Mike Patterson's posterous

Back when I was a football player (and oh man, that seems like years ago!), there were always, always pre-game jitters.  Butterflies in the stomach... nervous, shaky hands...for me...having to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes (embarassing but true)...

Sure there were things you could TRY to do to combat the nerves before the game but truth was there was nothing that really worked.

What was the answer?

Start the game and get hit...

That was the only way to really deal with the nerves.  You had to get into the game and take your shots.

So as an entrepreneur, starting out on the path yet again, I see myself dealing with the nerves before the game, my mind taking over and trying to figure everything out...but there's no other solution other than to get in the game and take my shots.

Game on....

Reading this recent article by Mark Suster, a well known blogging venture capitalist, got me to thinking about the nature of how people interact with the iPad (insert your tablet of choice here).

How EXACTLY do people interact on the tablet?  What frame of mind are people in when they are fliping through their iPads?

One word..chillin'...

Now this may very well be stating the obvious, but one thing I've learned over the years is that people very commonly overlook the obvious.

The iPad is the ultimate coffee shop / in front of the TV / hanging-around-doing-nothing-but-killing-time device.

To put it more technically, when people are on their iPads, they are in a casual consumption frame of mind.  It seems to me that generally people are not actively seeking out information, they are not actively doing "work", they are not being productive...they're chillin'!

So who cares?  That's obvious...

Well, user intent has to match up with your business model and if your business model revolves around the iPad (or any type of tablet), you better meet people while they're in the chillin' state of mind.

So if you're developing an application for the iPad, or a business that is primarily iPad-centric, you should meet the user in this frame of mind...I know I'm working on that.

As I made my way toward the beach, I heard a tapping and flapping sound to my left and looked up to see a crow banging itself against a second story window.  Pecking and flapping it’s wings as it flew stronger and stronger into the window, determined to defeat it’s reflection.

“Stupid bird”, I thought to myself.

Then the next thought hit me…isn’t that what we do all day some days?!

We peck at ourselves, determined to defeat the thing on the other side by picking it apart.  It doesn’t work so we peck and fly harder into ourselves, determined to defeat the shadow on the other side.  

We’re listening to the wrong voices, hearing and paying attention to the wrong things.

We’re so close to the glass that we don’t see the reflection of ourselves and the ridiculous nature of the strategies we’re so convinced will work.

Nature has such a beautiful way of reflecting truths back at us if we take the time to slow down and observe.  I think the same strategy’s effective if we step back from ourselves, give ourselves space and see that the reflection in the window is showing us ourselves in a clear light, and in order to fly, we need to stop pecking and flapping and just back away and look without judgment.

Look with clear eyes and clear seeing from a comfortable, separate space.

Ever noticed how many more commerical emails you get on Tuesday, the word's out that Tuesdays are the best days for commercial email...we should start to call them Ruby Tuesdays for all the RED x's of delete buttons that they garner.

Sometimes changes are so small that you dont really notice them until someone points them out...so I'm pointing one out that I think is significant.

About a week or two ago Facebook put in the ability for us to add comments without clicking a button...all we have to do now is hit the return button.

A seemingly small change, but in my mind a very significant one.  Why?

It's moving us closer and closer to the instant mentality...not that we DON'T already have an instant mentality but these very small things move us closer and closer to wanting and getting things done instantly.

When 600 million people are now used to just hitting a button rather than having to move the cursor and click a button in a specific location, it changes our experience and expectations significantly.

Google instant moved us closer, this moves us closer and closer still to Insta-Information!

What other insta-information technologies light you up?

This article on EConsultancy got me thinking again about what I've been saying for a long time, mainly that Twitter is NOT a social network.

Twitter was born in the era of the social network and because people were originally, simply, connecting to each other on Twitter, the platform got thrown into the mix as a social network...but a social network Twitter is not.

Twitter is, quite simply, a distributed information source.

What do I mean by that?

Well, Twitter really is just another information vehicle...a vehicle through which people can connect to and create content.  

It is, honestly, simplified RSS.

And in my opinion, if Twitter wants to take advantage of it's power, it has to start to own the distribution channel...and not just the name and the technology.  It has to start to own the WAY in which people consume tweets.

If I were Twitter, I would get on a mad buying spree and start to aquire ALL the major Twitter distribution channels, including TweetDeck and start to work internally on web, mobile and tablet distribution platforms - work on branding these and making them the have to have platforms.

This is, of course, IF Twiiter wants to build an advertising type revenue model.  If you want to generate revenue via eyeballs, you have to own the distribution channel.

I know this sounds obvious but Twitter is not doing it and the current Promoted Tweet model is not really working...$250 million vs $3+ billion for Facebook?

What do you think?

It seems to me that in business as in life, there is a constant push and pull between saying hello and saying goodbye.  (Side Note: Great song by David Gray "Say Hello, Say Goodbye", but that's beside the point, I digress...but I like my digressions!)

Above the water
and against the mountain
the geese fly through the
brushed darkness
of the early morning
and out into the light,

they travel over
my immovable house
with such unison
of faith
and with such
assurance
toward the south

cresting the mountains
and the long 
coast of a continent

as they move
each year
toward a horizon
they have learned
to call their own.

I know this house,
and this horizon,
and this world I have made.
I know this silence
and the particular treasures
and terrors
of this belonging
but I cannot know the world
to which I am going.

I have only this breath
and this presence 
for my wings
and they carry me
in my body
whatever I do
from one hushed moment 
to another.

I know my innocence 
and I know my unknowing
but for all my successes
I go through life 
like a blind child
who cannot see,
arms outstretched
trying to put together 
a world.

And the world
works on my behalf
catching me in its arms
when I go too far.

I don’t know what 
I could have done
to have earned such faith.

But what of all the others
and the bitter lovers
and the ones who were not held?

Life turns like a slow river
and suddenly you are there
at the edge of the water
with all the rest
and the fire carries the
feast and the laughter
and in the darkness
away from the fire
the unspoken griefs
that still
make togetherness
but then

just as suddenly
it has become a fireless
friendless
night again
and you find yourself alone
and you must speak to the stars
or the rain-filled clouds 
or anything at hand
to find your place.

When you are alone
you must do anything 
to believe
and when you are
abandoned
you must speak 
with everything
you know
and everything you are
in order
to belong.

If I have no one to turn to
I must claim my aloneness.

If I cannot speak 
I must reclaim the prison
of my body.

If I have only darkness
I must claim the night.

And then,
even in the closest dark 
the world
can find me

and if I have honor
enough
for the place in which it finds me
I will know
it is speaking to me
and where I must go.

Watching the geese 
go south I find
that
even in silence
and even in stillness
and 
even in my home
alone 
without a thought
or a movement
I am part
of a great migration
that will take me to another place.

And though all the things I love 
may pass away and
the great family of things and people
I have made around me 
will see me go,
I feel them living in me
like a great gathering
ready to reach a greater home.

When one thing dies all things
die together, and must live again
in a different way, 
when one thing
is missing everything is missing, 
and must be found again
in a new whole
and everything wants to be complete,
everything wants to go home
and the geese traveling south 
are like the shadow of my breath
flying into the darkness
on great heart-beats
to an unknown land where I belong.

This morning they have
found me,
full of faith,
like a blind child,
nestled in their feathers,
following the great coast of the wind
to a home I cannot see.

~David Whyte

from his book of poems 
the House of Belonging

It's one of those moments when a voice just pops up out of the crowd and grabs your ear... it feels like the heavens whispering to you.  

I'm sitting in a San Francisco coffee shop and out of the blather of the crowd I hear a woman say, "OK, so my romance with entrepreneurship is over..." and truthfully I didn't hear anything outside of that.

Facebook recently took in over $500 million in funding and of course my immediate reaction was... BUBBLE!