Inspiring and thought provoking words from New Zealander & HyperFactory CEO Derek Handley about being an entrepreneur, thinking beyond yourself, and changing the world. Looking at the balance of your life in 5 year increments to do great things is both humbling and motivational. Twenty mintues but worth the time so please watch it.
Derek Handley from World Class New Zealand on Vimeo.
This seems so simple yet I have not seen it after launching products on the Google Apps Marketplace, Chrome Web Store, iTunes App Store, Android Market, and BlackBerry App World over the past couple years.
Travel review site TripAdvisor does a nice job of allowing the property to comment back when a review is given (positive or negative) with additional details, an explanation, or just an update that an issue was resolved.
There is no such capability in these app marketplaces and it would be a really nice both for marketing efforts and, more importantly, customer support. In fact, in several cases we've commented back to a review by creating a review. This is all very clumsy and doesn't really solve the problem.
Anybody working on this or adding this capability soon? If you have an app marketplace, you should be.
It does seem a bit peculiar to write a blog post about the reasons I still put pen to paper but as the number of electronic gadgets explodes and we spend more of our waking hours with our noses stuck in smart phones and iPads, I thought explaining why there is still a place for writing things down in my world seemed appropriate.
I have always carried a paper pad of some kind (steno, legal, etc.) around with me to take down notes or lay out my thinking on a topic or problem. For years, I used a leather portfolio given to me when I graduated from college. It is black, fits a legal pad, and has a pocket for papers – simple, but effective.
Always on the quest to learn new things by reading other's blogs, I saw a post from someone about using a Moleskine notebook to capture thoughts. Paper and portable, I thought, count me in.
The Moleskine has a distinguished history hailing from Milan and used by the likes of Picasso, Hemingway, and Matisse. More on the history here including its demise in 1986 and rebirth in 1997. I capture nothing as distinguished but do find reviewing previous entries pretty fascinating and like the way it fits in my back pocket.
I was in Chicago last week meeting with some great folks ahead of an event and took out my Moleskine to jot down a name and phone number. From the other side of the table, I heard "Don't you work for a technology company?" This was all in good fun and I replied "Why yes, I do, but this is my secure and portable note taking application. Instantly searchable (thumb pages) and encrypted because my handwriting can become undecipherable even by me."
We all laughed at the situation but it stuck with me and is the inspiration for this blog post.
I write things down because I want to remember them, reference them, and demonstrate to the other person that it is important enough to capture by hand. A phone number, a name, a place, or a random thought…it doesn't matter. I find it much easier to jot down a quick note when an idea comes to me or I am trying to organize tasks.
This is part of my workstyle and I'm not saying it is for everyone or that a Moleskine is the key but it is how I capture important thoughts, detail follow up items, and organize my activities.
I had a nice chat this week with someone I had met in the past and with whom I recently reconnected. We talked about a wide range of topics related to technology, marketing, and the types of work we do. I did not explicitly ask if I could reference him so in the spirit of "journalistic integrity" I will not but will definitely update the post when I get the green light.
One of the more interesting parts of our discussion was about doing "hands" work vs. "mind" work. Although it would be easy to separate this as tactics vs. strategy that is not so much the case. It is about being in the weeds to get something done like writing copy and delivering pitches to prospects, analysts, or journalists vs. spending cycles on what needs to be said, how to position the company, and who to target as a customer or influential all the while tracking performance and making tweaks.
The challenge, at least in a startup, is to focus on getting things done (hands) no matter what it is while keeping an eye on it through a strategic framework (mind). Although it is a bit of cliche, I never ask anyone on my team to do something that I haven't already done myself or wouldn't be willing to do. There is no time or cycles to spend on someone who deems tasks below them – this is radioactive in a startup so if you see it, address it immediately.
Given the speed, resource constraints, and workload in a startup, it is a definite challenge to balance these two types of work so think it about it as hands vs. mind and be sure to make time for both.
Venture Vice 