January 2012
An entrepreneur recently posed a question to a group I’m a part of and asked, “What is <insert his city> missing?” The issue is that while he has had some successful ventures, success in his city is apparently not the norm. Not for startups anyway. To be honest, I’m not sure success is the norm for startups anywhere but there’s no denying certain areas of the country seem to have more than their fair share of it. While my city, Rochester, is not his city, I think there are some aspects which are very similar and this is a legitimate question if you live anywhere other than New York City, Boulder or Silicon Valley.
I’ve asked myself the same question several times also, and chatted and met extensively with others to try to figure out what’s missing here. We’re pretty smart people and there’s no shortage of great ideas but inevitably the ifs always work their way into the conversation:
- If only Rochester/Buffalo/whatever had investors, we could get companies off the ground.
- If only we had a density of other entrepreneurs/mentors/whatever that we could rely on for support.
- If only we had some examples of success we could use to inspire others to entrepreneurship.
- I could get started on my idea if I knew a developer/designer/whatever.
- I could focus on my idea if I didn’t have a full-time job/family/whatever.
What’s that saying about wishing in one hand and something in the other…? While I agree that it would be nice if our community had all those things, the fact of the matter is that there are some it doesn’t. And it won’t. Until somebody stops wishing it would and actually does something about it.
What if, in place of saying if only, we asked what if instead? And then we tried to find out.
January 2012
This time of year there’s a lot of resolution-themed updates and articles flying around. And I’m always all for it. One I shared recently was advice for 20-somethings that ranged from backing up your hard drive to becoming more politically informed. I shared it with my network with a note that those tips aren’t just for 20-somethings. Then I moved on with my life. As you do. Just another status update.
That was a few days ago but made me think of it recently. So I revisited it. The first piece of advice was this:
Before you status update, Tweet, Tumble or Instagram, pause and say to yourself, “is it entirely necessary that I share this morsel of thought with my entire social network?”and if the answer is not, “yes, I absolutely must,” then step away from the Internet.
At first I was in wholehearted agreement. Most people don’t want to read about what the people in their various networks have for breakfast every morning (or worse). Or about all their comings and goings (thanks Foursquare). But then I thought about some of my interactions from the last few days.
Yesterday I had a nice conversation with someone on Twitter, yes it can happen, because I tweeted the album I happened to be listening to at the time. Up to that point, we both followed one another, I’m not sure for how long, but had never actually interacted. We’ve chatted regularly since then.
A while ago I got a lot of responses when I posted a picture of my grandfather’s straight razor, which I had restored, and said I was going to try shaving with it. Not exactly earth shattering news but it sparked a lot of great conversation including some about tradition.
My point is that most people probably aren’t interested in what I’m listening to or what kind of razor I use to shave with. But you never know when something simple like that is going to resonate with someone. And the resulting conversation strengthens that relationship a little bit.
Isn’t being social what social media is about after all?
November 2011
I was introduced to the idea of good spaces and third rooms a few weeks ago during a talk at TEDxBuffalo and I’ve been fascinated by the concept ever since. I think it stuck with me because it finally provided a name for a concept I had been thinking about but couldn’t really identify.
Ethan Cox gave a talk called Embeer Your City for Fun & Profit, about the role of beer as well as micro and craft breweries in community building. The entire speech is worth watching, but what got me excited is about 7 minutes and 50 seconds into the video.
Cox said people spend most of their time in one of three “rooms”: their home, their work and a third room for cultural exchange. Cafes, barbershops, and community centers can all function as third rooms, but ideally a third room is any neutral space where “…people get together and create culture.”
You’ll see examples of it in any thriving arts or music community where there is a lot of crossover and collaboration among members. Substitute culture for companies or products and you could be talking about our local startup or entrepreneurial community.
For instance, Coworking Rochester, is doing a great job of being the technology community’s de facto third room. It’s a place where locals can gather, work, socialize and exchange ideas. The benefit of this type of gathering place are the partnerships it fosters.
Paul Graham recently wrote an article on a similar topic called Why Startup Hubs Work. The question he was trying to answer is, Why do certain communities, like Silicon Valley, seem predisposed to host a seemingly disproportionate number of startup companies?
He thinks there are three main reasons for this. Environment, chance, and numbers. He provides a pretty good explanation of how each contributes to Silicon Valley’s success.
First, they have an environment that almost actively encourages creating startups. In Silicon Valley, creating and being involved in a startup is fashionable. In other communities around the country, saying you left a full-time job to start a company is almost synonymous with, “I am unemployed.”
The sad reality is that most new companies fail. Even with all the moving pieces perfectly aligned, success still involves an element of luck and being in the right place at the right time.
Can you get introduced to the investor with the money to make your idea a reality? What are the odds that you will randomly meet someone who has worked on, and solved the exact problem you didn’t even know you had yet? That’s chance.
As the undisputed king of startup communities, Silicon Valley attracts the kind of numbers that make those chance encounters much more common. The sheer number of investors, technical folks and idea people in Silicon Valley loads the dice a little in success’ favor.
Based on those key ingredients, I’d say it sounds like Silicon Valley has somehow managed to create a community-sized third room.
It’s a city that supports the visions of its members and has adequate resources to help them make those visions a reality. So now the big question is, how do we create those good spaces and third rooms in Rochester? I have some ideas and I’ve written about them here in my Democrat and Chronicle blog column.
I’d love to hear about the third rooms in your community? How were they created?
October 2011
We’ve all heard that catchphrase and frankly, I think it gets a bad rap. Maybe it’s because when the word ‘fake’ is applied to things it usually means a cheap or low quality knockoff. And fake people are phony or superficial. So fake as a descriptor isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.
I think that’s missing the point though. There was a theory developed and popularized by Dr. Anders Ericsson that suggests it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become expert at something. That’s almost five years of full-time work. Achieving expertise is a long term commitment. So what does that process look like?
The statue David wasn’t Michelangelo’s first attempt at sculpture. His father owned a marble quarry and he spent extended periods of his early life living with a stonecutter. He went on to study sculpture under di Giovanni, another famous sculptor in his time.
Aside from a brief history lesson, the point is that David didn’t happen overnight. In fact the statue itself took over two years to carve. In order to achieve that level of skill, Michelangelo devoted himself to it. He lived and breathed it. He studied with the masters of his time. He learned their technique. And he copied it. Yes, copied it.
“Fake it ‘til you make it” isn’t supposed to be about being phony or pretending to be something that you’re not. It’s about observing people who are expert at something or who have traits or achievements you admire. Then reproducing the techniques and habits they’ve developed that got them there. Copy the experts until you know the ins and outs. Then you can use that understanding to find your voice and make the work your own. And there’s nothing fake about that.
June 2011
I first heard about broken windows in Paul Graham’s book Hackers and Painters. Broken windows was originally a criminology theory along the lines that obvious neglect and disorder breeds more neglect and disorder. We’ve all seen abandoned buildings full of broken windows. They didn’t start out that way. Most people would be reluctant to throw the stone that breaks the first window. But once one or two are broken, and not replaced, that apparent apathy makes it easier to continue the trend. It slowly erodes that “barrier to entry”. People who wouldn’t ordinarily do something like that possibly consider it because, after all, it’s obvious that nobody cares. Before you know it, all the windows are broken.
The photo above was taken over two years ago but that building still looked the same when I ran by this morning. It’s an apartment complex near my home and I pass by it regularly. Every time I do, I think of broken windows. It’s not exactly the same idea but I think it’s pretty close.
It’s possible that the apartments inside are amazing and that the building is otherwise well kept. Other than the sign, the outside of the building makes it difficult to tell either way. It’s pretty nondescript; not very fancy but not in obvious disrepair either. Except for the sign.
But I think that sign is symbolic. It’s the face the world sees. It’s that building’s “brand”. And it’s not very inviting. If the management company is sloppy and lazy about maintaining that, I can’t imagine how they conduct the rest of their business. Apartments in that building could rival those in Trump Tower. But I wonder how many people, like me, will never walk in the door and find out. Just because of the message that sign sends. I don’t know how much it would cost to repair it but I can’t imagine it’s more than the negative impression it makes on everyone who passes by every hour of every day.
I think we all have broken windows in our personal and professional lives. Little things we could do differently that have the potential to make big differences for us. And the way people perceive us. I know I can work on being more responsive to email and phone calls from potential clients. It probably sends the message that I’m a flake or that I don’t care about their business. In reality, as a solo employee, I sometimes get busy working on a current project and don’t spend as much time thinking about or planning for the next one. But that’s a lame excuse and I need to be better about it.
What are the broken windows in your life? Is there anything you’re doing, or not doing, that sends a message not consistent with how you’d like to be thought of? What can you do about it?
