On Being Nimble, Wise, and Forthright: six months on the path

"I know your blog, I follow you on Twitter, and you're speaking at this conference," a number of people said to me in Aspen last week. "But what do you do?"

It's a question that comes up a lot these days. The answer is I'm doing a lot of things, wearing a lot of hats. (And trying to find one that fits.) I've learned to be nimble over the past six months.

Six months ago, I left Ashoka to develop my idea for a green energy investing platform. Needless to say, it's been a wild ride. I wrote about it on my second day on the job, when Career-man was at war with Entrepreneur-man within.

I rode a roller coaster through those early days and, more often than not, Entrepreneur-man ruled the day. Then September devolved into October, and November was fast on its heals. The credit crisis, collapsing financial markets, and freezing up of capital flows all combined to make it quickly apparent that my timing was off.

Luckily, I was too small to fail, to borrow my pal Howard Lindzon's phrase. I hadn't taken anybody's money and didn't have any employees to lay-off. I started consulting more and began retooling my idea to adapt to the market realities.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," sang John Lennon in one of the last songs he recorded before his untimely death.

Am I wiser for this experience? It's too soon to tell. Too soon to tell if it is a failure. Is an idea a failure if it doesn't evolve beyond the idea stage? Or is it still just an idea? I do know a lot more now about what it feels like to put yourself out there and try to prove an idea.

Of course, my idea isn't dead. Indeed, I had more interest in it last week than I've had in 3-4 months. So much so that I started dusting off the PowerPoint slides and the rudimentary business plan. Rather, the idea is in a holding pattern while life happens.

"Nobody told me there'd be days like these," Lennon sang in another song. Who could have told me? Many ideas take longer to gestate and develop. Some ideas take two or three years to become realized. I've only been at it six months and, even then, not full-time, full-tilt over those six months. (I still have to pay the bills.)

So, I haven't given up the dream. My entrepreneurial dream is still alive, and I get more excited and animated about it when I talk to people about it. Even last night, talking about it with a stranger, an investment banker, in my neighborhood bar: I got excited about it, and he could see the value, had a couple of ideas about people to whom I should talk.

These days, I find Entrepreneur-man wrestles more each day with Career-man. (Having a mortgage and kids always provides a dose of reality.) I have swung from wanting to remain fiercely independent to entertaining the notion of joining another's enterprise. (And don't think people haven't tried to pull me in one direction or another.)

Why am I telling you all this? I've learned it pays to be forthright.

Sure, I want my idea to blossom into the next big thing, but some days I am not sure it will or that I'm the one to do it. (I've been told the entrepreneurs who succeed never waiver in their belief that they will achieve their goals, but I don't trust that assertion...)

I'm writing this hoping it will help other entrepreneurs who are facing the same thing in this crazy economy. (I heard from some after I tweeted some of my thoughts last night.)

I also heard from folks who may be able to be help find partners for this idea-not-yet-enterprise...

So, consider this a six-month gut-check. No one could have foreseen where we'd be right now, either in the markets or in our enterprises. We have a long way to go, but being nimble, wisely paying attention to signals, and being forthright may help us along the journey.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

On Ideas, Status, Conversation, and Flow: Life and Twitter

Image via Wikipedia

Fred Wilson wrote on his blog, A VC, yesterday about how the status update has become the primary user experience, whether you're on Facebook or Twitter or another social networking option.

"I believe Facebook's recognition of status as the most important and most powerful social gesture seals the deal," wrote Fred. "Status is where it's at in social networking. This is very good for Twitter and it's also very good for the other social nets who recognize this and move quickly to provide status updating features and open them up to the social web."

Howard Lindzon, whose latest idea StockTwits, is built on the Twitter API and features a clever twist on the status update (Substitute "What Are You Trading?" for "What Are You Doing?"), countered that "It's about Ideas."

I agreed with both and said so in a tweet yesterday afternoon: I think it's about Status + Ideas + Conversation.


Jeffrey McLarty, who knows about such things from his study of global water issues, commented that it's all about flow. More specifically, "the flow of it all."

He's right too.

My wife, who is always right, really doesn't get Twitter or why I'm hooked on it. She asked me yesterday whether I preferred my "Twitter life" or my real life. Of course I said my real life, but later I started thinking about it.

There are plenty of moments during any given day when I do prefer my life online, connected to the folks in my various social networks over what I'm doing at that moment. And there are other times when I want to shut off that online world.

But then, it's becoming increasing apparent to me that there is no real difference between the two. And that is where the flow happens: I'll tweet something that feeds into StockTwits, it's picked up and retweeted by a total stranger, and then one of my good friends sees it on my Facebook status feed and comments on it or sends me an email about it.

Another friend calls me to set up a meeting in a couple of weeks and asks me about another tweet, which is in turn commented on by someone else. That comment might trigger another idea in my head, which I might share with my wife or someone with whom I'm having coffee or a beer, which sets off another flow.

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted something about my son collecting coins. One Twitter friend picked up on that and, because he is a coin collector himself, offered to send me some coins from the British Raj. Amazing flow.

The trick is to learn to "go with the flow" and not get swallowed up by it or run ashore. Now that the Dalai Lama (or at least his office) is following me on Twitter, I'm hoping the flow leads to some harmonic convergence or something. Or at least a continuous flow of ideas and status and conversation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama Joins Twitter (readwriteweb.com)
• Facebook makes new push for more apps | Webware - CNET (tsurch.com)
• Should Facebook Try to Acquire Twitter ... Again? (allfacebook.com)
• Hasn't It Always Been About Status? (tsurch.com)
• Why Facebook Isn't Poised to Steal Twitter's Thunder (ajax-blog.com)
• Goodbye Twitter? Facebook Opens Status API (montysmegamarketing.com)
• Do You Use Social Networks More at Home or at Work? (geeksugar.com)
• The Battle for Your Social Status: Facebook Builds Network Around Your Activity (socialmediatoday.com)
• What's Twitter Doing With its Dough? (markevanstech.com)

Looking for End of the Year Reading? Check Out These Fav Bloggers

If you're looking for excellent Year in Review analysis or thoughts about 2009, check out these posts by some of the web's best bloggers.

Here's to a happy, productive, and propserous New Year!



Howard Lindzon

Fred Wilson

Upside Trader

Roger Ehrenberg

Brad Feld

Guy Kawasaki

Nathaniel Whittemore (from change.org)

Paul Kedrosky

Beth Kanter

What Are You Doing? Wallstrip Does Twitter

Okay, this is outside my usual subject matter, but I've been a fan of Twitter ever since Fred Wilson sold me on the microblogging service over a year ago. (You can follow me at greenskeptic)

I know a lot of people who don't get Twitter, including some who are near and dear to me. Most think it's an unnecessary distraction; some actually think it's evil.

I used to think the former, but then I became addicted. After many months of using it, I realized the best answer to Twitter's simple question, "What Are You Doing?" is NOT, "Having a sandwich" or "Drinking my 3rd cup of coffee."

It's also a good idea not to answer, "Having a bad day at the office." You never know who is watching...unless they follow you. Like any communication tool it needs to be used judiciously and thoughtfully. (I've learned that lesson the hard way.)

What Twitter does best is allow you

1.) to stay in touch with people you don't get to see or speak to often -- or meet new people with whom you would otherwise not be connected;

2.) to post quick takes on subjects you are interested in but don't have time to write a blog post about, and

3.) to wrestle with business problems, the answers to which may already be out there in the Twitterverse.

I've even used it to ask my followers -- now over 350 people -- to help name my book or my green energy investing start-up. (More on THAT later...)

Recently, a number of us are using Twitter to muse about the rise and fall (mostly fall) of our stock portfolios and to gauge what others are thinking about companies we are interested in.

StockTwits scans your tweets (as long as they contain a stock ticker preceded by $, such as $FSLR) and automatically indexes and displays them with a chart of the ticker.

Now, two of my favorite addictions, er distractions, Twitter and WallStrip have come together, trying to answer the question, "What ARE you doing?"



Shout-outs to Howard Lindzon and Soren Macbeth, who got me into StockTwits early -- another great distraction, er tool.