Leadership and the Bottom Line Seminar Jan 13 in Phoenix
I will be on a panel with other executives at the Leadership and the Bottom Line Seminar on January 13th. My alma mater Grand Canyon University is sponsoring the event with the National Bank of Arizona. There are two sessions, on from 8am-10am and another from 5pm-7pm. See the flyer below.
Some inside scoop --
- You will get a free book for attending.
- The free book features me, Jared Stauffer, in a small but significant way.
- Doug Hoxeng, author of The Business Case for Servant Leadership, is an awesome guy that you will love to meet.
- Free food in the morning and wine in the evening!
- This event might change your life.
Ok so not all of that was "inside" scoop. But seriously, if you are a leader, you should attend this event. The KBEMBA (Ken Blanchard Executive MBA) program had a tremendous impact on my life and my company and it can do the same for you. This is a great opportunity to come and hear about servant leadership - a central theme of the KBEMBA.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
Welcome to the New AOL and More Missed Opportunities
Today AOL revealed its newly redesigned homepage (newly skinned really). This was to coincide with the formal spinning off from old parent company Time Warner. AOL's new homepage allows you to choose which bad design you to see in the background as you wade through all the content on the page.
This is the first news I can remember coming out about AOL in awhile and I found myself asking, "What is AOL? What are they offering? Do they still sell Internet access?" (I still don't know the answer to that last question...)
AOL is now pushing to be a content destination, or what we used to call portals. You may be surprised to find out that AOL actually has the fourth largest network of websites in the U.S. with 98 million unique users, according to ComScore. Their plan is to be the most unique content producer on the net - meaning that of the news they showcase they want to generate most of it themselves (currently 80%). And they believe that this will be attractive to advertisers and make them want to place more ads with them.
My Take
I think that AOL lost its way when it was purchased by Time Warner. AOL also chose to not capitalize on its subscriber base over and over again. As broadband quickly started taking hold in the later 1990's and early 2000's AOL continued to push its dial-up Internet service and pursue its ambitions to be a content-based Internet portal.
The problem with this strategy is that everyone was switching from painful dial-up to high-speed Internet connections. And at the same time AOL went from 30 million users to less than 10 million today. Actually is is surprising that they still have that many subscribers.
"they forgot what drove their success in the first place: innovation"
Here is where AOL missed the boat: they forgot what drove their success in the first place: innovation. Why did we all use AOL years ago in the first place? Because it was new, innovative, and it gave us something you couldn't get anywhere else.
By the late 1990's AOL started to fall behind, focusing on its proprietary software while the Internet and Google left them behind. AOL had enormous resources and instead of merging with Time Warner it should have bought Cable TV companies or Telecom companies. The focus should have been first on the technology and second on the content - instead they focused soley on content.
What should AOL be doing?
1. Capitalize on resources. AOL still has millions of subscribers, almost 100 million unique visitors to its network of websites, millions of AIM users, and thousands of employees. All of this is still significant and can be leveraged to do #2.
2. Develop something innovative. Think Google Wave, Twitter, or connecting AIM, AOL email, search and social media. AOL essentially had a "Facebook" back in the 1990's - most people used it at the time - they just stopped innovating.
3. Think and rely on more than just ad revenue for the future. Amazon has done a great job leveraging its assets to offer cloud hosting services. AOL had/has a huge worldwide network that could/should be leveraged to offer the ultimate in cloud computing and global load balancing services.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
The Downside of Being Ethical
Doing the right thing is usually not the easiest thing to do. This is no secret, but when you go through a situation where you make the right decision and get heck for it... it reminds you of how difficult it can be.
We are running a giveaway at br.st, our web-based Twitter client. We were a little disappointed with the press coverage we got at launch in mid-November. So we decided to do a giveaway to spread the word. It was always our hope that the people who won each giveaway would have a lot of followers, but the way we chose to pick the winners was by random drawing.
The first three Wii giveaways went to people with a low number of followers, but it wasn't until the first Mac giveaway on Friday that we started to get heat for the winner. Again we did a random drawing and the winner again had a low number of followers and was a low use account.
No one wanted the winner of our first big giveaway, a MacBook Pro, to go to someone who had a large number of followers more than us. At this point we had to make an ethical decision, but there was only one way go on this one.
So we announced the winner and almost immediately started catching heat, but we knew we made the right decision.
The Downside
- You can't game the outcome.
- Some people may not like you.
- People may criticize, ridicule, or make stuff up about you.
- You may question yourself.
The Upside
- Your conscience is clear.
- You don't have to make up other stuff to cover up your first lie / unethical decision.
- At least you / your company are getting talked about. Bad press = good press ??
How did we deal with it?
So now we knew we made the right decision and were catching flack for it. How did we handle it?
Don't take it personally. As much as it pained me to read people tweet that they thought we were running a scam or giving it to ourselves, I had to not take it personally and react from this offense.
Defend yourself, but only to a point. We reacted to the criticism with tweets and a blog post. But we had to leave it at that. You have to pick a point to stop reacting because at times a continued defense only emboldens the offense and it is difficult to not let it get personal.
Listen to the reasonable critiques, ignore the harsh stuff. The reasonable critiques will give you valuable information on how you can improve, but the harsh comments just need to be ignored.
The reality is that people will always find something to criticize about you. Remember this, if you are being criticized it means you showed up, you tried, you gave it a go - a lot of people don't even try.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
This Company Run By Real Humans
Most companies have people working at them, but how many companies have people that are truly engaged?
At my company, Brinkster - a web hosting co, we talk to hundreds of people a day through our live chat support system. Live chat is the single best thing to come to customer support since the dawn of the Internet. It allows almost instant answers to customers problems.
At the end of each live chat session our customers are asked to answer a quick survey about there experience. A few days ago a customer had this to say...
"Louise is a one woman customer service wrecking machine. She is taking travesties and turning them into sunshine... all with the click of a mouse and a wonderful spirit of care and compassion. Much thanks and appreciation!
"
In today's world where everything has a shortcut and a way around it, it can sometimes feel that robots are running the companies that we do business with instead of real people. By providing real service, from real people, solving real problems without cookie cutter solutions customers will feel that they are truly valued. And when customers feel truly valued they will become a live advertisement by simply sharing their experience.
I believe that in today's world we are seeing a shifting of the pendulum in many different areas. Customer service is one of them. As people have less money to spend and are a lot more picky about where they spend it, they are starting to choose companies that are run by real humans.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
ReTweet Tug of War: Twitter vs. Power Users
The battle over the new and old way of retweeting is in full swing. The battle between Twitter and its power users (who do most of the tweeting and retweeting) is raging in tweets and in comments on articles about the new feature.
On one side we have Twitter
- New RT preserves the integrity of the original tweet.
- New RT gives credit properly.
- Organic RTs are messy and come in different flavors.
- Organic RTs can be faked and become a form of spam and a problem for well-known people.
- Organic RTs can show up multiple times in your timeline if they are RT'd by multiple people you are following.
- New RTs are trackable due to being labeled as such behind the scenes, Organic RTs are not as trackable.
On the other side we have Power Users
- New RTs do not allow us to add our own thoughts.
- New RTs cannot be edited for length.
- New RTs insert unknown people in to your timeline.
- New RTs lack credibility because they do not show the person's picture who actually posted/submitted the tweet.
- New RTs promote the highly followed Twitter users (they get the most RTs) and do nothing for the person who submitted it.
Power users say the new retweet basically nullifies the power and purpose behind the retweet altogether.
My Take
I think that Twitter may be looking at the "issue" of retweets from a one-sided perspective. On the Twitter CEO's (@Ev) blog post on the topic he stated that having the picture of the person who did the retweeting in front of the retweet has no value. I totally disagree. Showing me the picture of the person that I am following gives the retweet credibility and adds value to the retweet. It does this because I, in theory, trust the person I am following more than I trust the person they retweeted.
"The new RT, like some first generation software, looks good, is missing some key features, and needs further development."
Power Twitter user's two main complaints about the new retweet is that it takes away the ability to add comments and that it does not give them enough credit for the tweet. This can be solved by showing the person's picture that did the retweeting next to the tweet author and allowing them to add their own opinion. (see graphic below)
Now that Tweetdeck has integrated the new retweet functionality it will be interesting to see if the power users embrace it (since many of them use this tool). For br.st we have decided to hold off on implementing it for awhile. Twitter must be a little uneasy and unsure about it as well since they started asking for your feedback about it on the right sidebar of Twitter.com after you login. 
Follow me (@jaredstauffer) on Twitter, if you are not already, and get updated when I post these juicy bits.
Br.st is Giving Away 21 Wii Systems & 4 MacBook Pros
Announcing the Br.st 25 Days of Christmas Giveaway!
Last week we launched br.st. We worked hard to make sure it was the best place to experience Twitter on the net. We did not get the press coverage we anticipated. So, to get the word out we decided instead of buying advertising we would do a giveaway contest and give the money in the form of prizes to our users.
We are giving away 21 Nintendo Wii game systems every day (except Fridays) from December 1st through December 24th. AND we are giving away 4 MacBook Pros (13 inch) every Friday in December.
It is pretty simple to enter: login to br.st, click the Wii or MacBook button on the right sidebar, submit the tweet, and you are entered! You can enter each giveaway up to five (5) times per day. And you have to re-enter the contest every day for the Nintendo Wii and every week for the MacBook Pro.
Read the main giveaway page, the FAQs, and the rules. Here's to hoping you win!
Success (re)Defined (once and for all)
If you ask people what success is, you will without a doubt get a lot of different answers. We all define success differently and often we define it differently at different points in our life.
So what is success? What does it mean to be successful? Is it enough for us to just think we are successful or do we need others to view us as successful too?
Struggling with Success
Like most of us, I have a great desire to achieve significance in life. I want to get to the end of life and feel that I made an important contribution, that the world around me and to a greater extent those under my influence were changed and impacted for the good. And like most of you I work hard to be "successful" in life. The problem is at times I am not sure what that means, or where that is at.
At various points in my adult life I have stopped and asked myself, "Is this working out the way I hoped, expected, or imagined it would?" And after agonizing over not reaching certain goals or not being as far along in life or business as I would have hoped to be, I had to stop. I had to stop and ask myself, "What is this imaginary goal in life or business that I am trying to achieve?" Because I found that it wasn't really a goal at all, it was a constantly moving measurement of success.
Okay, I am not stupid... if I am trying to achieve something that is constantly moving or being redefined then I will never achieve it, I will never arrive, and I will never be satisfied. Is life some kind of ridiculous cat and mouse game? Why am I chasing something that I will never catch?
Do you know people with this problem? Nothing is ever good enough for them, no car nice enough, no amount of salary enough, no position high enough. We look at these people and wonder at what point in life they will be satisfied, at what point in life will they believe they have achieved success? I don't want to be like this... and I am sure most of these people are not consciously trying to be like this either.
The real problem with this "problem" is not so much the impact it has on us (as bad as it is), but the impact this unending race for success has on the people around us. Marriages are ruined, children are neglected, and people are run over.
Success (re)Defined
I found, I realized, that if my measurement of success was constantly moving - I would never achieve it - or I would die trying. I needed a definition of success that I could work towards that wouldn't kill me or the relationships around me. I prayed about this and here are the conclusions I came to.
- If you live by faith (in God), then you have to judge your life by faith. It will drive you bonkers to live by faith and then try to judge your life by the world's standards. Here is an example: God may direct you to give a large sum of money or time to someone in need. If you judge that by the world's standards, it may result in you feeling like it was a waste of money or time. If you judge that action by faith, you will always conclude that you did what you believed was best at the time, and the rest is up to God.
- Success is plainly defined as this: did I listen to God and do what He directed me to do. End of story, not how much money do I have, not what position I have achieved, and not even did I achieve what others expect of me.
Whats does this mean in real life?
It means that you can stop kicking yourself for missing the boat here or there. It means that you should set reasonable goals in life, work towards them, but not beat yourself up if you don't achieve them the first, or the second, or the third... or the twenty-third time. It means that you should keep trying, never give up and keep moving forward. Success in life is not about how much money we have or how big our house is, success in life should be measured by whether or not we listened to God and did what he directed us to do, whether or not we did the right thing and tried our best in the process.
And if you do screw up, don't worry, you're in good company, the world is full of screw-ups, under achievers and failures (that's all of us). Pick yourself up and try again. The best among us have usually screwed up more than the rest.
References: Matthew 6 (Holy Bible)
My first experience running Google Chrome OS
I came across a tweet that talked about running the new Google Chrome OS in a virtual machine. Since I was intrigued and excited from the video demos yesterday I decided to install it and give it a try. After a few hiccups I had it up and running. I followed this guide to get it running. To install is you can go here to get the downloads you will need.
A few first observations and then the screenshots are below.
- The OS does indeed load in less than 7 seconds.
- You login to it with an @gmail.com user name and password.
- Once it loads you are pretty much in/using the Chrome web browser.
- If you turn it off and then turn it back on you come back to the exact same "spot" you were when you shut it down.
- Because of the fast startup time it reminds me of using my iPhone.
- It appears you can do with/on Chrome OS pretty much anything you can do through the Chrome web browser on a PC.
Google Chrome OS Unveiled and Why This is Good News
In a press conference today Google released what they are calling the new Google Chrome OS (Operating System). Basically everything, all program you might want to run, all live within the Chrome web browser. This is good and bad. Google says this is good because you don't have to worry about all those annoying software updates you have to do with Windows and Mac OS. I say it is bad or different because although there are some awesome websites on the web, it still does not 100% compare to my desktop experience.
A few cool things about Chrome OS:
- It is supposed to take 7 seconds or less to load it up (from power button to typing in your login info).
- Simple Look and Feel - with tabs along top and everything done in a web browser format.
- No updating software, since it all runs from the Internet (and updates automatically).
- Ease of use (in theory) - there are these new things called "in place panels" that let you use things like instant message clients easily from small popup windows on the bottom of your screen.
My Take
A recurring theme you will hear from me is competition is always good - and this is the same in this case. Google coming out with an OS only drives Microsoft and Apple to improve their own OS's. If there was no competition there would be little motivation for Microsoft to fix problems and innovate (other than trying to minimize the myriad of complaints and nullify those now annoying PC vs. Mac commercials).
Another reason this is good is that variety of choice is a good thing. Your work desktop may work best with Windows, but your notebook computer for on the road use may work better on Chrome OS. I know that some people like having a Windows PC, Windows CE on their phone, Windows Media Computer, and XBox - and there is something to be said for continuity. However, I enjoy having a Windows PC at work, my Apple iPhone, AppleTV, etc. I believe in continuity in groups when it works well, like iPods for music, iTunes, and AppleTV all working together. I think you get my point.
Read Google's Official Blog with the announcement and what Mashable, TechCrunch, and Electronista had to say about it.
Chrome OS Videos
Here are some good videos about the new Chrome OS, starting with the most basic and easy to understand and progressing to the more technical.
Today br.st was Released
Today br.st was released. This project is near and dear to my heart. I conceived the original idea for br.st back in July as a leading URL shortener and then with my team evolved in to the killer twitter client it is today over the last several months.
Huge kudos go out to my team at @brinkster for help in designing and developing this tool: Nat, Clint, August, Jason and Marc.
Br.st truly has some unique features that we are very proud of. It is the first web based Twitter client to auto shorten URLs as you type them. It is the only Twitter client to have Text Shortening (the feature loved by all and derided by English majors). You can share images or files, see geo tags in a google map, view advanced stats on links/images/files shared. It has an awesome open conversation feature that works like no other Twitter client. AND you can email in from your mobile phone images to post and a tweet in the subject line!
See screenshots of all of these cool features here: http://br.st/features.aspx.