Memeo
Yesterday Memeo announced an $8.1m Series B funding led by Foundry. Memeo offers simple, elegant, but extremely powerful backup and synchronization capabilities for both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. I couldn’t be more excited about the Memeo opportunity, about the Memeo team or about our co-investor, G-51 (with whom we’ve teamed up with in past investments). And while I rarely judge the merits of an investment based on my personal experience with a product, I can say that having installed the product as part of our due diligence process I’ve been amazed with how powerful and simple to use the Memeo’s Life Agent. It’s one of those things you add to your technology stack and quickly realize that you can’t live without it. The fact that it blows its competitors away with its ease of use just adds to the experience (yes – managing the back-up and synchronization of your digital assets SHOULD be this easy). …
January 8, 2008· 1 min read
“Seth can’t take your call right now . . .”
I have a few pet peeves about personal business habits that I’ve joked about in the past (see How do you sign your emails and Where was that you went to school, for example). Here’s another one that’s been bugging me lately: outgoing voicemail messages With apologies to my many, many friends who do this, it really bugs me when people have their assistant leave their outgoing voicemail message. I get it – you’re busy; you’re very important; you have an assistant; you don’t really have time in your schedule to deal with things like setting up your voicemail. But really? Do you honestly not have the 30 seconds it takes to set up your own personalized outgoing message? Or is it that you just can’t figure out how to do it . . . ? …
January 2, 2008· 2 min read
Back in the saddle
At Mobius/Foundry we take the week between Christmas and New Year off from work. Combined with a few days before, Christmas this makes for a pretty nice break from the office. Historically I average about 50% for being able to actually take meaningful time away from work over this time period (there have been a handful of years where an end of the year deal has made this impossible). This was one of the good years. …
January 2, 2008· 1 min read
Happy holidays from Gary the Snowman
Blueprint scores again with the next installment of its Gary the Snowman series. See the fully video card here.
December 28, 2007· 1 min read
Revenge of the database
I had a note from a break-out session I led at defrag a few months ago that read “database is back”. It was by far the biggest take away from the two-day conference for me. While a significant infrastructure has developed around simplifying and virtualizing pretty much every aspect of the technology stack, the common denominator to all NextGenWeb, Web 2.0, social networking, aspiring platform companies is the database. And while the other elements of the technology stack are getting all of the fanfare the very unsexy database that back-ends all of this great new stuff is the real hero. After all, many of the companies in the categories I mention above are really just fancy front-ends to a large. This presents problems for companies that are developing new services since there are very few options for lightweight databases and essentially no options for virtualizing these databases (at least nothing very robust and scalable). For the most part they’re stuck handling the set-up, implementation and maintenance of this technology themselves. The result is greater cost, more headaches and an inability to quickly scale if their business is successful. …
December 14, 2007· 2 min read
Sales is a science, not an art
Andy Blackstone had a great comment to my post yesterday on Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article about explicit behavior (in the case of the article, doctors using checklists). I’ve edited the comment slightly for clarity. An important concept in the article is that the checklists are not aimed at a specific condition but at an overall process in the ICU. One of the objections I often encounter in my consulting practice is “my business is different” – I’d contend that at the process level that’s most often not true. The resistance to adopting these checklists often comes from doctors that think the “art of medicine” is being threatened by the regimen of the checklist. In my practice, I see sales managers and salespeople with the same objection. In fact, as the article states, it is the reduction of the routine aspects of the process to the rigors of the checklists that enables the art to emerge. Finally, I was struck by the feeling of the doctors in the ICU that there was just no time available in the midst of their chaotic day to deal with checklists – a reaction I’ve seen in lots of business managers as well. This is a major barrier to implementing any new business process. The success of checklists in the ICU in not only reducing accidents, deaths, and costs, but in making the doctors time efficient, can be seen as new business processes are implemented as well. …
December 12, 2007· 5 min read
The most inspirational songs of the 80’s
For a fun diversion take a look at Cracked.com‘s list of “The 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational 80’s Songs“. Don’t know that Danger Zone or You’re the Best (Joe Esposito?!?) would be on my personal list. And how can you possibly leave out Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is (which, in a true highlight of my life, I was able to see performed live by Foreigner about 5 feet from the stage at a conference I was attending)? For that matter, how can Wanted (Dead or Alive)] not be at the top of the list – it blows the rest of the group away without a doubt! …
December 12, 2007· 1 min read
Skinny Songs!
My partner and friend Heidi Roizen has just gone public with her new venture. No – it’s not another tech start-up. It’s Skinny Songs – a collection of music that she wrote and produced as a soundtrack to inspire those trying to lose weight. Its part country, part rock, all attitude and extremely catchy (there are sample tracks on the site linked to above – my personal favorite is I think I’ll go to Saks). …
December 11, 2007· 1 min read
I’ve given up on IM
Someone asked me today if I use IM any more – the answer is a resounding NO. Make that NO WAY. I used to think that IM was useful for short conversations but have completely changed my view on it and dropped using it altogether about 18 months ago. Here are some of my reasons for jumping off the bandwagon: As the number of connected devices I use increases, it became harder to keep my ‘status’ up to date. At any given moment I have at least one laptop online (sometimes two), my office tower and a mobile device. With my IM client on each of these, 1) it always looked like I was online somewhere and 2) I seemed to be locked into some kind of display algorithm where conversations would apparently be randomly rotated from device to another. I like the phone. Like many people, I was using IM to replace just picking up the phone and having a quick conversation. For something that should be done by text, I prefer email (see below) and for a real conversation I prefer talking live. IM was the unhappy medium between the two which turned out to be unsatisfying for either. I don’t need yet another interruption. While I freely admit that I’m an easy target to interrupt, IM is a little too in my face. There are plenty of other ways to get my attention quickly. If I’m on IM, I’m on email. If I’m on IM, I can be reached directly through Twitter. Plus there’s always the phone, or Skype if you insist on something that has a little more technology appeal. ‘Nuff said…
December 11, 2007· 2 min read
Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit
You know your software has problems when you have to offer a tool like the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit. The WSPBTK, like its name suggests, stops Windows Update from automatically installing new service packs (and presumably entering into the endless Vista shut-down cycle in the process). Brilliant! Hat tip to Ross for the pointer.
December 11, 2007· 1 min read