Posts filed under 'Tools for Startups'
November 6th, 2008
By agreement with my business partners I don’t send any E-mail after 9pm unless it’s very very dull.
If it’s the middle of the day and a misunderstanding is starting to spin out of control my mental guardbands are developed enough that I can say to myself “Enough, pick up the phone.” I have also learned that if I get voicemail when I call I just ask for a call back as casually and politely as I can, a voicemail can suffer from many of the same defects as an e-mail.
I think it takes synchronous engagement to remind me that there is a person on the other end of the communication.
But after a certain point in the evening it’s too late to call (although skype has allowed me to reach out to folks in Europe and Australia when I am up late and confused by a recent conversation thread that’s gone awry).
But if it’s late I send it to myself with the to: line as the first line in the e-mail (I may copy a partner or two and ask for input). I don’t leave it sitting ready to be sent because once or twice I’ve been overcome by a desire for closure and hit send that I’ve later regretted.
Sending an e-mail to myself seems to trigger the same regret glands secretions that flood my brain after the send button is pressed, provoking an empathetic reaction that encourages me to reconsider what I’ve written in light of the emotional reaction it’s likely to provoke. It also stores the content of the message verbatim and allows me to review it in the cooler light of a new morning.
I do another trick that’s a variation on what the radio call in shows do: I put a “tape delay” into your send button. I have configured Eudora (you can do this with Outlook and Thunderbird and likely whatever client you are using) to send E-mail once every two hours or so. One a statistical basis this affords me some measure of protection and allows me to time to experience “l’esprit d’escalier” (French for “I wish I had said this instead“) and timeloop to incorporate it.
I would like to develop an equanimity that would remove my the need for all of these auxiliary output buffers but until I do I will continue to “measure twice, cut once” in my outbound E-mail.
For whatever reason, IM/chat doesn’t seem to trigger the same challenges I think because it’s synchronous and you can take longer to answer than you can in a regular conversation. A pause that would be considered rude or a further provocation is very acceptable in a chat session.
Ole Eichorn wrote “The Tyranny of Email” and “Tyranny Revisited” in March of 2003 and suggested a number of good rules for how to take best advantage of E-Mail. I find his six rules for avoiding problems with E-mail are still very useful:
- Turn your email client off. Pick the moment at which you’ll be interrupted.
- Never criticize anyone in email, and avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or phone calls instead.
- Be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails.
- Observing some formality is important.
- Don’t hesitate to review and revise important emails.
- Remember that email is a public and permanent record.
I have actually reference Eichorn’s post twice before:
- In October of 2007 “GABA Panel on Communcations Wrap-up“ The panel addressed blogs, wikis, e-mail etiquette and more.
- in November of 2006 I wrote about my “E-Mail Overload” a challenge that I have made very little progress on as I re-read it today (I have reviewed Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” approach several times but find myself unable to stick with it).
September 8th, 2008
We plan to take a closer look at four services that exhibited at Office 2.0 last week. They each have one or more compelling features that may fill gap in our current set of productivity tools.
Vyew
- It’s a zero configuration (100% browser based, provided you have Flash and Java installed) conferencing service that makes it easy to initiate a web conference.
- We will try it for white board collaboration on flowcharts and block diagrams.
Sliderocket
- It can import PowerPoint and make each slide editable in a slide tray paradigm. This could be very useful when you are collaborating on a new pitch and want to play mix and match from what you have.
- Collaborating on PowerPoint is a real problem for us. Today we are left emailing PowerPoint documents around.
- PowerPoint output and stand-alone presentation tool also look interesting.
Empressr
- The most speculative of the four. Worth exploring as we need to move beyond slide-based presentations to animation and multi-media in the next two to three years.
- It can also import PowerPoint and make each slide editable in a slide tray paradigm.
Officescape
- Combining on-demand meeting rooms and office space with SaaS productivity tools is a very compelling concept.
Our real challenge is to move away from PowerPoint toward an HTML/CSS solution that would allow us to create wiki pages, word output, and presentations from a common source.
March 10th, 2008
If you missed us at SDWest last week, here are pointers to firms and organizations we had in the Startup Resource Center.
February 28th, 2008
Rob Hof notes–hat tip to Ross Mayfield–tonight in “Jotspot Returns as Google Sites: Wiki Style Collaboration” (emphasis added):
Ever since Google bought the wiki-based online application startup Jotspot in late 2006, people have been wondering if it had disappeared forever inside the bowels of the search giant. Tonight, Google’s launching Google Sites, using Jotspot’s technology to create a free group collaboration service that will be part of its online software suite Google Apps.
Like many things that come in one end and go out the other, it seems to bear little resemblance to it’s former self. TechCrunch observes in “It Took 16 Months, But Google Relaunches Jotspot” (emphasis added)
Google Sites looks absolutely nothing like Jotspot, other than the fact that both are hosted wikis. All of the structured data templates launched by Jotspot in July 2006 have been stripped out. Users now have a choice between just four basic templates - a standard wiki, a dashboard where google gadgets can be embedded, a blog-like template for announcements, a file cabinet for file uploads, and a page for lists of items. Instead of creating structured templates, users will now simply embed spreadsheets, presentations and word documents from Google Docs, as well as Google Calendars, YouTube Videos and Picasa Albums.
I had blogged about the Jotspot acquisition in “Jotspot Dissolves into Google Business Model” and later speculated that the “Dodgeball Duo Departure a Harbinger for Jotspot Wunderkinder” (although the earnout period still probably has eight months to run so this may still prove accurate). If Joe Kraus’ picture and his son’s lego creations weren’t splashed across one of the demo sites, it would require a vivid imagination to associate this new offering in any way with Jotspot.
The acquisition–and Google’s putting any further sites on stun and current sites into limbo–triggered our search for a new wiki/workspace provider. We’ve been pleased with our selection of CentralDesktop and have built more than 100 private workspaces for use with customers since we converted. We’ve blogged about them in several different contexts and have them listed as a partner because they have become an intrinsic platform for our business. We probably don’t say enough good things about them.
Other coverage:
February 5th, 2008
We have resisted doing webinar or phone versions of our workshops because there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to facilitate the pair discussions and highly interactive nature of the conversation in the room. I would like to see an integration between (VoIP/POTS) telephony and chat such that we could do the following during a conference call or webinar that has a related chat window:
- Let Someone Raise Their Hand and Speak: an attendee who wants to speak or ask a question can “raise their hand” in the chat window and then have their connection patched into the voice stream back to all attendees. This might require passing out a serialized password to each attendee (or on an 800 dial-in recognizing the number, or leverage Caller ID to determine who is who). This can be done on the honor system in a group that knows each other or is otherwise well-behaved, by using the chat window to control the queue to the mike, but often you would like to mute everyone but one or two speakers. Inspired by Clay Shirky’s wiki+chat+phone pattern (see below).
- Break a Larger Group Into Small Groups and Then Reconvene: as an example break a group of 12 into six pairs or three groups of four and then have them join back into a single audio stream. Their status could either be communicated via the chat window (which should now be restricted to “just those in their small group”). This was suggested by an observation that John Smith made in 2004 that “what would really make our CPSquare class conference call effective is the ability to break into small groups and then come back.”
- Automatically Manage The “Queue for the Microphone” during the Q&A segment: offer a simple way to “get in the line for the mike” that allows everyone to see the backlog of questions.
I welcome any feedback or suggestions on systems that already support this, or other ideas for how to go beyond the POTS conference call model.
We currently follow the wiki+chat+phone pattern that Clay Shirky identified in “A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy” with client meetings but this is normally less than 6 people
“But since conference calls are so lousy on their own, I’m going to bring up a chat window at the same time.” And then, in the first meeting, I think it was Pete Kaminski said “Well, I’ve also opened up a wiki, and here’s the URL.” And he posted it in the chat window. And people can start annotating things. People can start adding bookmarks; here are the lists.
So, suddenly you’ve got this meeting, which is going on in three separate modes at the same time, two in real-time and one annotated. So you can have the conference call going on, and you know how conference calls are. Either one or two people dominate it, or everyone’s like “Oh, can I — no, but –”, everyone interrupting and cutting each other off.
It’s very difficult to coordinate a conference call, because people can’t see one another, which makes it hard to manage the interrupt logic. In Joi’s conference call, the interrupt logic got moved to the chat room. People would type “Hand,” and the moderator of the conference call will then type “You’re speaking next,” in the chat. So the conference call flowed incredibly smoothly.
Meanwhile, in the chat, people are annotating what people are saying. “Oh, that reminds me of So-and-so’s work.” Or “You should look at this URL…you should look at that ISBN number.” In a conference call, to read out a URL, you have to spell it out — “No, no, no, it’s w w w dot net dash…” In a chat window, you get it and you can click on it right there. You can say, in the conference call or the chat: “Go over to the wiki and look at this.”
This is a broadband conference call, but it isn’t a giant thing. It’s just three little pieces of software laid next to each other and held together with a little bit of social glue. This is an incredibly powerful pattern.
John Smith offers a well thought out set of “Conference Call Practices To Generate Knowledge and Record Learning” that refine and elaborate on Shirky’s wiki+chat+phone model. These are very applicable to any geographically dispersed team that is relying on periodic conference calls to keep a project moving forward.
January 24th, 2008
Pierre Khawand of People-OnTheGo and I were on a panel at GABA in October of last year on “Communication Today: Blogs, E-mail and More” and we had a great conversation on blogs and wikis. He has invited me to speak on “Wiki Use Case: Managing Team Meetings: Agendas, Minutes and Tasks” at today’s Lunch & Learn webinar.
You can sign up here at GoToMeeting.
Here is a brief description of the topics we will be covering
Project management tools are great for managing and presenting the highly structured elements of a project: resources, milestones, time-line, and budget. But they are not as effective for managing the unstructured information and the their inter-linkages: documents, notes, meeting agendas, and specifications. Wikis provide an on-line workspace for a project team to store and manage unstructured documents that’s browser accessible. Learn tips on how wikis can cut the time needed to reach consensus on project deliverables when a deadline looms. You will leave with a practical understanding of usage models that leverage the distinct strengths of wikis for global project teams. This session will be presented by Sean Murphy, CEO of SKMurphy Inc. (http://www.skmurphy.com).
More background on what we will be talking about can be found in our article on “Using Blogs & Wikis for Better Collaboration.”
Afternoon update: this was a lot of fun. I was very impressed by Pierre’s method and approach. I have listened to a number of webinars where one speaker talks for 20-30 minutes and then another one talks for 20-30 minutes and invariably each runs out of steam a few minutes into the talk, their voices become less animated and finally monotone, and you lose a sense of connection. We had a mix of Q&A, short 2-4 minute presentations on some prepared topics and then a number of questions from the audience as well as an interactive demo of Central Desktop. I still miss the non-verbal cues you get from facing your audience but this was a lot of fun. I am glad Pierre invited me to take part.
People-OnTheGo also offers workshops on “Accomplishing More With Less” in addition to the free Lunch & Learn series.
Late Afternoon Update: Pierre blogged about it at “Wiki Use Case: Managing Team Meetings” and slides are here: WikiPeopleOnTheGo080124.ppt
January 22nd, 2008
Steve Blank gave a great tutorial last August at TIE on his “Customer Development” and “Customer Validation” methodology. These are the first two steps of “Four Steps to the Epiphany,” his textbook on how high technology startups should approach the marketing and business development challenges they face. His slides are here (note that this is a PDF file) http://www.tiesv.org/TGS/EM/manageEvent/presentationDocument/471_790
Blank outlined the default high tech startup process and key phases for engineering team
- Seed Stage: develop concept
- Product Development
- Alpha & Beta Test
- Launch - First Customer Shipment
and then looked at how other customer facing functions contribute (note Seed Stage omitted because customer oriented typically not involved).
| Engineering |
Product Development |
Alpha / Beta Test |
Launch /
First Customer Ship |
| Marketing |
- Marcom Materials
- Positioning
|
- Hire PR Agency
- Early Buzz
|
- Create Demand
- Launch Event
- Branding
|
| Sales |
|
- Hire VP Sales
- Hire Sales Staff
|
|
Business
Development |
|
|
|
Answering his own question “What’s Wrong With This?”
- Embeds premise of “Build it and They Will Come” that only works for life and death products like a cancer cure.
- Ignores real risks for most new technologies
- NOT Can we make it work?
- Will Customers Accept it?
- Will Markets Adopt
- Has Everyone Chasing the First Customer Ship as the Goal
- Sales & Marketing costs are front loaded
- De-emphasizes Learning & Discovery to Focused on Execution
- Execution & Hiring Predicated on Business Plan Hypotheses
- Heavy spending hit if product launch is wrong
- You don’t know if you’re wrong until you’re out of money.
His prescription for the fact that most startups die from a lack of customers not a product development failure is to propose a customer development process that runs in parallel to the product development process. In fact, this is what most bootstrappers do, they focus on customers and markets from day one because they don’t have enough resources not to.
In addition to the slides Steve has one of the best books for product development management in a startup called “Four Steps to the Epiphany” that outlines in excellent detail his customer development methodology.
Postscript: I went to buy a couple copies of Steve’s book and found that they were $10 cheaper on CafePress, so if you are thinking of buying a copy, compare the Amazon link above with Four Steps to the Epiphany on CafePress.
December 10th, 2007
I am an small business owner. We are virtual team and use many on-line tools. These are ones that we actually pay for and use everyday.
Here’s what I use:
Calendar: Webex, Central Desktop
Contacts: Webex, Central Desktop
Design: Lucky Oliver for photos
Logo Design: Logo Company, Logoworks
Managing Money: Quickbooks
Wiki, On-line Docs & Spreadsheets: Central Desktop
Project Management: Central Desktop
To Do List: Central Desktop
Website: WordPress, Website Grader
Web Meetings: Central Desktop, Slide Live, Webex, Free Conference
Email Campaigns: iContact, Constant Contact
On-line Surveys: iContact, Survey Monkey
On-line Event Registration: 123signup
Presentations: Powerpoint
I am looking for a good backup service and email.
December 2nd, 2007
To keep our workshops interactive we limit them to a dozen people. We’ve got two seats left in our Thursday December 6th “Idea to Revenue workshop” so we have added a second one Saturday January 19, 2008. This one will be held at the Moorpark Hotel in San Jose.
We got a number of requests for a Saturday workshop so we’ve obliged. Fenwick is a great venue that we plan to return to in 2008, but we’ve also really enjoyed the ambiance and staff at the Moorpark Hotel and had great experiences there. It’s a little further south but it’s just off 280 at Saratoga and on a Saturday the traffic should be much easier to manage.
These are real workshops for entrepreneurs who want to spend four hours developing a one page plan for 2008. Here is a partial list of the topics we cover:
- Where Are You, What’s Going On - What’s the Situation
- Guided Assessment on Software Startup Maturity: we’ve identified about four dozen key milestones that a software startup has to reach to be able to hit not just break even but growth. (Note: raising venture capital is not on the list but customer testimonials and a scalable sales process are).
- How Did You Get Here? You Have You Done - Core Competencies (it’s not about “latent talents” but “have done, can do.”)
- What are Your Key Assumptions About Your Startup
- Turning What You “Intend to Do” next year into “Goals, Strategies, and Metrics”
- Identifying Your Budget Constraints: Time and Money (in particular managing the tensions between consulting and developing a product).
- Integrating Situation, Competencies, Goals, Strategies, and Metrics into a one page plan
Update December 3: the December 6 event is now SOLD OUT, no walk-ins will be accepted, there are still seats available for the Saturday January 19, 2008 “Idea to Revenue” workshop.
November 12th, 2007
I have been a member of the ACM since 1994. I enjoy reading Communications of the ACM and Queue. I find that they help my peripheral vision–as Steven Wright once joked, “I am a peripheral visionary, I can see the future but it’s way off to one side–for technical developments that, although they arise in technical domains that I am not actively following, may have applicability to the technology areas that our firm focuses on. The QueueNews and TechNews article roundups in my inbox: they do a good job of scanning the horizon and pointing out a number of interesting developments. It’s a kind of Science News (another good publication) that’s focused on software and computing.
I think cultivating peripheral vision is increasingly important for startups. A serious competitor is more likely to blindside you if they don’t come directly from the same technology sources and cultures that you are drawing from, but can solve the same problem. They may offer slightly different benefits, but you are more likely to be surprised by a competitor who “cuts their teeth” on a distant but related problem. The flip side is also true. You may be more successful if you can offer a novel application of a proven technology, provided you can find some early customers to help get you oriented to the new problem area. This is one of the rules of thumb for innovation–this one is taken from the “Innovator’s Dilemma“–that I will be cover in my “Crucial Marketing Concepts for Technology Introduction” this Wednesday, November 14 at the SF BAY ACM meeting (there is no charge for the event and it’s only $10 to join SF BAY ACM for a year).
Previous Posts