3by9

A Purpose Served

When I came up with the idea of 3by9 (yes for once I can honestly say that it was just me that came up with the idea…I know it’s a complicated idea that only brilliant minds like myself could think up) I knew that it wouldn’t have an extended period on the web. I was with two geniuses of the web and figured we all had something important to share with people. However, doing it over at the 9rules blog didn’t seem appropriate so I figured we could start another blog to share these ideas.

Since then over 200 entries have been published during the past 18 months and each of them showing how different our personalities are, but how similar our views of the world around us are. When I brought up the idea of 3by9 to Mike and Tyme I informed that every 3 months we would revisit the site to see if it was time to put it away. Well we did that the first 3 months and haven’t looked back since. However, we all agree that now is the time because we are moving in our own directions.

We are still very much a team when it comes to 9rules, but have started to diverge into our own projects and this has taken time away from the site. So instead of keeping a site dragging along it is time to put it to rest. It served its purpose and it was a relief knowing that we didn’t intend on making the world’s greatest blog, just a blog that was great to us.

If you are interested in what we are doing I suggest you subscribe to Flyosity and Tyme Said. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter: @scrivs, @tyme and @mike9r.

With all of that said thanks to everyone that reads the site and who has commented. It was a joy writing for a site with no restrictions, no concerns of traffic or worries about money. It was a blog that started the way blogging itself started, to share ideas and have our voices heard.

Failing Honestly

Last week Mike and I were having a conversation about a company (that I will avoid naming because what would follow would be too draining) that never seemed to be able to take failure like men (or women). When it comes to failure it is always a bitter pill to swallow, but in the end there are lessons to be learned so the same mistakes do not get repeated again. However, so many of us like to look at failure and make excuses for why it happened. It is almost as if the failure never happened because it was purely due to bad luck.

Bad luck is signing a VC deal only to have an asteroid destroy the people who are about to give you money. Bad luck is accidently deleting the hot girls number after a night of drinking wine coolers. Bad luck isn’t ignoring that something is wrong with your company and then when it becomes to time to fess up to you it, you are full of excuses.

How many relationships have you been in that went horribly wrong and instead of looking back at what you might have done wrong you are quick to blame the other person or maybe unusual circumstances? We met at the wrong time. Distance kept us apart. She didn’t kiss me in the morning. You can’t have better relationships in the future until you figure out what was wrong in the past.

Many companies are learning this the hard way. Facebook will learn it, but it will be too late. The signs are already there. Twitter needs to recognize it quickly because there is no arguing it is going to happen to them as well. These two companies are fortunate to have money pouring out their ears though to protect them, what do you have?

Looking back at my soccer career I can’t remember a game where when I think about it, my first thought is “the ref lost the game for us.” I hated when my team said that. I hated when my coaches said that. I hated when my parents said that. Refs will always make bad calls, but rarely do they prevent you scoring over and over again. You don’t like losing and think it’s the ref’s fault because you lost 2-1? Well you should’ve scored 3 more goals to put the game out of reach.

My sophomore year in college I got an F in Probability. Now this class is hard enough, but doubly hard when you don’t attend class as often as you should. My first excuse was that I couldn’t understand the professor. That means for four months I did nothing about a situation that I knew I was heading towards with the piss poor excuse that I couldn’t understand someone. I failed myself.

Now I understand not everything is your fault and not every disaster can be averted. Looking at 9rules and the millions of changes we have made over the years I can see things that we should have done better, but most of it is simply following what we believed was right and it didn’t work out. Maybe it was bad luck or maybe we are just idiots for believing that a certain idea would work. There was never an excuse for why it didn’t work though.

Your business is failing now because of the economy right? Must be easy to sit back and say such things, but why isn’t your company economy proof? In life the writing is always on the wall about what should be done, it is up to us to actually read it and follow it. Lean to be honest with yourself through your failings and you will find that you are not only making your company stronger, but yourself stronger as well.

Every action has a consequence

I’ve often said that any decision can change the direction of your life forever. I usually use the scenario of a hall of doors one can walk through or forks in a road one has to pick from. Every action has a consequence, good or bad. Success (maintaining it) is the result of many good decisions. Failure, decline, etc. is the result of bad choices. Like I said, I’ve said this many times so it was refreshing to find a video where someone makes the point in a way better than I ever did. His points start at 2:34 and 3:33 and the story which highlights his points begins after.

What about social media? Well, the same principles apply. For every decision there is a consequence. In social media it would be a disaster if there were no consequences. Someone that talks a lot about the consequences of start ups is Mike Arrington. This week he talked about the Facebook Burger King campaign drama. Burger King was giving out free sandwiches to Facebook users who dumped 10 friends - and the friends were notified they were being dumped, which goes against Facebook’s policy. Arrington said:

Facebook consistently tell users they can’t do things in the name of privacy, despite the fact that those users know full well what they are up to.

Now let’s go back a minute to what I said about actions having consequences. Burger King was the one who initiated the action of going against Facebook’s policies. If you don’t like the rules don’t play the game. In other words, don’t use Facebook. It’s really that simple. Since Burger King decided to ignore the rules Burger King should be willing to take the consequence - close the application until the friend notification part complies with Facebook’s rules.

If Facebook allowed Burger King to circumvent the rules, what is to stop other application developers from doing the same? One of the “promises” for Facebook users is that the friend will not be notified if he/she is removed. That’s a two way street. The person removing is free to remove people without the ex-friend being notified of the removal. The person being removed will never open their inbox and have that potential humiliating feeling that their “friend” removed them.

It’s a two-sided promise.

But I guess the receiver doesn’t matter, huh Arrington? No, of course not! Only the person sending the notice matters! Yes, that is sarcasm because it is nonsense.

People were willing to dump “friends” (most likely people they don’t know, don’t really care about but accepted to be nice but who knows?) for a sandwich. Self-pleasure for the win, right? As Swoozie’s video points out, every action has a consequence.

It would poetic justice (karma) if someone who dumped a friend ended up having to go for a job interview and the person they dumped as their friend makes the hiring decision. Or he/she falls in love and the best friend of the person he/she fell in love with is the person they dumped for a sandwich.

Because odds are, the person who dumped the friend (depending on the depth of the friendship) will forget who they dumped. The person dumped however, due to the way it happened, might not ever forget.

And up comes that forgotten consequence….

Webkinz is The Future of the Web

With the economy the way it is (it doesn’t effect poor people like me, poor is poor) many companies and independents are wondering how they will survive the advertising drop that is sure to happen to them. I am not going to go into my usual speech about diversification of revenue because you know that already (although you don’t do it) and instead point you to a model that has been around for 4 years now, but that I was just recently introduced to. Webkinz seems to be nothing but stuffed animals in real life. My little cousin got a couple of Christmas and I asked her about them and she explained that not only are they just cute stuffed animals, but you can play with them online.

Of course since she is only 7 I figured that you were only able to do some very basic things with your new pet online, but I must admit I was thoroughly impressed when I checked out the website to see what you are actually able to do. In a nutshell, you adopt your pet and then are introduced to The Sims online with your pet. You can customize your pet’s room, play games (with your friends) and trivia (all for more points into purchasing goodies for your pet). I know this sounds simplistic, but it I hope you understand how addictive this is for kids. There are ads on the site and subtle pushes for new products to make kids bug their parents to go out and buy them new stuff.

Even better there is no limit to how many Webkinz you can own and control. My cousin has around 23 if I remember correctly and she was telling me her friend had 69. Think about that…69 purchases for one child. Mix that in with the amount of time she spends online interacting with her pets and you have a goldmine sitting right in front of you.

Now the reason I bring up Webkinz as an example of a great business model is because it shows how well you can do if you properly integrate the online and offline worlds. There aren’t many companies that pull that off well. I know Facebook and Myspace are solely focused on what they are doing now, but I have a couple of ideas of how they begin to expand their brand and reach just by reaching out into the offline world. Imagine if 9rules held one of our mythical meetups where members and non-members could come and discuss everything they do.

These are the times where companies tend to scale back and wait for a better economy to emerge when in fact these are the best times for innovation and pushing forward. By doing so when a better economy comes around the corner you are so far ahead of the curve that everyone will wonder how you even got there. And although all of our readers are adults here, I suggest you take a look at Webkinz and see what kind of ideas you can gleam from their success.

Extending your blog

One of the common questions asked around the internet is whether now is a good time to start a blog and if so, how do you build and expand it? Wayne Sutton wrote about the topic yesterday referencing a conversation we had at the beginning of the year. How do blogs and social media sites work together? Here is a piece of his article relating to our conversation:

Earlier this year I had a conversation with Tyme White about twitter and personal branding that had stuck in my head ever since I got off the phone with her. She brought up the fact that I had a lot of twitter followers but where or how would I stay connected with those followers if twitter goes down (fail whale) , twitter gets purchased by google & closed like Pownce or their business model just doesn’t work and everyone leaves the community. We talked about how some people who I admire like Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuck have huge online followers despite twitter. Robert has a large following and readership on his blog before twitter and the same for @GaryVee but we do know they both have used twitter to extend their brand.

Towards the end of his article he disclosed his plan on how to extend his blog. Everyone will take a different approach and should do what makes them feel comfortable. However some thought should be given about how what you do today impacts you tomorrow.

It is easy to build a Twitter audience (Facebook, MySpace…you get the idea). It is much easier than a blog because the tools are there to quickly send friend requests - which most people accept. Send out enough you’ll have people subscribed to your content. However, how many of those people are actually reading or are interested in what you are saying? It is common for people to only read what Twitter displays the moment they log on…they don’t scroll back to see what they missed. Same thing goes for a blog. Just because your FeedBurner stats state you have X subscribers doesn’t mean all of them actually read your content. Just because you have X amount of subscribers to your blog doesn’t mean everyone subscribed actually reads your articles.

That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t use third party services. They can be a great compliment to your site. However, if you have more subscribers to a third party site than you do your own site that might work against you in the long run. If those sites ever went out of business, blocked access to your profile (who often does that happen on Facebook?) or even worse had technical difficulties and lost your friends list what would you do? How screwed would you be?

Another problem is overextending yourself. If you are spread out amongst too many services it makes it very hard for people to follow you - to catch all of your content. Imagine telling your readers go to Facebook for this, MySpace for this, my blog for his, Twitter for that. I had a profile on Pownce but it is gone, update your records. My work record is on LinkedIn, I have Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ and Skype - add me! See what I mean? It’s information overload on one person. Add more people and the odds are they aren’t tuning in as you’d like them to.

With my own audience I don’t put anything in between us. It’s me and them. That’s how we roll. For me, it works out. Sure, we drive each other crazy sometimes but I know they are reading what I say. Not necessarily expressing their honest opinion (we’re working on that) but they are reading and interacting with me. Not via Twitter or anywhere else but my site, my email, my IM…me.

I answered Wayne’s question in the comments section of his article. Head on over if you want to take a peek. Remember - social media sites are tools. Use them wisely.

End of Year, Time to Rethink

For many of us the end of the year is a time for reflection and the belief that we now have another year in our lives to start over and make things better. Of course you don’t have to wait till the end of the year to make this happen, you can do it whenever you put the effort into it. However, as a whole when do industries start to sit back and rethink how they go about their business? Maybe the U.S. auto industry should have done it a while ago…

Online Advertising

I have always been cautious about letting online advertising be your only source income. Coming from a guy who runs a site that is 100% based on advertising I know that sounds silly, but you had to expect the bottom to fall out some time. With the economy being however it is you get the feeling most of the good advertising deals are being cutback. What else do sites have to fall on?

Now I understand that with many sites it is just easier to plaster up some ads and go about your business, but maybe is the time to rethink your revenue model. I am not saying cut advertising altogether, but instead of making it 100% of your revenue, maybe you can make it 90% over the next couple of months and continue to ease up on it. Just a thought.

Online Design

Design trends seem to go in cycles and I am not sure what cycle we are in, but there is still a lot of improvement that can be done with the major sites. If you want to see someone who always seems to be ahead of the curve then check out Mikey’s personal site and you will see a man…well you get the picture.

What if we took more chances with the design of our sites? Or maybe we took the lesser approach and scaled everything back to the point of pretending we are writing an advertisement for a business card? I have more elaborate thoughts on this as usual that I am reserving for another time and another place, but with the way the world is, there is no better time than to rethink your design strategy.

Online Interactivity

Twitter is great, but it still isn’t as big as everyone had thought it would be by now. FriendFeed was the next stop on the hype train and I am not sure it has ever left the station. I understand that these methods of communication are great for some people they obviously aren’t the solutions the world is waiting for so again maybe we have to sit down and think of another approach.

Sure you can fit in some quick thoughts in your Twitter feed, but maybe you do actually have more than 140 characters that you need to say. Put it on your blog right? That pushes people all over the place. Integrate Twitter with your blog right? You still have people that just might only care about your Twitter.

I didn’t even reach into the online video realm yet. YouTube has been such a great communication tool for people that the geek crowd that focuses on Twitter has missed that boat. I am telling you there is potential for some new player to make a statement with all of this. I am not sure what needs to be done, but with all of the technology we have in our hands I don’t understand how so much of the online space still feels as disjointed as when it was started back in the 90’s.

Maybe that is how it is supposed to be.

Your Brand

I don’t mean your company’s brand. I mean the brand that is you (yeah Maxine I’m working on it girl, don’t worry). Thinking beyond if you are happy with yourself think of the brand that is representing you and figure out if that is how you want it to stay moving forward or do you want it to change. The new year is a great time for reinvention because everyone is distracted and caught up in the late year shuffle.

I have been doing a lot of thinking with regards to my brand and I am still uncertain as to which direction I wish to take it. I should say directions because every time I sit down and believe I have figured out a strategy it leads down many paths.

Guess I just need to rethink some more.

Take a good look in the mirror

One of my clients had a problem and he asked for my advice. Hearing the problem and having an understanding of his relationship with some of his employees, I came up with a plan. Twisted, but effective.

One of his employees, who he is friendly with, needed work done on a floor in the house. The employer knew a friend that could help and keep it cost effective. Long story short, the employer and the floor repair person went to the employee’s house to fix the floor. The employer introduced the floor repair person to the employee, and the floor repair person was showed the problem, finances were discussed and the work started being done. The employee was cooking and went to attend to pots on the stove while the employer and the repair person dealt with the floor.

Eventually the employee went back to the room where the work was being done and it was empty. Looking around the employee found them in the living room laughing at YouTube videos. Scarlett Takes a Tumble is kinda funny, you know (and she’s a GREAT sport about it)? Going a long with it for a minute the employee laughed but wanted the floor fixed and tried to subtly remind the repair person to get back to work.

In which the employer said something like, “Oh, you mean like you surf the internet and talk on the phone using company equipment on company time?”

Ouch! But you have to admit - BOOYAH!!!

I always suggest this type of scenario (if they can set it up) because it is 100% effective. Never had an employee yet say the person they hired to come to their house (or someone misusing their stuff) should actually be using their computer. It doesn’t happen, yet they are the first to tell the person to go back to work. When my client mentioned he was going to the employee’s house I said “Do it!”. Use the computer, watch TV, talk on the phone…do the same thing and see what happens.

Because seriously, when employees do that SOMEONE pays for the loss of time and resources. It’s not free. Bank of America is laying of 30K-35K employees over the next three years. I laughed when I saw that. I feel bad but BoA was lax. I know of employees who spoke on the phone (long distance by the minute charges) for hours a day. And in one case it took at least two years for them to catch up with it. How do I know? Because that is how long it took for them to call my house and question why my number was on their phone bill. Very surprised my number was residential.

If you’re one that wouldn’t be cool with the repair person watching TV on your time, perhaps you shouldn’t being using your employer’s resources. Sure, everyone needs a break but don’t abuse it.

Just like every vote counts, each case of abuse adds up.

“I didn’t think….”

People start new businesses everyday. Online ventures are easy and cheap to start. Cheap many times translates to “I don’t have to put a lot of thought into this”. Let’s be real, ok? When the internet was more expensive to access people thought out their plans more before hopping online. The by the minute access charges added up quick. If one is interested in starting a more traditional business (for example a store) the overhead costs alone would cause one to stop and think about what he or she is getting into. Online, for some warped reason, the thought processes go out the door.

Not warped actually. I’ve been told many times the business owner didn’t think anything bad would happen to them (and that’s why lawyers will always have customers). Why? I have no idea. Like they are exempt from bad things happening or something. I’ve had people argue with me about editing comments when the law in their state says if they edit they will be financially responsible if someone sues. Yet these same people 1) can’t afford the fight and 2) would be the first in line looking for free help if something went down. What comment is worth taking potential unnecessary financial burdens?

Let’s look at an example of someone not thinking. Designer Carter Bryant lost the right to sell Bratz dolls because he thought of the idea while working for Mattel. He started the Bratz empire in 2001 - it took a long time for the legal system to catch up with him. Business school 101 will inform you that there is a huge conflict there - he came up with the concept while working with the company that would turn into his competition.

Mattel sued MGA Entertainment for $500 million alleging that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz. On July 17, 2008, a federal jury ruled that the Bratz line was created by Carter Bryant while he was working for Mattel. The jury also ruled that MGA and its Chief Executive Officer Isaac Larian were liable for converting Mattel property for their own use and intentionally interfering with the contractual duties owed by Bryant to Mattel. On August 26, the same jury found that Mattel would have to be paid US $100 million in damages.

The manufacture of the dolls must stop immediately and the dolls have to be removed from shelves after the holiday season. 1500 jobs potentially down the toilet. Because he didn’t think.

Why do I say that? Because if he thought about it that tidbit - that he came up with the idea while working for Mattel - would never have seen the light of day. He would have saved up his money, quit, waited a decent amount of time and then launched his business. Yes, he would have made a reasonable effort to make sure Mattel couldn’t touch him. But who would think Mattel would come after him?

Duh. I mean seriously. Duh. No brainer. Please. Just like Hasbro wasn’t going to protect their rights…right?

If you are attempting to do something that makes money think about what you’re doing and ensure you’re treating your business like a business. You’d be surprised how many of the big boys didn’t think their businesses would become as big as they are.

Working From Home Part II: Money

Last time I talked about setting up your own hours to make sure your work stays consistent and that you may be able to pursue a social/personal life. Today I would like to open the discussion up about money and how to manage it when you are setting out on your own. Please remember, I am no super success story. I am giving advice based on what I see as my downfalls in the past.

First things first, personal account and business account should be separate. It is basically a must because psychologically you have to develop that separation of which money is meant for your personal life and which is meant for your business to succeed. It can be too easy to get caught up in the thinking that you have to make a mortgage payment in 10 days so you will get this many clients and projects and then use all that money to pay your bills. At the end of the cycle you and your business are still left with zero and in all likelihood the cycle will continue.

I know because I fell into that cycle. You start to make decisions based on what you need personally and not necessarily what is best to help your business grow. This happens more often with people who have no money set aside or decide to dump everything just to make it out on their own. The money doesn’t come in instantly and there will be (trust me) a time where you being to panic and start to think you have to let it all go and take drastic measures.

This is bad.

When it comes to starting off and setting a salary I honestly don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you decide to simply base it off the percentage that your company is bringing in until you reach a stopgap. For example you promise yourself 60% of the revenue until you can manage to pay yourself $4,000/mo. I’m sure others reading this have better advice, but that is just me throwing out some ideas.

If you can conquer the time aspect of working for yourself and get over the hump of managing money then really the only other “tough” aspect of running your own business that you are looking at is actually getting business. I will take a look at that part next week.

Right back at ya

The other day in World of Warcraft an Alliance player thought he’d be cute and PvP me. He was a lower level and he wouldn’t have won. Instead he hedged the odds in his favor so he couldn’t lose. He waited until I was in a fight, fighting multiple mobs, then used a spell to pull me off a cliff (meaning I take damage from the fall) so I died with very little effort from him. He received honor for my death.

What he didn’t expect was for me to think, “WTF! This mofo is going DOWN”, resume my body, heal real quick and destroy him. He “really” didn’t expect me to make it a point to kill him every time I saw him. And to tell my friends to destroy him on sight. That one cowardly (but brilliant) move cost him a lot of gold in repair bills (but hell, let’s admit it…one could say it was worth it because what he did was epic). See, if you’re going to receive honor from my death you have to earn it. One day I’ll lose interest and I won’t kill him on sight anymore (I only saw him twice since then…not sure about my friends but they kill Alliance on sight anyway).

One shouldn’t live in fear but one should take a moment to anticipate the reaction or repercussions of what one does.

Many people use their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. to rant, snark, and other wise express themselves. In many of those writings the writer is sharing an experience, talking about something he/she does or doesn’t like, telling someone off, disagreeing with someone, agreeing with someone only to have others disagree with their opinion…it comes in many flavors. Do you think about how the person or company you’re writing or talking about will take what you’ve said? If you say something behind someone’s back did you think about how he/she will take it if they found out what you said?

Going through sites for 9rules one of the things I look for is the ability to take criticism and how a person deals with confrontation. Most times it is impossible to tell unless the writer goes through it a lot but that doesn’t stop me from looking. It is easy to sit back with the “shield” of the internet and throw stones criticizing people, many times with no real basis (you know, like facts) to back up what was written. It is very easy to take a “persona” and try to detach yourself from the persona saying the things that could land one in hot water. The common thought process is that the person writing will never see the person being written about, so why not?

Think again.

With conferences, meet ups and most important social networks the ability to “bump into” the person being written about is much greater. A common past time on You Tube is for someone to put a video up complaining about something and asking his/her viewers to leave comments or contact the person he/she is talking about. Voice your opinion! That turns into an avalanche of criticism for the person that made the original video. Did you expect that?

Did you expect the person you talked about behind their back to find out about it?

Did you expect that your public enthusiasm for X could block your company for getting sponsorships from A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I because X is their competitor?

Did you expect your blog entry about skipping work to play Warcraft with your friend (which you put a picture of on your site) would get your friend fired?

Be careful what you say and how you say it yet be true to yourself.