MetaMuse

Arrival in Cote d'Azur

Arrived in France this morning and it was already 8O degrees! We were pretty tired since we had to get up at 4am, so just about everyone is taking a nap. Only took 1 hour 40 minutes to get here by plane. The scenery is gorgeous -- very mountainous with the crystal blue mediterranean lapping onto beaches and rocky coves. The hotel is very nice too. We each have four poster beds and a large sunny veranda with a view over the pool, and Port Grimaud below. While Jenny and I try to speak French, Mom and Dad of course don't have a clue and start in english. But so far they're enjoying themselves and we're proud of them for their courage in even coming to France -- it was afterall Jenny and I who coerced them into coming! After nap time and numerous pool trips we went into Port Grimaud for dinner. Lovely marina town with many venetian-style canals and restaurants. Parents experienced couscous restaurant for first time -- really nice food. Only minutes away and across bay from St. Tropez. Had to of course walk amongst the yachts and drool a bit. Dad picked up information on renting a small 20' boat, which we may do this week for half day.

Parents have arrived

  The 'rents arrived for a visit on the 25th. They're doing quite well with the 8hr time difference -- napped a little on the day of arrival then have kept local sleeping pattern since! But they're still reminding themselves of their own local time, which is only wise to do if you're making calls. Just walked around Windsor a little on Wed, on the Long Walk and such -- weather has been really nice. Yesterday we walked into town, had a pasty for lunch, toured the castle for a couple hours, then had cream tea at the Crooked Tea House. Hung out for a while then ventured over to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. They haven't had Indian since visiting Chicago 20 years ago, and it's our favorite ethnic food now. They loved it, as we suspected. Long conversations with the waiter of course! We leave early Sunday morning and we're all excited.

Shotgun vs. Rifle Shot

Friends frequently come to me for business advice for some reason, especially when it comes to earlier-stage type companies.  The most common advice I give is "more narrow focus". I always use the analogy of a sniper rifle vs a shotgun. It's easy to see any sort of target, but they're always farther away than you like. You can blow away many shotgun rounds and usually not hit it. If you do, it's not because you've very carefully aimed and fired one round -- there are of course hundreds of tiny bullets in a shotgun shell.

When growing a company, every part of it has to center around a very focused, carefully aimed shot. Every customer you approach. Every product you wish to enter into the market. Every investor you pitch. Success in any of these scenarios is never by accident -- it only comes through patience, identifying the correct target, and thinking thru exactly the "shot" that is going to hit the target.

While everyone knows this already, it's something that is very difficult to actually do because it takes time. Also what I've found is, the more focused your approach the more opaque your success or failure. While failure isn't so bad to see for yourself, it seems to be difficult for folks to have that failure clearly evident to their investors, friends, etc.  Success is never 1 good shot, it's several. And the path to success is never a straight line.

Top 5 reasons to break a thumb

Below are the top 5 reasons why someone should break the thumb (or any digit really) in their prominent hand:

1. You learn how to wipe your bum all over again. It's harder than one thinks and the consequences are rather shitty.
2. For once you get to ask your wife to open jars.
3. With typing, writing and even using a PDA so awkward, you have a built-in excuse for your lack of productivity.
4. It's fun to eliminate the use of half your pockets.
5. You have a cool "owie" that beats all your kids' owies, as well as their friends.

Mountain Bored

I've decided I need to get a mountain board. It's got to be funner than longboarding because you can go off-road. Plus you can jump it and stay on because of the straps. Gotta hurt when you fall though -- but I've got armor for that.

There's a ton of interesting terrain around here to play on, plus I could use it to run errands and such -- like when I need to walk up to the corner store. I wonder how practical it is to use on fairly level ground, pushing with one foot like a normal skateboard.

Maybe this is just me thinking of something new I've gotta have because I broke my thumb and can't get my yucks on a bike.

Lego Remote Control

Bought Hunter a Lego remote control vehicle (car? buggy? who knows what the hell it is) for his birthday. Freakin' expensive here in UK, but a very cool product. Can be built to be alot of different things, but of course we built full suspension. Used it for a few minutes in the back yard then it started raining. Really fast. Then tried it again later and it wouldn't work! So returned it today -- can't wait for Hunter to get home so we can build it again and take it across the street to the Long Walk. It flies! The toys these days are just so cool.

My DMR Rhythm

My DMR Rhythm at Chicksands. What a sweet ride it is -- I miss playing hard on my bikes! It's been two weeks and I'm going thru withdrawals.

The value of "presence"

Funny how instant messaging has taken off. Even for "old" business people like me -- it's not just for gen-x or gen-y quite apparently, and it's used in business (certainly 121Media) not as a novelty but as a requirement. Why is this? Especially when there is the phone and email, which is pretty damn instant these days.

I'll tell you why. It's primarily because IM automatically provides "presence" (or online status -- online, away, offline, busy, etc.), which is not provided by any othe communication mechanism.  From anywhere, I can sign in and see who's at the office and who's presumably already away for lunch, for example, then instantly chat with a quick question (one-on-one, or group-based).

This matter of presence is the foundation for my next potential project, Whoople. Whereas with traditional IM you only see the online status of people you know (your buddy list), Whoople will provide you with online status (and IM capabilities) for people you maybe don't know but want to, based on your browsing interests/behaviours (if you sign in), within your Web browser as you're looking up product information, restaurants, etc.  Can be used for presence-enabled *applications* as well as consumer web browsing.

I believe this sort of "people service" (services-oriented architecture) can become a ubiquitous horizontal feature of the Internet, just as search, email, IM, file share and video services have become. We'll see.

Shit, not another broken bone...

Just broke my thumb on my local jump spot. Showed up and of course had to rebuild each jump and tranny, because the local tools kill them regularly. Spent a good 30 minutes building and then some local boys showed up and we jumped for a while (they on their little teeny jumps and me on my big-boy gaps). I must have hit the line 15-20 times, then had to hit it one more time before I headed home. Not sure what happened (it's always a speed thing but usually I bail if I know I don't have enough speed to make the gap) -- didn't make the gap on the last of the set and went over the handlebars hard. Hit my shoulder pretty hard rolling out of it, but in general fell the right way. Everything hurt at first but after 5 minutes only my thumb still hurt so took a peak and saw/felt what seemed like bone sticking out, and I couldn't move it real well. Off to the A&E tomorrow I suppose -- in the meantime, it's liquid medicine.