It’s considered high-minded right now to come out railing against patents. Everyone is doing it, from Mark Cuban to Fred Wilson to Twitter.
It seems to me that the picture is not quite as black and white as one might think. Cuban talks (albeit a bit tongue in cheek) about a janitor being sued for a how they mop the floor. However, are we to believe that if Cuban had come up with some special HD sauce while starting HDNet and patented it that he would not have defended it against potential infringement?
The issue, I think, is not with the use of patents but rather with the granting of them by the USPTO. The people granting patents, I would imagine in most cases, have no real idea about the impact of the grant on the marketplace or whether or not it’s truly a unique idea. With software patents in particular, there are so very few truly unique ideas that the granting of them should come almost never.
I was involved in a patent dispute back when I worked for Bandwidth.com. We had a competitor file a patent for how they were selling business Internet services online. As a result of the filing, we had to file our own patent application as a defensive counter-measure. It cost us a lot of money and a lot of time and ultimately meant nothing for either party. There was nothing intrinsically unique about what either we or they were doing.
To me, these are the kinds of patents that we should throw into the “frivolous” bucket, and I think they are the patents everyone is most concerned about. They are an extension of our bent toward litigation as a way to resolve disputes or gain advantage.
There are, however, legitimate patents that deserve protection. Real money is invested, real innovation is discovered, and it should be protected. I am not sure, however, that a better way to check out on an e-commerce website is something worthy of protection (as an example).
There is a big difference in the question of “what if” vs. “so what if.”
They are two completely different ways of looking at every decision or circumstance one is faced with.
More “so what if.”
The question that trumps all other questions when starting out with a new idea:
“What is the question you are answering?”
If you can’t articulate a concise response in less than 15 seconds, I would submit that it’s time to pause and consider seriously whether to continue.
It’s a discipline that flies in the face of the romance of a new idea, and it’s a constant struggle. It is, however, a necessary internal war.
There are times when it’s appropriate to take on new things. Opportunities present themselves that seem like they will lead somewhere, and so time and energy is committed and spent.
Opportunity cost is one of the least-valued costs, and yet is probably the most important factor in any decision. Doing one thing means, in most cases, that something else will be left undone. Or it can mean not having the time to see other opportunities emerging, or simply not giving one’s brain the opportunity to think and ponder freely. Time is the most precious of all the finite resources.
Spring is a time when animals shed their winter coat and get leaner / lighter for the summer. It’s instinctive for animals, but not humans.
Take this spring as an opportunity to shed things that don’t matter, aren’t successful, or aren’t helping you get where you want to go. I am. It’s painful because it often means putting things on the shelf where real financial and intellectual capital has been spent. It’s not, however, more painful than spending MORE on it and looking back six months from now and saying “I should have done this sooner.”
I write a lot on this blog about stupid things that businesses do, not so much to be critical of them but to remind all of us that every single interaction counts.
We got a dog a few weeks back and are looking to install an electric fence. There are really only a couple of players in this space: Invisible Fence and DogWatch (at least in our area).
We visited Invisible Fence’s website and filled out the information request. Within a few hours we had a call from a representative with a few options for a time to visit our house. She came out on time, was very helpful, and gave us a few options for how to fence in the yard, as well as letting us know when they could schedule the install if we were so inclined.
We then went to DogWatch’s website and did the same. That is where the similarities end. The DogWatch rep sent us an email saying “Call our office to schedule an appointment.” Um, what? When last I checked we were the prospective customer. We don’t do the leg work. I was really quite surprised at the impersonal, uninterested response.
Given that Invisible Fence is the standard-bearer in this business, I would think their competition would be going above and beyond to earn new business. It seems, at least in the case of DogWatch, that they have all the business they need. What a great position to be in these days.
I spent the week between Christmas and New Years in Tulsa, OK visiting family. On one of the days my wife and I decided to go get some coffee (or tea in my case). There were, of course, sixteen Starbucks within a five mile radius of where we were, but I wanted something different.
We stumbled upon a cool little, locally owned, coffee shop called Agora with the help of Google Maps. What I loved about this place was that they took the time to help us find a coffee and tea that were really perfect for the day and our mood. I actually ordered something, changed my mind, and got something different without the guy rolling his eyes and treating me like an idiot (or charging me for the first drink).
Later on that same day we went to Pepper’s Grill for dinner. If you are ever in Tulsa, this is really the only place I would characterize as a must-visit. They have some of the best tex-mex food on the planet. Not coincidentally, they are also locally owned.
I am getting to where I will drive a good bit out of the way to have an experience that I can’t get on every corner in every city in the US. I know people love Panera and Starbucks, but they are all so bland. Who wants bland?
How about you? Do you prefer convenience and consistency over quality and excellence? Do you look for local and unique over national and same?
A man with two clocks never knows the time.
A man cannot serve two masters.
These independent thoughts have in common the distraction of having two of something. In the case of business, this might be having two competing objectives, or to be more to the point not having one clear objective.
I think there is also something to the idea that trying to be something you are not (personally or professionally) creates two of you. The real you and the other you.
Lots of people think of the new year as a time to add to their lives those things that they think are missing. There is more value, I would submit, in ruthlessly getting rid of things that don’t belong.
Getting down to one is where I am headed each day. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.
How about you?
A few years back I went to see a Switchfoot concert at a college nearby. At the time I knew who they were, but would not have considered myself a fan. At the urging of my brother, I went to see them.
The concert venue was lousy, and there was almost no one there. Probably less than 500 people showed up. The warm up bands were awful. I was skeptical.
Next thing I knew Switchfoot was up on stage and giving it everything they had. They had an insane amount of energy and put on an amazing show. I became a fan that night. Fast forward three or four years to two weeks ago when I took my entire family up to Charlottesville, VA to see them perform again. It’s a four-hour drive from where we live, but I knew it would be worth it.
Sure enough, they killed it again. It was one of the best live shows I have seen.
The moral of the story for me has nothing to do with Switchfoot, but rather their commitment to giving it all every night they perform. They could have easily mailed it in the night I first saw them, or even given 75% of their usual effort. Instead, they made us feel like there was nowhere else they would rather be. As a result, they gained a whole family as devoted fans.
Something to think about when you don’t feel like doing your best work.
I have been a customer of Gmail since 2004. Since that time, nearly all of my email has been stored with Google. It’s something I fret about from time to time when I think about the cost of losing my mail to either an error at Google, a hack of my account, or human error.
This week I came across a great service called Backupify. It does a nightly backup of your mail, calendar, and Google Docs. In addition, the service will back up your Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as any Facebook Fan Pages that you administer. There are a number of other services such as Flickr, Picasa and Zoho that are also included.
The service has three levels: Personal, MyCloud 100 and MyCloud 500. The prices are Free, $4.99/mo and $19.99/mo respectively. The details on what is included with each plan can be found here.
I also use Apple Mail to back up my mail periodically to my local machine, but Backupify gives me an additional measure of peace of mind.
Check it out!
If you are like most people, you have inevitably come out of a meeting with less than perfect notes and had to try to recall important items from the discussion. Missing important details inevitably leads to wasted time and effort, either by taking the wrong action or by having to circle back with the other attendees to recapture the information.
I started a practice a couple of years ago of bringing an audio recorder with me to all meetings, whether attending via phone or in person. It has proven to be invaluable, and has saved my backside on more than one occasion.
Here are some great reasons to start recording your meetings:
- It allows you to engage more actively in the meeting, knowing that you can revisit the recording later to take notes and get important details
- You can share meeting audio with other participants who were not able to attend the meeting
- You can have the meeting transcribed by 3rd party transcription services if there are legal (or other) reasons to do so
- By being able to play back the audio, you often get the nuances of the discussion that you never heard or had forgotten
- Settling disputes over what was actually said becomes as easy as playing back the audio
I have two recording devices that I use. I have an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder that is very small, maybe 1.5”x3”. I use this when I am only bringing a paper notebook to the meeting. What I don’t like about this device is that it’s a pain to get the audio off. Although it’s a USB connection the audio is not easily accessible. When I have my Macbook Pro with me, I use Evernote’s audio recorder. It’s fantastic in that the audio is automatically backed up for me. This is my preferred method.
Everyone dislikes meetings. Everyone dislikes taking notes during meetings even more. Having audio is a good way to make meetings more productive and have a record of what actually happened.
Question: Do you ever record meetings, and if so, what is your methodology?
