Convergence - TechFlash, SXSW & Women

In thinking about the issues raised at the TechFlash Women in Tech event this past week, it occurs to me that entrepreneurship that starts in the kitchen instead of the garage might be part of the solution in any effort to get more women involved in technology.

The notion that Mompreneurship is a great idea has occurred to me before - and I'm not the only one thinking this. Maya Bisineer (also known as @thinkmaya on Twitter) apparently is planning to convene a SXSW panel on the new CIO/CEO Mom, something I'm even more excited to see happen now that I understand how important it is to tap into all that talent somehow.

Although I actually found out about the SXSW panel over the summer, I'd forgotten all about it until today. In a fortuitous bit of serendipity this afternoon, I happened to run across a tweet from @thinkmaya announcing her intentions - I'd been saving it all this time so it was there when I went back to check a couple of tweets I'd favorited over the past couple of days. How handy is that?

If you have thoughts about how Mompreneurs can help achieve greater gender balance in the tech industry, I'm interested to hear them. I'd be just as interested to know if you think there is more harm than help in going down that path.

In what ways is past information relevant again regarding current events?

Emerging Commitment

Wednesday evening's TechFlash Women in Tech event didn't just shake up my sense of self. It also gave me some facts and figures bolstering a view I've long held regarding the value and importance of gender equality. My perspective is simple and boils down to wanting to maximize value more than caring that much about fairness. Tough girls can hack it and find a way to fit in - I did - but when it's a matter of a system that's sub-optimized, I'm more motivated to want to get in and fix it at that systemic level rather than rely on one-off solutions.

What emerged from that event was a picture that my rather passionate sense of the problems in gender inequality developed over the past 40 years is not wrong. There is indeed a system sub-optimization problem worth addressing. Some of the figures quoted that stood out to me:

• The majority of patents evaluated as highly innovative came from mixed gender teams but only 9% of technology patents have female contributors. Implied conclusion: get more women involved and you're likely to see more innovation.
  
  
• Women typically get 30% less than men in venture capitol funding but maintain similar output to their better-funded counterparts. Implied conclusion: get more for your money when investing in women because often they really have learned how to do more with less.
  
  
• Women are primary wage-earners in 4 out of 10 families but only 5% of tech startups are women-owned/led. Implied conclusion: Women are capable of doing the work; families and the tech sector would both benefit from increased contributions from women.
  
  
• Although women make up about half the general workforce, women make up only 24% of tech; in 1985, 37% of computer science majors were female, now it's down to 17%. Implied conclusion: instead of growing the numbers of women in tech, their ranks are actually shrinking; given the other stats, this is "key talent de-selecting itself and not coming to the table."
  
  
• Only 16% of Fortune 500 companies have women on their boards. Implied conclusions: not only do the numbers of women shrink in the higher ranks, there is a de-motivating effect on all women in tech/business because there are fewer role models and the system is again missing out on key perspectives.

And this was all just from the TechFlash event. I learned today that apparently the World Bank is of a similar mind, but from the perspective of poverty, that there is an economic advantage to investing in girls.

In my mind, these numbers paint a scary picture - fewer and fewer women in a key business sector that doesn't necessarily stop to consider the value they provide so doesn't miss them when they're gone. With fewer women available as role models, fewer girls and young women even stop to think of going into tech. With fewer women in the ranks of tech workers and no one else motivated enough to bring them into the fold, policies and attitudes that make tech a less attractive option to women remain in place and so they simply make other choices about the work they do. And the cycle continues to devolve in that way.

Considering what these numbers really mean, I can only conclude that it is in everyone's best interests - male and female, families and individuals, tech sector and general economy - for us to work together to find a way to bring more women into science and technology. It's not about devaluing men's contributions. It's not about playing the gender card or whining about what's fair (my personal favorite anti-feminism beef). It is simply about what is best for us as a society.

These numbers tell me that our system is more seriously broken than I'd realized, that we have reached a point somewhere along the way when it started to get worse instead of better. While not perfect, the laws and larger policies seem to me to be generally good enough so that's not the biggest problem right now. Where we're falling down is in day-to-day culture and implementation of those policies and in the choices that we each make. And when I stop to think about who is in a position to start to get that part fixed, I see a couple of obvious answers outright.

The first answer is we are all responsible for doing something about this collectively.

Men - find ways to listen to the challenges that women face in tech and help eliminate them, sometimes (perhaps) by taking them on as your own.

Women - don't give up on yourselves just because there are easier options available. Toughen up and do the hard work for yourselves and other younger women to follow and find a way to make women in tech a more, rather than less, common occurrence. Not everyone enjoys being a pioneer, but someone's got to do it or the path is never carved out for others to follow. We had one started and we let it get grown over.

Men and women both - encourage and support women of all ages to think of becoming involved in tech; be creative, it's not all just about the programming. It's about being cutting edge and changing the world, hopefully for the better. That last part is something a lot of women can get behind so it shouldn't be a tough sell. Remember to mentor individual women and also to actively advocate for their individual and collective success.

The second answer was a bit of a gulp for me. Between feeling I had so little in common with women for so many years, especially seeing so many of them not really push themselves to their true capacity, and feeling more drawn to men because it was easier for me to see what we had in common, it never really occurred to me to be that involved in advocating for women. And I say this as a person who has openly asserted how stupid many of our attitudes and policies are when it comes to women.

It wasn't that I thought I was better than other women; it was more (I believe now - I'm still trying to figure it all out) that I didn't realize just much of an impact the advantages I enjoyed (familial support, a genetic predisposition to stubbornness, and an unequivocal sense in key areas of my ability to provide value) really had in influencing my choices as opposed to the choices made by other women. I realize now that while I am indeed different from a lot of women, I am not, in fact entirely alone amongst my gender in those differences. Compared with that subset, the real difference is that the challenges I found difficult might seem insurmountable to others - or not worth the effort. Tough as it is to admit, this thought really hadn't occurred to me.

What I truly did not realize fully was just how troublesome it is that the women who could be doing this work, aren't. And in coming to these realizations, gulps and all, knowing my own experiences - both successful and not so much - with playing in a variety of male-dominated fields, knowing my sense of history and understanding of the playing field (as it was, is, and might be), and knowing I have the coaching skills and the leadership skills, and the general business skills to do it... I can only conclude one thing: that I too am not only capable of directly influencing the short-term and long-term outcomes with regard to women in tech, but that I have an outright responsibility to do so.

That said, I have practically zero clue at this point exactly what that looks like. I only know I have to be involved in some way. First and foremost, it occurs to me that it is important to recognize that responsibility in my sense of mission regarding what I'm trying to accomplish with my business. That means actively seeking to support women and women-owned businesses in tech with my coaching and my consulting. It means making it more clear how I can help.

I also sense an importance in figuring out how I can help younger girls when they are first electing to move toward or away from tech, even though I have a son instead of a daughter. On that front, if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. One of things I like about being female is an increased willingness to take the crowdsourcing approach.

Feel free to also enter into dialog on the matter. Your own thoughts and observations, suggestions and conclusions. This is a big one and we'll all have to get behind it to be able to move the ball in any significant way. As they say, though, awareness is the first step.

What conclusions can you draw from the evidence around you about what responsibilities you now (or no longer) have?

Still True

Everything I wrote about Startup Weekend Seattle 2 from last February is still true this time around, participating in Startup Weekend Redmond.

As we move into Sunday afternoon, my involvement seems to be slowing up a bit, allowing some time for reflection. I like that this time I felt able and willing to get in and get my hands dirty, actively working on a project. And just like last time, some additional lessons have emerged.

Know Your Business
I'm going to go out on a limb here - even developers should have a sense of what the business is, and that includes the business model. It impacts what you build, and unless you want to give up all possibility of autonomy and subject yourself completely to someone else telling you what to code, like some trained monkey, then you need to understand what you're selling, why, to whom, for how much, and at what cost.

And if you developers wriggle out of that one - for some understandable reasons - then be darned sure that someone you trust to have a good head for the subject takes care of that for you. And then follow their lead.

If no one is handling this part of your startup, or are doing it badly, you could well be thinking you're running a business when in fact, what you have is a hobby instead. And sometimes hobbies get quite expensive.

Listen to Feedback
Are your people tracking with your vision? Are they perhaps wanting to head a direction you should consider? Maybe the people working on your project have information about the viability of your business that must be heeded to be successful. If you're too caught up in what you want to build, you could be headed for the rocks because of individuals abandoning the project or because you're not as aware of your own blind spots as you could be.

Take Full Advantage of Available Resources
At Startup Weekend Redmond, we've had a startling array of resources available to us - BizSpark accounts with access to code, 'virtual CTO' humans to consult about architecture, various knowledgeable speakers presenting on topics relevant to our work this weekend, and of course the individuals on our respective teams and other folks working on other teams entirely. It's a mistake to walk away from help that so readily available. It also helps to pause a moment and think about what sort of help is not quite so visible. Making use of available resources is just plain smart.

Don't Force-Fit Tools
While making use of available resources is smart, there certainly are times when what is available really doesn't fit your needs. When that happens, it's smarter to walk away and find something else that works better - or take what's available now, knowing that you'll trade out as soon as it makes sense.


Keep Talking
Do you know what the other members of your team are doing and what problems they're trying solve? Do they know these things about you? Without good communication, you risk redundant efforts or worse than that, gaps in what gets done. This can be easier in small teams but there are ways of dealing with communication issues in large ones and no team is immune.

Shut Up
Once you all know what you're doing, how, and why, sometimes it's important just to shut your mouth and let everyone work. I was certainly guilty of not abiding by this one last night but that just highlights a corollary - other people often have different needs than you do. Talk about how you can best try to meet them all.

Build on Success
If you develop a good working relationship, achieve some success with an approach, follow up and build on it. Continuing to move the ball toward your goals is almost always more important than any single run.

Find Something to Do
If you're fully engaged, you'll probably have no trouble finding ways to help move the ball forward. If you've found yourself a bit less engaged, that might be a bit more problematic. Just know that a) the team can't succeed unless everyone is working to move the ball forward and b) acting engaged can help you become more engaged in what you're doing.

And just to re-iterate - Enjoy it - it's important to enjoy what you're doing or find another way to create joy in your life.

What resources are available to help you succeed?

Pay Attention or Pay the Piper

Some people don't take the time to pay attention, and it can really cost them. Don't be one of those people, especially when it comes to social media and networking.

I feel genuinely fortunate to have had a long and varied career. Even more fortunate that I've now lived a long enough life to make it seem possible that I've done all the things that I have. And that I've gotten over worrying whether I seem 'scattered', but that's beside the point.

The point is, that with so much past life experience and a genuine desire to help people out, I regularly contribute to conversations about a wide variety of topics when I feel like I have something worthwhile to offer. In an era of social media as business development platform, this has yielded some interesting if, in my opinion, rather moronic, results.

Although it's been nearly 20 years since I last worked in television, where I used to be a reporter and a weather anchor, I figure my experience in the TV industry and my expertise as a career management coach is occasionally useful to people. When a recent college graduate wanted some ideas from other LinkedIn professionals for how to land her first TV gig, I joined in with some thoughts of my own.

Sadly, someone else in the group apparently uses it primarily to harvest contact information with little to no thought about whether the individuals attached to that information are in any way her target market. The fact that we're part of the group is apparently qualification enough.

Because of that, soon after my contribution to the job search discussion, I received an email that claimed not to be a pitch (then later allowed that it might indeed be that) and then went on to pitch me on some product or technology for which I have zero use or interest personally. Because I no longer work in television, and haven't for nearly 20 years.

What's really too bad about this, though, is that if she'd paid any attention at all, it needn't have been a waste of her time or mine. Although truthfully, my 90-second investment did lead to this post and it probably took all of 10 seconds for her to launch her automated pre-written email, so maybe that's why she doesn't care. Again, however, I digress.

The point is that had she taken a bit more time and approached me as an individual and customized her message to target me, not some generic me from 20 years ago who still would have felt slimed, I could perhaps have helped her out. Because I genuinely like helping people out and because I still have a number of contacts in the industry. And I probably could have given her some advice about how to better pitch her whateveritis (I immediate sent the message to the bit bucket, so I don't even know anymore what it was). Some of the advice might even have been useful.

But because of not paying attention and the fact that one of the things for which I have very little tolerance is acting stupider than you are, I don't really feel like helping her out anymore. Should she happen to discover this post and realize it's about her, the advice here should be at least as worthwhile as anything else I could have done. And look, the rest of you get it for free! You don't have to have made the mistake to learn from it!

Paying attention to where people are, what they really want, and looking to see whether and how you fit is important. Paying attention to your own mistakes (and others) and learning from them is important. If you don't pay attention, you'll pay the price.

If you're lucky, the Piper's fee will only be 30 lashes with a wet noodle. Sometimes, though, it's worse. Sometimes it's not just a pitch that didn't land; sometimes it's a whole host of missed opportunities - or more disastrously, several potential clients or markets entirely closed to you if you happen to annoy the wrong person. Just hope they don't mention you by name if they're going to go public with their annoyance!

If you've been slimed via social media, do share. If you want help figuring out how not to slime people but still get your point across, I might be able to help. Frankly, though, Havi (with her duck, Selma) and Pistachio can probably help you out even more. I highly recommend them.

What new things have you noticed lately?

Lessons from Startup Weekend Seattle 2

My family doesn't really understand why spending a whole weekend with a bunch of geeks would be so important to me but at least they didn't begrudge me the time. Having participated twice now, I find Startup Weekend is a bit like a real-life reality show, a laboratory environment for controlled experiments dealing with real-world issues.

It's fun - lots of fun - but I probably wouldn't take so much time away from the rest of my life just to have a good time. These weekends are also really valuable.

For one thing, I find it so much easier to connect with people - get to know them and really bond with them - when we're working together for a common purpose. It's so much better than standing around at some networking event trying to figure out what to say to one another. It's even better than most ice-breaker activities or events billed as 'team-building' because of how fully engaged people are in what they're doing.

Plus, as Marina Martin points out on Nathan Kaiser's nPost blog about Startup Weekend, working together in close quarters like this also provides a great opportunity to see how people work - together, under pressure, with and without direction, and when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. After a weekend like this, I have a growing list of people I'd love to work with on real world jobs and projects and probably a few I'd have to think a bit more carefully about first.

Beyond experiencing the power of the event for yourself, here are a few of the lessons coming out of Startup Weekend that I thought were rather universally portable into other situations...

Step Up
Things happen because you make them happen. If it matters to you, take matters into your own hands; don't wait for someone else to do it.

Be a Leader
Leadership is often more about helping the group define their vision and about removing obstacles in the way of that vision than it is about dictating who should do what and how. All it really takes is wanting to be of service.

Assume You Know Enough
You may not feel like you know everything you need to know but that doesn't necessarily mean that someone else knows more than you do. Dive in and figure it out; learn as you go along if you have to.

Get Passionate
The work can be tough enough without making it tougher, trying to work on something that you have to push yourself to do. Work on what pulls you in, propels you, compels you to be involved.

Work With People Who Share Your Passion
You don't have to agree - in fact diversity of opinion helps - but look for and stick with people who feel as driven as you do to succeed in your chosen direction.

Accept Some Ambiguity
Any creative endeavor involves a certain amount of uncertainty. If you already know everything you're doing, it's an assembly line that robots could be doing instead, Certainty is not creative and definitely does not produce anything new. Embrace the ambiguity and harness the chaos to bring about real innovation and change.

Work Through Challenges
Whether you steer around obstacles, stay persistent in the face of challenges, seek out new solutions, or accept workarounds when you have to, it takes dedication to keep moving forward - and moving forward should always be your goal, no matter what setbacks you might encounter.

Use Available Resources
You never know what you need or what you might be missing. Look for and be wiling to accept help and information from a variety of sources.

Pace Yourself
Whether it's a sprint or a marathon, managing time, energy, and other resources is an important aspect of success. Know what sort of race you're running and plan accordingly.

Slow Down
Understand what you're really trying to build, for whom, and why. Listen to feedback. Make paper prototypes before committing to code. In the end, you'll actually be saving yourself time and headaches by spending some time thinking and planning before jumping straight into the actual work.

Have Fun
When all is said and done, work and life are both a lot better when we can remember to laugh, enjoy ourselves, take some time to play, and (in general) just not take things too seriously.

Look For Opportunities
When challenges arise, there are very nearly always gifts and opportunities - but only if you're looking for them instead of focusing on what's going wrong. Consider it a matter of choosing the approach most likely to produce the best outcomes.

Celebrate Success
The results may look exactly as you'd imagined... or, more likely, like something different, less or more. Whatever it is, celebrate whatever is right, whatever you have learned or accomplished.

Say Thank You
Someone has helped you get where you are, has helped make things easier. Show your appreciation.

I know there are a number of people I'd like to thank for making Startup Weekend such a memorable event.

Thank you John Smilgin for taking the ball and running with it and for joining forces with Rob Eickmann, Nathan Post, Ilene Little, and Marina Martin in doing such an amazing job with planning and execution and for bringing in so many great sponsors.

Thank you to Whitney Keyes for getting us such great media coverage and to George Junginger for his assistance and insights in running the event.

Thank you to Google for hosting the space and especially to Jessica Einfeld and Wesley Chan for their persistence and determination in resolving various issues and to Bob and Justin for taking such good care of us throughout the weekend.

Thanks also to all of the terrific sponsors who made the Startup Weekend possible - Perkins Coie, nPost, Microsoft, Blue Box Group, Type As, Inc for meals, Peets for coffee throughout the weekend, and Big Al's for very affordable, very good beer. Thank you Aviel Ginzburg for creating the cool t-shirt logo.

And of course - a huge 'thank you' to everyone who participated. Thank you to everyone who came out and joined in, worked hard, spent time on projects, helped keep things tidy, laughed, and had fun. Thank you to everyone who followed our activities and shared in spirit.

Thank you to those of you who spoke up about what you needed and helped participate in finding solutions. Thank you to everyone who helped create some buzz about this and future events and to everyone who shared ideas about how it can be even better next time. Startup Weekend just wouldn't be the fabulous event that it is without you. Thank you for being part of it.

What can you do to make your next gathering worth repeating?

Twitter - Jumping the Gap

Perhaps it's because I'm more involved in Twitter these days but I'm finding more and more evidence that Twitter is jumping the gap - beginning to cross the chasm between early adopters and going mainstream.

Of course, for some, this is about as welcome as jumping the shark but this is the stage of maturation I really love. I love the discovery of something new, figuring out how it can be useful, and then sharing that vision with others until they get it themselves. My first experience with this whole World Wide Web aspect of the internet was like that and now with Twitter, I'm actually melding that with a return to a comfort zone distinctly reminiscent of the early days of BITNet.

Near daily, we're finding new uses for Twitter. Now that it's not just about what sort of coffee drink the person in front of you is ordering, it's not just about marketing either. During the snow storms last month in Seattle, finding out weather and road status were invaluable tools for coping with all the disruption.

And Twitter is great for breaking news. Tweets today started full of news and speculation about Steve Jobs and quickly moved on to subjects like the plane crashing in the Hudson River and other topics that regularly take a bit more time to reach mainstream media.

In fact, it was at least three days between when I heard about the pantsed Vail skier via Twitter and the first forwarded email in my inbox. News junkie that I am, I'm following news-oriented Twitter accounts as fast as I can discover them.

From these uses, it's not at all a big leap to thinking of using Twitter in emergency situations including using Twitter as an emergency broacast system and the possibility of having Twitter play a role in a larger technology solution for emergencies and disasters.

Twitter has been a great discovery mechanism as well - finding new people, finding blogs like the one published by Washington State Department of Transportation and finding lots of other great sites and interesting information.

It wasn't so very long ago when the notion of being rescued with Twitter was a big deal. Now that this seems an obvious go-to, I wonder where we'll head next with this technology. We like to make predictions this time of year - how do you see Twitter being used in the future and what would it take to get there?

In any case, the pattern I've noticed is technology is often used for fun before it's real usefulness is identified and put to work. It doesn't hurt to think about what's fun in our own lives and how that might be made useful.

How do I use technology to move me forward?

Fail Big - Count Me Out

When startups are encouraged to fail big, I'm pretty sure no one had in mind the recent troubles with Count Me In, the same company Small Person's soccer and baseball teams have used over the years to handle registrations. I'm just glad now that I did not end up working with them as I'd imagined a year ago that I would. Sometimes there does seem to be some grand design in the universe.

At the very least, it's one more reason to believe the adage, "it's better to be lucky than good."

For those impacted and those associated with the company who I know to be good people, I wish the best. I'm sure this isn't an easy situation, but hopefully it can all be resolved with a minimum amount of damage all the way around.

For the rest of us, I'm sure we're just glad to be clear of the blast zone.

What are the potential long-term consequences of today's decisions?

Men, Women, and Bison

Right next to the embarrassing Attachmate-related article this weekend was an article containing an embarrassing number regarding women-owned businesses - fewer than 3% hit $1M, according to Susan Solovic, addressing entrepreneurial women at the Vision to Venture event put on in Seattle by Microsoft last Friday. And this is despite numbers indicating that twice as many women as men are starting businesses, although the Kaufman Foundation says the ratio of male and female entrepreneurship is just the opposite.

In fact, the Kaufman Foundation is very interested in identifying and addressing the obstacles to success for women entrepreneurs and with the women's entrepreneurial success numbers so low, that's probably a good thing, no matter who's starting businesses more frequently than whom. Personally, after reading Berkun's excellent book, Myths of Innovation, I believe that women are ideally situated to become successful innovators.

Think about even the basics, when it comes to innovation and risk.

Innovation and entrepreneurship both require risk and being in a risk-averse situation or stage of life is perhaps one of the bigger obstacles to becoming an innovator or an entrepreneur. My assertion is that women as a group are in a much better place to accommodate the sorts of risks associated with innovation and entrepreneurial activities.

Single women are just as well educated and have no more to lose than single men, so from a mathematical standpoint, women should about equal men in their younger years.

When men and women share a household as couples, it starts making far more sense for women to take on the risky business of entrepreneurial innovation since on average, men still earn considerably more than women. If you're going to risk a paycheck, make it the smaller of the two.

When those couples have children, higher-earning male partners become even more risk-averse, or would if they stopped to think about the math. At the same time, introducing the cost of childcare into the equation makes having both parents working outside the home less mathematically attractive with each additional child.

Sure, finding the time to innovate or start a business gets tougher with children around but no more so for women than for men, especially if they're willing to share the workload and perhaps relax their standards a bit too. And the more flexible paid work that mothers often seek is well-suited to a side venture, whether that happens while children are still young or whether they wait until the extra time is available for something other than tending to youngsters.

Mothers who get involved in volunteer activities are quickly becoming adept at virtual organizations, providing them with valuable skills in working virtually on entrepreneurial pursuits as well, and they're often great at networking even if that doesn't always include asking for what they want for themselves. On top of all that, mothers who stay home with their kids get to see natural innovators up close and personal each and every day.

Although I have lots more thoughts where these come from, you begin to get the idea. I am sure there are even more arguments that I haven't even yet considered, also supporting the assertion that women are well-positioned to be innovators and entrepreneurs. If you have any - counter-arguments too - please share. I'm always interested.

In the meantime, mamas please don't let your babies grow up to be wannabe cowboys who find it necessary to ignore open-range laws and go around shooting someone else's herd of bison. Aside from showing poor judgment that, as pointed out in one comment, is quite likely is not limited to bison, it's flat out embarrassing to those of us who have any past or present connection to the proud history of Attachmate and WRQ. Help them grow up to be fabulously successful innovators instead. Start with teaching kids innovative thinking. Then think about becoming great role models for innovation yourselves.

Where do you see room for improvement?

Bliss'ed Out

I'm not just a geek. I'm a geek with a passion for customer service. And now I have a new hero - Jeanne Bliss, author of Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action, because she lays it all out there exactly as I've seen it over the years.

Wanting customer service done right, with the right kind of leadership, was the whole reason I got into management in the first place. Although I've worked with some great support professionals over the years, I haven't always found my passion for the customer matched, understood, or supported sufficiently high enough in the food chain to make a lasting difference.

I've theorized that getting attention onto the customer - the real nuts and bolts of what it takes to make customers truly happy with the products and services offered by a company - requires executive sponsorship and action of a level I've rarely seen before. With a nod to the other ways it is possible to make good customer relationships happen, Bliss essentially confirms that assertion with her own experiences and recommendations. I couldn't be more delighted.

A recent search of "Chief Customer Officer" shows CCO's are relatively new as a phenomenon , and some circles still argue the value of a CCO or Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCEO). Although the concept seems to be building momentum slowly, at least it's out there now.

In my estimation, it's not enough to say that we should be focused on customers. Having a deep understanding of what customer service really is and what it takes, operationally, to make customers satisfied and be business savvy enough to go about it in ways that are both effective and cost-conscious all push the degree of responsibility and interaction with other leaders of the organization up to C-level and even merit Board-level involvement.

Focus on the customer has to be real, and it has to exist throughout the company. It can't just be limited to technical support or customer service. Bliss has a good CCO-or-Not checklist for assessing whether a company needs a dedicated CCO to manage customer experiences.

The nice thing about the Chief Customer Officer function is that it more effectively describes what's needed in emerging companies.

In the early stages of a company, there is typically not enough volume to warrant a dedicated technical support or customer service person. But there does still have some be some understanding of how customer experiences will be managed, and how a service operation will grow. And the CEO needs the ear and support of someone who understands all of that so that it doesn't get lost in the process of getting funding and bringing the product to market.

Granted, it's generally overkill to have that expertise in play on a full-time basis. That's where on-demand or interim management can be helpful. Plenty of startups hire interim CFO's for similar reasons. Maybe it's time to think about an interim or on-demand CCO as well.

Clearly we're all still finding what constitutes level ground on this one, let alone best practices. I'd love your comments. I'm also looking for more resources to add to my growing collection of notes on the Chief Customer Officer function. I welcome your recommendations.

What if we paid the same level of attention to avoiding re-architecting customer service and corporate culture as we do to building good products?

Avvo Joins the Party

You know how a good host is supposed to introduce people who might have something in common and then wander off to help others? Well, I probably missed a great opportunity to be a good host and it seems that Avvo and Lawyerpalooza folks found each other anyway even without my help.

Tall Person - AKA Rock God with The Big Lubersky (sadly, not playing this year) - let me know recently that Avvo will support Lawyerpalooza 6, coming up Thursday evening, April 24. Rumor has it that there could be Avvo-styled ratings cards for the judges to hold up to score the bands. How perfect is that - the website that lets you rate attorneys helping to rate attorney rock bands!

Then, I turn around a short day or two later and hear from an excited Avvo person, "Hey, did you know there's a Lawyerpalooza where lawyers play rock music in a battle of the bands!?"

D'oh! Yes, I am feeling a bit sheepish that I didn't facilitate that connection earlier! Everything seems to be humming along smoothly now though anyway so no harm, no foul I guess. Just... well... oops.

Anyway, I plan not to worry about it too much come Thursday, when I turn into a professional groupie. As those who know me already understand, I'm likely to be moving pretty slowly on Friday morning, with all the dancing I'll be doing in support of underfunded Seattle school music programs. I keep fairly active, but when you dance all evening and don't ever sit down, that can take a bit of a toll.

If you're there, come keep me company on (or near) the dance floor or at least say 'hi'. You don't even have to dance if you don't want to, though it's way more fun if you do. And don't forget to bring cash for the bar and "Chicago voting" (vote early and often) for your favorite band(s). Food is provided by Avvo.

What helps you get over the small stuff and remember "it's all good"?

Found It!

For quite some time now, I've been asking Jobster for a widget that would let me display job postings on my website and blog that might be of interest to all three people who visit. It seems my friend Nathan at nPost has beat them to it, creating a widget that displays jobs at startups.

To see it in action, check out the sidebar over on the right. I like it, this is exactly what I was looking for - a way to connect geeks with jobs that might interest them and help entrepreneurs find great talent.

Hopefully it will help you find what you're looking for. Of course, if you don't know yet what that is - or you think you might need help succeeding in your new role - I'm certainly available to work with you to sort that out too!

What work keeps you engaged?

In the Thick of It

Startup Weekend Seattle is a locomotive - not sure if we've quite picked up enough steam yet to have left the station and start covering some distance... but we're at least mostly aboard.

There are a few of us making regular - and sometimes overlapping - posts, so be sure to check it out often!

What keeps you motivated?

Countdown to Crave

Seattle startup Zeenami is participating in the big Crave Show "Indulgence and Style" event for women at the Seattle Pike Street Annex today and tomorrow. And they'll have local coaches there too, helping women figure out what to do about life fulfillment scores that aren't what they want them to be.

Okay, so I'm a bit too geeky to really appreciate "Indulgence and Style" for myself but hey, I know LOTS of women who are into that sort of thing, so I'm thinking it's pretty cool to bring geek and coaching together.

If you plan on attending or have feedback, drop me a quick line at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - I'm interested in your experience.

What do you really crave?

Yes, It IS Big News

It's interesting watching the comments fly about Microsoft purchasing a stake in Facebook... and now just a couple days later, Google announcing OpenSocial. Despite some cynics, I contend that this is a big deal.

Social networking technology is finally catching up to a pent-up demand to satisfy the desire to connect with other people, despite living in a harried and fractured world. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others have each addressed part of that need while at the same time, segmenting our lives further by remaining as entirely separate silos.

I'm not alone in feeling like it's crazy-making to keep up profiles across several different networks... or to choose to focus on just one or two to the exclusion of others.

People of all demographics want to feel connected. The younger folks, the young at heart, people who want to stay connected with them, and people who don't want to be left behind while the hiring game changes, all want to use technology to do this. That's a pretty sizeable group of people when you start to add it all up.

Most importantly, these people want social networking to make life easier and better, not harder, and the technology is finally beginning to catch up to that.

Of course, it mostly starts out with forging virtual connections with people we already know and care about in real life. As that capability matures, however, there is the capacity to learn more about each other than we often learn IRL, and to learn more about people we didn't even know before. So yes, these kinds of moves by the giants of the industry definitely could have an impact on quality of life and understanding fellow humans.

More than a decade ago, back when most of the folks I knew didn't even know what the internet was (including many of the geeks I worked with), and only a handful were just starting to get the idea about email, and the best form of electronic connectedness most of us had was through electronic bulletin boards of which only a handful were connected to each other... Way back then, Howard Rheingold wrote The Virtual Community, and it really spoke to me. I tried speaking to him too, but that didn't really go anywhere at the time.

Between then and now, the Internet became more widely accessible (and I only had to suffer through ten years' or so worth of withdrawal, after leaving school), started to offer more to the average person, and connecting electronically has become second nature to most of us. Between then and now, I and about 150 other women and some of their partners came together through the internet in support of one another throughout the duration of our pregancies - and our group was just one of many.

Though I can't speak to the others, I can say that our group is still going strong nearly a dozen years later, and I'm sure that between us, we can name every one of the people who was ever part of our clan (plus most of their kids and partners and a lot of other relevant details about their lives), even if they're not still an integral part of our thriving community today.

We're very close-knit and the connection we share electronically has been a real important part of our day-to-day support through pregnancy, child-rearing, trying to being good partners in our relationships and how we show up in life and work in the broadest possible terms. We help each other maintain sanity, offer differing points of view for consideration, celebrate successes and provide plenty of {{virtual hugs}} during times of grief and challenge.

If you want an example of how people can use virtual communities to improve quality of life and understanding of fellow human beings, just ask me about the November Moms of '96. And make sure you have a lot of time to stay and get the answer.

How will this new wave of technology-aided and abetted community shake out? I'm not all that sure yet - but I can tell you that I'm mostly excited about it. The news of the past week makes a lot of new things possible. That's great news for those of us with social networking on the brain. It's also great news for Startup Weekend participants or anyone else tapping into the value of community on the web.

In the meantime it's probably a good idea to go back and read some of Howard's thoughts on the downside of virtual communities - while the examples are perhaps dated, he accurately predicted a lot of what we've seen since his original writing of it all and the risks that haven't already been realized are still out there. It's probably a good idea to spend at least some time thinking about how to mitigate those risks and to keep thinking about how to realize the full potential of this notion of a virtual community that complements, not replaces, the real thing.

You probably have thoughts on the matter. I'd love to hear stories, predictions, concerns - whatever. Send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and help design the future.

What does community mean to me and how do I express that in my life and work?

All Clear

After exploring the connection between nomenclature and expertise, I thought it might be fun to delve into terms that are so self-explanatory as to make such a connection meaningless.

I'm talking about words and phrases that are so descriptive all by themselves that very little explanation is required, even if you've had no direct experience with the referenced matter and have never heard the term before.

Even people who have never carried a drink or food tray in their lives would have a pretty good idea of what it means to be in the weeds. And you don't have to be a restaurant worker to appreciate the view from the weeds. On the upside, those having been there will find that time in the weeds may be advantageous later on. I like to think so.

Plenty of people use the term, behind the power curve, without having any experience flying airplanes. Yet the basic meaning of the expression is so clear that even non-pilots essentially use it correctly to convey a point that readily resonates with other non-pilots.

The notion of a blowout diaper is equally descriptive. Even if you've never been near one, you know you don't ever want to be! Of course, blowout diapers are just one out of a wide variety that new parents are so fortunate to get to face. Just don't go investigating what you don't want to know!

Then there's the onesheet. I can't tell you how it is I've missed running across this term over the years but somehow it's true. And so when I asked for a summary describing the concept behind Startup Weekend that I could give to people who wanted to know more about it, I was anticipating something like an FAQ. What I got was even better - and I immediately understood both the term and what it described.

And for those of you who are interested in knowing more about this project that we're planning to bring to Seattle... I encourage you to check out the Startup Weekend onesheet.

After you've done that, give me a shout and let's talk about how you might like to get involved. It needn't be anything obscure or fancy. Whatever is self-evident to you might just be that obvious because it's a talent unique to you, something the rest of us don't have in as great a measure.

So make a comment or send a message to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com with your ideas. We're looking for space, talent, sponsors/backers/underwriters, ideas, you name it. If the Startup Weekend concept sounds at all intriguing to you, clearly we can find a way to get you involved.

What things are obvious to me that are not so clear to others?

Leggo My Lego!

So much interesting is going on right now that it's almost too much. Now that I'm back in town again, I've been joining the other folks in putting out some feelers for space for Startup Weekend Seattle (know of anyplace that'd work? we'd love to hear about it!) and it looks like I may be helping to re-write the curriculum and co-teach a unit on customer support for a UW certification program. We're making headway on those plans anyway and I'm excited about the prospects.

That's just for starters. There are plenty more irons in the fire too and on top of all that, there were so many articles of interest in the business section of the Seattle PI on Monday that I hardly know what to do with them all. The highlight for me was probably the article on Lego Serious Play. I've been interested in LSP since November, when I got to try it out for myself at the ICF Conference in St. Louis last fall.

In fact, I forwarded the article to Robert Rasmussen, figuring he'd appreciate knowing it made print here in Seattle. I'm glad I did; we've been talking about how to get me into one of the certification sessions and he mentioned that there's likely to be one in Vancouver, BC sometime this winter. I'm so there. I just have to make sure it doesn't conflict with Startup Weekend!

All I can say is with everything popping up at once, it's both scary and exciting - kind of like those thunderstorms Monday night which were way cool to watch by the way; it's just too bad that we had an obscured view - even our treehouse wouldn't have helped much in that regard. I'm just glad that Small Person is back to school so that he doesn't have to feel neglected as I start getting into all the cool new stuff happening.

Whether you're interested in Lego as a business performance tool or have ideas about space for Startup Weekend, I'm interested in what you have to say. You can send messages to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll build on that. It'll be fun, too - so long as you leave at least a few of the cool Lego pieces for me to use too.

How can I tap into fun and excitement to help get things done?

Start Me Up

Back when I was in Tech Support at Attachmate, we used to have an award where we'd pick the top ten people we'd want to work with if we were to put together a dream team - most of us chose people who were both knowledgeable in their domain(s) and were easy to work with.

Startup Weekend feels like that to me, especially since Andrew Hyde copied a handful of us who have expressed an early interest in making a Startup Weekend - Seattle event happen here by way of introduction to each other. So - now we're working on figuring out when to hold Startup Weekend - Seattle, where to have it and who to include. I can't really say I have any idea where it will all lead... and it's pretty exciting anyway, quite likely at least in part because I don't know.

So now I'm starting to think about who of all the people I know might be good in a startup environment and, of those, who might want to be part of a Seattle Startup Weekend, creating a company and a product all in one weekend - what Andrew calls Jazz for Entrepreneurs.

Some of us are having conversations already. Now that I'm back from vacation, I'm also working on getting to know the folks Andrew has put me in touch with and hear more about what they're up to in terms of planning for this event so we can begin to work out some kind of a division of labor. All of us are working on getting the word out - we're sure that Seattle has plenty of talent that would be drawn to this kind of experiment and help bring it to life.

Does the idea of Startup Weekend interest you? Do you know people in (or willing to travel to) the Seattle area who might be interested? Do you know someplace we could use for the weekend for this event? Send your thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's have some fun pulling together a great team for a fun project and see what we can make of it together.


What does it take to make the unknown exciting instead of scary?

Color Me Tired

Other people start a company in a weekend and get a really great headstart on a product. My big accomplishment this weekend was reading the final Harry Potter installment before I went to sleep Saturday night.

The two really don't compare, I realize, but I like to think of it as training. Maybe there will be a Seattle Startup Weekend sometime soon. If so, I think it would be a blast to participate. I'm sure I could offer something worthwhile.

I know I felt a strong pull toward the Boulder effort and kept wishing a) I'd known about it sooner and b) I wasn't heading off for vacation in the middle of the project. Not knowing how it all turned out until I got back was one of the few things I really missed in Yellowstone where there is no internet and hardly any cell phone coverage.

In the meantime, Deathly Hallows was definitely a good read. By sticking with it until I was done with only a few short breaks, I didn't have to wonder how it all turned out, though it did mean not getting a whole lot of sleep that night. That's okay though; it was worth it.

I found Harry and company's last adventure incredibly satisfying even if it was sort of bittersweet, knowing that we've reached an ending with no guarantee of a subsequent beginning.

VoSnap isn't quite ready for use so if you have a thumbs up or thumbs down on Harry or the thought of a Startup Weekend in Seattle, go ahead and send me a message at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's see if there's some consensus of opinion. Until then, get caught up on your rest. You never know what else might come along that is worth staying up for.

What would make losing or cutting short a night's sleep worthwhile?

Pollyanna Has Left the Building

Sometimes I get accused of looking at the world far too optimistically. I try to be realistic about what I see and then from there generally choose a more optimistic perspective because the cynical views just don't seem to help me get to where I want to go quite as well. Here's the thing though - stuff does still get to me sometimes and today is one of those days. What's sad is that it all comes from being more excited about something than I thought I'd be.

I attended the live portion of the inaugural Microsoft Small Business Summit yesterday and was really impressed. Sure, there were a few misleading comments in describing products but overall, the focus really was on delivering worthwhile content combined with some useful information about a couple of products. It felt more like education (which I like) than the pushy sales-y approach we tend to associate with marketing (which I don't). Just as important, the steps they're taking with their small business-oriented products all seem to be in the right direction even if they're not yet to the point where they're able to solve all the small business problems in the world. I was pleasantly surprised to find they served lunch and even came away with a pretty cool SWAG bag. Nice.

My favorite presentation was Keith Ferrazzi, probably because he reiterated (with great examples and a lot of heart) the same views on effective networking that I've espoused for a long time. Maxine Clarke's story about Build-A-Bear also contained some worthwhile lessons, even for people who don't necessarily get excited about teddy bears; and I'd argue too that they apply even to situations beyond owning and running a business. In addition to having information more readily applicable to more than just business owners though , Keith was particularly captivating as a speaker and very genuine. I highly recommend hearing the webcast.

Here, however, is the chink in the armor although I am optimistic (see, even when I'm annoyed, I can still be hopeful) that they will be able to get the matter resolved. I can only guess that the Microsoft servers have been overwhelmed with people interested in these webcasts.

First, I had trouble logging in, getting errors and timeouts all over the place. When I finally did get logged in, I had trouble accessing the webcast I had scheduled to view. When I wanted to add another webcast later in the day, it wouldn't save. More errors and timeouts. Finally, I got into the first webcast I had scheduled ten minutes late only to find that the audio was terrible. The next webcast I couldn't access at all. After many more headache-causing issues and quite a lot of cursing (yes, I do that too - and quite well, I might add) at having been bounced out of the system numerous times, I was able to get logged back in and into the last session of the day even before it started. It's just too bad it's not really one of the high priority sessions.

The good news is that they are apparently aware of the problems - unlike the first session with the terrible audio, the last session has offered a phone number for dial-up audio, which is a good first step. And I have to believe that they're busy adding servers to improve performance. Already I seem to be having better success getting into the evaluations.

So go ahead, log into the Small Business Summit site and check out the webcasts. I'm sure they'll work when you get there.

And for anyone who has their own business or is thinking of going into business for themselves, it sure looks like the Small Business Center site has some really great tools and resources. Perhaps I'm being optimistic to the point of gullibility but I really do believe the explanation that I heard yesterday for all of this apparent altruism... They're working under the theory at Microsoft (in the Small Business unit anyway) that if they help small business owners become successful, they'll be in that much better position to purchase technology solutions and that much more likely they'll consider getting them from Microsoft. It works for me anyway.

If you listen to Keith's webcast or any of the others, I'm interested in your thoughts and feedback on what you got out of it/them. If you'll send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com, I'd enjoy a conversation on the subject. I might even still be in a mood to vent and commiserate over difficulties too if you experience any of the same kinds of issues I have today.

In what way does dwelling on a negative perception help you get what you want? What other perceptions would better help you achieve your goals?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.