The big tables in the cafe principle

This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending Lunch For Good here in San Francisco, organized by my friend Chris Heuer, the lunch gathered around 50 people together for a tasty meal and serious conversation about how to inspire critical thinking.

At my table as part of our conversation I mentioned my “big tables” principle in evaluating cafes as part of our conversation about groups and spaces. At the table the pet owners were all sharing how much enjoyment they get from talking with fellow dog owners at dog parks. I mentioned that I could never even be in such a space, couldn’t ever own pets of any type.

If you are wonder, no I don’t hate animals, I’m just seriously allergic, so allergic that I stop breathing and have asthma attacks along with concurrent serious skin rashes, red eyes and stuffed sinuses. For a short time I can take some allergy medicines and endure brief exposure, but I refuse to take medicine every day of my life just to live with a pet – and furthermore such prolonged exposure to both the medicine (which does have very real side effects) and to the pet dander which has extreme impact on my well being is not conducive to my overall health.

My point in bringing this up is that while the interactions between pet owners are fantastic and it is great that such spaces spark interactions between folks who might not otherwise meet (though likely they share some common interests and traits since they have chosen to live in a near geographic area) such spaces are not, in fact, truly universal, there are folks, such as myself, who not only are unlikely to be at such a dog park my in fact be completely unable to enter such a space.

We then started talking about online spaces and communities and here I brought the discussion back to physical spaces. Cafes are often cited as spaces where strangers can meet, interact and get to know each other. However as a frequent cafe denizen (I’ve been working from cafes since the early 1990’s) I have observed that there are simple steps a cafe can do that dramatically change how the cafe functions as a social space.

Hence my “big tables” principle.

The bigger the tables in a cafe the more social interactions between strangers are likely.

My ideal cafe has tables big enough for two people to work on laptops comfortably while simultaneously having a plate of food, a coffee and some books or other materials open in front of them. Such large tables usually can readily accommodate more than two people and easily inspire ad hoc conversations and interactions between strangers – starting with the simple question ‘do you mind if I share your table” but often ending up with philosophical discussions.

Today, however, in the era when many folks, myself included as I write this post from a cafe in the West Portal seated on a couch (by myself)  frequently shut out the world via listening to headphones as we work, a cafe needs to take further steps to truly inspire people to converse with each other, to actually create a space where social interactions happen.

A few steps I have observed that help.

1. Watching the volume of the music including any live performers to be quiet enough to enable comfortable conversations. A quiet cafe without any background music however isn’t ideal as people will turn to their own soundtracks. But a cafe with pounding music makes it hard to converse even with friends
2. Regular events which help spark conversations and interactions. One cafe here in San Francisco (On the Corner) has a weekly games night sponsored by a nearby games shop. Such events give strangers a reason to do more than just talk in passing with each other. Other cafes have regular art openings, cuppings of coffee or other events which help inspire people to interact.
3. Sociable staff. This is simple but friendly, sociable staff at a cafe will spark conversations with strangers and regulars alike (and help make strangers into regulars). In turn these conversations will then often offer reasons and entrypoints for strangers to interact with each other. Some cafes (and other spaces) take this to an extreme but generally speaking friendly, outgoing staff help create a space where people get a bit out of themselves and interact with others.
4. Hours that encourage social interactions. Cafes that are open late inspire people (often but not always) to linger and hangout, to use the cafe as an alternative to other evening entertainment options such as bars or nightclubs. One of the more social cafes I have spent time in here in San Francisco is, in fact, a Starbucks. However it is also open 24hrs a day six days a week. Being located near to universities it is full of students studying and interacting with each other until the early hours of the morning.

What lessons can be drawn from such cafes (and other spaces) for online businesses seeking to spark conversations and interactions?

1. The design details matter a great deal. Small, tiny tables in a cafe or a web design that emphasizes an individual experience will lead to individuals being alone in that space.
2. Small gestures can inspire and spark interactions. Many of the cafes that most impress me, where I most quickly feel comfortable and at home are cafes where the staff take a simple step of learning my name from the first time I am there – and not just to call out my order but to greet me by name as they interact with me.
3. Hours and patterns matter.Yes, the web is a global usually open 24hrs a day space but even online most successful communities and sites find rhythms and schedules to fall into. Here on my personal blog I fail in this regard, I do not post nearly enough. In contrast many of my favorite blogs have gotten into a pattern of one or more “open threads” posted every day specifically to create spaces for readers to converse with each other. These posts, in turn, supported by a regular pattern of other posts (the frequency and form of which differ by the blog). Cafes with short hours cater to one audience, cafes with longer hours open later reach a different group.

How do you judge a space? Whether online or offline what about a space inspires you to join it, to engage with the people who might share it with you?

Defining yourself through your priorities

This is a post mostly for myself, a reminder of what my priorities are, a checklist of sorts for myself in the future when I have the resources to follow up on these priorities.

In a strange way this is also a bit of a personals ad – a woman for whom these priorities resonate noting both what is and what is not on my list would, if she is single and at least relatively close to me in age, be a woman I would like to meet. (A man for whom these resonate might be a good friend – but my interests lie in the opposite sex).

In particular a few key priorities for many Americans which are decidedly not on my list.

1. Anything religious. I’m an Atheist, my budgets and priorities have no money at all for religion. Plenty of other worthy causes and organizations whom I would strongly prefer to support, groups whose goals are more closely in alignment with my own.

2. Beyond a very small amount of wine, mostly for dinner parties, no alcohol or for that matter other drugs (legal or otherwise – medically needed ones the exception). I don’t drink much – which has probably over the past decades saved me a great deal of money. Nor do I smoke or consume any other drugs.

But enough of the nots, what are my priorities. This may be a bit random – I’ll seek to  impose some order on this list and it is not in any particular order, but I am trying to be comprehensive. In general I’m looking at my life on a per year basis – what would I spend money on if I had it to spend. Not just for the act of spending it but because what I spent it upon held meaning and importance to me.

My priorities, in no particular order:

Shelter Currently my one real indulgence, I have a large apartment in SF capable of both hosting many friends (large downstairs space w/couches/airmattresses for up to 7 friends). With more resources I would also like a second place in NYC (or London) and perhaps a third place somewhere quiet & remote but w/great Internet connectivity, likely in a large forest somewhere.

Furniture – I have expensive tastes – prefering timeless, very high quality furniture. If I had the money I’d like to indulge myself and actually, for the first time in fact in my life, live in a place fully furnished – and not with furniture found on the street. So this is a one time purchase, but then as I add other places to live I’d expect to also furnish them well and occasionaly to replace items I own (this would be the height of luxury for me – my parents still have, ugly, furniture from my mom’s college days – stuff they have moved across the country and back)

Clothes – at the moment I buy new clothes of any type rarely, mostly just once every few years and then rarely spend all that much. That said, like with furniture my tastes in clothing run expensive. With enough resources my goal would be to get over my hangups here, to finally only have clothes that fit well and are comfortable (and yes this means very few of my current staple – free logo t-shirts from trade shows). I doubt I’d ever be replacing my wardrobe on a seasonal basis, but I would like to have a wider range of options and to have more stuff that makes me feel great when I wear them.

Glasses – I currently have only one pair of glasses, purchased many years ago. Instead I’d prefer to have a couple of really nice pairs, plus at least one or two pairs of prescription sunglasses. I don’t wear jewlery but do wear glasses, so would probably splurge a bit here, albiet with my tastes running to stylish but without logos. Ideally I would have a spare pair of glasses in every place I live, as well as sunglassses and spares to travel with.

Health Care – from expensive dentistry which I am slowly working on but with more resources would do at a faster clip, to having full comprehensive health insurance this is a necessity I have been avoiding for far too long.

Transportation – Since 2004 I have not owned a car, rarely even renting one. But living in CA this is a position which is increasingly hard to sustain. At a minimum I want to just budget a reasonably large amount each month for renting cars (or using ZipCar) and get back in the habit of driving. But ideally I probably want to get a car, something exceptionally reliable (I don’t want to get to know a mechanic on first name basis), automatic (I refuse to invest the mental energy in learning how to drive a manual – or in the attention it requires). Almost certainly this means a non-American car (I’ve never owned one and have hated driving every single American car I’ve ever even briefly driven). But I haven’t shopped for a car seriously in years – walking around I’ve be interested by some of the newer Volvo’s, have in the past mostly owned Acuras (2 plus one high end Honda), and like some of the Infiniti’s and Mercedes Benzs which I see around SF (generally the smaller, sportier ones, often hatchbacks). My ideal car gets very good gas milage, is inexpensive to operate (less concerned about the initial cost – this is assuming I have the money to just buy it outright), isn’t overly costly to insure (I have no sense at all what insurance will cost me in CA). Probably it will seat four adults in a pinch – with the ability to store a bunch of stuff in the trunk – though ideally without it being visible (a drawback of many hatchbacks) as I would likely be parking on the street fairly often.

For me as well visibility while driving is a really, really, really big deal. I hate a lot of modern cars, such as the Prius, because I find they have really obnoxious blind spots, at least for me, plus physically I find myself in pain when I have driven them in the past (something about the seat and layout really, really does not agree with my body. I also seriously do not like the other trend I’ve seen in many otherwise interesting cars of moving the dials to the center of the dashboard instead of in front of the driver – really don’t like that all and find it beyond distracting – and also physically uncomfortable (Scion’s fail for me here, as does alas the Mini, wasn’t a big fan of the Honda Element the few times I’ve driven one either)

I also want to be able to just buy a nice bike. I’ve been intimidated by the cost – mentally I still think bikes should be 100’s of dollars, not the 1000+ they can easily be these days. I’m also not entirely sure how to handle riding a bike in San Francisco on the hills of the city (since I live on one, impossible to avoid) and I’ve never figured out the whole bike helmet thing – how to handle having one with me when I’m using my bike. I think this is in part a generational thing, I grew up before helmet laws so never really rode a bike with one all that much. It is also a factor of not having an office to ride my bike to/store it at. Instead I would expect to be riding to cafes, dealing with the scary prospect of locking up an expensive bike on the streets of San Francisco, and then repeating for as many stops as I had in one day.

So even with lots of money, not sure when/if I would get a bike, the stress of owning one here in San Francisco might be too much for me.

I would also, will get to this in more detail below, want to travel a lot. Between the East & West Coasts at a minimum, but probably also traveling globally far more often than I do now. For a few weeks a year at a minimum, but ideally more than that. Some of the time for conferences and events (again more below) but I would also want to travel just to travel, go to places I haven’t yet seen, or to places I have been once but really want to return to (India comes immediately to mind). I might even want to live abroad for months (or years) at a time.

The later depending on personal relatioships and work of course.

Events - At the moment I mostly attend conferences here in San Francisco, when I can get a press pass or know the organizers and can get in for free or at a discount (often helping with the event). However there is a long list of events I would want to attend if I had the funds and resources (which include the time and business purposes for some)

• SXSW – full, platinum pass. Yes, 10+ days, film, tech and music, but this is very high on my list of must do soon as each year my experience there just gets better and better. Next year (2010) I’ll be working the conference for one client (at least, perhaps two or three) so this will probably be very doable. But with the resources I want to just stay at a great hotel, right downtown, fly on flights that don’t make too many stops, and otherwise not scrimp on my conference experience.
• TED – Yes, this is expensive (really expensive). I might not be able to get into the main conference, but while I love BIL, I do want to go to TED and be part of the whole experience. I might start by going to TED Global or the like but sometime soon, in the next few years I hope, I plan on saving up to “do” TED. (best case I get invited as a speaker first)
• PopTech – I have been to PopTech twice, haven’t been back in too many years, but I miss it. I want to have the money (and the time) to attend again.
• Picnic, Le Web, LIFT or another tech conference or two NOT in the US – I have never been, but friends help organize these events, speak at them regularly, and report back about how great they can be. There are smaller events happening in Europe as well which appeal to me, the point being I want to get myself out of the US more often – and I want to experience non-US perspectives on a more regular basis.
• A full Film festival – not just a few films at SXSW, but I want to give myself the luxury of attending a film festival and just seeing dozens of films in a short period of time. I’m not sure which festival I want to attend, there are many great ones (The Toronto Film Festival would be one that has a lot of appeal)
• A Renaissance Weekend - I’ve been a few times, but like PopTech! haven’t been back in too many years. A great event, really interesting people, and people whom I haven’t seen in far too long. If I had the money I would both want to attend some of the smaller events held in Santa Barbara or Monterey as well as the New Years Eve far larger event.
• San Diego Comiccon – I’m tempted to try to attend this year in fact, but sometime soon I want to make it to this mecca of all comic book conventions.
• WorldCon (and one or two other “big” Science Fiction/Fantasy conventions) – I’m a huge science fiction fan of all genres though most especially literature. I don’t go for the costuming or for the purest geeking out, but rather relish the chance to get to know writers and editors (and other creators) whom I respect. So my preference tends to be for the smaller, more focused conventions such as World Fantasy Convention over larger, more media focused events. But ideally I would like to be able to attend more conventions without scrimping when I do so – so just going ahead and having a nice hotel room adjacent to the convention center etc.
• A Doctor Who convention – perhaps one here in the US, even better one in the UK (or heck both a US and a UK conference). I’m a huge Dr. Who fan yet I haven’t been to a Dr. Who convention in decades.
• One or two new events each year. Stuff I haven’t previously been to – perhaps a great music festival such as Cochella, a convention for an academic field I’m interested in, something like the New Yorker Festival in NYC or a conference focused on Social Good. There are many, but my hope is to have both the money and the time to attend conferences a bit outside of my comfort zone – where I’m there to absorb the experience. Hopefully with a “native” guide to the experience. In some cases I might go as a speaker or participant (which is always a good way to attend) for others I might go with or for a client. But my goal is to get to more new events and experiences.
• Still a bunch of important tech conferences – AdTech SF & NYC, Web 2.0 Expo (at least SF, perhaps NYC, possibly the Summit), TechCrunch 50, MacWorld. If possible I’d like to get a few more – stuff like the D Conference happening this week or Internet Week in NYC happening next week.

Food – this is a big deal for me. I take food seriously. Starting by mostly eating as a locavore. Most of the food in my home I buy from local merchants, primarily at local Farmer’s Markets or my local butchers. With a bit more resources I would keep my kitchen more fully stocked with the foods I enjoy (fresh seasonal fruits etc). I would also eat out more often and at a higher end of restaurant than I usually get to at the moment. I’d love to eat at places with chef’s tastings more often, to get to the many specical meals and dining events that occur on a regular basis. Here in San Francisco as well as in NYC and as I travel. For me serious food is one of my main pleasusres in life and an artform I really appreciate – both in the creation of it myself (I’m a very good chef) as well as in appreciating the skill of serious chefs.

I also do love great foods of all types – I’ve happily traveled great distances to try little hole in the wall places, restaurants far off the beaten track.

I would enjoy going to more food related events, a Slow Food Convivia for example and I could well imagine planning an entire trip around getting a reservation somewhere (el Buli for example would be among the places I would love to dine, though by no means the only such place).

I have mastered the somewhat dubious art of ordering so as to get great food but not spend a ton of money, often by being highly selective in what I order, by passing up on many elements of a meal. I’d really like to be able to put this aside, even if only a few times a month, and just embrace what the restaurant does well and really experience it (not the alcohol perhaps but everything else). Ordering the Omakase at a Japanese restaurant instead of just the chirashi etc.

But in many ways my tastes don’t run to the extravegant, I’d rather an amazing local grapefruit in season than a the most expensive cavier. That said, when I entertain I have also now mastered the art of stretching my budget via careful choices, ideally I’d like to be able to support local farms a bit more, to buy the prime grade meat over the choice etc.

Living in San Francisco one of my small but very pleasant pleasures is being able to get great, serious coffee from now almost literally dozens of choices throughout the city. I’m also a big fan of tea, however in recent years I haven’t been as focused on teas as I have been on great coffee. With more money I would want to have great means of making coffee at home (currently I have no reliable means at all) and instead of random tins of now fairly old teas I would like to stock fresh, great teas.

Kitchen – while I love my current apartment in many ways, the kitchen is not one of them. In an ideal world in a year or two I will find a place which has nearly as much space as my present space but which has a truly fantastic kitchen. For me this would be:

• Modern gas stove, ideally six burners – Currently I have gas, but it is an old and somewhat unreliable and in any case cheap stove. I would much prefer to have more burners which get hotter than my current stove and which I could control more finely.
• Double ovens – I am a serious cook, often as I cook for dinner parties I literally run out of space in my oven. I’ve love to have two ovens so I could bake in one, broil in the other.
• Serious dishwasher - currently I don’t have a dishwasher at all, for the previous decade when I lived in Chicago I had a dishwasher, but more often than not it didn’t work very well.
• Double Sink – Currently I have one, deep but relatively small sink. I’d really like to have a double sink, ideally with a garbage disposal.
• Plentiful and easy to maintain countertops – I would like to have more plentiful space to spread out and cook, to have room to entertain while I cook, space to cook with someone else at the same time without tripping over each other. This means great countertops, it also means a logical layout and flow for the kitchen as well as plentiful storage.
• Upgraded pots and pans – I have mostly great pots and pans, but don’t have a lot of them and a few of what I have could stand being upgraded to higher quality versions. I am also lacking certain key and useful dishes, such as a serious cast iron post (Le Creuset probably) which I could bake in and do much more in. A great wok is another (I have one but it isn’t very good and I lack a place to store it).
• High end, serious kitchen gadgets – at the moment I have basically no kitchen gadgets at all, no mixer, no food processor, not even a simple blender or hand powered mixer. I don’t need lots of gadgets but I would like a few of the more basic ones so I could expand the range of what I can make – a mixer for more serious baking for example.
• Duplicates of the basics – I have three spatulas at the moment, one set of tongs, only a few (albiet very high quality) knives. No wooden spoons etc. Mostly this is a combination of trying to only have high quality products in my kitchen and of simply not having much space, with more resources and I hope more space, I would fix this and finally have enough of the basics so I can do even more serious cooking.
• A few special treats – I use a great local Balsamic but I don’t have any really aged balsamic, likewise there are many other products I would love to use but don’t stock in my kitchen for a lack of funds. Ideally I’d like to have a range of local olive oils, restock my spices on at least a yearly basis and keep the staples I stock at high levels of quality.

Books – I have a book habit, even today I buy around 100 or more books every year, in some years many more than 100. I read a lot but my list of books to read keeps growing, hurt by my habit of buying more books than I read most weeks. With more resources, however, I would want to do a few specific things with my book buying habit and collections.

• Just buy the hardcover editions of my friend’s books. Since I have 100’s of friends who are authors (seriously not exagerating) I currently pick and choose whose books I buy and not infrequently in some cases I wait for the paperback editions. Ideally I would prefer to buy most of my friend’s books and to suppor them by buying them in hardcover and ideally via pre-orders or online purchases around the time of release so they see the best spike in purchases possible.
• Be more serious about a few of the my collections. Earlier today, for example, I chose not to buy a copy of Asimov on Shakespeare, though it is among the many books I have always wanted to own a ocpy of. With more resources I would just buy such discoveries without as much worry, building up I would hope a more complete collection of Asimov’s works, as well as many other books and authors I wished I had more works by.
• Buy most of the Doctor Who books, both as they are printed and filling out my collection going backwards. I have not bought most of the recent books though I am huge Dr. Who fan and would really like to support the show and the creators and authors.  This includes buying the back catolog of Big Finish Audio Adventures and subscribing to the new editions as they come out.
• Buy a few graphic novels and comics on a more regular basis. Probably sitll would mostly focus on trade paperback editions but there are many great artists and creators working whose work I would like to support more strongly. Starting with finally finishing my collection of Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman which is a series I should have read decades ago. But I would like to be getting great series such as Fables on a regular basis as well. Oh and the new Dr. Who series of course…

Magazines (and perhaps newspapers) - currently I subscribe to The New Yorker which I have subscribed to for nearly two decades. I would like to support a number of other great publications:

• Monocle
• The Atlantic Monthly
• N+1
• Asimovs
• Analog
• Business Week
• Granta
• Paste
• and ideally a handful of other great publications, perhaps a gaming magazine or two, other great literary publications, possibly again subscribe to the New York Review of Books

On the topic of newspapers, at the moment I don’t see a great local paper anywhere in the Bay Area. I think the Wall Street Journal has declined considerably. I could perhaps see subscribing to a newspaper again in the future though I’m uncertain which or in what manner. The New York Times I might subscribe to while I am in NYC.

Technology – For the past few decades I have put off upgrading my computers for about a year or two too long, Enduring machines at the end of their life and often running an older OS for far too long. I have also frequently compromised and haven’t had resources which would have, in fact, helped me be more productive.

• Get a second monitor for my desktop setup. A 24″, full HD resolution screen, probably from Apple. This is one of those things I should have done a long time ago as it would add greatly to my productivity.
• Always have a current, updated, modern laptop. Here I face an issue, there are serious issues I have with Mac laptops (weight, lack of a trackpoint, reliance on a trackpad) My ThinkPad is still fairly powerful at the moment but that will be changing rapidly in the next year or so. I should really have a second laptop and should invest in upgrading my current laptop (larger hard drive, probably installing Mac OS & Ubuntu).
• Have a real gaming PC. I have never had a gaming PC in nearly two decades of owning computers. Given my interest in gaming this is silly. I should have a high spec, high quality, quiet, fast and upgradable gaming rig with great monitors and a suite of modern games (or a gamefly subscription so I can try many games, as well as a Steam account)
• Breakdown and get a real, modern, HD TV. In fact get one for my bedroom (for the first time, seriously, in my entire lifetime) as well as getting either a very large screen or a very high resolution projector system for my downstairs. Get real speakers to go with these systems (also for the first time in my life)
• Get the modern suite of accessories for a TV – TIVO, HD source(s), BlueRay player (or a PS3), an Apple TV (or Miro box etc), an Xbox360, probably a Wii. All stuff I’ve never owned – ever.
• Get serious headphones instead of making do with cheap ones I got for free at a trade show somewhere. Both for my iphone and for my ipod and some great over the ear ones for around the house.
• Get a bluetooth headset, probably a Jawbone for when I am driving (and more generally for walking around the city making calls)
• Get an HD capable, small video camera. Perhaps a Flip or the like but I should be shooting video on a more regular basis
• Get a digital audio recorder capable of serious podcast creation. This might include serious microphones and a small mixer.
• Get a Skype capable headset for my laptop and desktop computers. I rarely use Skype though I really should be using it more often.
• Upgrade my iPhone to the new version when, as seems most likely, it comes out in a few months.
• Invest in a network backup solution for my computers and automate this process so all of my systems are backed up on a regular and automated basis
• Get a modern, networked, duplex capable, color laser printer.
• Get a fast scanner and start to migrate to a fully paperless (and backed up) lifestyle.
• Get a serious digital camera – both an upgrade to my small pocket friendly Lumix and ideally also larger more serious camera with lenses. Also get some great lenses.
• Invest in serious software – Adobe Acrobat for example, but also video editing software, current editions of Office products etc. Also useful utilities and productivity software (and also make use of the tools I buy). But stop avoiding buying software and then only making do with partial solutions to problems I have (free themes for my wordpress blogs vs. more serious but non-free themes etc)
• Invest in online services that add value to my life – take full advantage of Plaxo, pay for a serious online backup service, consolidate all of my domains into one registrar and register other relevant domains on a more regular basis etc. This last one might actually make me more money than it costs me.
• Get more iPod docks and/or make my music more networked so I can stream it to what I hope are serious speakers (I haven’t ever owned real speakers or even one good sound system)

Personal Services - at the moment though I go to a serious hair salon, I do so on a very infrequent basis, generally weeks after it would have been sensible. I should go on a far more regular schedule, never letting my hair get completely out of countrol. Additionally I should invest in personal health and wellness services – pay for a real serious massage on a regular basis (as I write this I can feel the knots all across my back). I have also always avoided gyms though I shouldn’t – I should invest in the clothes to work out (at the moment I don’t even have gym shoes or any clothes suitable for a gym), in a membership (or two) and in a personal trainer to motivate me and to ensure that I don’t hurt myself while focusing on being healthier.

Music – In the past few years I have bought more music than I have in years past, mostly digitally and primarily through great services such as Amie St. I would like to buy more music which I enjoy – completing my incomplete collection as well as supporting newer groups and artists I’ve discovered in the past few years. Ideally I would like to also attend live shows on a far more regular basis probably a few times each month as well as select larger festivals. I have clients in the music industry so some of this is even work related.

Entertainment - I’ve alluded to some of this in the above sections but I would like to on a more regular basis support many creators I really appreciate – buying the Dr. Who dvds but also DVDs (or more probably BlueRays – or better yet HD downloads) of TV shows and movies I love. I would also like to have and use memberships at local institutions (in SF and perhaps in NYC or other cities – art museums etc) and get to them on a far more regular basis. Also get out to the Opera and to live theatre.

Charities – At the moment other than a few small donations and volunteer help with some events, I have not been able to support charities to the degree I would prefer. If I had the resources my selection of charities to support is a bit eclectic:

• Creative Commons
• EFF
• Clarion – science fiction workshops
• The Carl Brandon Society
• Wiscon/Tiptree – Feminish Science Fiction
• one or more charities focused on literacy
• effective charities (or for profit but mission driven businesses) focused on addressing homelessness
• Architects for Humanity – one of my favorite groups
• Worldchanging.org – amazing resource
• other focused, highly efficient art (especially of the printed word) groups and organizations

I’m sure I’m missing many worthy groups, but these are a few that reflect my priorities – literacy, support for effective global change and creative technology thinking about worldchanging issues, highly focused local efforts to address seemingly intractable problems such as homelessness, and small but effective groups such as the Carl Brandon Society and Clarion which support Science Fiction writing, especially from diverse voices.

If I had the resources I would probably also, anonymously, support a number of other efforts and projects – often offering capital support (assuming I had the funds) to help groups become more effective and ideally in many cases more self sufficent (and not entirely reliant on only donations or only on market returns that would often be counter to the group’s mission). I would also not draw a firm line between non-profit and for-profit groups, offering support without much concern whether I could specifically get a tax deduction.

My own projects – this is a touchy subject, some of these might be how I fund all of the above, others will probably never be funding sources and may always be a money sink. I have to balance out my time and attention as well so a few of these ideas and projects may have to be delayed or my active involvement minimized.

• MeshForum – I organized a MeshForum in 2005 and 2006, but haven’t held one in a few years. I would like to hold another multiday conference on the study of Networks as well as more MeshWalks which are conferences held mostly outdoors and in motion.
• tbnl - later this year I would like to publish what I hope will become a quarterly publication focused on great, timeless stories. A mix of fiction & non-fiction but all with an emphasis on great storytelling. A celebration of spending time with content the print editions would be very well made and the focus would be on long form (though not novella length) pieces with only relevant and value enhancing illustrations or photographs.

So there you are 5000+ words on my priorities at the moment. This is a long post, I don’t expect most people to read it in full, it ia highly personal post as well, perhaps I should have just written it and kept it only as a draft. I’m certain I have missed something important – of course I would have other things I spend money on (gifts for friends and family for example) but these some of my most important priorities.

What is a business designer or how to work with Shannon

Of late I have started to describe myself as a business designer in response to the usual question of “What do you do?”

But what do I mean by the term?

A Business Designer, as I intend the term, is someone who uses the techniques of design firms, such as IDEO, to design new businesses – whether entire new startups or within the context of an existing, larger business.

I have been highly active online since 1991 and working on the web since the mid-90’s so a great deal of my work does involve the application of technology, especially web technology, to business problems. However my process starts before deciding what the solutions will be, it starts with the discussions about the specifics of the business, the resources available, and objectives.

Only then do we address the specific solutions required, in many cases applying technology both purchased, open source and customized to the business objectives.

So what is my process?

Earlier this week I attended the SanFran Music Tech Summit and over the course of the fantastic conference I had many long conversations with entrepreneurs and business people who were attending the conference. In these short conversations and discussions I practiced a shortened version of my business process.

1. Hear how the current business, or the business idea, is described today.
2. Explore what is behind the business, what technology if any current exists, what are the current clients, what is the current business process.
3. Get a quick sense of the business objectives of the team at present – new customers, investment, partners etc.
4. Brainstorm. In this process I leverage the diversity of industries and companies I follow closely, seeking examples often from unrelated industries which can help us decide on direction and business models for the business.
5. Make concrete suggestions of next steps for the business from simple text copy changes to complex shifts in business model.

That is the shortened process, at times taking only a few minutes, other times taking an entire lunch.

What I follow

At the moment I pay very close attention to a number of industries and technologies, these include:

• The music industry, especially the emergance of the online, digital music industry.
• “New Media” from the business models of old media applied to the new digital world to the emergance of new businesses and media leaders
• Web 2.0. I define Web 2.0 as the shift to a data centric view of web applications. Practically this means more open web sites, api driven services, dynamic flows of information, and in many cases user generated content
• Mobile applications. In particular I have been an early adopter of smartphones, currently heavily focused on the iPhone.
• Gaming. Though I am not an active game player, I have a longstanding and deep interest in games and gaming. I’m very interested in the application of gaming elements to serious purposes.
• Social Networks. I started Meshforu, a conference on the study of Networks in 2004 and have been an early adopter of online social networks. I also follow closely the academic study of Social Network Analysis as well as related fields of Network Science.
• Advertising. I believe that advertising, across all forms, is in a major transition. In particular I am a passionate proponent of Brands and believe that brands need to adapt to the new, digital landscape
• Internet Radio. While I follow the whole music industry closely, many of my current ventures relate to the new forms of Internet Radio.
• Community. Most successful businesses are driven by a community both online and offline. I’m an advisor to a number of startups focused very much on the support of specific communities enabled by the new digital media world. In many cases these cross over many types of media including online websites.
• The Food Industry. My father is a leading food technologist who has designed new products and business processes for most of the major food companies around the globe. I am a passionate foodie and follow emerging trends in the food industry, including restaurants very closely.
• Social Entrepreneurship. I run a small non-profit, MeshForum and am passionate about new models of business which include a strong social mission and purpose.

There are many other industries and specific technologies which I also pay attention to on a regular basis, I have worked for some of the largest banks in the world. I’ve also designed and build AI driven automated data applications and other complex pieces of enterprise software. But at present the above list of industries are the ones I follow most closely and where, primarily, I seek clients.

How I work

My preference is to work with clients over an extended period, typically via a monthly retainer with at least a three month minimum. In three months any business whether large or small can see specific results from the engagement. A retainer, instead of the more common hourly or day rate, allows for the wide range of ways I work for and with each client.

For most clients I will meet with the client, often onsite for a series of meetings and observations each month. I am often a part of internal discussions and meetings with partners and external vendors.

I am based in San Francisco but will work with clients anywhere in the world, combining in person meetings with extensive online collaboration.

Every engagement is different but a few specifics you can expect from working with me.

• New Ideas – a primary part of my job is offering a new, interdisciplinary perspective on the challenges of your business. A key part of this is carefully suggesting specific, implementable new ideas and approaches.
• Simplification - much of my practice is around paring ideas and processes back to identify what is most key and value creating. Many startups, as well as large companies, build technologies and processes which are overly complex. By focusing on simplification we end up with greater value.
• Clear processes and designs – After we have focused and defined clearly the specific business objectives, my role shifts to achieving those objectives. There my job is to define and often help manage the business processes, including working with development teams, to build and design the related parts.

I have over a decade of experience as an Open Space Facilitator and use that as part of my consulting. The result of a facilitated open space event is usually clearer understanding of both the business opportunities and the resources available to address them, as well as focused groups of employees (and often external partners including customers) to address each business need.

If you are interested in working with me, email me at shannon AT nearnessfunction.com or call me at 1.800.454.4929.

Idea for a new magazine – to be named later

I recently learned about a very interesting new service, MagCloud, which prints magazines on demand and handles all subscription features (mailing, payment etc).  They are currently in limited Beta and have some limitations (the biggest of which is the cost for buyers – $0.20/page though the publisher can set the price for any given issue at a higher rate to make some profit. 

For a long time I have been thinking about creating a media outlet of some form and at the moment I am serious leaning towards a magazine of some form. This post is an exploration of those ideas, it is a stake in the ground as to the shape of this new publication. It is also a call for submissions and volunteers.

The Name – to be named later

My working name for the publication was going to be Mesh (or The Mesh) but it turns out that there was a MeshSF magazine here in SF a while back (appears to be out of print now) and there is another Mesh magazine in Jacksonville Florida. Thus to be named later - the name has to be highly inclusive and evocative of the range of topics to be covered, while also not being too long or hard to remember or use (and yes this includes requiring that there is a good domain available). 

The Format

My thinking is that to be named later will be more akin to a series of books than a monthly (or more frequent) magazine, though over time it may evolve into a more frequent publication. Thus I am torn about a number of physical formats – leaning between a book like size such as that used by Granta (or many University literary magazines), a slightly larger format such as that used by Foriegn Affairs, or a more traditional magazine size such as The New Yorker or Monocle (which is more booklike in format). 

That said, while a perfect bound format (glued edge) creates a more booklike publication, I personally find that format less conducive to reading – as quite literally it makes it harder to read the publication (since you can fold the magazine to only view one page at a time as you can with a traditional magazine). That said, it does create a more archival publication which has some advantages. 

Years ago when I was the editor of a literary magazine (in high school, we won an award) we decided to go with a half size format which had some advantages especially for the publication of poetry as it created a highly readable format (if small).

However for to be named later my goal is to have a publication which stays in print for a long time (so “back issues” remain available for a long period of time), which eventually (and as soon as possible) pays highly competitive rates for photos, art and articles, which supports a lot of very interesting writing, and most critically is a publication which I want to read myself. 

The Guidelines

1. Articles must have a point of view, but may not be purely opinions.
2. Every article will have illustrations – photos or art
3. Every article will be bylined
4. A very wide range of topics and types of articles will be accepted – no subject is out of bounds IF the writing is good, consise, and well written.
5. Serious as well as non-serious writing is welcome and encouraged, including in most issues at least a few articles that meet peer-reviewed academic writing standards (footnotes and all)
6. The physical form & design matters.
7. Every issue will have at least one work of fiction (clearly identified) – genre writing not just welcome but encouraged (Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance etc).
8. Every issue will be meant to be relevant for at least a year, usually longer. Thus timely articles will not be printed, nor will reviews which are timelimited (i.e. of a limited run of a show – though movies which will eventually be on DVD may be accepted)
9. While the focus may include regional and city interests – underlying to be named later will be a global perspective (though initially at least all articles will be in English)
10. CC-licenses for the content will be encouraged (though not mandated) and while to be named later will retain a right to keep each issue “in print” for a long duration, authors & artists will have the right to sell their work for other publications (i.e. they retain all rights – but to be named later has the right to keep an issue “in print”, including via print-on-demand for a long duration – ideally perpetual). Much of to be named later (perhaps all) will be published online as well as in physical form – though the PRINT edition is the primary focus.

So what do those 10 somewhat random points mean?

First I am imagining a publication which will have a seriously broad range of articles – from writing about food, to serious academic exploration of economics, to science fiction stories, to photographic coverage of art and hacking. 

That said, the focus of to be named later will also be on timeless writing, on writing which is first and foremost eminently readable and engaging – which you want to turn back to and could pick up anytime after it is published and enjoy (i.e. this will not be a publication trying to cover breaking news or trying to get “exclusives” or scoops). 

to be named later will have advertising

Even if to be named later is wildly successful in generating interest and subscribers it will include commercial content from the beginning. Advertisers who welcome the timeless nature of to be named later and want to support the publication of high quality, challenging, intelligent writing covering a wide range of issues with a high focus on being enjoyable to read and experience. 

My tastes are wide ranging and eclectic – a magazine I publish will reflect these interests – and thus, I hope, will be of interest to an audiance that share some traits with me. In turn, I hope that there are (and I believe there are many) advertisers who want to reach this audience. Some may be local, some national, some global. All will be welcome (with some limited exceptions) specifically political or advocacy advertising will probably not be accepted as it would be discordant with the tone and focus of the magazine (which is inclusive not exclusive). 

Curation will be key. 

I may technically be the publisher, may also be an editor, but first and foremost I will be the Curator of to be named later - it will be my tastes and decisions (or my choices on delegation) which will determine the content of the magazine. 

Topics to be covered

• Food – especially from a Slow Food and serious foodie perspective
• Local businesses – not reviews persay but stories about local businesses but with a global perspective
• Hacking – especially from an Arts perspective
• Science Fiction – both via publishing great stories (including perhaps Fantasy or other genres) and also articles about the field & genre
• Science – especially reports from the frontiers of research
• Business – if written about in a highly engaging manner and in a timeless manner
• Non-fiction storytelling – think This American Life style stories – which can cover any topic imaginable but are written with a point of view and story to tell
• Design – especially highlighting intentional design applied in innovative ways.

Topics which will not, mostly, be covered:

• Breaking news – i.e. current events, pop culture etc
• Politics – while great stories about campaigns might be published, “stories” which are more manifestos will not
• Activism – I am a CENTRIST. I am neither “left” nor “right” and my magazine will reflect this. While we may, occasionally, take (and publish and clearly label) an opinion on important matters, my magazine will not be a forum for activism, nor will it mirror the articles found in most Free weekly newspapers around the country (indeed in spirit we will likely be more capitalistic)
• Time sensative reviews – stories about the arts (movies, theater, music, books, gallery shows or events) will definitely be published, but reviews of specific events or limited availability content will not
• Product reviews – the focus of the magazine will be on stuff people want to and will enjoy reading, reviews of products rarely meet this criteria – nor do they usually meet the criteria of remaining relevant for years to come (since most products today are only sold for a limited time and replaced later with newer/better/cheaper/faster versions)

I intent to be named later to be eclectic, to be personal, to probably not be for everyone. That said, for those to whom it resonates I want it to be a publication which is read cover to cover. The focus will be on being reader friendly first – high design second (we will not be akin to Wired magazine in terms of design aesthetic)

All of this is tentative – now I am looking for:

• Submissions: email submissions or ideas for articles/stories to shannon DOT clark AT gmail DOT com, please use a SUBJECT line of “Submission for to be named later”. Include a short bio of yourself, as well as the publication history (if any) of the article (preference is for unpublished writing). For the first issue(s) payment will depend on advertiser and subscriber targets so be prepared to only get a token initial payment (but the goal is to reach “professional” levels as quickly as we can. If you will only sell the story for a specific ammount include that, but realize that may impact our ability to accept the article/story for the first few issues
• Volunteers: while in the future all staff will be paid (if only small amounts initially) to get going will be a labor of love, not money (unless we obtain financing or serious advertisers/sponsors quickly). Copyediting, “slush pile” reading, and pre-press layout help are initial core needs. Quickly as well help with advertising sales, distribution and more will also be needed.
• Advertisers: From the first issue the plan is to have advertising. Rates almost certainly will go up as we grow the audiance, but the advertisers in the first few issues will be set – even as those issues remain (as is the plan) in print for at least a year, likely longer. So the first few advertisers will, we hope, get a bargain over the long term. There will be a limited number of full page ad opportunities, as well as a handful of partial page opportunities (think New Yorker style part of page ads). The back of the front cover as well as the back pages will be the highest cost ads. Rates are still to be determined, preference will be given for advertisers who are willing to commit to a full year of issues (at least 4 but the goal is to get to probably monthly). Advertisers will also be part of the online presense as well as the print publication – so should include a URL to link their ad to online. As a new publication ALL aspects of the readership are yet to be determined (including the size, demographics etc) so early advertisers must be interested in the mission of to be named later and willing to support it. Exact dollars are hard to determine (and to a point go up as the number of copies printed go up) but my initial “gut” guess is that for the first 4 issues something close to $100,000 is needed to pay all writers & artists, to physically print the magazine, and to pay staff (even just a token amount). So a target of about $25,000/issue is the goal though more may be needed for the very first issue.
• Investors – My plan is to bootstrap. Even in the absense of all the advertising support I might like, the goal is to use a service such as MagCloud to enable us to put out a first issue (or two) and build up the audiance over time. To learn by doing and to thus incur as little costs upfront as possible. But if the right investor or sponsor/grantmaker were to offer I would listen. My goal is first to get great stories published, secondly to make money doing so (mostly I want to build something which is self supporting at a minimum). I also want to test my theories about how a new media publication could more than just made do but also prosper even in the Web 2.0, “the media is dying” world. 

So that is the idea – very rough, may not happen, but I hope it will. Please leave a comment, blog about this, link to this or at least contact me if you are interested!

My goals for 2009 a bit in advance

Yes we are only just into the holiday season and as 2008 ends and 2009 begins we face a rather dismal economic outlook around the globe.

That said I have a number of personal goals which I have been thinking about (many for well over a decade or more) which 2009 is, I hope, the year I accomplish most of them. So here is a list for me to refer back to over the rest of 2008 and 2009, these are not in any particular order, these are highly personal and all subject to adjustment and changes. I’m not going to rate myself at the end of 2009 by whether I have achieved all of these goals – but I hope to look back on this list with pride.

If I remember to – as I accomplish goals in the future I’ll update this post by scratching off that tast and linking to some posts on the subject.

1. See an English Premier league game, preferably a Hull City game as I’ve been following them from afar all season. (and yes, this requires that I make it to England – see related goals below)
2. Spend around a month or more outside of the United States. A few weeks in Europe (England, France, and hopefully Spain and perhaps elsewhere). One or two weeks in Turkey. Hopefully another trip to India and ideally China, Hong Kong and Japan. I’d also love to get to Africa where I increasingly know people I’d like to visit.
3. Eat at The French Laundry, el Bulli, or at least one slightly insane bastion of serious food. I am a foodie, my cooking is serious (and quite good), my local restaurants in SF are decent, but I want to eat a few serious meals in 2009. Preferably in the company of one (or more) fellow foodies (ideally one of whom is a female I’m dating)
4. Buy an original work of art and hang it in my home. Preferably not from a painter on a street corner (unless his or her work really moves me) but a somewhat serious work that moves me, that I want to have in my homes into the future. I want to start buying art that appeals to me.
5. Turn my own work into art for my home. I’m a serious photographer with my own style and viewpoint. Yet I haven’t printed out a photo of mine in many years. In 2009 I want to print out and hang a large number of my favorite works to share with my guests and enjoy in high resolution myself.
6. Resolve my various dental issues. If you follow me on twitter or if you know me and wonder why I haven’t been at as many events in the past month+ I’ve been getting a lot of dental work (with much more to go). Not fun, definitely not cheap, but around 8-9 months from now (or so) I’ll be much, much happier (if also poorer). Too long delayed, not fun to deal with but well in progress already and will continue throughout 2009.
7. Lose weight. I’m not setting a specific goal but to lose weight I need to eat healthily, avoid eating excess calories, and exercise on a regular basis. I’m not a gym rat (far, far from it) but in 2009 I plan to do a few things. First, walk a few miles almost every single day (more on the weekends). Second, find a great pool here in SF and start swimming a few times every week. I love to swim – a good at it – and it certainly would be good for me to do on a regular basis. This won’t be free – and it won’t feel entirely comfortable for me for many, many months, but I’m going to try (I may have found the pool I’ll join – looking at a few options)
8. Have a serious fling (and ideally a relationship) in 2009. This means something more than just a first date, more than even a second date. The last time I was in a relationship was in early-2006. I’ve only even kissed (beyond a quick peck goodnight) one woman since 2006 – and nothing else. And yes, this is not much fun. So I’m setting my goal relatively low – would be happy if I far surpass it (either with a few relationships over the course of 2009 or better yet a serious and long lasting relationship – as my longterm goal is not just a relationship but to start a family sometime in the next few years)
9. Write a book (or two). In November and so far in Decemeber I have been working on a new novel (I say new because back in 1995 I started two different novels, neither of which I have finished). So far it is going well and I’m enjoying the writing process – still in the first draft, don’t look back, don’t edit, just keep writing stage. But so far it is fun to write and flowing well and my goal is to get a lot of writing done in the otherwise relatively quiet month of December. I also have a non-fiction book on Economics which I would love to finish (though there I would start by writing a book proposal – sell that – then write the book)
10. Pay a lot of taxes. Okay this may seem strange – but in order to pay a lot of taxes I have to do one or more things that generate a lot of income (or other – say capital gains – forms of revenue). I look forward to having to pay a lot of taxes – as it means I have earned a lot of money. I’m a bit agnostic as to the sources of this income – indeed my expectation would be that I have multiple streams of income from different efforts – but my goal for 2009 is to have to pay a lot of taxes.
11. End 2009 with nothing of mine in boxes and all the rooms of my home furnished (if never quite finished). I have too many boxes holding too much random detritus of my life. Piles of unsorted papers (in no small part because I don’t have enough file cabinets). Many boxes of books (including a few hundred still at my parent’s home in Illinois). My upstairs is mostly furnished – though there is still a lot I want to change about it (need a standing mirror, some rugs, need to hang art, get a real buffet, wine rack, and china cabinet, etc. My downstairs, however, is horribly unfinished – and my goal is not to end 2009 with it still in that state.
12. Attend an art festival. Could be a film festival which I purchase a full festival pass and just watch tons of films, could be a design or arts festival I fly to, attend (not just the main show but also parties, galleries etc). In short I want to enjoy art & design in a way I haven’t allowed myself for far too many years. Back in Chicago I would attend a few serious art festivals (at least the show) every year. I also made it to many festival screenings – if not usually to the whole festival.
13. Read more books than I buy. Or more accurately work down and put a deep dent into my large stack of books to be read. I seem to buy more books each week than I finish. In 2009 my goal is to catch up a bit on my to-read piles (including editing them down by removing books I’ll never get around to reading). I will certainly continue to buy books (my many friends who keep publishing at a torrid pace will insure that) but I want to catch up the many books I own but haven’t yet read – that loom over my bed as reminders that I haven’t yet read them.
14. Get a massage. And then repeat. The last time I had a massage was many, many months ago – and that was one, short massage at a conference. My shoulder and back are, I’m afraid, more knots than muscles. Best would to again be in a relationship which included massages (though the last time that was the case for me I was also in college – yes that’s depressing, not sure why I’m reminding myself). But this may also be in the category of things worth spending some money upon for my overall health and comfort.
15. Plan ahead more than a few times in the course of the year. This is highly personal and bit complicated to explain. But for nearly two decades I’ve had an aversion to buying tickets to events in advance, to making any type of plan more than a few weeks (heck more often more than a few days) in advance. One large reason is that to attend an event (a concert, a convention, a trip) I’ve wanted to do that with someone else. But having been single for 90%+ of my life I’ve rarely assumed I would have a date to go to any event which I might want to attend. If I bought just one ticket then I’m guaranteeing I can’t go to the event with a date – if I bought two tickets pretty much every single time in my entire life that meant I didn’t end up going at all (and usually the tickets went to waste). I said this was a bit complicated. Working for myself (and not having a lot of income) certainly hasn’t helped either – even when I know there are events I want to attend (SXSW for example) I’ve rarely felt comfortable making plans for them all that in advance. Yes, this in the end probably costs me money (though more often than not it means I don’t end up going to the event at all). Nothing about this is good – and it is intertwined with earning more money (and paying more taxes) and with not being single. But it is also a factor of I need to get over my fear that money will be wasted if I plan in advance in the least.
16. Buy a car. Or less likely (since it is rather inconvienent for me) start using Zipcar. I haven’t owned a car since the end of 2004. In that time I’ve barely driven a car at all (<2000 miles in 4 years total). But not having a car means I don’t do far, far too much. This weekend I’m not in Sonoma with a bunch of my friends who are there celebrating a friend’s birthday and doing wine tastings. In fact I’ve NEVER been to Napa or Sonoma to do the wine tastings (not before I moved here and not since I moved here in 2006). I don’t go across the bay to Marin where my grandfather lives. I don’t drive down to Santa Barbara to visit my grandmother (neither of whom are getting any younger). I rarely if ever go down to Silicon Valley for events or to connect with friends who live there. As much as it pains me, I need to get over my distaste for owning a car and need to buy one. It MUST be an automatic (I refuse to learn to drive stick) and it has to be reliable (I have zero interest in paying much attention at all to maintaining my car – I want to just get the oil changed and tires rotated occasionally). I’m not a car person. But I will need to rejoin the masses of car owners in 2009. And yes, this also hinges on that whole paying more taxes… My tastes are for quality – but don’t need a lot of flash – just reliability and utility as well as comfort when I’m driving (very much for me this means amazing – not just okay – sightlines which are my primary complaint about the majority of current cars I’ve driven, including the Prius which I HATE to drive). Zipcar does not work well for me because I also hate deadlines – and as critically the nearest zipcars are a significant distance from my home. When I drive somewhere I don’t want to have a deadline – I’m not going somewhere for a single purpose – generally I want to be able to change my mind and do a lot of things at once (plus many times when I want to use a car I’ll need to drive pretty far distances).
17. Throw frequent dinner parties. I love to cook and to entertain, in the past year I’ve had many dinner parties at my home. In the upcoming year my hope is to have such parties on more regular basis. For some the focus may be food, for others it may be discussions. I also, equally, want to have many more games nights at my place – get a bunch of friends together (both old and new) and play a bunch of games – board games, role playing games (perhaps) and even the occasional poker night.
18. Hack. I’ve joined Noisebridge which is a new hacker space here in San Francisco. Now, my interest is not in the nefarious forms of hacking – rather I want to stretch myself, break out and use my collection of most issues of Make magazine, remind myself of years ago when I built electronics, install Linux in more of my systems, perhaps build a few new computers, and more.
19. Game. For most of my life I have been a gamer – it has kept my brain sharp. But for the past few years I have played fewer and fewer games. In Chicago I played regular games of chess at the North Beach chess pavilion in the summer and at local cafes the rest of the year. For years I also played LARP (live action role playing games) in Chicago with a large group of friends, even traveling to other states to play the game. Somehow, however, though I’ve long been interested in gaming I have never been a computer gamer or a console gamer. Indeed now I do not even own a TV or monitor on which I might play a console if I were to have one. But professionally and personally in 2009 I want to actually see what I’ve been missing. This means trying both PC (and/or Mac) and probably console games, which may also mean getting a monitor or a projector on which to play them. On the one hand I probably don’t have the time for this, but on the otherhand games like WOW are in many ways the golf for my tech peers, by not playing them, never having ever played it in fact, I am truthfully missing out on a deeper understanding.

So that’s a few (okay a lot) of the goals that I have for the upcomming year. I’m sure there are many I’ve missed that at this time in 2009 I’ll look back and wonder why I missed a few big goals and may not weigh all of these goals quite the same (and indeed some of them are far more important to me than others). Family, friends, health all come first.

And this is very personal – but I’m curious what you readers have as your goals for next year. Write your own blog post and either link here and/or leave a comment. I look forward to helping you achieve your goals if I can.

brainstorming about business opportunities

I am an entrepreneur. When I dream, I dream in business models (seriously, though not every night). That said, I need to find a way (or more likely many ways) to make money in the current economic environment. Projects or businesses which will prosper now and as the economy turns around will have many growth opportunities. Businesses which may have some “exit” in mind – though my dream exit is less an exit and more a route to enduring success and sustainable growth.

What do I mean by that?

I don’t particularly want to build something to sell it – even to sell it to the public (i.e. via an IPO). Rather in my ideal world I build something which can stay private, but can also grow into a large and comprehensive entity, with ongoing growth into new opportunities while building on a solid base. A business which would employ a lot of people, share great rewards with those people (as well as with partners and customers) and in turn have a large impact on the world.

Why would I want to keep such a business private? Well first and foremost when I think of great companies only a handful of them are public – and if anything being public limits them in a wide range of ways. I think a very well run, private company, has much greater flexibility than a public company and can more often place long term bets (which admittedly is not always doable in the tech world – but then again my fantasy company though almost certainly driven in part by technology is not a pure tech company). Yes, being private means that as a company you have to be a bit more creative with how you reward your employees – and with how as the owners you diversify your own finances – and with how you obtain the resources to grow and build the future.

So unlike some of my peers here in the valley, my goal is not to build something to sell it, or to make a “quick hit” for myself (though certainly I wouldn’t complain about that) instead I want to build a business (or likely related businesses) which give me a base to explore lots of ideas and a platform from which to have a big and oversized impact on the world. Starting by the customers I serve, the business partners I help, the employees (and their families) I help support.

On a personal level money matters to me – but only up to a point – what matters more is the freedom and flexibility to have a big impact on the world. I want to travel a lot – not just to be elsewhere – but experience a lot. I want to spend a lot of time around the smartest and most impactful people in the world – from formal experiences and conferences – and less formally at lunches, dinners, salons, and meetings all over the world. At somepoint in my life I want to live in many different cities (including outside of the US) and even when I have (as I hope to sometime not all that far from now) a family I would hope to raise that family in multiple cities and countries – and to expose my future children to many cultures and ways of engaging with the world.

So with that as my goal(s) what opportunities should I be pursuing in 2009 (and the rest of 2008)?

In the past few weeks I’ve blogged about a number of business opportunities and ideas I have had: Radio Schedules 2.0, a new(ish) approach to local media, the future of media being curation, and what I would have submitted to the Knight Foundation

A common theme to many of my current ideas have been some degree of rethinking of media – both on and offline – as well as a newish approach to how commercial content plays a role in the media – more than it does currently online but in somewhat different ways than it does offline.

I am still also passionately interested in the core idea which led me to start Nearness Function over a year ago, ideas around how a new form of advertising network could function as a buffer and valueable partner for software and new media firms and a valued partner for advertisers and their agentcies and media buyers. At the core of my belief is that brands matter – more so now than perhaps ever – and that to build great brands requires sustained, ongoing investment and engagement – and that as attention shifts to the “web” (or more accurately to services and communities woven together largely over and via the web) brands will have to engage with audiences via these same services.

And unlike many in Silicon Valley I do not find this inherently a bad thing – if anything I think it is inherently a good thing – that great brands at all scales of brands serve a very valuable and useful purpose. A few months back I launched a new blog, which I need to update more regularly, Slow Brand to discuss my views on branding (and occasionally food) though I need to blog there on a more consistent basis to build up that blog and get my voice out more often.

My friend Tim Ferris (yes of the 4 hour workweek fame and who is launching a new TV show Trial by Fire this week on the History Channel) talks about Lifehacking and indeed to a degree I should implement many of his lessons and suggestions, but my goals are not entirely (or at least not solely) about myself – my body, my life experiences – but are also very much about what I can do for others, what I can build and help create.

As I think about what I want to do I find myself pulled in a number of not entirely complementary directions.

1. I am a very value-adding consultant. My primary skill being to brainstorm with people, especially senior management/founders/investors asking tough questions and helping explore business models, potential partnerships, avenues forward and technical evaluations and decisions. I’ve been told by one VC friend that my 1 hour, emailed evaluation of a company they were looking at, entirely on the basis of public data about the firm, came to the same conclusions it had taken them over 1 month to reach. Now, there are challenges packing up and promoting my consulting and much of what I have done in the past has been on a fairly informal basis – I’d love to do much more of this type of advising/consulting, for a high but fair fee (mostly $ but in some cases perhaps also equity). I think I’d also be very valuable for an investor or M&A person in helping evaluate potential deals.
2. I am a skilled facilitator. I’ve been doing “open space” events since the mid-90’s and have become skilled at the art of facilitating open space events and meetings, as well as the related skill of helping curate other forms of events. This is an art – done well my role almost disappears into the background – achieved by means of the invitations, the settings, the structures lightly imposed upon the event and the group, and gentle nudges and one-on-one conversations and slight changes to the schedule made on the fly. I enjoy such work – whether for a non-profit event or for for-profit businesses and I would like to do more. Especially events which might involve the MeshWalk format I’ve used many times quite successfully. I’ve organized dozens of evening events, helped with lots of weekend and multi-day conferences, and organized a couple three+ day conferences on my own. (The first of which was over 20+ years ago when I was in high school, a science fiction convention which still occurs to this day in no small part because we designed into it a great sustainable structure & financial model)
3. I am a writer. In the past years I’ve written hundreds of blog posts and lengthy emails to mailing lists, not to mention over 7000 tweets. My non-fiction writing has blossomed in the past few years, occasionally even earning me if not direct income then some value in trade (conference passes and access for example). I have multiple non-fiction as well as fiction book ideas, just a few weeks ago in fact I started a new fiction book which is going well so far (though as I write this post it is still early, about 4000 words written but it is going quickly and I have much to write). I also have a major piece of non-fiction I want to write on Networked Economics a topic I have been thinking about since at least 2004 and which I started and ran multiple conferences in no small part to help myself learn.
4. I enjoy connecting people and businesses and serving as a translator between industries. Yes, I am a geek, I wrote my first application when I was about 8, am the 3rd generation of my family to write software (my grandfather was one of the first employees of Rand Corporation and then later at Aerospace Corporation he oversaw the deployment of early IBM mainframes to detect nucluer explosions, my mother has been a programmer since the late-60’s and I would do her student’s flowcharting homework as a child). I’ve had a server on the Internet since about 1991, served as an editor of some IETF standards. In short I have deep and extensive “geek cred”. But I am also passionately interested in business and economics – in topics such as branding and business and process innovation which are non-technical. I find that I can offer a lot of value bridging between the possibilities of technology and the needs of business.
5. I come up with business opportunities. However though I have, I think, had many great ideas I also need to work with others to implement my ideas. While I have many skills I do not have every skill needed to build a successful business (or at least have not had them all so far – still working on it). I have ideas about technology and design which are best implemented by others. While I can and have sold at a very high level, my sales process is too slow and sporadic for sustained growth – I need to work with others to keep myself closing (and/or to help close and implement deals). I will keep practicing the art of the close and of selling – it is a necessary part of being a successful business person, but I also know that my value is multidimensional and that in many ways I would make more money with the right partners than I could alone.

So those are where my thoughts are at the moment. I have many opportunities I’m working on and many ideas (probably too many ideas) but I am faced with the dilemna of evaluating which to pursue now and how to best go from my current state of not enough income to one of a surplus of resources – cash but also other resources such as great staff & partners.

I welcome suggestions and opportunities.

Tips for surviving the downturn or how to live (well) like a grad student

I quit a very well paying job to start my first company in the early winter of 2000 just a month of two before the first (i.e. Web 1.0) bubble burst. Initially I was able to pay myself a reasonable (if lower than I had been earning previously) salary, but having not raised further rounds I cut then nearly eliminated my own salary. While I have earned money in the years since, it has not be large sums. Instead I have adapted a range of techniques to keep my cost of living quite low – and thus allow my resources to be mostly focused on developing my businesses. Many, perhaps all, of these suggestions may help you during the coming downturn.

Basic suggestions for living (well) like a grad student

1. Eliminate as many regular monthly expenses as possible, especially those that also create stress. In my case the biggest monthly net gain came when in 2004 I sold my car and did not replace it. Immediately I dropped from my monthly budget nearly $1000 in monthly costs (car payment, cost of a monthly parking space, gas back when it was still <$2/gallon, oil changes, occasional parking tickets, car repairs, new tires etc). I reduced stress by avoiding having to find parking spaces, dealing with rush hour traffic etc. To make this work I did have the advantage of choosing an office (when I had one) which was in walking distance of my home. I also added to my monthly budget a monthly public transit pass, took taxis as needed and occasionally rented a car or used a carshare service. When I moved to San Francisco a few years ago, I did not move my TV, which meant that I also do not have a monthly cable or satellite bill. Again, instead I buy the occasional series via iTunes, watch other series online (with minimal ads), or occasionaly rent a DVD (Netflix might be another option)
2. Do use services which save you considerable time for a reasonable price. Two main services I would not give up are a business mailbox which is a few blocks from my home and which means I never have to be home to pick up packages (giving me flexibility and security, for $100/year it is money very well spent). And the second is I let the cleaners across the street from me do my laundry – for $1/lb they wash, sort and fold my laundry and I can pick it up usually the next day. The cost is not much more than it would be for me to use a laundromat (which since my apartment does not have a laundry machine would be my only option). Even if I did have a laundry machine, this way all my laundry gets done at once – instead of me having to waste many, many hours on sorting, loads one after the other, drying and then folding, not to mention the energy costs plus the costs of the laundry machine itself.
3. Cook at home. I am a serious cook and foodie, so I do like to eat out (a bit more on how I make that work on a budget below) but I also cook an increasing number of my meals at home. One very valuable thing I suggest it make sure you always have enough food options at home that in a pinch you could feed yourself for at least a week, ideally a few weeks, without needing to do much if any shopping. A few boxes of instant oatmeal, pasta, sauces, tortillas and beans etc all mean you have the comfort of knowing you have, in a pinch, food to eat (and then either drink water or make tea). But most weeks I shop for fresh foods, usually from local farmers markets.So how do I make that work on a budget?First, I shop for quality over quantity and focus on a few, highly seasonal items. What is most seasonal is usually also what is in the greatest abundance (and thus usually even at a higher end farmers market reasonably priced).

   Second, I look for bargains and usually shop without a specific menu in mind. At the Ferry Building here in San Francisco, for example, one of the amazing local, organic, free range butchers often has some specials. Recently I bought nearly 2lbs of amazing free range steaks, each vacuum sealed, for <$10, more than enough for two great meals. When I get to the farmers market towards closing the farmers often offer deep discounts to sell produce that would otherwise go unused, if I expect to be able to cook it, I try to take them up on the offers.

   Third, something I don’t do much currently but could let you get even better deals (and more on this point below) is to shop with others and share your purchases. Frog Hollow Farms is a phenomenal local organic orchard, all of their fruit is usually $4/lb (so pricey but very tasty), however they will sell a 10+lb case for a flat rate that is much lower (I think $25/case) if you can share that case with even one or two friends, it is a great bargain. Many local farms also have CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which offers a wide selection of seasonal produce, often delivered right to your door (i.e. to your mailbox where someone will sign for it for you) every week or every other week. For a single person however this can be a bit much, but shared with a few others it could be a great deal.

   But the key is to be flexible in what you eat and cook as well as to emphasize vegetables and relatively limited amounts of protein. I’m an omnivore but I try to eat a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, in turn this is both cheaper and healthier.

   A final food tip, splurge on spices and oils, great spices and olive oils will make a huge difference in the quality of your food and the cost of amazing spices is actually not much more than the random and poor spices found in most stores. I buy nearly all of my spices from The Spice House which delivers anywhere in the country.

4. Share. Living with others will be cheaper per person than living alone (I live alone, having a girlfriend who shared my space would cut my costs by a lot). Instead of every unit in your apartment building having a wifi connnection, consider pooling resources with your neighbors, buying a single very fast connection and splitting the costs (assuming the wifi will reach everyone). Of course this has some risk – you have to trust your neighbors won’t abuse the network. Go in with some friends on getting a CostCo (or Sams Club if you prefer, though I think CostCo is the supperior company) and then take advantage of bulk purchases of staples – split amongst your friends. Better still, avoid as much as you can the purchase of new non-perishables (electronics, furniture, even clothing) and instead by from resale shops, local merchants, off Craigslist etc. But you will need toilet paper and why not buy it in bulk, take only one car trip, and share the time & expenses with others.
5. Do not cut corners on the tools you need for your job or what you truly need for your own sanity. For me this means that I have a serious laptop and decent desktop computer and an iPhone – without both I would be severely restricting my ability to do my job (and if you have been reading my blog for long, or my twitter feeds, even having spent a lot of money on my laptop doesn’t mean it is ideal for the job, I anticipate replacing it in the next year). For my own sanity I do indulge my interest in books. I have and buy a lot of books – mostly used, but new books from authors I really like (or as is more often the case these days also know personally). For me reading (and reading widely) keeps me sane and focused. For others this indulgance might be your favorite music (though think seriously about a nearly “all you can eat” plan such as Rhapsody in that case) and/or live concerts. For others it might be your gym membership etc. Don’t go overboard, do look for bargains when you can find them (and when taking them doesn’t negate your values). For me, though I do like to save money when I can, I don’t mind paying nearly full price for books from my favorite bookstore by the authors I really love and support. However I do buy many other books from used bookstores (and do buy used copies from my favorite bookstore when they have one of a book I’m looking for) when I care more about the content of the book than supporting that author (i.e. business books not by friends of mine).

Underlying all of my suggestions is an assumption that you have a good general grasp of everything which you spend money on each year, each month, and most weeks. People may disagree with my final suggestion and there are certainly valid arguments against it, for example if you are in the rare category of people who take good advantage of credit card points programs, but I suggest living a mostly cash based life. To do this I withdraw cash from an ATM only a few times each month and then use that cash for almost all of my costs of living (other than rent, phone, etc). My food, transportation, personal purchases, cleaning, entertainment etc all for the most part come out of the cash I withdraw. This allows me to have a lot of personal flexibility but also emphasizes relatively low cost but high impact rewards to myself – great coffee or a good book – but makes me slower to spend lots on a meal or larger purchases. Lots of small credit card purchases can very rapidly add up, incur interest charges, but more critically inure you from the full impact of your choices by delaying that impact until the next billing cycle.

A mostly cash lifestyle, in contrast, gives you simple measures of how rapidly you are spending money. Your wallet shrinks and you find yourself seeking out your bank’s ATMs with greater frequency.

I always use my own bank’s ATM. Not just because I hate on principle the idea of paying any fees to get my own money but because by forcing myself to make that extra effort I raise the pain threshold for getting out cash. I also generally always withdraw the same amount of money with each visit, this allows me to have a rough gauge of how much I am spending in a month by thinking back to how often I went to ATMs or looking at the receipts in my wallet. I try to visit the ATM fewer times a month than there are weeks in that month, the weeks when I have to visit the ATM once during the week and again over the weekend are generally times I am spending more money than I really should be spending.

I hope these tips help you, please add other suggestions in the comments.

Connectivity, Hackerspaces, and influential people

In the past few days a half-dozen or so of people I knew back in high school have connected with me via Facebook, as we have been catching up on nearly 20 years of our lives it is amazing both how much and how little has changed. In nearly all cases i immediately could recognize them from their posted photos and so far at least i haven’t been overly surprised by their choices of careers or educations. I suspect that via Facebook as it continues to grow I’ll reconnect with even more of my oldest friends.

On the front of making new friends I learned about a very cool new project here in San Francisco, Noisebridge which has just (as in earlier today) signed a lease on a commercial space here in San Francisco where they will be opening up an open HackerSpace for everyone to enjoy and use as a base from which to build and create amazing hacks. While I don’t know if I’ll be active enough to pay a large monthly fee to support the space, I plan on doing what I can to support them – and hopefully as a result may finally get around to doing far more hacking than I have of late. Including perhaps exploring how to hack my largish collections of conference schwag and old electronics into something more interesting and useful (or at least fun).

On a more serious note I hope to participate in more hackerish spaces and events to expand my personal network in still further directions. In the past few days I have been thinking a great deal about who I know, what I do with my friends (or more accurately don’t do) and what I really would like to be spending more time (and to the extent I have it money) on doing.

A few of the things that I realized I am not doing to the extent that I would really like, and to the extent that they are in fact important to me, is I have not been anywhere nearly as active in an arts and literary scene as I would like. I want to get out to art galleries and openings, start to the extent that I can afford it to collect art, to make more of my own (for example finally print my best photos of the past years). I want to attend live theater and other shows, go to even more literary events and readings and in short spend more time around others who share my tastes and cultural interests.

Sure, i am a geek and like technology, but I am a geek about many different fields. In high school besides all my honors science and math classes I took as many (perhaps more) honors history and english classes and I was an editor of the school literary magazine (which I’m proud to say won a national award that year for design). In college I did performance art, attended tons of live theater and shows, hung out in amazing art scene cafes and bookstores, wrote poetry and had a great time – and had friends with whom to share those interests and explorations. But in the past decade or so I have not had friends with whom to share my loves of art, design, poetry (of some forms), writing, theater and other arts.

My tastes are complex, I like certain types of literary writing – This American Life for example and related works of literary non-fiction. But I generally do not like the fiction of the New Yorker (read it each week hoping that I will like the story but rarely do) and though I feel I should, I haven’t every really gotten entirely into McSweeney’s though I love the physical design of each issue. Sure I’m a huge science fiction and fantasy fan, but I love many other genres and my own writing (and interest in writing) tends towards the fairly serious – if with more plot than most “mainstream” fiction.

In terms of art I tend to like certain types of design driven art – I prefer art that is physically pretty vs. art that is only confrontational. I have collected a lot of small works of art – art books for example, though I don’t yet have a good way to display them. If I had the money I would love to collect a lot of visual arts and perhaps select sculptures. At the highest end probably my favorite artist is Juan Miro. When I was in chicago I attended serious art fairs a few times each year – by serious I mean the types of fairs where you could have bought a large, original Juan Miro if you happened to have had a spare $1.5M or for less works by many living artists.

Also this week i am amused by the release of the BusinessWeek 25 Most Influential People on the Web a list on which I know nearly half of the members, have been to parties at some of their homes in fact. And even the people I don’t know personally, I know that in nearly every case friends of mine do, in fact, know them (and work for/have worked with/invested in them). A simple reminder of why I moved to the Bay Area.

This could be one of the most critical weeks in American (and world) history in terms of the financial markets, I plan on spending this week working on what I can do to weather the storm – how I can generate revenues for my advertising network and/or other revenue streams to support myself and projects i am working on in the potentially turbulent times ahead.

Resume advice or why mention “Disassembled Particle Accelerator”

This afternoon I was, as happens on a regular basis, asked to look at a friend’s resume and to give her some feedback and advice. She is a relatively recent college graduate now looking for her first “real” job though she is already an active member of the tech circles in the bay area and has worked as an intern for a number of startups.

After giving her the fairly typical advice – stuff such as correcting some awkward phrases, some minor spelling/typo type errors, a few rough bits of grammer as well as focusing her on being specific – on what she wants to do as well as what she has already done – I then sent her the following bit of advice.

Always have something on your resume which will stand out and demand to be explained.

Not in a bad way, something you have to explain away, but rather something which is memorable and which someone reading a stack of resumes will want to learn more about, to get the story behind why you mention that particular skill or past job etc.

In my case I have, for most of my career, included the phrase “disassembled particle accelerator” on my resume and in almost every job interview I have ever had the interviewer has asked me the story behind why I mention that particular fact about myself.

First and foremost this should be a true fact – not something you make up. In my case the summer after my senior year of high school, before I entered college at the University of Chicago, I spent the summer on a National Science Scholars program working at Argonne National Labs, in my case working for a number of physicists that summer. While most of my time was spent writing FORTRAN programs and working inside of Mathematica, I did also watch one medium sized particle accelerator run. And I did, in fact, disassemble a room sized lab table top particle accelerator to free up that laboratory for a new set of experiments.

So I am among the likely very few people in the world to have disassembled a particle accelerator and so I mention this fact on my resume.

And, as I noted, almost without fail, especially early in my career it stood out and people asked me about it – it communicated a lot of things about me in a small amount of words. I was fairly technical, I had even at a young age already done a fairly wide range of things, that I was likely fairly smart (at least smart enough to win a national award and work at Argonne with physicists) etc.

So my advice to my friend, beyond fixing the mostly minor details of her resume, was to think about one thing she has done in her life already which will stand out and which will make someone want to talk with her to hear the story behind it.

As I noted to her the job of an resume which you submit to a company for a specific position (i.e. not a resume submited to a machine for entry into a resume database etc) is to get you in the door, to get you the interview (hopefully the in person interview but a phone interview is at least a good start). From there you will be hired mostly based on the conversations you have and the rest of that company’s interview process – your resume just gets you in the door, you have to then get the job.

I have hired many people in the past decade, made my share of mistakes along the way. And in the course of that hiring I have read a lot of resumes. The successful ones, the ones which lead me to the next step of some form of an interview with the candidate were the ones which addressed the following questions – and which left me wanting to meet that person and ask her (or him) more questions.

1. Is this person passionate about the type of work she (or he) will be required to do? I will never (again) hire a programmer who is not the type of programmer who has to write code who does more than just write code for the job but would and does write code just for fun.
2. Is the person a good fit for the type of company and stage of company? i.e. people leaving very large company corporations are rarely great fits for extremely early stage startups – large corporations allow people to be highly focused but also build up an expectation of a level of external support that is not present at nearly all startups.
3. Will the person be a good fit for the company’s culture and especially that of her (or his) new team? Remembering that often a great fit for a company is someone who compliments the company’s existing teams and adds a new perspective and new skills – having no one who agrees or everyone who agrees are both bad, especially at a startup. But companies each have (or evolve to having) different cultures – one person’s approach and style will be perfect for some firms and horrible for others (Here I wouldn’t exclude myself – my way of working and interacting is not a fit for every company or client I have worked for or with)
4. Can the person grow with and into the company and new roles alongside the company? Especially for a startup, but even for a project team at a large company, people who will be able to take on new roles and grow with the company (and/or team) are almost always better candidates than people who for whatever reason are unlikely to take on new roles in the future.

So what have you disassembled lately?

What are you working for?

A great question which a friend asked me earlier this afternoon after a brunch where our conversation covered dozens of topics. He is a financial adviser and most of clients are from the tech and startup world.

What am I working for?

I have been thinking about this question for a while now, all summer in fact. Being an entrepreneur means a lot of things, not least of which are some lean and sometimes tough financial times as you are getting started but also great rewards (including finacial rewards) when you succeed.

I have a, relatively short, list of things I would buy if money were not an object. A related list of things I would do, events I would attend. But I have realized that other than also putting some money aside for my hoped for future family (which first likely requires dating and probably marrying the right woman) much of what I am working for, what I would want financial rewards for are to be able to then do stuff for others with those resources.

So first the basics a quick list for my own future reference – what I am working for, what I would do when finacial success starts to flow my way.

• Buy a car. Not an impractical car, but also not a beat up car. My taste tends towards hatchbacks or coupes, probably something with some serious power and performance yet also with many luxury features and definitely an automatic (I both do not and do not want to learn how to drive stick). I have not had a car for nearly 4 years and prior to that I had owned a car for 4 years but only drove it 13,000 miles. However to really enjoy living in CA I probably need a car and for my planned use of one owning it is likely more suitable for me than a car share service (for one I hate having deadlines or restrictions on my flexibility – one of the great things about working for yourself is being in control of your time and movements)
• Furnish my apartment fully. I have, alas, expensive tastes when it comes to furniture. I really like very modern, very clean lines in my furniture. Most likely when I have the money I will spend a great deal of it at Roomand Board which is almost without exception my design aesthetic
• Update and maintain my wardrobe. I like quality and clean design in most things, including clothes. However though I have many great pieces of clothing I also have many other items which are worn (even worn out) and do not update my clothes all that often. I also have many items where I really only have one – one pair of glasses, one brown belt (and one black belt), only a handful of shoes, not many different pairs of pants etc. Here I have also learned that for my taste quality matters – I definitely feel and act differently when I am wearing clothes that fit me well, that are well made from high quality fabrics, than when I am in ill-fitting clothes of cheap fabrics.
• Complete and maintain my Doctor Who collection. I am huge Doctor Who fan, but for about the past decade I have not been actively collection Doctor Who items and as a result there are vast numbers of books, original audio plays from Big Finish, comics and especially DVD’s which i have not collected. If I had the resources I would buy a great deal of these materials and subscribe to many others. In particular Big Finish does amazing work, when i have the money I’d buy most of their back catalog and subscribe the future shows, in no small part as a thank you to them for their great work and that of the actors.
• Buy even more books in hardcover editions and subscribe to great magazines. I already do buy a lot of books each year (probably averaging over 200 books each year, perhaps more some years) but much of what I buy are used or paperbacks and there are many new hardcover books, even by authors I really like, which I do not end up purchasing. When I have more money I would buy more these (though I likely will have less time to read so this is as much about supporting authors I really like as it is about reading the books – though for my favorite authors I do usually eventually read the books as well). On the magazine front I subscribe to very few magazines at the moment, yet here too there are many which I would really like to have and read on a more regular basis, in many cases a subscription is likely even a net savings (since i end up buying magazines like Wired and Monocle on newsstands with some frequency)
• When I eat out eat at more of the restaurants I really love. And treat myself to serious dining experiences such as French Laundry and various tasting menus on a regular basis. I am a foodie, yet much of the time in the past years I have eaten cheaply instead of well, certainly not all of the time but there are hundreds of places I have always wanted to try but which I have not for lack of funds.
• Upgrade my kitchen tools and continue to cook and buy locally. My one indulgence, though truly not much of one, has been to usually buy locally and mostly from farmers’ markets. However my kitchen equipment in some areas is lacking (no food processor or electric mixer) and I do not keep my pantry and fridge as well stocked as I would like (and for that matter my fridge and stove are not very nice at the moment)
• Invest in myself. On a basic (and immediate even if the rest of this list takes longer to get to) I need to invest in my own health. Lots of dentist visits, finding a primary care physician in San Francisco, having full and complete health insurance, keeping a good supply of asthma and allergy medicines, etc. This also means investing more in my own ongoing and continual education. I love to learn, yet it has been nearly a decade since I last took a formal class anywhere. I should be taking something nearly every year – a writing workshop, a class at a local university, something to keep myself sharp and to continue to push my mind in new directions. For that matter I would also like to strengthen my knowledge of French and perhaps to try to learn other languages (Spanish? Hebrew? Chinese? Japanese?)
• Commit to and attend more of the events I want to attend. In the past decade while I have made it to a lot of amazing conferences and events in nearly every case I have done so by deciding to attend at nearly the last minute and I have missed many events I would have really enjoyed being at (and at many of the events I have attended because I decided to go at the last minute I have not gotten the full benefit from attending – not been listed as an attendee, haven’t set up as many meetings or figured out what talks I want to hear/people I want to see etc). My short list of events I would want to attend includes: TED, PopTech, SXSW (music as well as film and interactive), a serious film festival (probably Sundance), one or more serious writing conferences (both genre such as World Fantasy and perhaps a non-genre such as the New Yorker Festival) and there are many more. I don’t see much live music, don’t get to live theater or opera, and rarely attend festivals. I definitely want to do more of all of that (and even some occasional sporting events such as this year seeing a Cubs game, especially if they make it to the World Series). More than the actual cost of attending any of these events (many of which are really business investments or which I have in the past been able to minimize through my own tech involvement and writing) is the powerful impat of being able to plan for the future, of being able to commit money now for future activities – and not be overly concerned if I have to later change my plans (as will inevitably happen as an entrepreneur). For the past few years I have not felt confident in my future planning (and budgeting) to commit money too far in advance, this is a habit and mode of thinking I want to break.

As I noted i do not have particularly expensive tastes except in a few areas (furniture, food and clothing). I would probably also indulge myself in some modern electronics (an HDTV projector, some games consoles, etc) but even after all of that the actual cost of all of the items I mentioned above (assuming medical costs aren’t too insane) is in the grand scheme of things not actually all that high. Probably dipping towards six figures with all of the medical costs and conferences added, but only barely.

Long term I probably would want to buy a place here in the Bay Area and probably either rent or buy a place in New York, perhaps also somewhere in Europe (London or Paris most likely) and long term my fantasty is that I live a more fully bi (or including Europe tri) coastal lifestyle. But what I want more than the places is the flexibility of living in each city for extended periods of time – so creative renting might work well (or buying a place in one of the newer buildings that rent out your apartment as a hotel room when you aren’t using it).

Very long term I also want to own (or have a long term rent) on a venue where I can hold events, probably some retreat center like property, most likely in the midst of a large forest somewhere (likely near here in Northern California). Though I love living in large, vibrant cities, I am also a serious lover of forests – more so than coasts or open fields, a forest is where I feel most at peace and most comfortable. Someday I want to own my small (or not so small) piece of a forest and have a place I can retreat to from time to time, probably extremely well stocked with books, games and fireplaces. I can see myself buying a place as a mixture of a personal retreat and as a working retreat center, I love to run events, having a place where I could host them myself has a lot of appeal, especially if it had sufficient space and facilities for the types of events I most admire and want to have (this probably means space for up to a few hundred, perhaps as many as 400+ people). So this is long term – and with money and resources there are far cheaper options to having access to such spaces than buying them entirely myself.

So given that most of what I describe above would be well within my reach if I were to go to work for someone else – my skills, experience and contacts are such that I would likely command a quite decent salary even by Silicon Valley standards – why am I working towards the possibility of much greater rewards (with all the stresses and risks associated with that)?

This was the full question my friend posed me earlier today, given that for the most part my tastes do not run too high, that I don’t really have much need on a personal level (or for that matter the desire to spend), why am I working so hard (if sometimes it feels not yet hard enough) towards really high rewards? Why didn’t I (or why don’t I) take the seemingly easier route of taking a job working for someone else?

The short answer is I do have a lot I want to do with great resources – but most of it is not personally directed. There are dozens of organizations I want to make a serious financial (and other) support towards. At some point in my future I also see making direct investments (or indirectly as a limited partner), especially in the types of businesses I think can have a really deep and lasting impact locally and on the world. I want to offer finacial support to politicians I believe in (Obama for starters). I run MeshForum as a non-profit for many reasons, not least of which is philosophical I have a mission with MeshForum which is not to make money directly but rather to help spark and support innovation and new ways of thinking about deep and complex problems – in the case of MeshForum around the area of the interdisciplinary study of Networks – and informing different fields and businsesses which are network related with the techniques and approaches of other fields. The conferneces I hold and will hold help here, making the content available widely also helps, but there is much more I could do. In the future I want to directly support lots of research efforts, especially around making richer datasets available to researchers and around supporting truly interdisciplinary scholors.

My passion is around learning and around having a large impact on the world. One way i want to do this is building a large, sustainable (in all senses of the word) business – a truly global business which has a large impact. I then want to leverage that business and the resources it makes available to me towards supporting great work and research – especially research that crosses disciplines and very much the basic research that is not as supported today inside or outside of academia.

So that is why I work, in a small way for the personal comforts it will bring me in the future, for the support it will offer my future family, but mostly I work to get the resources to have a huge impact on the world, to support the many people I know (and will know) who are doing great things and to help support and spark new innovations that can continue to have great changes in the world in the future.

Why do you work? What are you seeking from your efforts?