For more years than I can remember, I’ve advocated the position that all things social are inherent to our understanding of the world, making them unable to be bottled or packaged in any way that doesn’t automatically feel a little disproportionate to our understanding of them.

I’ll grab one old quote to illustrate this disconnect:

The two defining characteristics, from lago’s point of view, of an actual social network are that it cannot be compressible and that it would not be user-maintained. The notion of a self-organizing software mirror of the social network is very intriguing to say the least. The notion of compression carries back to the static visualization, wax museums, and other criticisms we’ve seen about these networks. Systems are already in place that are starting to become more autonomous, providing that automatic-user requirement. The question this raises though, however, is this: If software could mimic, and potentially predict the growth and interaction, in its entirety of a real social network, why do we need the nodes at all? It seems that the snapshots provide a context for evaluation that, despite the obvious limitations, can be leveraged.

Source: SocialTwister.com, “SNS: A Xerox of a Xerox” (March 04, 2004)

The crux of the matter is that we are incapable of not seeing things from a social perspective, it underlies all assumptions we make and frameworks we build.  This has been more and more on our minds here as we we work to flesh out of Practice Areas more clearly so we can communicate it to clients and peers.

Today, Umair Haque has a wonderful distillation of the secrets to Obama’s success - a testament to the strength of network thinking and social insight.  One particular bullet struck me, which inspired this post:

4. Maximize purpose. Change the game? That’s 20th century thinking at its finest - and narrowest. The 21st century is about changing the world. What does “yes we can” really mean? Obama’s goal wasn’t simply to win an election, garner votes, or run a great campaign. It was larger and more urgent: to change the world.
Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things.

Source: HBS, Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators

“Tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things”  It is this emergence of purpose that allows most people to “call bullshit” on the vast majority of systems and services unleashed on the unassuming yet early-adopting masses.

The greater and deeper the value we create, the stronger the purpose.  Yes, we can.

• \n
  
  Cocoa Is My Girlfriend » Cocoa Touch Tutorial: iPhone Application Example

  \n \n
  

  (tags: apple iphone development)

  \n

• \n
  
  CultureFeast | fresh culture. served daily.

  \n \n
  

  (tags: culture blog culture+blog)

  \n

Over the last week or so, with tremendous, and often scary turmoil, in the financial markets, we’ve seen a outpouring of both solicited and unsolicited “guidance” on how the future should be handled, specifically with regards to startups, their founders, and their prospects.

I’m writing more of a reflection on the entire mess, than to provide some tactical advice on just how to succeed.  The formula for success looks the same no matter where you go: Spend less, Sell more, blah blah blah.  Of course everyone knows that given precisely the same recipe, one hundred unlikely chefs will produce one hundred seemingly different dishes.  In other words, use the formulations as best you can - but don’t count on them saving your ass.

Sequoia seems to have kicked off the round of reflection as its internal meeting notes were spread across the net.  They outline several things that their startups should start to (channeling GigaOm here):

Cut spending. Cut fat. Preserve capital.

I use this analogy often.  Your startup is like a car and it’s your job to keep it running.  That means you have to find the means to keep the gas tank full, you have to know when to make improvements so it performs better, and of course, you have to know not to take it off-roading when it was designed to run on the highway.

I’m not worried by this guidance for one simple reason - most entrepreneurs know better.  I work with startups all the time and getting them to part with a dollar is often the hardest thing in the world.  In fact, they live by this creed so closely that often they make really BAD decisions as a result - penny wise, pound foolish and all.

If you’re a startup and haven’t realized the air conditioning is on and the windows are open, well, you’ll either learn that lesson very quickly or you’ll die from heat exhaustion anyway.

Throw out the models and spreadsheets, because all assumptions will be wrong.

This was probably true the moment you committed that model to a spreadsheet to begin with.  Most everyone who’s built something from the ground knows that your nimbleness is what gives you an edge on the entrenched players.

Flexibility is and always has been an asset for the entrepreneur.  The challenge, of course, is knowing when to stick to it long enough and when you have to kill your baby.  As creators of things new and shiny, it’s hard to break free of the charm and dazzle our inventions provide us.  Successful entrepreneurs have always had the ability to track external factors as closely as they track their own progress and evolution.

You should always assume your assumptions are wrong.  You should always be working towards proving them right.

Focus on quality.

Are we building sweatshops in a third-world country? When did it ever be preferred to NOT focus on quality.  There’s all sorts of quality, of course.  There’s quality in terms of the underlying code/construction.  There’s quality in terms of the presentation/marketing.  And then there’s the only measure of quality that matters - the measure of quality from your customers’ eyes.If you were building something to satisfy any other goal, you deserve to fail.

Reduce risk.

I almost want to agree with this advice, really, I do.  If there’s anything you can assess about your business, there must be a spectrum of ideas that you’ve formed your hypothesis with.  Some of those ideas are absolutely safe - tested and true axioms from the trenches.  Some of those ideas are your core innovation.  Some of those ideas are in that “what if?” or “imagine if?” category.

Whenever you’re playing the “imagine if?” game, you’re embracing risk.  Personally, I am not fearful of risk, per se - however, when you are playing with a smaller field, you can’t afford to hit the ball over everyone’s head.  Put another way, “imagine if…” relies of too many things going right - it’s a game of fancy - and as that, should be the first thing we put into the “maybe later” pile.

Well, I am sorry if the tone is a bit excited, but I actually think this is a great time for entrepreneurship.  I think that anyone who embraces this time and pushes through it will learn a tremendous amount about themselves. Heck, you might even build something great at the same time.

I won’t sit here and blow sunshine up your ass about how easy it is.  It isn’t.  Then again, despite our “wonderful lost times” every day has and continues to be a roller coaster ride.  I don’t see that changing dramatically.

If you’d like to hear some more on this, I encourage you to read a couple of pieces by my friends:

• Dave McClure: Fear is the Mind Killer of the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
• Brian Solis:  During Tough Times, The Echo Chamber Can Be Your Best Friend

In just two very short weeks, we’ll be turning the reigns for Lil’Grams back to its righful owners, the parents that we’ve been working tirelessly to help in the battle to preserve their baby’s memories.

As we’ve been working to nail down some of the finishing touches (documentation, marketing site, etc.) we realized that there was something missing from the experience - not enough babies!  A quick decision was made that the best way to put togther the type of experience we wanted and needed for Lil’Grams, we had to go to the source - the eager parents waiting in the wings.

So today, we threw up a quick notice on Twitter, which was amplified by many of our great friends, and all of a sudden we were being bombarded with applications.  In order to bring sanity to the process, we threw up a quick form for you all to apply through:

Lil’Grams SpokesBaby Nomination Form

So, now’s your chance to make history with us.  We hope you’ll welcome us into family as openly as we welcome you.

I woke up this morning to a surprise tweet point me to an article on the New York Times site.  As the page appeared, the title “Twittering from the Cradle” showed up and my interest was naturally peaked.  As I read through the article, I encountered the names of many people and products that I recognized well.

A natural disappointment swelled as I assumed that my beloved, Lil’Grams, had not made it into another piece covering a space we entered oh so long ago.  Then I saw it, and realized just how wrong I was.

Call it convenient. Call it baby overshare. But a host of new sites, including Totspot, Odadeo, Lil’Grams and Kidmondo, now offer parents a chance to forgo the e-mail blasts of, say, their newborn’s first trip home and instead invite friends and family to join and contribute to a network geared to connecting them to the baby in their lives.

“It’s an interesting model,” said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist for the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Everyone can decide how much or little they want to know about a baby, which avoids the situation of receiving a few too many e-mails about someone’s wonderful child, and parents can decide how much they want to share — in minimal or maximal ways.”

Now I can’t tell you just how happy I am to be where I am right now.  Building Lil’Grams has been a challenge in a number of ways.  Professionally, it is a testament to our ability to understand a problem and create a solution that means something to the audience it serves.  Personally, it’s been a personal challenge filled with highs and lows, tears and fears.

We’re about a month away from the big reveal.  I’m looking forward to bringing our efforts out to the world at large.  We’re still making a number of important decisions about how things will work and what will be in the final release (we have more than we planned).

Until October 22nd, from Delhi.

• \n
  
  MachForm - PHP HTML Form Builder - Mailer Form Creator

  \n \n
  

  (tags: php generator forms form development)

  \n

In May, I wrote a post about the “Pervasiveness of Streams” where I posited, amongst many other things, that the Stream is a new data type that poses new challenges for us as individuals, designers and developers:

So when you think of digital presence - the online shadow of your physical/spiritual presence - how would you best want to represent that? The emergence of streams in our digital lives is, in many ways, aligning our thinking in a way that we are only subtly appreciating. I see this every time I overhear someone trying to explain Twitter to another. There’s futility in writing straplines and elevator pitches for something that is quite fundamental to the way we experience life.

Around that time, Brian Solis (@briansolis) and Jackie Peters (@jackiepeters) were discussing the topic and thought it would make a great panel for next year’s SXSW.  I’m happy to announce that our panel made it through the first round, but now we need your help.

For our panel to be officially approved, we need the community on our side.  Feel free to read more about the panel here.  If you like the topic, please cast your vote.  If you have questions or comments, post them there, here or send them directly.

A Discussion on the Pervasiveness of Streams

Jeffrey Veen has a great brainstorming session, a Conference Hack as he calls it, where he addresses some of the challenges of running a conference and engaging the audience in conversation:

I had a very interesting experience a few months ago while participating in a panel discussion. Once again, I realized that the content on stage is merely the spark of a broader conversation, and that the backchannel is rapidly becoming the whole point. So we’ve decided to try an experiment at the Start Conference in a couple weeks to see how we might hack traditional presentations.

As many of you may recall, I hacked up the initial version of FrontChannel just in time for Web 2.0 earlier this year.  We’re currently working to productize it out more fully and will have it ready by September for more broad use.

Check out the Start conference as well, should be a blast.

Yesterday was a fun day on Twitter.  The #ramday meme emerged early in the day and had many baffled throughout.  #ramday stands for Random About Me Day and I enjoyed sharing a bunch of little tidbits about myself it usually takes a few drinks to coax out of me.

I thought I would collect them here:

• I forged dozens of fake notes granting me ealrly leave during Jr year of HS. Issued by the teacher who’s very class I was cutting
• things I’ve learned to impress a girl: 3D rendering, package design, bash scripting - who am I kidding, everything is a weapon :)
• I’m afraid of the open waters, esp when you can’t see the bottom
• I weighed 3lbs 6oz when born and was extracted when my heartbeat disappeared. Spent 45 days in the incubator cooking.
• I learned calligraphy after realizing my handwriting had gone to total shiite. Now I suck at multiple forms of writing.
• I “studied” Art History in London one winter.. missed half my classes due to the 19-year-old drinking limit (snakebites!)
• I designed covers for all my major papers in college - it’s how I learned photoshop
• I once was asked by a professor to re-write a test since she couldn’t read it She let me take it home to do it
• I worked on material for a standup skit for 6 months then chickened out the performance
• I once broke two ribs while bench pressing without a spotter - it was dumbells from then onwards
• I once passed out from eating super spicy buffalo wings (the rum didn’t help either)
• My first internet gig was for iVillage/About Work as a HTML/Javascript developer - I didn’t know JS at the time
• I was accepted to 3 medical schools but decided otherwise. My parents, both entrepreneurs, were surprised I did the same as them.
• I am the second youngest of 49 first cousins - we’ve never all been in the same place at the same time.
• I had a 4.0 in college all the way to Senior Year, then had a serious GF and that’s history
• I lost my license when 18 for 3 speeding tickets in 18 months. Drove 5 years not knowing it was lost - no tickets
• I often confuse worst and worse, much to @rgujral entertainment
• I received a scholarship from the sociology department when graduating (biggest nerd) and forgot about the ceremony - got the check
• My proudest grade in college: the only A (out of 400 peeps) in ‘Hinduism, Buddhism & Taoism”
• I opted out of my senior year of HS and went to college instead - I still had to take gym to graduate though
• I failed my road test the first time around. I still was one of the first to drive to school - liberating
• i have the bestest friends in the world, even the ones that I can’t name or remember
• This is NOT the most embarrassing video of me: http://tinyurl.com/5ca6w9
• The name Gregarious was given to me by my good friend @jamesjyu
• I’ve never had a full-time job and I love it.
• I started my first enterprise in 3rd grade - designing desk signs for my classmates - $5 a pop.
• On training: I ran a 5:58 mile in Junior High. I was on the Ski Team in HS. I used to bench 315lbs, not I weight it (j/k).
• I slept in my office on 14th street (1997ish) for 3 years, the gym was my shower. Startup life, FTW!
• I have 5 best friends, each from different periods of my life. All guys.
• The saddest days in my life: Nov 4 2007, Mar 5 2005, May 18 1999
• I have 5 scars on my face, 3 from childhood, 2 I can’t account for - but hey ,scars are the new tattoos

The full list is here.