A Remarkable Blog

Re-set your RSS feeds and links to the new Remarkable Tributes blog at http://aRemarkableBlog.com.

The By-Product of Work

At this stage in development (working diligently towards the first private beta of a new product) it is easy to get anxious.  A ton of things have been accomplished.  A huge pile of work remains.  Excitement is growing.  Life is in fast-forward at the same time as time is ticking painfully slow to the next milestone.   The finished product is on our minds, while the activity on a daily basis is…daily.

I ran across a quote today that might shed some light on a different approach:

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
  – Robertson Davies

Just like happiness is not a goal, not something you find as a direct result of effort, so is contentment or peace.  You can’t demand to be satisfied with things in their various stages of incomplete.  All you can do is work, day after day, towards the goal.  Happiness, as they say, is a by-product.  A by-product of work.

A Remarkable Blog

I am not officially blogging over at http://www.ARemarkableBlog.com.  Redirect your RSS feeds.  Reassign your bookmarks.  Update your address book.   Thanks much!

#1 Way to Address Procrastination: Do Something!

Isn’t procrastination such a fascinating thing!  It can lead to great innovations and streamlining as deadlines loom and the unimportant is stripped off the “to do” list.  It can lead to elevated blood pressure and heart rate and untold damage on our psyches.  There is always a good reason to procrastinate a task or decision. Sometimes you procrastinate really important things, perhaps because they are so important and you want to do them right.  This is where I find myself on this Sunday night.

In preparation for the upcoming beta (not to late to sign up, by the way) of Remarkable Tributes and the go live later this Summer, I have been working on a series of “Frequently Asked Questions.”  You know the type that walk customers through how to use the website, why to use the website, and what to do if things go wrong.  I will be putting them into the new Remarkable Tributes Help Center to be searched and added to by you once the system goes live.  This is really important stuff!  I have brainstorming a list of questions and typed them out this weekend to begin the work of answering them.  The list of questions is 9 pages long!  Those are just the questions, as I have not yet penned the answers.

Now, readers to this blog (or perhaps my other blog or Twitter stream) will probably rightly assess that coming up with a lot of ideas isn’t a problem for me.   So, perhaps some of these questions are not as important as others.  Some of thing may very well be a question that no one would ask, but still the list is there.  All 9 pages of it. 

So, I am going to fight procrastination.  I am taking a number of questions a day and will write the answers.  The ones that require screen shots or other reference materials from the software (which is in development and not quite ready for prime time) will have to wait, but there are many that I can do now, get out of the way, and be ready for the go live.

There, now I feel much better.  I have a plan.  Certainly, I can’t wait to see what questions you have once you start using Remarkable Tributes.  Stay tuned for more details on the Help Center and other things we are pulling together to make you successful!

By the way, this post will be mirrored over at http://RemarkableTributes.wordpress.com where I will be moving the blog officially in the next few weeks.  Go ahead and change your reader to the new address.

It’s Official!

The articles of incorporation have been posted with the secretary of state and we are officially Remarkable Tributes, Inc.  I feel like passing out cigars. 

Our Veterans are Absolutely Remarkable

In honor of Memorial Day today, I wanted to post special mini-tribute to our veterans who have served or are serving.  Among them are my Dad, both Grandpas, two brother-in-laws, and a host of friends and extended family.  Thank you!

You can send a mini-tribute of your own to your favorite veteran, by name, at www.isAbsolutelyRemarkable.com.

P.S.  It is awesome to see the number of mini-tributes that you have been sending.  They make fun congratulations notes, birthday e-cards, and “just because” encourgements…and they are FREE!  Send one today.

It’s still about the humans…making choices

My 5-year-old son has never probably seen us look up anything in a phone book or heard us call directory assistance.  We never had to go the library for anything, but recreational reading.  His only frame of reference includes high-speed internet.  Today, he asked me if I knew why God invented lightning (oh, the questions of a pre-schooler!).  I said that I wasn’t sure.  He replied, “you should look it up on the computer.”  “Hmmm, I am not sure the computer will know what God was thinking…” I start to reply.  “Mom, the computer is really smart!” he retorts. 

I then try to explain to him that it is people that are smart, that put information on the Internet, and develop ways to search.  So, if we wanted to learn more about lightning it was someone who learned about it that posted the information so that we could find it (not to mention God, for “inventing” lightning in the first place, but that is another post all together). 

To this my son replies, “Yeah, but it was the computer that found that cartoon episode of Ben Ten Alien Force.”  True, but yet not so true.  If the animators, storytellers, marketing folks, executives at the Cartoon Network, and IT gurus didn’t create and post the Ben Ten episodes, we never would have found them…no matter how much R&D Google invests in search technology.

All of this makes me realize how easy it is to lose the humaness when dealing with technology.  We sometimes forget that every piece of technology (from our TV remote to a sophisticated ERP software system) is actually the creation of human beings and the collection of tough choices that they made.  Ben Ten could have been live action instead of cartoon.  He could have been called Kevin Eleven (a great name for a sequel, I might add, if Kevin hadn’t been the name of the bad guy).  The stories could only be available online, on TV, or in theaters.  Choices, choices.  And these are just the choices we can see from the outside.  Internally, the development team made thousands of choices about how they would work, what tools they would use, etc that although behind-the-scenes, but still critically important.

As we approach the beta release of Remarkable Tributes, the breadth of these choices are becoming clearer.  We have long selected development platforms and key vendors, but continue to add tools and supplementary products to the business so that we might serve our clients and our customers.  We continue to refine features to make sure they provide the most benefit and allow you to do new things in new ways. 

So, perhaps one day another family will be able to have a discussion about how smart their computer is because they found Remarkable Tributes!

Blog Today, Book Tomorrow

I am a mother of two small children…three if you count this new business.  I am always finding parallels between life motherhood and entrepreneurship.  I figure that one day I will write a book about these similarities.  I might have to hire a ghost writer (maybe that lady who wrote the hilarious Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy), but all of the examples will be real.

Here are a few proposed chapter headings…

• It Takes Two to Tango: How all great ideas are mash-ups of other ideas
• Sharing the News: I’ll tell my boss about the business when I start to show
• Branding: Practicing yelling the brand from the back porch (or possibly “Branding-Branding-Bo-Fanding-Banana-fana-fo-fanding-Me-My-Mo-Manding-Branding.”)
• Trust in the Delivery Room: Finding the best vendors and partners
• Hormone-Induced Paranoia: Testing and retesting the business model
• Bed Rest: Maintaining momentum and urgency in times of lull
• Crawling Before We Walk: Teaching a business independence one army-crawl at a time
• Shower Games: How to launch the new business without silly games
• Your Baby Might Not Be Beautiful: How to take and use feedback without getting defensive
• Family Planning: What is your exit strategy or not

What do you think?  Any other chapters you’d suggest?

Adventures in Branding

Branding for a small business (who aspires to greatness) can be daunting.  On one hand you don’t want to think about it too much, as it can be distracting from the real business of building something worth buying.  That said, it is important and something I have spent some time this past month working on.

So, where does one start to create a brand.  In my case, the whole thing started when I misplaced the high resolution and source files for the Creative Outlet Labs logo (perhaps I confess too much) that a talented friend designed for me several years ago.  I started using the low-res version on www.CreativeOutletLabs.com and on www.isAbsolutelyRemarkable.com, while I searched for the files and even contemplating recreating it.

As a tangent, I love the idea of Creative Outlet Labs.  All of the business concepts that I have toyed around with have been in the creative space, thus the mention of Creative Outlet.  The Labs portion was a nod to technology (another pillar in my business ideas).  My vision is that Creative Outlet Labs would work to push out dozens of great ideas, businesses, applications, and can’t-live-without innovations over time, each of which might have their own identity.  From a branding perspective, the phrase Creative Outlet Labs has some serious limitations as a brand.  For one it is EXTREMELY long at 20 characters and is a bit of a tongue twister.  How you might want to break it up to fit it into a reasonably-sized logo make it look funny.  You put Outlet on its own line and it appears that we are advertising a discount store, for instance.  Perhaps it was destiny that lead me to lose those original logos.  It wasn’t meant to be.

So, work began on the “Remarkable” concept (now in serious development).  At first my thought was to downplay the “Remarkable” piece and put Creative Outlet Labs at the center, but now that I am up to my ears in development, designs are underway, and marketing plans are being fleshed out it became clear this was a bass-ackwards approach.  Demonstrating flexibility, I decided to turn 180-degrees and de-emphasize Creative Outlet Labs and focus on Remarkable for the new launch this Summer.  The company is still Creative Outlet Labs, but in the same way that a company called Obvious made Twitter (wait, they just changed the company name to Twitter Inc, so perhaps that is a poor example) or how the company 37Signals makes Basecamp (while they don’t even own the domain name Basecamp, which gives me hope).

Now, this lead me to all sorts of follow-on choices and decisions, some of which are agonizing and are indicative of the kinds of trade offs a small business makes.  I still have a little website that works great at www.CreativeOutletLabs.com.  At some point soon, I’ll be merging that content into the new site (I’ll leave you in suspense, although you link to Creative Outlet Labs will still work).  However, I can’t do that immediately as I don’t want to take focus off the main development activity to do something that would be temporary.

Furthermore, I have a super fun mini-tribute application that lives at www.IsAbsolutelyRemarkable.com that I plan to rebrand as well this Summer.  This is planned without any disruption in service, so keep sending those mini-tributes and sharing smiles!

I am still several weeks from unvieling the logo designs and plans, but I can tell you about the process to create the logo itself (the manifestation and distillation of the brand into a single image, pretty heady stuff).

I started with some brand characteristics (I know, how “corporate” of me).  These were some things that eventually I’d like the service to be known for.  I am not naive enough to think that I can will this to happen, but if I am purposeful about it, aligning design and decisions around these characteristics, perhaps one day these things will be attributed to me by my customers.  At least that is the concept. 

So, I started with a list of four characteristics (I’ll share those in another post, perhaps as I describe the kind of decisions they have been prompting me to make).  The designer took these, along with example logos that I liked, example logos that I didn’t like, and examples from others in the industry.  I even made a list of characteristics of a great logo that I have developed over the years (having lived through very bad branding efforts, world-class identity developments, and having worked in start-up environments where these decisions are made and for one of the most valueable brands in the world, all of which provided great learnings in this area).  If you are interested, I’ll share some of these brand concepts in a future post.  These formed a starting place for a great discussion and several rounds of back and forth concept design and “narrowing down.” 

We now have a logo that we’ll start using soon and are working on the corrolary items like color palettes, font treatments, and other design language that will drive the brand even further.  I know, perhaps these are only decisions that a marketeer can appreciate.  That said, I have been able to narrow down preferences and really reinforce and articulate the important aspects of the branding through this process.  As with other things, sometimes the journey is more important than the destination (although in this case the destination is very cool).

The whole process reminds me a lot of naming a child, actually.  There is a lot of pressure to do it right and it is only years down the road when you know you might have made a mistake.  Perhaps I should add this as a chapter to the book I may pen someday.  The working title for the book is “How Entrepreneurship is like Motherhood”  (more on that later).  I think I will call this chapter “Branding: Practicing yelling the brand from the back porch” or “Branding-Branding-Bo-Fanding-Banana-fana-fo-fanding-Me-My-Mo-Manding-Branding.”

Support the Troops

Although we absolutely, should provide support for troops fighting to protect and serve, but those aren’t really the troops I was talking about in this post.  I am thinking more about the crowds that will be using Remarkable Tributes once the system is live and how we might best provide support and encouragement to them.

I always find it extremely helpful when site include a searchable “Frequently Asked Questions” or online help system that allows me to solve my own problem.  I would rather not call or email for support, if the answer is easily found on my own.  I imagine I am not alone in this.

To this end, I have begun researching self-service systems for support.  With the growth of wiki technologies and crowd content tools, I see a great opportunity to find a cost effective solution that will fit the bill, but I need your help.  Have you used any Wiki tools that you’d recommend?  Have you used any commercial packages that you would recommend me investigating?

Below are some of the top features I am looking for:

1.  I’d rather pay moderate license fees to avoid having advertisements on the wiki or support site.  If people are looking for answers, I want them to be easy to find in a distraction-free environment.
2.  The service itself should be easy to set-up, attractive to view, with some ability to make it look like part of the site (in terms of templates, color palettes, integration with other site navigation)
3.  Clear ownership of the content I post there.
4.  Over time, I’d like to make this a community-supported thing where members help other members.  I know there are two schools of thought about this.  One school would say to implement approval and workflow controls to keep mistakes from being made (or inappropriate content from being uploaded, etc).   The other would say to allow free reign and make it easy for the community (and moderators) to correct mistakes.  Some say make every contributor/editor log in and “claim” their edits for more accountability (but I don’t want members to have to manage multiple log-ins to the site, which is something that really iritates me when it is required).
5.  I’d like the Wiki or solution to have a search feature of some kind, as I imagine the organization of content might be a little organic and not so structured.

I welcome your tactical or philosophical responses to any of the above.  I look forward to hearing your recommendations.

Perception is Reality

When I was in high school I was involved in competitive speech and debate, something I really enjoyed and was fairly good at.  I would often joke with my classmates and my coach that “perception is reality.”  If you appear confident, you will be perceived as more engaging.  If you dressed the part, you’d be taken more seriously.  If you walked in with file boxes of literature and research, you had immediate credibility.  You could help judges and competitors focus on your strengths by playing them up.  I find that this was an important lesson when I was sixteen, and is just as true today.

I recently wrote a post about the relationship between storytelling and branding.  In it, I pose the relationship between the reality of the product offering a company brings to market and the perception of the customers about how that product affects their lives.  In essence, all great brands leave their customers with a feeling – sense of being part of a larger story, movement, or idea.  Just like the file boxes make the debater more “serious” and “prepared,” so all products affect how individuals view themselves.  The perception of the brand in the mind of your customers, is in fact, the reality of what your brand stands for.

As we march towards the public release of the web application, Remarkable, I am challenged to define the few things that I want my customers to feel about themselves when they buy, use, and recommend the product to others.  Do I want them to feel technologically-saavy (not if that makes that application too difficult to use)?  Do I want them to feel thoughtful and connected to people in their lives?  Do I want them to feel organized and “with it”?  Do I want customers to feel creative (without overwhleming folks with options that detract from simplicity)?  How can the service itself make people feel proud to be associated with it?  So much so, that they want to use it again and again and recommend it to others.

It is these discussions that help drive the product design to focus on the things that are most important to the customer experience.  These decisions help reinforce the feelings of our customers.  I can’t wait for you to experience it and give me feedback first-hand.

Sign up for the beta (and encourage others folks you know and want to impress to do the same) and I guarantee you will feel like a part of an elite and exclusive group when this Summer I let you take an early peak at the application.

This cool picture is from Retinal Fetish on flickr.

I’m not taking one vote for granted

Here we are in the April and the campaign for the Presidential election in November is in full-swing.  I must admit that I am a bit apolitical.  I have opinions about things as everyone does, but this early in the race, I try not to pay much attention to who said what about whom.  It is exhausting and perhaps I take a page from Tim Ferriss’ when I choose to filter my news and media intake, so that I can focus on the things that I am passionate about and have time to do the things I want to do (although, for the record, it still takes significantly more than four hours a week).  That said, the nation is starting to narrow its focus on the upcoming vote (and this week I gave the DMV my new address so that I’d be able to participate and you should register, too).

I was reading a story in Danny Meyer’s excellent book, Setting the Table, about how Jeb Bush, then governor, called a restauranteer in Florida who had just opened a new location to give him a special number “just in case you need any roads moved or bridges built for your company.”  This story sent a message that the governor was not taking a vote for granted.  Danny went onto explain how this is the view that he takes with his customers as so much of his business depends on repeat visits to his New York City restaurants. 

I actually wish more businesses took this approach.  That they didn’t take my vote (or my order, my visit, my referral, etc) for granted.  I want Creative Outlet Labs to be the kind of company that creates raving fans and shows appreciation in new and unexpected ways.  Along this line, I’d love to hear your ideas on how we might do that as we approach the release of the web application later this Summer.  What are some things that other companies have done (or should have done in your opinion) to appreciate their customers?

The Best Job Ever!

Some girlfriends and I slipped away last weekend to a retreat where we could visit, reflect, and relax (and find some snow falling if you can believe it…in late April!).  At the retreat we played some games and in one a friend asked me what my favorite job of all time had been and why.  Without thinking about it much, I mentioned working for a software start-up early in my career.  There were tons of things I didn’t know, we weren’t terribly successful (all things considered and by benchmark standards), but, man, I will tell you that we had a lot of fun.  I don’t think I haven’t laughed so hard at work since those days.  Thanks to every colleague and customer who made that experience possible!

It could have been because the group and company was small (see a great post by the good folks at 37Signals about the concept of ten-groups, very provocative and right on the money in my experience).  It could have been because we were making creative software and selling it to schools.  It could be because I was learning so much and having fun stretching my professional muscles.  In any case, that is the position that came to mind.

Later, I was reflecting on my answer and thought that what I am doing with Creative Outlet Labs might be my favorite job ever.  After all, I am posting an article to the blog at 10:25 PM!  I am back learning, creating, and risking in new ways.  I so enjoy the creative process that I don’t consider it work and I have literally paid (instead of been paid) for the privilege of being involved in an inspiring project like this.  By all accounts and measures, this might be my favorite job.  The “job” of an entrepreneur.

I think the only job I would like more is to be the leader of a successful business.  I feel like I am on my way there and can’t wait and will someday soon be honored to invite a whole new group of customers (you!) to be a part of this journey.  Sign up for the beta to be a part.

What has been your all-time favorite job and why? 

Testing and More Testing

I apologize that things have been quiet on the posting front lately, but we have all been very busy in development and testing.  And testing.  And more testing.  Did I mention there was some testing involved?  It is great to get to know the application and I can’t wait to share it with you…but alas we haven’t done all the cool things we want to do yet, so it will be a few more months.

So, while we code, design, and test, sign up for the beta and encourage your friends and family to do the same.  Should be something remarkable!

#1 Tip for Spring Cleaning

 

As the weather turns warmer and the flower bloom, thoughts turn to cleaning up and cleaning out.  Clearing away the cobwebs and all unnecessary things to begin afresh.  A founder of Twitter wrote a great blog post that was worthy of repeating here.

Tip for cleaning out your closet

Don’t ask, “Can I imagine wearing this?”  Instead ask, “Can I imagine this ever being the best possible thing in my closet to wear?”  Works for other things, too.

So, as we are busy building Remarkable for you, I can’t help but think about this.  Rather than asking “Can I imagine anyone using this feature?” I should instead be asking “Can I imagine this being the best feature of this product and the reason people use it and tell their friends?”  If the answer to the second question is “no,” then it might not be worth the effort.  Trust me, early indications are that the application will be extremely useful in practical and surprising ways and will really make your life easier.  If not, then we are doing our part.

This unbelievable (but apparently true) photo is from sidewalk_story on Flickr.

A Beautiful Day

Today was a remarkably beautiful day in Portland, Oregon.  After several weeks of overcast coldness, Spring finally emerged into bright sunshine!  After dinner and gelato with the family, came back to alpha test and work on more details about Remarkable.

I ran across a quote today attributed to James Barrie that summed up today…”Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” 

I can’t tell you how much I am enjoying this phase of the process.  And I know it will be even more fun to have other people using the application to collaborate and celebrate in new ways.  The application is turning out to be very cool, the problems we are finding seem solvable, and I am reminded every day of the importance of what we are building.  It really isn’t work at all!

It All Starts With You

If you are interested in being part of our alpha test, or better yet, you have an occasion coming up in the life of someone you love that is worthy of celebrating, please let me know.   Unlike our upcoming beta test (sign up here), we are not releasing code access or allowing people outside our team to use these early versions, but parallel to that we are working on mastering the work flow and human processes that will be streamlined and automated with the new Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.

So, here is where I can use your help (and in plain English): if you are looking to celebrate a milestone birthday, graduation, retirement, or some other notable occasion with someone you love in the coming months and want to do something incredible for them (and you are willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement that you won’t tell all of our secrets before its time), I’d love to hear from you.  Email AlphaMe@CreativeOutletLabs.com with the details and hopefully we can work together on something remarkable for the someone in your life that is remarkable!

It Will Be What It Will Be

“There are two primary choices in life:  to accept conditions as they exist, or accpet the responsibility for changing them.” – Denis Waitley

I was reminded today of the oft repeated phrase, “It will be what it will be.”  It is meant to help people distinguish between those things they can effect or influence, and those things that are so far down the path that they can’t be changed.  It is a like the Serenity Prayer, but more appropriate for repeating around the workpalce, I guess. 

It also helps people face the truth.  Even if we don’t want something to be true, sometimes we have to admit that things are not as we intend or wish.  Armed with reality, we can identify what we need to do differently.  In program management, they call this identifying the “as is” state, so that the gaps between it and the “to be” state can be clearly defined.

Life is a constant striving towards the “to be” state.  The “as is” state is always changing.  This is the beauty and dynamic nature of life.  And of business.

The “to be” state is always in mind to an entrepreneur, but the “as is” state is equally important.  The tension between the two keeps things moving forward.

Test Patterns

This weekend, we started testing the Alpha version of Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.  After some initial browser compatibility issues that were resolved by weekend’s end, we were off.   Now, I can test my testing skills in a variety of methods.  Professional testers run scripts, do end-to-end and functional tests, and have statistical theory behind them.  Me, I take a more organic approach.

Here are my test patterns.  First, I check to make sure the features all work.  Like end-to-end testing, I try to walk through the application the way a real user would.  The test cases for this first release are pretty simple (after all we are starting in the epicenter and working outwards).  I capture bugs and enhancement ideas along the way in our handy-dandy tracking tool. 

I then start experimenting with the edges of the application.  How much text can I cram into a text field?  How big a file can be uploaded?  How complex can I make something before I can see the seams start to break?  This not only stresses the functionality to ensure that it will be able to survive in the wild, but it also allows us to test error handling.  How do we communicate to users of the software when things don’t go right?  Sometimes that is just as important as encouraging them when things are going well and they are using the application precisely how it was designed to be utilized.

As I go through, I am thinking of ways to make it easier, better, or faster for our eventual customers (you!).  This leads to some good ideas and some crazy, off-the-wall, and downright bad ideas as well.  No matter, I capture them all in our tracking tool so that we can rule them out (or refine them) later.  More ideas lead to better ideas, I think.

I am very excited about the early results of this testing.  Not only is it meeting the functional requirements we outlined, but I think we are on to some VERY innovative and insanely simple features that will make your life easier.  After all, I can see how they’d make my life easier.

While testing continues, we are heads down fixing issues that arise and working on the second Alpha release.  I can’t wait to see how the next phase goes. Stay tuned for more updates.

SomeoneYouKnow.IsRemarkable.com…Elton John

Happy Birthday, Sir Elton.  He is 61 years old today.  He is several time zones ahead of me, so I guess this is officially a belated birthday message. 

I think it is interesting that his first single to hit big on the US charts (a year after his debut album in 1969) was “Your Song.”  Because his performance style (and other songs of this period) were so flamboyant and energetic, it would seem strange that this subdued and tender song would be his first hit in the States.

I guess it goes to show that if you are Remarkable, people take notice.  If you know someone who is remarkable, let me know and we can feature them here on this blog.  Or you can take matters into your own hands and send them a mini-tribute at www.isAbsolutelyRemarkable.com.

Rock on!

The Year of the Million Smiles

We are nearly 3 months into the new year and we are tracking nicely towards sending a million smiles through mini-tributes.  As you may recall, you can send a free mini-tribute at www.isAbsolutelyRemarkable.com.  You personalize it with your recipients name and they are sent an invitation to view their personal greeting.  It is sure to bring a smile to their face!

Here are what people are saying about these mini-tributes:

• “That just made my day! In fact, it put a smile on my face that I am sure will last all weekend.”
• “Here is a little Monday morning pick-me-up for you.”
• “How did you get my name in there?  How cool is that.  Loved it!”
• “That is the slickest thing I have seen.  I sent it to three other people.  Thanks so much!”

If you haven’t done it yet, sent a free mini-tribute today and help us spread the word!  They are a great alternative to e-cards for birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, or thank yous.  Before the year is out, I believe we can send 1 million smiles!

My Other Blog is a Ferrari

Have you ever seen those license plate covers that say “My other car is a Porsche” or something similar?  They are usually attached to older Hondas or an El Camino.  When I sat down to remind you all that I maintain another blog at http://jenniferbdavis.blogspot.com, for some reason those license plates covers came to mind.

My other blog isn’t an exotic sportscar (sadly), but there are some interesting things out there and I encourage you to check it out (or better yet, point your RSS reader to it so that you will see new posts).  I have been posting quite a bit there recently and have a long, healthy queue of other ideas, observations, and products to talk about in the coming weeks and months.  If you like learning about new innovations, the impact of design on business, the proliferation of customized products, or personal development, check it out!

Nothing Happens Automagically

After a brief hiatus (due, if you must know, to a relocation, several family emergencies, and general life upheaval), I am back in the blogging business.  I do wish that WordPress (or someone) would write an application that would “automagically” post whenever I thought of things that might be of interest.  While mind reading is still sci-fi fiction, I have enjoyed Twittering away and encourage you to follow me there (Twitter, as a micro-blog, probably being the closest thing to automagic, which ironically is a term I read for the first time in a Twitter post earlier this week).  I really do hope you missed the blog posts and the updates on the development of Remarkable.

So, on that topic, we have been working diligently on building out the application and are nearing a critical alpha milestone.  For those of you unfamiliar with software development methodologies, most have stages of development during which critical foundational code is written, but only used internally.  This stage is called alpha.  It is usually not in the final user interface (a $20 phrase that means things like how the software looks, how people would click around to do things, and the colors, font styles, and button treatments used).  It is usually pretty unreliable, but is a way to start testing and building out the core functionality. 

With the development of agile philosophies for programming and a “nothing beats real code” attitude, the alpha phases of development are getting shorter.   Even the alpha phase can have several sub-phases as you anticipate changes and iterations throughout the project.  Ours will be several months in total (hate to publicly commit at this point) before we turn our attention to the beta phase which comes next.

Beta is a word that has gotten a little skewed (or expanded, rather) lately as many companies have public, “all comer” beta periods that last a year or more.  In most companies, beta is reserved for either a select group of testers or product champions who can use the real application (usually still with some final tweaks and adjustments to be made) and provide feedback.  Usually beta releases are feature complete and try to represent, as best as possible, the real user experience.  Beta phases also allow a forum for testing pricing, promotions, and for getting the word out about the coming application.  If you haven’t yet registered to receive an invitation to participate in our beta , click here and sign up.

Eventually, you call the application “production” and the beta is complete (you never call it “done,” of course, as you always have ideas and things you can do to improve).  In my days of working in packaged software, we’d do the final release sign-offs and exclaim “ship it!”  With this web application, it is just a matter of pushing the code live.  Now that I think about it, I will probably still yell “ship it” when we get to that point, as “push it” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

Yes, development is going well even though we are in the early stages.  Thanks for asking!  I am sure we all wish that the process of developing software, just like blog posts, could happen automagically, but alas…our hard work will be your gain when Remarkable is ready for you to use. 

Wanted: The Top 1%

I posted about the 80/20 rule and the impact that this principle can have on personal productivity.  Daniel Snell had an interesting comment that lead me on a little research project (thank you, Daniel).  What is the break-out between those who consume content on the web and those who create it?  Is it 80/20?

 Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, authors of Citizen Marketers and Creating Customer Evangelists (with Guy Kawasaki), believe the percentage to be very skewed, more like 99/1.  They contend that 1% of site visitors will create content within a democratized community.  Others like Bradley Horowitz (as of February 14th, formerly of Yahoo) contend that 10% of folks interact with or synethizes content.

The impact on these statistics can be quite profound, especially for a business whose product is primarily accessed online and for which there is a social network and democratic element.  It certainly raises the stakes about how good the application and concept has to be.  Not only does it have to be better than any reasonable competition, it has to fight with the distraction and busy-ness of people’s lives to get attention, and then when all of that is done…it has to find a 1% person (okay, perhaps a 10% person, but you know what I mean).  The kind of person that wants to create.  Wants to connect.  The 1% person.

 As a start-up business, I do hope that we find our usage rates above the 1% or even 10% range.  I will be interested to report on this as the business takes off and all of you have a chance to try it out.  If you haven’t already, sign up for a private beta in the coming months and declare yourself part of the 1%!

My Favorite Number

It may be a bit silly, but 16 has always been my favorite number.  Perhaps it was because I was raised on Disney heroines who always seemed to start their adventures at sixteen.  Whatever the reason, I always knew I liked the number, but now I have a new reason why.

 In Richard Koch’s book The 80/20 Individual, he discusses Pareto’s famous 80/20 rule.  You may recall this concept that states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  It applies to good things like 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the customers or 20% of the products. It also applies to things like 80% of crimes are caused by 20% of the criminals.  Although the actual percentages will be different, the principle is the same.  There are a critical few that make all the difference.  In this book, he applies the principle to individual performance and says that by focusing on our own critical few talents and abilities, we can accomplish more.

So, what does that have to do with 16?  Let’s do the math.  If the vital group of 20% produces 80% of the results, that is a 1:4 ratio.  In contrast, if the “trivial group” consists of 80% of the people, but 20% of the results, the ratio is 4:1.  The difference between these is 16.  Essentially, the vital group accomplishes 16 times more than the trivial group in any particular measure.

 I have written about this in the past and will be spending more time exploring the concept of strengths-based focus in coming issues.  After all, it is what makes you remarkable!