Jared Featured on Grand Canyon University’s Facebook Page
My alma mater, Grand Canyon University, asked me to talk about my experience during the Executive MBA program and featured it on their Facebook Page, the result is the first video below. The second video talks more about the program - and I have a non-speaking role in that video. The Executive MBA prorgam is a great program that I highly recommend. Find out more here: http://emba.gcu.edu/.
Twitter Stomps on 3rd Party Tool Community (Was it inevitable?)
This week it was revealed that Twitter was going to release its own url shortener. This news comes on the back of Twitter acquiring the iPhone Twitter app Tweetie (along with the company behind it). These two stories together represent Twitter essentially turning its back on the 3rd party tool community that has helped turn Twitter in to the success it is today. After all, can you imagine Twitter without mobile apps and Tweetdeck?
But was this inevitable? Should we all have been so foolish to think this was not going to happen.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I am sure the owners of Atebits (the maker of Tweetie) have no hard feelings about it - since they are benefiting (to the tune of $ millions).
Twitter in essence made a brilliant business play. They developed a cool new micro-blogging platform and quickly released an extensive API that allowed a myriad of 3rd party developers to create a virtual industry around creating apps that interact with Twitter. Then they just sit back and wait. The community voted with their usage of the best and most wanted apps - and then Twitter can either acquire them, or build it themselves.
From a business perspective this is brilliant, from a 3rd party app developer standpoint - it sucks. There is no way around it. Hundreds of us spent many months, some years, developing software that Twitter can (and did) render irrelevant in a day.
We knew this was coming. So why did I push forward with the development of br.st?
1. Business is a risk, and developing 3rd party tools is always an even bigger risk due to its dependence on the main party's software/business. Getting out of bed in the morning is a risk. You have to take risks.
2. No one knew what direction Twitter was going to go. If they would have taken a different direction it could have benefited us.
3. There was always that possibility they could have chosen br.st to purchase or another company could have purchased br.st.
4. In the still unproven world of social media, it is anyone's guess what business software strategy will work. For example, did anyone think that Facebook would unseat the once king of the hill MySpace.
5. We could afford to take the risk. Brinkster (the parent company), is a long established solid company that could afford to take the risk of spending several months trying its hand at social media.
I feel bad for all the companies and people that based their entire existence around Twitter. My best advice is to try again, keep taking risks. Your idea could be the next Farmville app for Facebook (60+ million) users or it could go the way of Friendster.
In the end we have focused back on our core compitencies and learned several lessons. And we will keep moving forward...
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
Leadership and the Bottom Line Seminar Jan 13 in Phoenix
I will be on a panel with other executives at the Leadership and the Bottom Line Seminar on January 13th. My alma mater Grand Canyon University is sponsoring the event with the National Bank of Arizona. There are two sessions, on from 8am-10am and another from 5pm-7pm. See the flyer below.
Some inside scoop --
- You will get a free book for attending.
- The free book features me, Jared Stauffer, in a small but significant way.
- Doug Hoxeng, author of The Business Case for Servant Leadership, is an awesome guy that you will love to meet.
- Free food in the morning and wine in the evening!
- This event might change your life.
Ok so not all of that was "inside" scoop. But seriously, if you are a leader, you should attend this event. The KBEMBA (Ken Blanchard Executive MBA) program had a tremendous impact on my life and my company and it can do the same for you. This is a great opportunity to come and hear about servant leadership - a central theme of the KBEMBA.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
Welcome to the New AOL and More Missed Opportunities
Today AOL revealed its newly redesigned homepage (newly skinned really). This was to coincide with the formal spinning off from old parent company Time Warner. AOL's new homepage allows you to choose which bad design you to see in the background as you wade through all the content on the page.
This is the first news I can remember coming out about AOL in awhile and I found myself asking, "What is AOL? What are they offering? Do they still sell Internet access?" (I still don't know the answer to that last question...)
AOL is now pushing to be a content destination, or what we used to call portals. You may be surprised to find out that AOL actually has the fourth largest network of websites in the U.S. with 98 million unique users, according to ComScore. Their plan is to be the most unique content producer on the net - meaning that of the news they showcase they want to generate most of it themselves (currently 80%). And they believe that this will be attractive to advertisers and make them want to place more ads with them.
My Take
I think that AOL lost its way when it was purchased by Time Warner. AOL also chose to not capitalize on its subscriber base over and over again. As broadband quickly started taking hold in the later 1990's and early 2000's AOL continued to push its dial-up Internet service and pursue its ambitions to be a content-based Internet portal.
The problem with this strategy is that everyone was switching from painful dial-up to high-speed Internet connections. And at the same time AOL went from 30 million users to less than 10 million today. Actually is is surprising that they still have that many subscribers.
"they forgot what drove their success in the first place: innovation"
Here is where AOL missed the boat: they forgot what drove their success in the first place: innovation. Why did we all use AOL years ago in the first place? Because it was new, innovative, and it gave us something you couldn't get anywhere else.
By the late 1990's AOL started to fall behind, focusing on its proprietary software while the Internet and Google left them behind. AOL had enormous resources and instead of merging with Time Warner it should have bought Cable TV companies or Telecom companies. The focus should have been first on the technology and second on the content - instead they focused soley on content.
What should AOL be doing?
1. Capitalize on resources. AOL still has millions of subscribers, almost 100 million unique visitors to its network of websites, millions of AIM users, and thousands of employees. All of this is still significant and can be leveraged to do #2.
2. Develop something innovative. Think Google Wave, Twitter, or connecting AIM, AOL email, search and social media. AOL essentially had a "Facebook" back in the 1990's - most people used it at the time - they just stopped innovating.
3. Think and rely on more than just ad revenue for the future. Amazon has done a great job leveraging its assets to offer cloud hosting services. AOL had/has a huge worldwide network that could/should be leveraged to offer the ultimate in cloud computing and global load balancing services.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
The Downside of Being Ethical
Doing the right thing is usually not the easiest thing to do. This is no secret, but when you go through a situation where you make the right decision and get heck for it... it reminds you of how difficult it can be.
We are running a giveaway at br.st, our web-based Twitter client. We were a little disappointed with the press coverage we got at launch in mid-November. So we decided to do a giveaway to spread the word. It was always our hope that the people who won each giveaway would have a lot of followers, but the way we chose to pick the winners was by random drawing.
The first three Wii giveaways went to people with a low number of followers, but it wasn't until the first Mac giveaway on Friday that we started to get heat for the winner. Again we did a random drawing and the winner again had a low number of followers and was a low use account.
No one wanted the winner of our first big giveaway, a MacBook Pro, to go to someone who had a large number of followers more than us. At this point we had to make an ethical decision, but there was only one way go on this one.
So we announced the winner and almost immediately started catching heat, but we knew we made the right decision.
The Downside
- You can't game the outcome.
- Some people may not like you.
- People may criticize, ridicule, or make stuff up about you.
- You may question yourself.
The Upside
- Your conscience is clear.
- You don't have to make up other stuff to cover up your first lie / unethical decision.
- At least you / your company are getting talked about. Bad press = good press ??
How did we deal with it?
So now we knew we made the right decision and were catching flack for it. How did we handle it?
Don't take it personally. As much as it pained me to read people tweet that they thought we were running a scam or giving it to ourselves, I had to not take it personally and react from this offense.
Defend yourself, but only to a point. We reacted to the criticism with tweets and a blog post. But we had to leave it at that. You have to pick a point to stop reacting because at times a continued defense only emboldens the offense and it is difficult to not let it get personal.
Listen to the reasonable critiques, ignore the harsh stuff. The reasonable critiques will give you valuable information on how you can improve, but the harsh comments just need to be ignored.
The reality is that people will always find something to criticize about you. Remember this, if you are being criticized it means you showed up, you tried, you gave it a go - a lot of people don't even try.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
This Company Run By Real Humans
Most companies have people working at them, but how many companies have people that are truly engaged?
At my company, Brinkster - a web hosting co, we talk to hundreds of people a day through our live chat support system. Live chat is the single best thing to come to customer support since the dawn of the Internet. It allows almost instant answers to customers problems.
At the end of each live chat session our customers are asked to answer a quick survey about there experience. A few days ago a customer had this to say...
"Louise is a one woman customer service wrecking machine. She is taking travesties and turning them into sunshine... all with the click of a mouse and a wonderful spirit of care and compassion. Much thanks and appreciation!
"
In today's world where everything has a shortcut and a way around it, it can sometimes feel that robots are running the companies that we do business with instead of real people. By providing real service, from real people, solving real problems without cookie cutter solutions customers will feel that they are truly valued. And when customers feel truly valued they will become a live advertisement by simply sharing their experience.
I believe that in today's world we are seeing a shifting of the pendulum in many different areas. Customer service is one of them. As people have less money to spend and are a lot more picky about where they spend it, they are starting to choose companies that are run by real humans.
- Jared (Follow me on Twitter - @JaredStauffer)
Google Chrome OS Unveiled and Why This is Good News
In a press conference today Google released what they are calling the new Google Chrome OS (Operating System). Basically everything, all program you might want to run, all live within the Chrome web browser. This is good and bad. Google says this is good because you don't have to worry about all those annoying software updates you have to do with Windows and Mac OS. I say it is bad or different because although there are some awesome websites on the web, it still does not 100% compare to my desktop experience.
A few cool things about Chrome OS:
- It is supposed to take 7 seconds or less to load it up (from power button to typing in your login info).
- Simple Look and Feel - with tabs along top and everything done in a web browser format.
- No updating software, since it all runs from the Internet (and updates automatically).
- Ease of use (in theory) - there are these new things called "in place panels" that let you use things like instant message clients easily from small popup windows on the bottom of your screen.
My Take
A recurring theme you will hear from me is competition is always good - and this is the same in this case. Google coming out with an OS only drives Microsoft and Apple to improve their own OS's. If there was no competition there would be little motivation for Microsoft to fix problems and innovate (other than trying to minimize the myriad of complaints and nullify those now annoying PC vs. Mac commercials).
Another reason this is good is that variety of choice is a good thing. Your work desktop may work best with Windows, but your notebook computer for on the road use may work better on Chrome OS. I know that some people like having a Windows PC, Windows CE on their phone, Windows Media Computer, and XBox - and there is something to be said for continuity. However, I enjoy having a Windows PC at work, my Apple iPhone, AppleTV, etc. I believe in continuity in groups when it works well, like iPods for music, iTunes, and AppleTV all working together. I think you get my point.
Read Google's Official Blog with the announcement and what Mashable, TechCrunch, and Electronista had to say about it.
Chrome OS Videos
Here are some good videos about the new Chrome OS, starting with the most basic and easy to understand and progressing to the more technical.
Healthcare Reform and How it Impacts Small Business
Yesterday I talked with two small business owners, a small retail shop and a landscaper, about healthcare reform.
With the economy still experiencing recession like conditions most small business owners are just trying to survive, the two owners I talked with were no different. The retail shop owner is in a good position because she resells mostly used items, which attracts people in the current economy. The landscaper is in a tougher position as he has had to bid on work out of state to find jobs.
They both expressed concern about the same thing. How are small businesses going to afford to pay for health insurance for low level / entry level employees? They also both came to the same conclusion: they would have to lay off staff.
Everyone knows that we need health care reform, but shifting costs to small businesses that are barely surviving is not the answer. A better solution would be to address fraud, reform laws allowing complete and open cross state competition, and tort reform. Then as health insurance costs are brought down more people could afford to purchase it in the first place, and larger "pools" of people across state lines would equal lower premiums.
Why don't we do healthcare reform a little at a time? We did not get in this position overnight, it is unlikely to be fixed correctly overnight.