Toluu

Go Big Always

Social Business isn’t going anywhere. (What’s it for?)June 13

Technology is about expansion. And when new technology is introduced, it doesn’t go away. It stays. Some tech is meaningful for huge amounts of people. Some for just a few. All new technology finds it’s way along that spectrum.

It’s pretty easy to spot tech that will be widespread vs specialized. A hammer is immediately big. A Doctor’s hammer, immediately small. Both are really valuable.

Unless you’ve lived it, it’s hard for most people to imagine just how desperate Enterprises are for something that saves them from cliche. It’s universally shitty being employee number 46,193. You quickly don’t care and you certainly don’t think you can change anything any more than you believe you can fix the government. It’s a globally understood, generalized pain that’s the very engine that drives Dilbert, The Office, and countless satire everywhere. The truth is, worker bees, managers and execs are bored reaching for the same tools the last 15 years. They’re sick of waking up and going into a real-world scenario filled with TPS Reports and the guy with the red Swingline stapler. They’re sick of being productivity integrators in

The Magik Quadrant from a customer’s perspectiveApril 14

Founder’s Perception

Imagine yourself looking through an electron microscope. See all the enormous and breathtaking micro-landscapes? Now imagine that you believe these landscapes are planets and you’re the ruler (this land is your land). It’s pretty clear that if anyone else can’t see how different you are, then well…something’s wrong with them. Right?

Analyst’s Perception

Now imagine that Founders from across the galaxy invite you to their planet. So, you sit on their couch. Maybe, eat a carrot stick from the grocery platter they bought just for you. Some vacuumed. Others Febreezed. Many just have underwear strewn dorm-room style. Regardless, they put on a slideshow and you grade it based on your handy checklist. At least you get to look around for yourself and issue a report back to the other planet rulers.

Customer’s Perception

You’re busy. Like, really busy. Someone tells you that you should look at the sky. You glance up, see a lot of stars and wonder what the big deal is all about.

Going Big as a Company of One (ish)April 13

Goodbye Blackbox.

Exactly as has been reported, I’ve left Blackbox Republic as of February this year. It was a fantastic, bumpy ride and my first time building a company from absolute zero. Ultimately, I discovered I had conflicting ideas and expectations from those of our Angel investors’. Because of this, I self-elected to step down and hand the company over to different management so they could deliver something aligned more closely with what the investor’s want. So, the company continues, just without my involvement.

Hello World.

As it goes, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do next. I’ve decided to stay independent.

At some point in your life you learn what you’re good at and what you’re not. After having worked in software, hardware and media startups-to-F500 companies with Marketing, Ops, Biz Dev, Sales and CEO gigs, I’ve got both the muscle and scar tissue to know exactly how to generate value. How to intelligently breakthrough. How to manufacture growth.

So, I’ve opened a work/live space in San Francisco and will spend my time between there and Portland. I’ve begun talking to several interesting companies about advising in a variety of capacities. I’ve had coffee at Blue Bottle and hit a few places for gir

State Farm won’t underwrite social software?November 17 2009

State Farm doesn’t want to connect people.

We got this letter from State Farm today. They proactively canceled our policy out of nowhere with the explanation that:

State Farm does not write businesses that develop social software that allow people to meet online.  The size and scope of the operation does not meet our underwriting quidelines

It’s hard for me to believe that State Farm wouldn’t underwrite Facebook, Twitter or any of the bajillions of consumer and business-facing companies making or using social software.

That said, here’s the rejection letter we got from them today. I know that they’re on Twitter as @statefarm. Wonder if their underwriters know. So much for being “like a good neighbor.”

Numbers we track in our online/offline lifeAugust 25 2009

The antiquated, “eyeball” media model is screwing with our online behavior.

I had a fun brainstorming session recently with Pierre Omidyar (@pierre). One of the things we talked about was how social software’s design has impacted how we behave online. The metrics companies choose to put in front of us are really meaningful since people optimize their behavior around those numbers.

In the consumer space–because most companies decide to follow Google into “free” land– they fall trap to optimizing for the dusty, century-old media business model: get a ton of viral, sticky eyeballs, then sell ad space.

Number of friends, is the metric on big kitchen sink networks like Facebook, Myspace, etc. On Twitter it’s number of followers. And you can see the resulting behavior every day. As soon as someone joins Facebook, it’s a race to add as many friends to cart as possible to get that number up. Just look at Follow Friday. There are even applications developed to help you game your Follower numbers, so you can quickly achieve the status of 23,083 meaningless followers.

Here’s why Friending and Following doesn