Author: Robert Pease

A must read

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I continue to reflect on Steven Gary Blanks’ Four Steps to the Epiphany and have even gone so far as to give a copy to everyone on my team. 

I think it methodically and directly frames the essence of the challenges of building and launching technology products.  I also believe that most of the lessons can be extended beyond to tech to just about any go-to-market effort.  I marked a few pages as I read it the first time and wanted to share some of the things I thought were compelling. 

One of the recurring themes Blank lays out deals with how you are trying to enter a market and how your tasks and challenges vary based on the path you choose:

1. New product to an existing market
2. New product to new market
3. New product to existing market and trying to re-segment as low cost entrant
4. New product to existing market and trying to re-segment that market as a niche entrant

Also, core to the message is the notion of a “learning and discovery process.”  This is the sometimes uncomfortable and frustrating process of testing your hypothesis on the market and refining based on what you learn.  A customer engagement process vs. building something and tossing it into the market assuming it will be adopted….what a concept.

“Learning and discovering who a company’s initial customers will be, and what markets they are in, requires a separate and distinct process from Product Development”

I became aware of this book via Marc Andreessen’s post on it and it ties together nicely with his thoughts (and mine) on achieving product/market fit, the steps to get there, and knowing what it feels like once the market begins to “pull” your product or service.

Career choices of MBAs as negative indicators

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Picked this up today citing a recent survey of MBAs where 1 out of 4 ranked Google their #1 target for a job.  Unfortunately, this may not be good news for the company.

There has been some research into how the career choices of MBA grads (Harvard in this case) are strong negative indicators for the stock market.  The logic being that by the time the horde has its sites on the big dough of Wall Street, the up cycle and good times have just about run their course.  Recent data was eerily predictive of the recent decline, volatility, and layoffs there.

Here is an interesting article from way back in 1994 on this.  Here's the HBS career stats if you care to do your own analysis.  The fella that came up with this is a former Brown Brothers Harriman exec named Ray Soifer. Check out his site and the "2007 Harvard MBA Stock Indicator."  Here's an article from the NY Sun on him.  Dealbreaker has covered it a couple times as well – here and here.

Think this applies outside of Wall Street?  Maybe the "free food" variable will counter this force…

Signed up for ClearContext Personal beta & more Xobni beta invites available

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I signed up for this yesterday and hope to get my invite here shortly.  ClearContext is attacking the "email problem" and I look forward to comparing and contrasting with my Xobni experience.  Here's their blog.  Speaking of Xobni, I finally got back up and running after fixing my "Cached Exchange Mode" issue.

Xobni_warning
 

So, I am back on track as a Xobni user and have 10 beta invites if anyone is interested.  They really nailed the beta program process and I congratulate them on the continued buzz they are building out there.  Lots of pain in the inbox and email is something everyone loves to hate. 

We'll see if my MS Outlook client can handle another plug-in as I love to tinker with new tools as they become available.  I have a few plug-ins loaded plus a Salesforce.com plug-in that makes Outlook jump through some hoops as it starts and operates.  Makes you wonder if the path to fixing this problem is through MS Outlook as the more I seem to load into it, the grumpier it gets.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted as I get my ClearContext access.  Here's a nice video tour that they made available for distribution (nice touch!):

This is a really bad idea

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Not the effort to defray the rising cost of fuel by charging passengers for checking a bag ($15) but American Airlines' applying it to those that aren't frequent flyers.  Why not just pass it through on the price of the ticket or apply it to those that can absorb more ridiculous fees?

So, why is this a bad idea?

I fly more than I care to (although admittedly not much on American) and it is increasingly clear to me that NO ONE enjoys it – the passengers, the crew, TSA…no one.  So now those that don't fly much have the incentive to bring even more crap onto the plane to try to shove in the overhead compartments.  This
new fee structure applies to those with no frequent flyer status that have purchased "discounted coach fare" tickets.  Fabulous.

For those of you that know me, I have a somewhat "controversial" no help policy for those that bring bags on planes they can't or have trouble lifting.  Why?  First and foremost, not my job and not part of my ticket price.  Secondly, having watched flight attendants handle this deftly over the years by advising but not physically helping passengers with bags, I decided to make it my policy as well.

Now before you brand me a jerk and question how my Southern upbringing could allow this to happen, I (use to) have a strong defense – there is a parallel process designed to help you with your bags called "check them."  Americans new policy may cause me to revist my policy as well as encourage me to want to board even earlier to find a slot for my very efficiently packed and very small carry on suitcase.

Happy thoughts on the US economy

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Picked this uplifting nugget up via RealClearPolitics citing an article that appeared in the UK’s Telegraph on the state of the US economy and how the US consumer is handling it.

US consumers are juggling plastic to put off their day
of reckoning. The Fed survey said credit card debt had jumped 6.7pc in
the first quarter to $957bn, or $6,000 per working American, despite
usury rates near 20pc.

Now, how much of this is worst case scenario versus the true state of affairs is yet to be seen.  I believe we still have a bit of nastiness to work through before things improve in earnest.  But, when everybody is finally talking about how bad it is, isn’t that when it is actually getting better?

What a weekend

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Unlike the rest of the United States, I have learned that Summer arrives in Seattle somewhere around July 4th.  This is especially odd to someone who always looked forward to Memorial Day as the official start of Summer with increasingly warm days starting in April.  That is the South…not the Northwest.

That said, the past couple days have been phenomenal out here.  I started on Thursday meeting a good friend at a really cool place over on Mercer Island – the Roanoke Inn.  It is one of those classic gems that, in this case, traces it history back to when ferry service ran from Mercer Island.  Outdoor seating and a good beer selection make this place worth a visit.

Warm weather makes Kirkland come alive with folks strolling through town, hanging out down by the lake, and no shortage of sun worshipers come out of the woodwork and descend upon the handful of lake front parks. 

I’m flying solo this weekend with the little one and we had a great day yesterday with a couple trips down through town.  First a morning jaunt that took us to Caffe Ladro and then to the lake to watch the boats followed by a later (and much warmer) afternoon run down to Carillon Point and back.

Unfortunately, I think it is just a glimpse of what is to come as true "Summer" is still a ways off for us.

Failure to e-volve

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This is a great post by Chris Wand over at Foundry Group about email and its painfully slow, even nonexistent evolution since it burst on the scene and has since become THE corporate communications and collaboration tool.  I agree and echo most of these points and this is a pretty succinct summary of both the obstacles as well as some of the innovation going on to address it.  About a year ago, I posted some thoughts on email being the original and ranking social network.

"…the email infrastructure is now being used for more than just
email—it’s a collaboration tool, a document exchange mechanism, and
even a de facto file storage system (to many this is a huge problem in
itself). Email is the core, and without doubt knowledge workers need a
new generation of tools to manage it effectively and get the most out
of it."

However, email is just part of the equation.  What’s missing here (I believe) is a broader discussion of how we engage, communicate, and share beyond email.  No doubt email is the common denominator that we all return and the "core" of what defines our day’s activities in the workplace but what about webex presentations, time spent in tools like salesforce, blog posts and comments, phone calls, IM exchanges, text messages, etc.? (see post below on hyperconnectivity).

Hyperconnectivity

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New study out from IDC points to something many of us know well – we are connected via an increasing number of devices and applications to communicate, learn, and collaborate.  Interestingly China and the US are at the top of the hyperconnected stack.  Building on a theme for today, I am sure China will continue to surge ahead as its population gains greater and greater access.  A couple of interesting quotes:

"Almost two in 10 workers in 17 industrialized countries use a minimum of seven devices for work and personal access to communication networks."

"People in this category also use at least nine applications, such as instant messaging, text messaging, Web conferencing, and social networks, analysts found."