It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on April 23, 1910

Poli talk....it tis the season

For Romney to win he must...

It now falls to Mitt Romney to explain how he would be more Clinton than the man Clinton has urged his followers to support.  

- Says Mr. Stelzer from the weekly standard. 

Startups require perseverance

Here is a great post  on recognizing successful companies and products take time and failures before they succeed. Belief, faith and a little insanity allows for success!

Why be an entrepreneur?

Brad Feld had a great post. In it was a line that really hit home for me,

The entrepreneurial lifestyle actually seems like a sustainable one. This opportunity has helped me realize that the life of an entrepreneur can be accomplished simply by merging the things you love with what you are good at.

The challenger accident could have been avoided

A great story on NPR - remembering the engineer who tried to stop the Challenger accident. The lesson is make sure people feel they can always voice there opinion. For leadership, listen to the people who you hire. 

Listen to it here:

Wireless Headphones for running

I do a ton of athletics. It keeps me sane. Truly it is more for the brain than the body. I am always trying new products. Recently I purchased a bluetooth wireless headset. I hate the chords from a wired headset while running and doing sports. Especially if you want to shoot baskets and listen to music in a gym, the chord simply irritates my play. I purchased a Gogroove headset:

  It is a pretty nice device. It synced with my iphone 4 in seconds. Literally just hold down the power button until it flashes while looking at your bluetooth list on your iphone. It is extremely stable on my head. I ran 4 miles with it -- without it falling off once. My only gripe with it so far is that it is so snug that it hurts my head behind my ears after about 25 minutes of wearing it. I wish they would put some soft cushion back there to keep it comfy.

I also purchased an iphone arm band to carry my phone while running. I have skinny arms, so finding one that works was a challenge. The Tunebelt sport armband works great. It is snug and fits my iphone even with my thin case on it. The only problem with this carrier is that the top is open, so if it rains it may not protect the device perfectly. So far this set up has been a blessing. No more trying to find a place for the iphone, no chords and loads of tunes to keep me motivated.

Music Industry - Killing innovation

A great article on how deals get done with music labels.

The only solution going forward is for music services like Spotify to sign up bands directly. Good luck with that.....

This is one of my favorite Steve Jobs speeches. May his memory be for a blessing. Truly a great man, entrepreneur and role model.

The only way to do great work, is to do what you love. - Steve Jobs

What does it mean to be an American?

Ten years after 9/11 -- I am like many Americans and reflective on where I was ten years ago, and how that event (experience) has shaped both the world I live in and who I I am.

Recently I was lucky enough to be introduced to Leon and Amy Kass. Their current work written with co-editor Diana Schaub, is titled What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song. In there words:

It seeks to exploit the soul-shaping power of imaginative literature to help make Americans more appreciatively and deeply aware of who they are as citizens of the United States.

 In my view it takes some of the best literature from America's past including songs, poems speeches etc....and helps someone truly understand the past that has formed our present.  I found it inspiring and beleive the more people who engage in the book and their broader project the better our country will become. For more information check out www.whatsoproudlywehail.org. 

startupquote:

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

- Michael Dell

Treating all your customers the same?

A few months back, I attended a spectacular conference in NYC called The Daily Deal Summit. It was the first ever conference about the daily deal space. Here are some of the comments I heard from attending the sessions or speaking with attendee's that resonated with me. 

Treating all your customers the same is not what the Internet is about. Delight your customers through personalization. Respect them as actual people who have actual interests.

Regarding Email Marketing:

"Consumer centric marketing must obliterate campaign centric marketing. In fact campaign centric should just  go away."

My big take away that is still with me months after the conference:

The ability to access relevant data sets about an individual and an audience has become readily available to almost any advertiser. This allows a marketer to target more effectively to generate stronger returns for less investment. However, this access comes with a giant responsibility. As an advertiser the obligation to respect privacy but deliver relevant desirable content continues to become more difficult to discern. The daily deal space is perhaps the most obvious current manifestation of this problem. The problem is not going to disappear, in fact it is going to become even more difficult to discern. Hopefully the opt in and choice controls for the consumers receiving the adver-content (advertising and content together) will evolve as rapidly as the access to their information. 

P2P Browser for Mobile

I think the next generation browser needs to think about mobile users. The number of sessions happening on a mobile device using a browser is increasing beyond desktop or standard laptop uses at an incredible pace. However, mobile users on an iphone, droid, tablet, etc...are a slave to their network connections.

WiFi may solve some of this, but in the US getting on a good wifi signal while driving in a car is impossible. Even just going around NYC can be a major challenge. I wonder if developing technology that functions like the spotify technology does for songs would work on a browser. Clearly cache and updated images, account info are tough challenges, but if you can think it, it has a possibility. Hoping a combo of browser tools, apps, wifi, and simple switching between 4G can solve the nasty latency in browser speed on mobile.  

Sharing Music

A good article by Mossberg on Amazon, Apple, and Google coming out with cloud music services. Got me thinking though. The real issue with music is sharing. Why cant the labels agree to a nominal payment like a "car share" with songs? That could be amazing!

This video is absolutely spectacular.

Paul Simon Live....wow...@beacon with incredible SGF and HG

NY State Is a Hurting Start-Ups and Small Business

I run a small business in NYC. This is my 5th or 6th small business to either start or work in from a very early date of inception. I have never had to create the company in NY. However, we chose as a team to hire specifically NY talent (by the way is incredibly talented) which meant we needed to be a NY company with NY payroll, and labor requirements etc....We begain this process in the early part of 2011. I have received a letter a week requiring some amount of paper work. When you are building a start up you do not have time for paper work. Almost all of the paper work seems incredibly wasteful. I think of the over 15 letters I have received requireing a signature, a form, a fax etc.....only two seemed useful. When I have registered companies in other states you see two lettes a year and thats it folks. Why is NY trying to make life so difficult for start ups?

How to retrieve WiFi password on Mac Leapord

I get asked a lot of tech questions by family and friends. It is funny, since I am a philosophy major woirking in the new media space. Somehow I am the "tech expert"....I was asked this today and thought I would share it here.....

If you ever need to get a wifi password you saved in your keychain on a mac running leopard 10.5 or higher here is what you do:

Go to: 1. Applications 2. Click on Utilities Folder 3. Click on Keychain Access 4. It opens a window where one of the options on the top left to choose is System. Click that. (It defaults to login when you first open the application) 5. Find the SSID (name of the wifi network) of password that I was trying to recover and double-click 6. Select the Show Password checkbox 7. Enter your admin password.

You should now see the password you wanted.