One of the distinctions discussed in the Landmark Advanced Course is one of Agreements. These aren’t agreements that you sign like contracts, these are social agreements on how the majority agrees to act around certain issues. Some of the most notable social Agreements that have changed over time are how we as a society agree to treat women, Black, and gay people. These shifts affect our lives, our businesses, our entrepreneurial endeavors whether we are consciously aware of them or not.
Not too long ago women did not have the right to vote or were not easily able to work outside of the home. If they did try to work outside of the home, they were also expected to keep the home front in complete order. If you transported a man or woman out of the 1950’s to today, they would be shocked at the amount of freedom women have thanks to the women’s movement. They also might be surprised how day care, store hours, and business flex time schedules have changed to accommodate working women.
Same goes for Black people and gay people. Not too long ago Black people couldn’t drink from the same water fountains, use the same bathrooms, or eat at the same restaurants as White people. Not too long ago it was taboo to be gay. It was considered an abomination, a sin and in many places it still is, but no one can argue that the perception has shifted. If you watch TV or see the movies, gay people are showing up everywhere! Mixed race couples were also frowned upon and yet now you see many more mixed couples (race, religion, ethnicity).
So much has changed and it’s because of the people (entrepreneurs, change agents) who took it upon themselves to help make the shift. The interesting and ironic thing is that the people who tended to resist the shift the most early on are the people who were afraid of changing what they felt was the ‘right’ lifestyle. Some of the biggest resistors to the women’s movement were women! Women who were happy (or told they should be happy) living the stay-at-home-with-kids lifestyle looked down on the women who wanted to work and be treated as equals. I saw an Oprah show once where a stay at home mom actually said she felt that women who chose to work loved their children less than those who chose to stay at home!
In other parts of the world, where horrible practices like foot binding in China or female circumcision in certain African tribes occurred, the older women were the ones fighting the hardest not to change the practices because in some strange way they found comfort in familiarity and felt if they had to go through it why shouldn’t the next generation?! The psychology behind these extreme behaviors is mind boggling, but we humans are creatures of habit.
The uneducated Black people were among the many who would by their behavior hold back other Black people from a well deserved education and prosperity. I dare say there were many closet gay people who often fought against gay rights because it might expose them.
Agreements shift in business as well. What one generation thinks is OK in business, the other does not or they modify the agreements slightly to make things work for them. I believe we are living in part of a shift right now in thinking on how things should operate on Wall Street and on the US Capitol Hill.
The shifters consist of entrepreneurs, politicians, and well known leaders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Gloria Steinham, Carly Fiorini, Indra Nooyi, Indira Ghandi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike (first female priminister in the world who happened to be from Sri Lanka – where I was born), the Pope, and all the change agents whose names we may never know but who have a profound affect on their businesses/communities which in turn affects cities, countries, and the world. [Yes, that sentence was way too long!]
These shifters see something in society that is missing or needs to be changed (from technology to social policy) and they begin the shift…most likely not even realizing the role they are playing at the time in making the sift. Big shifts take time. Some are good shifts and some are bad, but they happen nonetheless. I’ve started thinking about the shifts we are making as a society and here is what I see:
Parenting – shifting from the primary caregiver being the mother to shared care between mother and father. I have a handful of women friends whose husbands stay at home while they provide financially for the family. This is a huge change from even our parents generation where that didn’t or very rarely happened. Most of our fathers barely changed a diaper! Even my company Babble Soft might be contributing to a shift in how we take care of our newborns when we no longer have the same nearby family support structure and need to know more about how our baby is progressing for doctor visits. It seems that we are still early in this shift, but it’s happening.
Job Changing – In our parents and grandparents generation it was not uncommon for someone to hold a job with one company for 30 years! Nowadays most people change jobs within 2 to 7 years. I know in the technology field if you saw a resume where the person has spent more than 10 years at one place, you wonder about their ability to innovate.
Marriage – with divorce rates averaging 50% for first marriages, 67% for second, and 73% for third marriages it seems that we as a society are more accepting of this change in lifestyle than in the past generation where it was much rarer to get a divorce but people were tolerating the situation. People were living alternative lifestyles in private and now they are living them out loud in public. This is despite the increase in marriage counselors! I wonder if the marriage shift has any correlation to the job changing shift?
Technology/Communication – It’s acceptable (for the most part) to have a gadget (cell phone) attached to you at all times. How we all lived before cell phones and iPhones, is beyond me. It has created a shift in how we communicate (voice, email, twitter, text messaging) that is unprecedented. It has yet to be seen if this is good for humanity in the long run but we seem to be heading towards an ‘always connected’ society.
Medicine – We’ve seen a shift from non-profit based medicine to for-profit based medicine which has led to some great innovations in the medical field but also to movement away from what is best for each patient/the system and towards what seems to be the best for the lawyers. 🙂
Elder Care – Only a generation ago, it was common for aging parents to live with their children but now it’s more common for them to go to a retirement community, an assisted living place, or elder care facility in at least the American culture.
These are just some of the shifts I see. Do you see these shifts too? I wonder how they are going to effect business, entrepreneurship, our day to day lives 5, 10, 25, 50 years out. I wonder how our children will react to living through these shifts. I’d love to read your thoughts in the comment section below.
Yes, I was feeling kind of pathetic since I’m sort of a mommy blogger and Dooce is the top mommy blogger on the planet making reportedly up to $500K per year from her blog. I am grateful that Laura took an interest in what I was trying to do with Babble Soft and asked me if I knew about it. And my lame excuse is I’m doing way too much, have two kids, thankfully no pets, and I haven’t found a way to get her blog to come to me in email form like the other blogs I read. Believe me I have tried several times to figure out how to get her blog in email…I’m going to blame it on the proverbial ‘mommy brain syndrome.’
I almost didn’t make it because our son has been home sick the last couple of days. I was thinking about taking him and our daughter with me and I am SO glad I didn’t. Fortunately their dad was able to rearrange his schedule to watch them. It would not have been fun at all because they would have lost their patience and my son would have been worn out in say 20 minutes.
Heather is an awesome and hilarious writer! She curses profusely, swears, and talks about all the things people don’t talk about but should on the topic of motherhood and life. So I began tweeting about some of the things she was saying and reading from her book and here are some of the more colorful tweets (corrected for iPhone typing errors):
@dooce about to talk about sex after vaginal birth.
Took 7 months after baby born before they had sex. 6 weeks is bs. Says @dooce
Her vagina was ready after she wore a tampax and her husband wrote a thank you letter to them.
Then @dooce says she got a urinary tract infection.
@dooce now talking about her dog called Satan and when they took the dog coco hunting.
All of a sudden I started getting tweets and direct messages on twitter asking what was going on with me. A few people thought my account was hacked since the tweets were very out of character for me. I was sure I had lost some followers, but I think I actually gained a few.
I’m so glad I went! I met her husband Jon (@blurb on twitter) and chatting with him for a while. He is on tour with her and manages the back end of her website. He was so cute and funny about how he took pictures of her and then sat in the audience listening to what I assume has to be the umpteenth time she’s spoken at a book signing on this tour. He participated a bit in the Q&A portion and then stood off to the side while she signed books. I checked his twitter stream when I got back and saw that his two tweets were:
I went to chat with him for a while and gave him some gift subscriptions to Babble Soft web and mobile software (which is iPhone ready – I noticed Heather was reading something to the audience from her pink cased iPhone), and he seemed genuinely interested in checking it out. I gave him extra ones to give to any of their friends or readers if they wanted to.
I was in the 3rd group of people to get the book signed and somewhere around 8:30 p.m., I knew I was not going to make it to 9:30 after having been most of the day with a sick kid, and I started to leave. I was almost out the door when I said to myself, I don’t really want to leave without a signature at all do I? So I went back up the stairs and asked Jon if he would sign it since I had to go, and he graciously did!
The following is a guest post written by Rachel Euretig, PR Manager at Intuit (makers of Quicken, Quickbooks etc.). Intuit first approached me to write something about a new campaign they were launching to help small business get a piece of the stimulus pie. I responded by saying, what a great idea but I’m so strapped for time that I’d welcome a guest post instead and here it is…
Rachel Euretig is a public relations manager at Intuit Inc., a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, financial institutions, consumers and accounting professionals. She is responsible for the company’s best-selling QuickBooks small business products and services. Rachel joined Intuit from LEWIS PR, a global technology agency headquartered in London, where she was an account director in the San Francisco office. She holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Eco-friendly tees that inspire positivity with simple words such as: BREATHE DEEPLY and TODAY MATTERS. A chiropractor’s office that instituted an “honor box” system, allowing patients to pay what they can. A former Marine who survived the 9-11 attacks and then went on to fulfill his childhood dream of starting a fishing rod business. These are just three of the amazing stories you’ll find at www.smallbusinessunited.com.
We at Intuit recently launched an initiative called Small Business United in order to give entrepreneurs a much-needed boost in this tough economic climate. The campaign features a stimulus package aimed at helping America’s small businesses save money, get more customers and save time, by offering:
Free software and services from Intuit valued at nearly $1,000 per small business to help them succeed.
$315,000 in small business grants.
$50,000 in donations to organizations that help budding entrepreneurs get started and advise existing businesses looking to grow.
How can you get involved? Well, first, check out the free software and services to see if there’s anything that can help your business.
Second, share your stories with us and other entrepreneurs for a chance to win up to $30,000 in business grants. We know that America’s entrepreneurial spirit is stronger – and more united – than ever. According to a recent study we conducted, nine out of 10 small business owners said they rely on peers for support and advice. Fifty-one percent of small business owners said they feel a special bond or connection with other small business owners, while 53 percent believe they can learn from their peers’ mistakes and successes. Do you agree?
How to enter:
Go to www.smallbusinessunited.com to share stories about your successes and challenges. In addition to the monetary grants and free Intuit products and services that Intuit is offering, you will also receive the Intuit Small Business Word of Mouth Marketing Toolkit and a profile page on the Intuit Community Web site to help promote your business.
Finalists will be selected based on a combination of ratings from the community, quality and creativity. The ratings will account for 40 percent of the overall score, so easy-to-use tools are available to help participants share their entries with family, friends and colleagues.
Judges will review entries and select 50 finalists to receive a $5,000 grant and a Pure Digital Flip Video camcorder. These finalists are then eligible to compete for the top grants by supplementing their story with a video that will be posted on the site for public viewing and rating.
The group will be narrowed down to four first prize winners, who will each receive $10,000 plus $2,500 worth of Intuit products in addition to their finalist grants and awards. The grand prize winner will receive an additional $25,000 and $2,500 worth of Intuit products and services.
Entries are due by April 24 and finalists will be notified by April 29. Winners will be announced in June.
The judges include a panel of independent small business experts:
Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends, an award-winning Web site that provides information and intelligence about the small business market and business trends affecting that market. This comprehensive resource includes a blog, radio show and regularly features small business experts from a variety of industries.
Donna Ettenson, vice president of operations of the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which represents 63 state and regional small business management and technical assistance programs. She is also a certified Franklin Covey facilitator for the “7 Habits for Managers” and “Focus” workshops.
John Jantsch, marketing and digital technology coach, award-winning social media publisher and author of “Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.” He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system and Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach Network.
Becky McCray, publisher of Small Biz Survival, a Web site about small business and rural issues, based on her own successes and failures as an entrepreneur. She is also the co-owner of a retail store and cattle ranch, and a consultant for small businesses and city governments.
So many entrepreneurs and business people are scrambling trying to figure out what to do during these interesting times. Companies are shutting down, investors are upset, entrepreneurs are having breakdowns and wondering how they are going to make it through the next few years let alone their lives.
Large companies like AIG are literally crumbling based on decisions made based on statements surrounding the awarding of bonuses that weren’t properly scrutinized by the US Congress or internal management. All of the actions and behaviors that should have been considered sub-par that were looked over are now coming under extra scrutiny because times are tough. When times are good, people look the other way on many things they should not because they figure “Hey, it’s not hurting me.” When people raise the flag like they did on Bernie Madoff during the good years (the SEC had received repeated requests to investigate Madoff and they didn’t follow through) people looked the other way. It’s shocking to me how often people look the other way when incompetence and potential illegal activity might be going on.
Maybe I have an extra sensitivity to this because in my first job out of college I was a public accounting auditor and in my second job I was an internal auditor with training in fraud detection. It’s often the people you least suspect who are committing fraud, holding a check or two in a drawer, moving money around in accounts thinking no one will notice because no one is really paying attention. They think to themselves “Oh, I’ll put it back. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m trying to help out here. I really need this. They’ll understand. Plus, I’m going to put it back.” But when it comes time to put it back or right the wrong, they don’t have it so what started out as a simple stop-gap gets more complicated. Who’s fault is it? Definitely the person doing it, but also the people who should be paying attention. Most people are too distracted to pay attention…not only in business but also in their lives with their spouses, their children, their own financial situations.
Then all of a sudden, the weight of the world is on not only those who intentionally or unintentionally rob and profoundly affect innocent people, but also on those who should have done a better job at oversight. The finger pointing starts flying, but we are all to blame. Humans keep repeating the cycle because we get caught up in the game, in the story, in as Landmark education says “wanting to look good and being afraid to look bad.” The “fear of looking bad” overwhelms most of us and paralyzes our ability to make the best decisions at work, at home, and in life. I know how strongly that fear affects me despite having pushed the ‘potential for looking bad‘ envelope a time or two!
And the weight of the world is heavy when it falls. And the weight of the world is difficult to remove. And the weight of the world is stifling.
But the weight of your young children is different. Today I got very upset with my kids for locking all the doors (they thought it would be a fun game) to our room because I was trying to find my keys so we could go to Home Depot and get some air filters while their dad was riding his bike. I sent one to our living room and one to stand in the hallway while I tried to open the door with a gadget we have just for such occasions. I was frustrated because it delayed our errand running until after lunch and it took me longer than expected to open the freaking door!
While our 6 year old son was waiting in the living room, he decided to pick up his English chapter book (Cam Jamson and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery) and start reading. My son decides he is going to continue reading his book after lunch but that he has to do so while sitting on my lap despite there being several other places to sit. Their dad was back by that point and the doors were all open, but they were both still getting hard stares from me. We were all in the living room, and I was sitting on the sofa.
So he climbs on my lap and reads his book and asks me from time to time how to say a certain word, and I feel so elated (like only a mom could) that of all the places he could sit he wanted to sit on my lap to read his book. I remember thinking “he won’t want to sit on my lap for much longer” and how the weight of him felt so right and perfect. Our almost 4 year old daughter then decided to climb up next to me and put her head on my left shoulder and look at our son reading. The combined warm weight of them blended with their interest in reading/learning overwhelmed me, and I kissed their heads repeatedly and dropped a few emotional tears onto their heads…just like any other sappy mother. 🙂
And the weight of young children on your lap is light. And the weight of young kids sitting peacefully on your lap is not something you easily want to remove. And the weight of young children is uplifting.
Now, the weight of teenagers is apparently not so glorious…
SXSW Interactive 2009 is now over and what a grand event it was! It was a nice break from my day to day routine. I had a few late nights but not later than just after midnight one night and most other nights I was home by 10:30 pm and one night I was even home by 7:30 pm. I met up with so many cool people…people I already knew in person and people I had met online. As many of you know I work at the Austin Technology Incubator by day and work on Babble Soft whenever I can (i.e., After Hours). ATI helped coordinate and sponsor a nightly party called the Entrepreneur Lounge at Fogo de Chao (a Brazilian restaurant) which was a great success.
The panel was extremely well attended and I’d say about 85% of the people in the room were working on a business after hours and 10% were thinking about it. It was a perfect and very engaged audience!
I had been hearing that the panels at SXSW overall had not been going well. I experienced a few myself, but I and others kept hearing they weren’t organized, inexperienced people were either running them or on the panels, and people weren’t getting much out of them. Based on that grapevine talk, I decided to adapt and get a little more formal than we had planned to be. We originally were not planning on having a PowerPoint presentation but literally hours before the panel, I asked Jeremy Bencken to meet me and we pulled together on his cute and really small laptop a brief presentation as simple as putting our names, jobs, information and key takeaways on separate slides. As simple as they were, it helped us frame the discussion. We also decided on some opening questions and remarks as a team while we waited in the “Green Room” before the panel started.
I was a bit anxious beforehand because it’s been quite some time since I’ve spoken to a room of 150+ so I was out of practice but after a few minutes it came back to me. It’s an amazing and surreal experience to have so many people looking at you to impart knowledge and share your stories with them. The panelists did an awesome job of describing the ups and downs of doing a business after hours.
Here is a copy of the content on our basic slides:
I have many blog post ideas swimming in my head and jotted down in my little spiral notebook. Finding the time to get the thoughts out of my jam packed brain into a blog post is hard to do, but some people tell me they are impressed with how much I do post. I would post every day if I could, but I can’t physically or mentally do it because my life is currently all about business. The business of work, the business of family, the business of motherhood, the business of writing, the business of management, the business of people, the business of figuring myself out, etc., etc., etc. It is all busy-ness but I’m fortunate enough to be able to enjoy it when I’m not distracted by it all (which is often). I’m not sure I would know what to do with myself if I didn’t have something to do. I’m not sure I would know how to retire, but I wouldn’t mind a week long beach vacation right now!
I get frustrated sometimes that I can’t do all the things I want to do. I get frustrated that I’m not even really sure what I want (other than a beach vacation). I feel constrained by mostly my own self-imposed limitations and societal expectations, but I know I’m not the first one on this planet to experience all of this, but I like to naively believe that my experience is unique.
So, it’s all about business, but is it really? Sometimes it’s just about squeezing and kissing my adorable kids who laugh and flash their heart melting smiles at me or drinking a glass of really good red wine or a newly discovered ginger martini…
Unlike my friend Thom Singer, I’m no subject matter expert on the topic of networking by any means, but I am a strong believer in the power of building and maintaining a solid network of both personal and professional friends. I’m an extrovert by nature and an ENTJ on the Meyer’s Briggs personality typing test (link to Wikipedia) so networking and relationship building usually comes easy for me, and I enjoy it. According to Wikipedia, only about 2% of the population are ENTJ’s (a.k.a. Fieldmarshals.) When I was getting my MBA, which was when I was last tested, I think about 30% of our class were ENTJ’s. Only about 20% of our class were women, so it’s probably an even rarer type for women. I’ve been told by more than a few people that I exhibit some typical male characteristics. Go figure!
I also believe the time to cultivate and reach out to your your network is not ONLY when times are tough. I’ve been amazed at the number of people who I haven’t spoken to in years (not just one or two years but five or more) who have been contacting me to help them with their job search. I mean, come on! How can I put my reputation on the line and refer them when I have no idea what they’ve been up to?!
There have been people I’ve worked with who I’ve stayed connected with in one way or another over the years who I’m more than happy to help introduce to people I know, but when I don’t hear a word from someone and the first contact I get is “Can you help me find a job?” or “Can you introduce me to so-and-so?” I literally roll my eyes. I love helping people so it pains me when people don’t get how important keeping up your network is when times are good.
Apparently no one (or no one will admit it) could have anticipated the economic state we find ourselves in worldwide, and despite the inordinate amount of angst I felt before taking on a day job, in hindsight someone (possibly the Flying Spaghetti Monster) was looking out for me and my family. Somehow I had the foresight (a.k.a ESP) to take drugs beat the angst into partial submission and accept the job which I’m now grateful for. I’m still trying to figure out how to get to what usually ends up being a good result without beating myself up inside to almost a bloody pulp before I realize the decision was not such a bad one, but that’s a topic for another blog post a whole novel.
There are four professional groups I meet face-to-face with fairly regularly throughout the year that mean a whole lot to me for a variety of reasons and they are:
B2C CEO/Founder Group – A small group of us meet monthly for lunch to discuss the challenges and joys of running a business that sells products to consumers (i.e. B2C), which is completely different than selling directly to businesses (i.e., B2B). I happen to be the only woman in this group, but in my career that has typically been the norm. The format is that we share something good and bad that has happened to us both professionally and personally since the last time we met. I really like this format because it allows us to get to know each other as human beings…not just business people. This month we discussed all the challenges some of us are facing with money, employees, and finding other creative ways to keep our businesses going. One person in the group had to put his business on hold for a while due to the economy. Sadly, he also recently discovered that one of his key technical people committed suicide which really threw him for a loop. Most of the rest of us are just taking it a day at a time and trying to keep our businesses alive. When I shared during our meeting last week, they all told me I shouldn’t give myself such a hard time and beat myself up for not being motivated to do some of the things I need to do after my day job and family commitments. I really needed to hear that because I have a lot of respect for them and it gave me some room to breathe. Last month we discussed mid-life crises since I seem to be in the middle of one (middle of my mid-life crisis sounds about right) and one guy said the way he dealt with his was to start a business! One thought he had to be married with kids to experience one but the rest of us who were married with or without kids quickly assured him that was not the case and he then said he’s been experiencing one for most of his life. 🙂
Boss Ladies Group – Another small group of only women about my age (all with small children) that meets monthly for lunch. When one of us has a baby, we work around their schedule if we can. We talk about our businesses and balancing our interest in building them while balancing our desires to be great mothers and wives. One of the women who formed this group invited me to speak to them probably a year or so ago, and I liked the group so much that I asked if I could become a member! Unlike the B2C and Web CEO groups, most of the women in this group do not have technology businesses. The businesses range from restaurants, to event planning, to consumer packaged goods, to marketing consulting.
Web CEO Group – This is a larger group that meets probably once every other month and there are a handful of other women CEOs in that group. We typically meet during a weekday afternoon. The format has typically been that we pick a topic and present what we’ve learned or questions we have that we pose to the group in that topic. Topics have ranged from internet marketing, to fund raising, to how to stay alive. A couple of us in the group have taken on outside jobs to continue moving our businesses forward.
Tuesday Ladies Group – This is another small group where we tried to meet bi-weekly but after a good start, many of us couldn’t make it consistently so we meet more sporadically. This group typically meets in the evening so I have a harder time making these meetings given that I’m the only one in the group with small kids. I’m actually the youngest one in this group with the others ranging in age from their 40’s to 70’s! Some of the women are entrepreneurs and some of them work for larger organizations but in my mind they are all very entrepreneurially minded. They have such wisdom to share not only in business but also in life. I get to hear and feel their life experiences, and I get such perspective from them both personally and professionally!
I had to take a hopefully temporary break from a weekly Blog Mastermind group that I’m involved in that I mentioned in my Giving Things Up post. Even though the calls are held over lunch I had to take some things off of my mind’s plate and that was one professional group I had to cut.
I also try to stay connected over email or phone with my family and friends when I can because without that support network, I surely would have lost it (more than I have) by now. I would do what I could to help pretty much all of the people in these groups if they needed it, and I’d like to think they would do the same for me.
So for those of you who are still employed, cultivate your network now but please be sincere. Just like on any of the social sites (e.g., twitter, facebook, linked in, etc.), people can detect insincerity or even desparation. If you always have a ‘what’s in it for me‘ approach, you won’t get as far as if you have a ‘how can I help you approach.’
We recently finished our first ever marketing survey for Babble Soft. And we announced the winners on our blog on a post called Babble Soft Survey Winners (yes, I get points for coming up with such an original title!). Should I have done one earlier? Yes, of course. But what one should do and what one does in an entrepreneurial endeavor don’t always match up…especially when you are doing the business on your own (before I found Nicole Johnson), part time, and/or after hours. The process went smoothly enough, I learned a few things, and of course I love sharing with fellow entrepreneurs so here it goes…
We first decided we needed to do a quarterly newsletter to our existing users and announce the survey there. We used Vertical Response to deliver our newsletter because between them and the leading competitor, Aweber, they were the only one who offered ‘pay as you go’ emailing. Since we only plan to send a newsletter once per quarter, we felt it would be better to pay by the email address instead of signing up for a monthly ongoing service which we wouldn’t end up using 8 out of the 12 months of the year. I posted the newsletter on this blog and on our new Babble Soft blog where we emphasized the great prizes people would win for filling out the survey that we created on the fabulous free survey tool called Survey Monkey. We only had 10 questions so we were able to use their free services which I have to say is pretty darn cool. If I ever had a need to do a more sophisticated survey, I would definitely pay to use their service. It’s pretty easy to analyze the results.
We received a good response rate but because we also published the link to the survey on what we thought would be a good competition sites for parents, we had quite a few people who filled out the survey who had never used our applications or had even heard of us. On one hand, it was good additional exposure, but on the other hand, I don’t think it ended up being from the right crowd of people. However, we did get some good data from existing users and new parents that affirmed some of our current product development decisions. Overall, I was amazed at how many people are out there who spend their time trying to win prizes! I was also amazed at how some people didn’t really care who you were, they just wanted their prize.
Key Takeaways
It’s a good idea to do a short survey (7 to 10 minutes to complete) from time to time. Offering prizes guarantees more responses but not necessarily the right responses.
Have some independent people review your survey to make sure it’s understandable. We had a few people review it and it helped us word our survey more effectively.
Using cost-effective or free tools like Vertical Response and Survey Monkey will make your life easier.
Be really careful where you publicize your survey because if you don’t it’s highly likely you’ll end up with some yahoo’s (i.e., those out for a quick buck) answering your survey. Then you’ll have to give prizes to people who really have no idea what you do. It’s kind of painful actually…especially when it’s your company and products that you’ve created from scratch.
Don’t do a ‘random winner’ selection. We did a ‘random winner’ contest. This may cut down on the quantity of people who complete the survey, but if you can figure out a way to select people who have either used your products or would have been great potential users or end up giving you wonderful feedback, you’ll feel much better. I’m guessing the quality of responses might increase even if the quantity decreases.
Make sure to follow up with the people who respond by informing them of who won and where to see the results. It can result in additional exposure.
I don’t have a 7th takeaway but I like the #7 so if you read this far, thank you. Plus, I’m annoyed that although I have selected the number button in WordPress when creating this list, it’s displaying bullets in both Firefox and IE. So you’ll just have to take my word (or count) that this is the 7th takeaway!
We have identified some key users from our survey who we have either engaged with or will engage with to help us with some internet marketing. This will be a new experience for both Nicole and myself since we will be taking a little bit of a risk because most of our users are not traditional internet marketers…which I’m crossing my fingers that will end up being a good thing!
If you have any experience with marketing survey’s please share your discoveries in the comment section below.
The title of this post is a famous quote by Socrates that he apparently uttered while on trial for heresy and for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens. For some unknown reason, the past few days this saying kept coming to my mind despite not having read or thought about it for years. Actually, I have not read much of Greek philosophy although I loved Greek and Roman mythology growing up. I’ve learned not to question these kinds of thoughts that appear in my mind too hard, and I try to find an outlet for them. Of course, after the thought appeared a blog post also started to form in my mind. I don’t think I realized that until I started blogging how much writing has become an outlet for me, and when I don’t get to write consistently, I start to feel a little stuck, ill, and sometimes a little nutty. Unlike some bloggers who let it ALL hang out, since this is a public blog, I am careful about what I do write about and how I write about it.
Another instance in time that a writing related thought entered my mind was when I was walking my then probably 7 month old son around the neighborhood. Out of the clear blue, I received a thought that said something like ‘write about the Meaning of Life.’ At first I said to myself “What the heck do I know about the meaning of life?” I sat with that thought for a while and then dismissed it for months. But it came back to me so I started telling people I was going to write a book about the Meaning of Life. I even interviewed a few people who would talk to me about such a hard to discuss topic. Interestingly, the two people I recall being most comfortable talking to me were Kinky Friedman (pdf) (who you may know as the irreverent singer in The Texas Jew Boys band and the crazy guy who ran for Texas governor) and one of my favorite business mentors/advisers Jack Baum (pdf). I met Kinky on his ranch and the experience of interviewing him while he smoked his multiple cigars and tried to hit on me a few times was enlightening! 🙂 They apparently didn’t care about what people thought about their thoughts on the meaning of life, but most people felt really uncomfortable talking about the topic, so I eventually morphed the project into “The Meaning of Success.” I even created a book proposal because after I changed the topic, I found several people interested in talking to me.
I showed the book proposal to a couple of agents and even a self publisher but then decided it wasn’t the right time in my life to pursue it full force. [Side note: I just took a quick glance at what I had written and thought to myself that maybe one day I’ll dust it off and show it to someone again.] So after feeling somewhat of a failure for not being able to bring it to fruition at that time, I reached out to a writer who I had stayed in touch with who had written about me when I was running my first high tech venture, and I asked her if she would like to help me find an audience for what I had compiled. That conversation resulted in us writing a series on Success for the University of Texas at Austin alumni magazine. So I hope that by turning the original thought that came to me while walking my son over 5 years ago into that series, we helped someone examine their life and its impact on others. Maybe, that’s why that thought came to me. I will never know, but I do know I learned something from each and every person I interviewed, and I hope they learned something valuable from me.
It’s interesting how often thoughts like these enter my mind. Even before starting Babble Soft, I had a thought about creating something to help new parents, but in hindsight I’ve come to understand that the source of that thought was different than the source of the writing on the meaning of life thought. I still haven’t been able to understand why I know the source was different but it was.
It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable saying some of my thoughts out loud because sometimes they don’t make sense to me and I start questioning my sanity. Often I still don’t say them out loud because I worry about what others would think. But after talking with friends who hear me say these odd things, I discovered that they sometimes made more sense to them at the time than they did to me. These thoughts also help me examine my life which I do on a fairly constant basis but even more deeply recently than I have ever done before. Some call it a mid-life crisis. I call it painful!
Now I actually wouldn’t go as far as Socrates and say “the unexamined life is not worth living” because to me it actually is. Because for those of us who are examining our lives, tripping on ourselves, and experiencing growing pains, having the opportunity to observe people who don’t examine theirs the same way is profound. I think everyone does examine their life at some point…but the way they do it is as unique as thier finger prints.
Our Bioscience Director, Jessica Hanover, at the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) sent out the following link today: 6 Companies Born During Downturns. You may or may not be surprised at the names on the list (IBM, GE, Procter & Gamble, GM, United Technologies Corp., FedEx) but it just goes to show you that if you focus on the negative, you’ll have a hard time finding the positive reasons to be entrepreneurial right now.
I started to reply to her but decided I’d blog it instead in order to share with all of you. Here were my initial thoughts.
Starting a company from scratch was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done (2nd only to taking care of little kids). It almost doesn’t matter if it’s an up time or down time if you are serious about getting your company off the ground. We started Isochron in an up time but weathered some down times.
There are just some companies and people (when combined in the right space/time) that will make it almost no matter what. It’s recognizing that elusive pattern that is the holy grail of venture/equity investing. I think we have a few of those at ATI. And just because you recognize it…doesn’t mean it won’t change! But what do I know? I certainly don’t fit the picture of a stereotypical VC! Honestly, I think most VCs don’t really know how to see it or look for it.
Maintaining the passion and singular vision to take it through the numerous hurdles is quite a feat. Anyone can falter on this tough road at any time and therein lies the biggest inherent risk.
I just got back from a fabulous visit with my mom. I even got to see my sister. It was a much needed mini-life break, and it was nice to have the three of us together again. I could use more of those breaks, but I’m just ever so grateful to have a place to run away for a little bit and a husband who I trust completely to take care of the kids while I’m gone…well maybe a few things get forgotten but everyone survived!
One of my new year non-resolutions was to sing more. Since then, I’ve received an offer to sing with one of my bosses who I hardly see because he’s one, two (actually it’s unclear) levels above me, but he also happened to hire me to teach entrepreneurship back in the day so I know him reasonably well. I’m not sure if or when that will happen, but I hear he’s a pretty good guitar player. The other thing that happened is that my dear husband got me some singing lessons!
Now hubby has been hit and miss with presents…especially the big ones (when he hasn’t consulted with me first), but I have to say this gift was probably one of the more thoughtful ones he’s given me. I was skeptical at first because he found the teacher online, and I had visions of some weird, washed up, wrinkled singer with a cane giving lessons because they couldn’t make it in the ‘real’ world. But I was pleasantly proven wrong by Julie at Fiore Music Studio. She has a great operatic voice. I promptly told her I wasn’t interested in singing opera and she was totally fine with that. She travels on tour from time to time.
I’ve taken 3 lessons so far and I’m down to my last one and will probably sign up for a few more. The first lesson we just practiced warm ups and scales. I left thinking, “Hmmm…not sure if I want to sing scales for the next several lessons.” The second lesson she told me I had good pitch and an ear for music that is very hard to teach and in addition to singing scales we worked on one of my favorite hymns “Amazing Grace.” I left more inspired to come back next time. On my third visit we did some different warm up exercises and worked on “Summertime” by George Gershwin. For my next visit, I’ve printed out lyrics for “The Rose” sung by Bette Midler and “Blue Moon” sung by such greats at Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to work on.
The day of my first lesson, Julie and I were talking and she said something that struck me as she was describing singers. She said something like “That’s why singers are neurotic.” I said to myself “Well darn the luck, so are most entrepreneurs! I’m doubly screwed if I decide to label myself a singer too.” So there you have it, I’ve just discovered I’m qualified to be a singer…well at least on the neuroses scale. 😀
Now if there’s proof that someone has to be a little neurotic to run operations at a technology incubator, then it appears I have found myself existing at the right place in time to battle three neuroses. Wish me luck. There must be a professor writing a textbook in need of a research subject out there somewhere…
I have mentioned a few times that my son is a budding comedian. So tonight over dinner, while their dad was at a board dinner, we were laughing about peas and cheese and other such stuff when he started telling knock knock jokes. Maybe only a mother would find these funny but I had to share. 😀
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? Lizard. Lizard Who? A lizard who went to a ball but he could not go in because the ball was too big!
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? Vanilla Wafer. Vanilla Wafer who? A vanilla wafer and another vanilla wafer were in a cup of milk and they were swimming in a cup of milk.
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? A wall. A wall who? A wall who wanted to dance with a chair but he couldn’t because the wall could not move.
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? Marker. Marker who? A marker who had eyes and he went downtown with a really small car that the ants have to use, but it was so small that the marker could not even fit.
So my daughter had to join in too, and here’s what she had to say:
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? Dolphin. Dolphin who? Dolphin who lives in a toilet and hair and nose and ears.
Knock. Knock. Who’s There? Middle Head. Middle Head who? Middle head who lives in a toilet and he lives in a fan.
OK. I just had to take this short blog break to share the genius of my children. Now it’s back to homework and getting ready for bed time!
Tomorrow is the inauguration of the next president of the United States of America, Barack Obama. The post I did called A Vote for Brown, Brains, and Change after he was elected was one of the most commented-on posts I’ve written on this little’ ole blog. It’s a historic event for America because as pretty much everyone in the world knows, it is the first time we will ever have a brown person, who also happens to be extremely smart and qualified, at the head of what is still the most powerful nation in the world.
There is much hope pinned on him to keep the US a strong world power and save us from the descent we are now experiencing. I believe that if he continues to openly communicate with the American people that he will set the realistic expectations that it could take as long to get out of the world wide economic quagmire we find ourselves in as it took us to get into it. He has a lot of challenges ahead of him and it comes down to each and every one of us contributing by continuing to work hard and helping others, as good Samaritans do, to help them get back on their emotional or financial feet one family at a time.
I was watching Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech (August 28, 1963) earlier today on CNN and was moved, as I usually am, at his words. Just over 45 years ago, colored people could not drink from the same water fountain as White people. They could not stay in the same hotels or hotel rooms as White people. They could not sit in the same place on the bus. They could not get access to the same education. They could not play on the same football teams.
MLK and all of the people (White, Black, Brown, and blonde, red, hair-dyed, and dark haired people) who believed in his dream, knew that one day the children of the slaves and the slave owners would be able to sit down together for dinner as equals. They would be able to go to the same restaurants and stay at the same hotels. His dream took time to achieve but now almost half a century later most of his dream has become real. If he had not been killed for voicing his dream out loud, he would be 80 years old today enjoying his 4 children and granchildren. If he had not taken a stand, the world might have been a different place.
Not only colored people but also women have been able to achieve amazing things because of the barriers broken down by men and women who came before us. I am so grateful for the strong women I have met along my path who have helped me and instead of pushing me down, they offered their hands and their hearts to pull me up! These people fought hard to make our lives easier, and as I start to cross mid-life, I not only look ahead of me but also behind me to offer my hand in help to others.
The Obama experiment is a new one not only for the US but also the modern world. For any experiment to work, we as a nation need to be fully on board. Be skeptical, but push ahead with gusto. Put cynicism aside for a while and have faith that with our words and actions we can make a difference for the world!
A friend of mine, who I know is wrestling with his dreams although he won’t admit it out loud, recently told me that some philosopher said something like “we can change the world by changing the songs (narratives) we pass on to our kids.” The stories we tell our children about someone’s beliefs, someone’s skin color, someone’s gender are the stories they carry with them the rest of their lives. The stories have changed in the US with regards to brown people even from when I was a child, yet I still struggle to change those internal narratives even now. The stories have changed also with regards to women/girls. We still need to continue to change them for the positive. My grandfather once told me that one day the people of this world will all be a nice tan color so in some small way it became OK for me to marry a White man and have tan colored kids. He told me a bunch of other stories that were hilarious but not appropriate to blog about! 🙂
But the world still seems to have trouble changing the stories about people’s religious beliefs as we continue to see in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The children are taught to hate and mistrust others based on their religion because that is what they see and hear on a daily basis. I wonder how we can help change the stories and dreams for those children?
In my mind, getting an education is the single most important way to continue to enhance the lives of each and every one of us, our children, and the world’s children. Tolerance and understanding come from open minds, open hearts, and trying new things.
As you think about how we can help change those children’s stories, I leave you with a YouTube video of Martin Luther King’s speech given in 1963 (see below). Isn’t technology amazing sometimes?!
This weekend I completely spaced on my daughter’s swim class. Her class has been at 10:00 for the last 4 months but because of a few unexpected things that happened on Saturday morning (e.g., our house cleaner who comes every two weeks called in sick so I had to quickly start changing beds/washing sheets & towels and my husband was gone for activities surrounding the founding of The Magellan School) my mind somehow shifted into thinking the class was at 10:30.
We showed up at 10:30, and I wondered where the other kids in her class were when my son pointed through the window and said ‘there they are!‘ It still hadn’t hit me that I had gotten the time wrong and I walked in and the parents said ‘there you are‘ and in slow motion I said ‘did I miss the class?‘ and they all nodded. I was in shock because I’ve never done that before. I apologized profusely. I asked the teacher if she could just get in for a little bit but she had to go to her next class. One of the guy teachers who was nearby said he’d give her a mini-lesson and thankfully he spent about 20 minutes with her in the water. I almost cried on the spot out of gratitude and not having to wallow in guilt while she cried about not being able to swim. My son waited as patiently as he could on the other side of the window given that I had originally told him he could play a game on my new iPhone for a little while during her class. The teacher was so kind to her and gave her piggy back rides while taking her under water. She laughed and smiled. He called her ‘sweet pea‘ and ‘sweetie pie‘ and if he wasn’t in the water, I would have given him a big hug for making/saving my day! You can’t buy that kind of marketing and in that one instant, I wanted to tell everyone how amazing Emler Swim School is!
Well, last month I forgot to pay the mortgage or shall I say I remembered too late. I’ve never done that either so we had to suck it up and pay a late fee much to my chagrin. I can’t recall ever paying a late fee although I’m sure it’s happened at least once on something.
Oh and I didn’t win my longed for trip to Tobago mostly because I didn’t have the time or wasn’t able to come up with the right strategy in a timely manner to make it happen. Looking back, I think if I had taken off a week from my day job to make sure I won this week vacation, I would have won. 🙂
UPDATE: After finishing this blog post, I went to a yoga class. I got there only to realize I forgot my yoga mat (for the first time ever!) at home despite going back into the house before I left to get it and a towel. I had to rent a mat and let’s just say a rental mat offers a sub par experience to your own purple mat. My right ankle hurts a little bit now.
So needless to say these are signs that I have too much going on…some of which I’ve blogged about and some of which I haven’t and probably won’t. I’ve started to look at the things I can give up in my life and I’ve given up a couple of things so far. I gave up co-writing the series for the UT Alumni magazine and just last week I took a leave of absence from my weekly Blog Mastermind call with some amazing folks who I mentioned in the GigaOm article I did on finding a business parter online. It was a tough decision but they were all supportive and told me I was welcome back at any time. I’ve also started to unsubscribe from blogs, newsletters, etc. that I haven’t been reading anyway. I’m taking a long hard look at my life and trying to figure out what I can give up without giving up anything I really want/need to do.
I may need to give up some things temporarily while I sort things out and find a way to integrate them back into my life once I deal with some of the other things going on in my life, but how does one do this without risking making the wrong decisions? Sigh.
I wonder if we had a crystal ball if any of us would still in fact be able to make the perfect decision. So far, I feel like I’ve been extremely lucky in the decisions I have made in my life and although I certainly wish I could change a few things, I don’t have any big regrets.
Have you given up something and felt relieved? Have you given up something and later wished you hadn’t because you weren’t able to go back to doing it again? Or as my friend Robb just asked “What is the biggest thing you have ever given up on?” and my answer was “Myself.” But I usually pull myself out of it pretty quickly when I repeatedly realize that I am my own worst critic and at times my own best cheerleader…
My friend, Robb Lanum, sent the following email today:
What if they built a world-class theme park [Hard Rock name behind it] and nobody came? It happened. Myrtle Beach, SC. Seven years and $400 million to build. Opened April 2008, closed forever by September 2008. Park put up for auction with starting bid of $35 million in December, auction drew ZERO bids. They made $19.7 million in ticket sales.
What an expensive mistake with a world recognized brand name behind it. The articles mention the reasons they didn’t make it ranging from the economy, inability to raise enough money to properly market the opening, etc. But mostly it says, they couldn’t really figure it out.
Just imagine how many small, entrepreneurial businesses that spend millions of dollars and no one (or not enough people) end up buying their products so they can sustain themselves past the good times of ‘easy money’ into the current times of ‘hard to get’ or ‘no’ money. We’ve started to see those companies disappear. I’m wondering how Hard Rock can take a $400 million plus hit and how that will effect them during the next few years with regards to store openings and closings.
Now think about your start-up and think about whether you should start on that potential 7 year path and millions of dollars without knowing if anyone will show up on the other end.
Now think about your start-up and see if you can bootstrap it with a manageable amount of money, a reasonable time commitment, and have it ready and waiting when the economy turns.
I went to 
tonight only because one of the interns, 
Recent Comments