Not just a Wave, but a Tsumani!!!!!

So, here I am watching a YouTube video of what someone said was the next generation of Google. The more I watch it, the more I realize that I am having to actively remember to close my mouth so my tongue won't dry out. I'm just astonished and excited about what the future holds.

Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird all look completely archaic now. Like moving from command line green screen to OS/X!

Here, go gawk at this video!



They've mashed up mail, instant messaging, blogging, twitter and team collaboration AND made it extensible with the Google Web Toolkit!!

Here's the not so elegantly written synopsis:

• Uses HTML 5 in a browser to create an application like environment
• Think Gmail with Instant Messaging built in to each e-mail
• If you add subsequent people to the e-mail chain, they can see not only what is in the e-mail, but they also have the ability to replay the timeline so they can see the order in which replies or content was added
• You can make private in-line comments to a subset of the e-mail chain recipients.
  
• This pretty much constitutes a collaborative teamroom
  
• You can instantly post the e-mail chain to a blog just by adding the "blog" robot
  

BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!!

• You can post pictures and re-name them on the fly and the recipients can see the additions and correction in real-time
• Concurrent editing!!! This one makes it a real-time collaborative team room. All the recipients of the e-mail (the "wave") can post new content or edit existing content and everyone can see each others input in real-time!
• You can post other "waves" within a wave
  

BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!!

• All of this is completely extendible using the Google Web Toolkit!!
• Send someone a chess gadget, and you can both play chess in real-time. You can even replay the game to see how you got there!!!
  
• Any gadget can be embedded, including Google Maps, and you can annotate the maps and the annotations stay within the wave
• It's integrated with Twitter

BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!

• Using a translation gadget called Rosy, you can type english in a wave, and a recipient can have it translated into their native language. So, if I type in English and I tell Rosy to translate to French, it shows up in the recipients wave as French

Whew.... Wow...

The downsides are how to use it when you are not connected. There are still many parts of the US and the rest of the world that don't have WiFi access like the lake. Guess I'll need that Sprint broadband USB adapter when I want to use it away from my wifi network.

And what about moving all e-mail to this new environment? I can get to all the e-mails I've had since roughly 2003, including attachments.

I've seen the future!

You can find out more at http://wave.google.com

Stay aware, Experts!

I just read an interesting article in Flying magazine that looks at the art of flying through the lens of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. The article is titled What Makes an Expert? by Jay Hopkins.

The point of the article is that just because you have 10,000 hours of experience, does that really make you an expert? What about the Sunday afternoon pilot who only flys one airplane in nice weather in daylight, vs. the adventerous pilot who flies many kinds of airplanes in many kinds of weather conditions day or night? One pilot has flown one hour 10,000 times, and the other pilot has flown 10,000 very different hours.

Jay references an accident where two pilots flew into the side of a mountain in a brand new Cessna 182T on a clear night. Each pilot had over 25,000 hours, giving a combined 53,000 hours of flight experience. Each pilot had a wealth of different kinds of flying experience, from military to airline to everything in between. However, one pilot had 75 hours behind the new Garmin G-1000 flight panel and the other pilot had no experience at all. Jay pondered that these two pilots were so wrapped up in the relatively new environment, that they may have forgotten to turn on the terrain display and ran into the granite.

Does this mean that they need an additional 10,000 hours behind the new glass cockpits to be considered experts?

Let's look at it from a different perspective. If you are an expert in your field, with over 10,000 hours, and it's a relatively stable area of expertise, then I think we could all agree that the measurement of expertise is linear. However, what if you are in a rapidly changing field? Or a field in which the rules of the game are changing rapidly? Does 10,000 hours of marketing experience make you a marketing expert? Have you marketed one hour 10,000 times, or have you experienced a wealth of different experiences? I'd say that Seth Godin's cummulative hours are a hell of a lot more jam packed with experience than the rest of our experiences.

Who is an expert on the proper application of Twitter? Are you a disruptive technology expert? How do you measure something that no one person has yet accumulted 10,000 hours.

Are you about to fly into a mountain because you are too focused on learning a new technology or concept while thinking you are an expert? Many experienced folks, myself included, have crashed into the side of mountains because of resting on their laurels, or getting too wrapped up in applying something new while missing focus on the big picture.

At the point that you branch out into something new, are you no longer an expert?

Always look through the lens of a beginner and don't get too comfortable that your 10,000 hours makes you an expert, because if you get too comfortable, you might become a casualty, career wise or physically.

Book Review: Strategic Entrepreneurism

This is an awesome book, and I wish I had read it long ago before I co-founded a couple of technology companies. This book is equally valuable to product marketing managers and marketing managers as they assess their markets, and seek to fill the gaps in their offerings.

The biggest premise, and perhaps the best advice is to flip the notion that you need to invent a product or a service FIRST before you find a market. Instead, identify "Holy Grail" types of problems to solve, then find a strategic customer and help them solve that problem. They will help you get the product right with a minimal amount of rework. This premise is pretty much worth the price of the book and the rest of Jon's advice is gravy.

You can order the book here.

Paul Freet of the Ga Tech VentureLab speaks to the Goizueta Alumni Entrepreneurs Network

Paul Freet spoke to our group this morning about the Ga Tech VentureLab, and I felt compelled to share it on my blog.

VentureLab was created by Ga Tech to capitalize on IP developed as a result of research at Georgia Tech. It is different from ATDC in that ATDC accepts companies that already have a management team, a product (not a service) and enough funding to pay rent. VentureLab looks for products that are potentially marketable, and tries to connect them with management teams. A VentureLab company COULD graduate into the ADTC program, but not always. Both organizations are aligned with the Enterprise Innovation Institute, which is not to be confused with the Institute for Enterprise Innovation.

Follow the Money:

So, where to start? How about with the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), whose mission is to attract top research talent to the state schools to grow Georgia’s economy. GRAs university partners are: Clark Atlanta University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Medical College of Georgia and the University of Georgia. GRA has spent over $600M in recruiting efforts over the past 15 years. As the butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, so has the results of GRA’s efforts resulted in the creation of thousands of high-skill, high-wage jobs here in Georgia. You can read more about their mission here.

To further this mission, there are commercialization grants that are administered by each school. If there is a promising idea that is approved for commercialization, a team can get $50K to get to the prototype phase (Phase 1). After the Phase 1 milestone has been met, a Phase 2 funding to get to a “Version 1.0” of $100K can be made to companies that are approved to continue, which is actually matched by private resources for a total of $200K. On top of this $250K total of free, non-equity splitting money, a 7-year $250K loan is available after Phase 2 has been met. Some of the catches are, that you can’t use any of these funds to pay for legal expenses (patent apps, partnership agreements, licensing contracts, etc.), and you can’t pay a penny in salaries. However, you can buy lab equipment and use the money for other capital expenditures that move you towards a viable, on-going business venture. In effect, there is about $500K that can become available to promising companies with no equity dilution at all!

Beyond this, there is the GRA Venture Fund, which has received $7M in State funding, and has been matched with a 3:1 to 4:1 ratio of private funds. The AJC has a nice write-up here.

Paul mentioned that the biggest problem he has is finding entrepreneurs to plug into the VentureLab projects. There are plenty of CTOs and Chief Scientists, however, the business of running a business is not exactly exciting to someone who is 100% turned on by their scientific work. Sure, they want to speak at industry events and symposiums, but the idea of building a sales channel, building collateral, etc. keeps them awake in a cold sweat. Fortunately, there are those of us who relish the idea of building a business and building sales channels and creating collateral and signing leases and doing all of that “business management stuff.”

Someone raised the question of why it’s hard to find entrepreneurs. The biggest problem could be the fact that many entrepreneurs are also looking for a paycheck, and many of these companies are 1 to 2 years away from revenue. This is a “nights and weekends” type of opportunity, unless you are independently wealthy and can afford to work without pay.

Paul said that it’s completely possible to get involved with these companies on a part-time basis while you hold a full-time job. If you have the business acumen, they need nurturing and help with a business plan. It doesn’t require 80 hour work weeks. Get involved! Join the VentureLab Fellows Program. This program connects entrepreneurs with projects where they can provide advice to companies while looking for the right cultural fit.

All IP is owned by Ga Tech, who licenses the technology back to the companies. The inventors get 1/3 of the royalty proceeds, and Ga Tech gets the rest. The policy document can be read here. And some additional information can be found at the GTRC Office of Technology Licensing.

TechView Atlanta

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