates.
Albeit with busted ball-bearings. In cold gusty head winds. In the pouring rain.
It was a literal hell on wheels – imagine chewing on a tablespoon of sand and you’ll get a feeling for how smooth and effortless my ball-bearings were turning – but at least I didn’t quit. I kept going until I crossed the finish line. Only to skate in to the right (but the wrong) side of the time recording mat. Doh!
Oh, well. Finishing instead of throwing my skates in the Binnenalster and quitting the race was enough of a victory for me.
Mental note to self: Bring an extra set of ball-bearings or skates to the next competition.
In the spirit of the time honored tradition of new year’s resolutions, I thought I’d share what I’ve decided to STOP doing for 2011 and beyond.
So without further ado, let’s indulge in some modern day voodoo / sympathetic magic / psycho-cybernetics / egotistical self-justifying cathartic mumbojumbo, shall we:
In 2011 and beyond, I will:
STOP underachieving to stay within my comfort zone (see 2.)
I guess you could say that I’m a notorious underachiever. It’s a lazyness an energy conservation kinda thing, I venture. Thermodynamics and all that. I guess being “really good” doesn’t make you “remarkable”, though. I don’t blame anyone but myself, but school and being a slavesalaryman for years certainly made me lose the will to live reinforced the path of least resistance in me.
START stepping way out of my comfort zone by going back to being self-employed, founding and bootstrapping a new startup – and moving together with my long-time girlfriend.
STOP working hard at waiting for someone else to pick, deputize, knight or crown me (see 1.)
START taking matters back into my own clammy hands and leave the greasy pole salaryman rat-race. Who’s the boss now? Well, I am. I alone am now responsible for my success – or failure.
STOP only doing what I’m good at (see 1.and 2.)
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing it. Have you ever thought about that?
START throwing myself off cliffs, forcing me to learn how to fly whilst falling.
STOP not focussing my time and energy (see 1. 3. and 5.)
Passion comes easy – I seem to have unlimited amounts of it. Focusing it is hard – I have seemingly unlimited interests and fleeting distractions.
START focusing, disciplining, killing all but one of my pet projects (or at least put them in suspended animation or better yet – put them up for adoption, delegate them or give them away), working towards ONE goal doing ONE thing at a time on ONE project, putting my skin in the game, committing the time and resources, going out on a limb, sticking my neck out and risking failure.
STOP criticizing (see 3. and 4.)
START giving, helping, praising more than receiving, criticizing, chiding. It’s easy and cheap to be negative and criticize or comment without taking the time to reflect and suggest solutions and improvements. But, as Carnegie reminded us: “Be lavish in your praise and hearty in your approbation.” and as Lincoln said: “A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”. I’m OK, you’re OK. I guess not everybody’s OK, but we’re both OK, OK?
If you catch me relapsing, feel free to verbally abuse and humiliate me in public and on the Internet.
Update: It seems Safari 5.1+ together with OSX Lion’s “All My Files” Finder view implements something similar as I suggested. Funny!
After a recent discussion on @twitter with @limi and @philikon on the difference between the Firefox and Chrome Internet browsers, I started thinking about why I still find both browsers lacking in the download experience department.
For an excellent primer on how the different Internet browsers currently handle downloads I highly recommend reading @Limi’s blog post and come back to revisit this post.
I do not know about you, but I hate the Firefox Downloads window like the redheaded stepchild it is. The web-page-in-a-tab solution from Chrome (yeah, yeah, yeah – I know Opera did the tab thing first, but who uses that browser besides you?) doesn’t quite jive with me either.
Thus I decided to do this quick & dirty mockup of how the download experience in the browser could be improved.
Introducing the Browser Downloads Docking Menu
I would think a slide in/out dock menu for downloads would be a better solution. This way you’ll always know where your downloads are and it enables context (page and download file viewable simultaneously, guaranteed) and visual/ spatial cues (e.g. in an OSX version you should animate the download file flying into the downloads dock menu).
Visual / Spatial Cues
I think it’s important to visually show that the user’s intent to download has been registered, where the download can be expected to be found and what you can do next. If the dock menu is not out/showing already, it should slide out first, showing the user how and where.
Filtering & Recovery
Some sort of parameters to adjust list view of downloads should be added, but not visible to the normal user as default. Should be extremely easy to understand and use for normal people. Should change and filter view live/realtime. The big fat “Show all” button is there to secure that the user can feel confident that she’s seeing everything and that all filters are off/reset.
Your Opinion
What do you think? Are you happy about the current download experience in your browser? How would you make it better?
In the spirit of sharing, here’s an alphabetic list of the books I read and lectures listened to in 2010. I think I learned something from each and every one of them, so I can recommend them all.
I’d love to learn more about what you’ve been reading lately. What did you read in 2010? Do you have any ideas on what I should be reading in 2011? Did you read any of the books on my list too? What did you think? Tell me in the comments below!
Business Model Generation
by Alexander Osterwalder (@business_design), Yves Pigneur (@ypigneur)
HackFwd Build 0.2 – Mallorca July 2010
Don’t marry your business plan – it’s going to be thrown out the moment you get funded anyway. Focus on your business model if you must. Here’s some help to do just that.
On why we seem to instantly connect with some people. On why we ‘click’, see?
In the video above, Ori Brafman “[...] talks about the power of oxytocin in making instant connections with people, and how it affects our personal and professional relationships. Vulnerability and proximity are both important factors in making lasting connections and relationships, and affect workplace efficiency and collaboration.”
On how one thing leads to another. Better insights in this one compared to “The Tipping Point” mentioned later. Thanks to @kitblake for recommending it!
Gary’s highly personal (and after-the-fact) advice for success. But if you need to learn how to hustle, listen to Gary. He’s awesome! I recommend the audio version to hear the author read it himself with added bonus materials. Contagious energy and passion.
The Facebook Effect
by David Kirkpatrick (@davidkirkpatric)
The rosier version of the story behind Mark Zuckerberg’s “Social Network”. Highly interesting. Set in this light, you really get to love and respect “The Zuck”. No, I’m not kidding.
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders
by The Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Are you into entrepreneurship like me? Are you thinking of starting your own venture? Your own startup? Not exactly a book, but who cares. You should listen to every single one of these 130+ awesome talks with lessons learned by the superstars of the entrepreneur world. I know I did and I am eternally grateful for the insane amount of time it has already saved me by learning from other people’s mistakes.
From Harvard to the Facebook
The Art of Negotiation
Secret to Successful Negotiation
Negotiations On and Off the Field
Research Lens on Understanding Entrepreneurial Firms
Phases of a Startup
A history of venture capital
A Panorama of Venture Capital and beyond
Stimulating innovation and creativity in the workplace
Fall 2009 Quarter Roundup: What did we learn?
Getting to Plan B
Honest Advice on Starting a Company
Fascinate
by Sally Hogshead (@SallyHogshead)
On discovering the triggers of fascination behind yourself and your brand – and how to tweak them to better communicate your values and position yourself.
Because everybody should remember to put themselves in the other people’s shoes, know never to play a dominated strategy, use iterative deletion and know about best responses and the Nash Equilibrium. And because Prof. Ben Polak is an amazing teacher! And it’s free from Yale.
(Aside: Yale University uses the Plone CMS – An awesome and humbling factoid for me personally. Yay!)
Interesting facts about why we (or at least some) attach value to and desire mundane objects that has been owned by or in some case were only in the vicinity of a famous person; how under some conditions an object is thought of possessing some sort of “essence” of the famous person, but I found it going here, there and everywhere rather shallowly without arriving at any particular place.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
by Dale Carnegie
I’d say just stop worrying because you’re going to die and you can’t stop it. Period. Being curious about other works [than described further down in this list] of Carnegie’s made me read this one (so you probably won’t have to).
How to Win Friends & Influence People
by Dale Carnegie (re-read)
If you’d ask me, I’d still say this is a must-read, relevant as ever. It’s the Web2.0 handbook, how to get ahead, the guide to being a better man/woman/rathernotsay. Read, learn, do! Rinse and repeat.
The Inmates Are Running The Asylum
by Alan Cooper (@MrAlanCooper) (re-read)
On why and how you should get serious about software design and why programmers shouldn’t design software. Not as fresh as when it came out, but it holds up nicely.
On rethinking your mindset, value generation, your role and position [as an employee] in the modern work place. (I personally think linchpins should quit and start their own businesses, though).
The (Mis) Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward
by Benoit B. Mandelbrot
A fractal view on financial turbulence. Provides interesting insights on market mechanics, or rather the actual lack of empirical insights to such. Do not let the math aspect scare you: It’s a [relatively] math phobic safe book.
This one really put me off by referencing pseudo-science as science-fact. Aside from that fact, it says something along the lines of that you can program yourself to be and behave like you want to. Simplistically speaking, just tell yourself “you are the kind of person who does x” or “you are NOT the kind of person that does y” in front of a mirror and you’re on your well on your way. It’s all about self-image, see?
It’s also talking about the tortoise mind or the lizard brain; the power of your brain processing problems without your active thinking, better explained here:
(Aside: I’d really love to read more about any scientific research on the “Tortoise Mind”. Perhaps you know of any?)
The Power of Pull
by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Lang Davidson
On rethinking business and innovation in a fast moving and globalized world. Mostly for suits, so there’s a good chance you know and live most of this already.
Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions
by Gary Klein
A cognitive psychologist’s research on “naturalistic decision-making”. Ever wondered why you as an experienced professional make (good) decisions in seconds that you find hard or next to impossible to explain to say, you boss or even to yourself? Enter RPD (Recognition Primed Decision):
From Wikipedia:
Recognition-primed decision (RPD) is a model of how people make quick, effective decisions when faced with complex situations. In this model, the decision maker is assumed to generate a possible course of action, compare it to the constraints imposed by the situation, and select the first course of action that is not rejected. RPD has been described in diverse groups including ICU nurses, fireground commanders, chess players, and stock market traders. It functions well in conditions of time pressure, and in which information is partial and goals poorly defined. The limitations of RPD include the need for extensive experience among decision-makers (in order to correctly recognize the salient features of a problem and model solutions) and the problem of the failure of recognition and modeling in unusual or misidentified circumstances. It appears to be a valid model for how human decision-makers make decisions.
Hah. Stick that to the next person requiring you to explain and/or have you follow the next theoretical decision processes du jour based on evaluation and elimination of total options based on explicit input: “It’s RPD, mofo!”. Another case for intrinsic knowledge beating explicit knowledge, I wager.
Challenging even more common (mis)conceptions and raising even more interesting questions with applied economics. It surprised me as being at least as funny and provocative as their first book, Freakonomics.
I think I read it the first time back in 1994 or 95 understanding little but being highly intrigued. As I read it again in 2010 I don’t know if I actually understood much more but it sure as hell raised a number of interesting questions and provoked a lot of new thoughts so I guess I found it even more fascinating now as it’s arguably obvious to most that we’re living smack in the middle of his ‘prophecy’. Spoiler: The Medium is the Message.
Unthinking, unlearning, relearning marketing, helping small and large businesses master the art of (un)marketing with example stories in this day and age: Listen and engage, do not interrupt and try to find better ways of cold calling because you know it sucks.
I mostly listen to books these days to make better use if my time. I use a Sony DR BT-50 stereo Bluetooth headset with the iPhone for audio quality and wireless convenience anywhere.
Disclaimer: The links to the books are not affiliate links. I’m not getting a cent from anything you might buy. I’m just lazy and didn’t bother to list all the stores on the intarweb.
Like I mentioned at the beginning, I’d love to learn more about what you’ve been reading lately. What did you read in 2010? Do you have any ideas on what I should be reading in 2011? Did you read any of the books on my list too? What did you think? Tell me in the comments below!
I'm Vidar Andersen; Entrepreneur, Bootstrapper, Hack, Norwegian Legal Alien Living in Cologne, Germany currently co-founding Gauss - The People Magnet. I co-founded the Plone CMS & more in the past. I'm interested in people like you. More?
