The Checklist Manifesto - A hugely important book

Analysis, Books, Business, Highly Recommended, Inspiration, Navy View Comments
Feb 132010

Back in 2007 I read a fascinating article called “The Checklist” written by Dr. Atul Gawande in the New Yorker. Atul Gawande is a practicing surgeon, MacArthur Fellow, Rhodes Scholar and professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. The article described how a doctor convinced a group of hospitals in Michigan to do a wide-spread trial of a simple experiment: a checklist. The checklist aimed simply at making sure staff completed five key steps to limit central line infections, an unfortunately common source of infections in hospitals.

The result?

In one hospital:

  • 10-day infection rate went from 11% to ZERO
  • Prevented 8 deaths
  • Saved $2million in costs

Across ICU’s in Michigan:

  • In three months cut infections by 66%!
  • Typical ICU cut infection rate to ZERO
  • In 18 months, prevented 1500+ deaths
  • In 18 months, saved $175,000,000

These are amazing results, and his book on checklists, “The Checklist Manifesto,” was recently published. Click below to order it from Amazon.

This book is inspiring, educational, engaging, riveting and fascinating. It’s extremely well-written, and is a fairly easy read. I’ve never written a blog post immediately after finishing a book, but I am now because not only is it GOOD, but this book is IMPORTANT.

Dr. Gawande led a huge study of a “safe surgery” checklist, a simple set of steps to be checked in each surgery. It was used and studied in eight hospitals: four in the developed world (US, UK, etc.) and four in the developing world (Tanzania, New Delhi, Jordan, Manila). Thousands of patients were studied for months before and after checklists were implemented. The results?

  • Rate of complications fell by 36%
  • Deaths fell by 47%
  • Infections fell by nearly half
  • Even in advanced hospitals in developed world, complications were decreased by one-third

I mean…. WOW! Cutting infection rates and death rates in surgery by half (with marginal differences between developed and developing countries) is simply incredible.

But here’s a choice quote from the book:

Take the safe surgery checklist. If someone discovered a new drug that could cut down surgical complications with anything remotely like the effectiveness of the checklist, we would have television ads with minor celebrities extolling its virtues. Detail men would offer free lunches to doctors to make it part of their practice. Government programs would research it. Competitors would jump in to make newer and better versions. If the checklist were a medical device, we would have surgeons clamoring for it, lining up at display booths at surgical conferences to give it a try, hounding their hospital administrators to get one for them – because, damn it, doesn’t providing good care matter to those pencil pushers?

Checklists are powerful, and not just for surgery. Gawande writes about data from investment managers and venture capitalists that shows that those that use checklists are much more successful than those that don’t. They’ve been used in aviation for 70+ years, ever since airplanes became so complicated as to be dangerous without checklists. The modern construction industry uses checklists to ensure their projects are safe and properly constructed.

I’m very familiar with checklists; operating a nuclear reactor in a US Navy submarine means you live with checklists in everything you do. But I accepted it without too much thought since we had no idea there was any other way of running such a complicated machine. It’s amazing to me that other complex professions don’t also use the same procedures.

Checklists are threatening to many people and professions. Using them implies that professionals don’t know what they’re doing, that they don’t have the ability to do their jobs. Even with the results described in surgery above, many surgeons still don’t use them. (Despite the fact that they continually prove to save patients’ lives, everywhere.) As Dr. Gawande describes above, if the same results were achieved through a pill or machine, doctors and hospitals would be racing to adopt them!

Dr. Gawande goes into real detail not only in what makes a good checklist and how to develop them, but also why they work. They work by simply making sure that key simple steps are accomplished, and by freeing your brain from concerning itself about the easy stuff (since the checklist will catch anything you miss). This frees the brain to think about the hard stuff, and able to deal with complications more directly. Good checklists also make communications easier, so that when things do go wrong, the experts involved can address them more directly.

Fundamentally, time after time, in study after study… checklists WORK.

Summary

This is a hugely important book, and I honestly can’t recommend it more highly, It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you deal with or manage complexity, you NEED to read it.

If you want to efficiently improve your performance or your teams’ performance quickly and substantially, a checklist is your way to do it.

Posted by jed at 9:23 pm

A Marc Andreessen blog archive

Announcements, Business, Entrepreneurial, Highly Recommended View Comments
Oct 152009

I noticed a few weeks ago that Marc Andreessen had deleted virtually everything off his blog. The only thing that’s left is the post announcing the formation of his VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz.

I’ve been such a huge fan of Marc’s writing, and hated to see so many brilliant and incredibly helpful posts lost. So I went to the Internet Wayback Machine and copy/pasted all the posts they had (through March 2008). I had also subscribed to Marc’s blog via Feedburner e-mail, so grabbed all of the e-mails I had saved to fill in the gaps.

To be clear, I have no ulterior motives other than making sure that Marc’s posts can be found and useful to entrepreneurs everywhere. (And if Marc wants me to take it down, I would reluctantly do so… hopefully he won’t!)

blog.pmarca.com was like a meteor from June 2007 through the spring of 2008. Here are a bunch of my favorite posts:

Click here for the full archive on pmarca-archive.posterous.com

Some quick cautions and warnings!

  • The link addresses aren’t changed, which mean they’re prefaced by the Internet Wayback Machine archive link. If you look at the link you’ll figure out which part to delete to go to the right address.
  • Some videos have been taken down, or I couldn’t find the embed code.
  • I tried to include every post he made and not filter anything. However, I may have missed a few. Please let me know (via comment below) if you have any that aren’t in the archive.

I hope this is useful to some of you out there. And Marc, if you read this, I’m a big fan and only mean for this to help the millions of entrepreneurs you’ve inspired.

Posted by jed at 10:48 am

A tale of two (entrepreneurial) cities

Analysis, Business, Cambridge Tech, Entrepreneurial, Highly Recommended, Inspiration, OpenCoffee Cambridge View Comments
Sep 302009
800px-MichiganUnion.jpg

I got my bachelor’s degree (Aerospace Engineering) from the University of Michigan, which is located in the lovely town of Ann Arbor, Michigan (about a 45 minute drive from Detroit). As one of the top research universities in the US, the greater Ann Arbor area is home to major R&D facilities and company headquarters from the pharmaceutical, automotive, and engineering industries. There are interesting, fun things to do all the time in Ann Arbor.

KingsCollegeChapelWest.jpg

I got/am getting my MBA degree from Cambridge University, in the ancient town of Cambridge, UK (about a 45 minute train from London). As one of the top research universities in the world, Cambridge is home to major R&D facilities and company headquarters from the semiconductor, software, and general technology industries. There are interesting, amazing things to do all the time in Cambridge.

Theory on resources

I believe strongly in the notion that prosperity leads directly from two things: natural resources and population size. (It’s a big reason why the US economy has been so dominant: amazingly large & diverse land mass with a large enough population to exploit it.) As an example, there is an extraordinary correlation between the Olympic medal table and just five factors:

  • GDP
  • Population size
  • political structure
  • climate
  • home nation bias

The same elements apply to cities and their business cultures. As most of the western world generally has the same political structure, and home nation bias is irrelevant in this argument, the only things that matter are GDP, Population size and climate. It’s here that Ann Arbor and Cambridge are strangely similar.

According to Wikipedia, Ann Arbor boasts a population of 114,000 with students making up 32% of that. Greater Cambridge boasts a population of 130,000 with students making up 17% of that. As I mentioned above, both are home to major tech employers. (Strangely, both have engineering centers that are both well away from the main University centers… in Cambridge: the West Cambridge site, and in Ann Arbor: North Campus.) Even the climates are fairly comparable, though Cambridge doesn’t get quite as warm, or quite as cold, as Ann Arbor.

But what I want to address are the differences. As I am now tied more strongly to Cambridge, I’d like to show how those differences can provide lessons to the Cambridge community.

Advantages of each

Cambridge’s advantages over Ann Arbor

A huge advantage that Cambridge has over Ann Arbor is its next largest neighbor. Ann Arbor is closest to Detroit, which is slowly coming to grips with the fact that it will never come close to being the legendary Motown again. Detroit (and the entire state) is suffering from severe economic hardship, and unfortunately it’s not going to end anytime soon.

Cambridge is lucky in that the closest city is London. London has weathered the recent economic hardships well, and is still a leading center for the financial and media industries throughout Europe. Being an easy 45 minute commute away truly puts the world at Cambridge’s doorstep. (Key airports also put most of Europe less than half a day of travel away.)

Another advantage Cambridge has over Ann Arbor is Cambridge University. Where the University of Michigan is one of the best US universities, Cambridge is world-class. Literally, Cambridge University been ranked as one of the top 3 universities in the world. The number of incredibly smart people around the city is vast.

Finally, Cambridge has a huge funding advantage. Because of Cambridge’s history in the last 50 years in the tech world, there are a lot of accomplished investors between the angels and VC’s in the city. The city is still seen as a strong source of leading-edge technology; for example, Xen Source (since acquired by Citrix) was one of the few international investments from Kleiner Perkins.

Ann Arbor’s advantages over Cambridge

Ann Arbor has its own advantages over Cambridge. For one, the standard of living is cheaper. (Partly because of the general malaise in Michigan, partly because it’s a student town, and partly because exchange rates favor the dollar.) This makes it generally easier to start a business since your cash lasts longer.

Ann Arbor has some great facilities. I highly encourage people in Cambridge to check out this site: Tech Brewery.

TechBrewery.jpg

The Tech Brewery is an old brewery that’s been converted to offices for entrepreneurs & startups for just $50-$250 a month. It’s pretty close to both central Ann Arbor and the College of Engineering campus. Looking at the site, twelve companies are located there, including Hab.la/Olark, a Y Combinator company. That’s a space that will attract interesting, vibrant startups.

(On this note, there is a bit of a shining beacon in Cambridge. Red Gate Software, through its co-CEO Neil Davidson, has built something a bit similar at their headquarters in Cambridge. In addition to hosting the new Springboard program, they’re also home to a group of startups that work from the Red Gate offices and get to share in the free food there.)

But Ann Arbor also has the Workantile Exchange, located in the center of town. It’s essentially a cool (and again, attractive) co-working space attached to a coffee shop.

thespace.jpg

Additionally, Ann Arbor has the Center for Entrepreneurship. It has a pretty focused goal: it’s a “Michigan Engineering venture that empowers students, faculty and staff to pursue entrepreneurial achievements that improve people’s lives, drives the economy and helps innovators bridge the gap between inventors and venture capitalists.”

(Compare that to the Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. It’s goal is more educational: “to ‘Spread the Spirit of Enterprise’ by providing educational activities to inspire and build skills in the practice of entrepreneurship.” In other words, while Cambridge focuses on learning, Ann Arbor focuses on doing.)

Finally, there is simply a bit of a culture gap. I’ve simply been told too many times, “Of course; it takes an American to start Cambridge Tech Meetup / Cambridge OpenCoffee.” It’s honestly a little depressing that that was the case.

What can Cambridge take from this comparison?

Entrepreneurs will naturally cluster… help them

I would LOVE it if Cambridge had a space similar to Ann Arbor’s Tech Brewery. A cool, convenient, cheap place to work with fellow geeks. While there are hopeful signs between Red Gate and the Hauser Forum, I think there simply needs to be a space near the center of Cambridge that can accommodate 10-20 startups, or around 60 people.

I don’t think this can or should happen at St. John’s Innovation Center or at the Cambridge Science Park… they’re too far out from the city center. (Red Gate’s office works because they’ve got amenities like proper food on site.) Young startups need to be in a vibrant atmosphere, which generally doesn’t exist right now.

There is the CityLife Social Enterprise Centre, which has very cheap office space and is home to a number of small companies. (Some who were there last year have since moved to Red Gate’s offices, though new ones have also moved in.) This is absolutely the right idea. Unfortunately, I understand that the owner of the building is looking to tear it down & redevelop it; CityLife is in there for the next year or two until that happens.

Unfortunately, finding/creating an attractive space takes effort, resources (both time and money), and a decent business plan. I know the economics can work, though it might require a bit of “barn-raising” to make it happen. Just take a look at the space that Ann Arbor’s Tech Brewery has to offer above… surely Cambridge can do something similar!

A focus on Doing, not Learning

The Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning is a good institution. My criticism is its focus on Learning… not Doing. Business plan competitions are fine, Enterprise Tuesday is interesting the first year or two (until you’re tired of hearing the same sessions/advice every year), and teaching students the elements of building a business is great. But it never extends to actively supporting the startups that are trying to get off the ground. A simple example… where is the list of student startups from Cambridge? Here’s the one from Ann Arbor.

Cambridge Enterprise should be in a position to help, but its focus is on commercializing university IP… not helping generic startups get off the ground. (Where a startup is leveraging university IP is clearly a different story, and they do offer free 40-minute business “surgeries” to anyone.)

This is one of the main reasons why I started the Cambridge Tech Meetup… to celebrate Doers. To help promote the entrepreneurs and businesses that aren’t just learning about taking a new technology to market, but those that are actually doing it. (There were many others, but this was a big one.)

Now, this isn’t to say that people in Cambridge just talk about new technologies and products, and don’t develop them. There are plenty of companies around that are “doing”. But the University and the organizations in orbit around the University, those that have the biggest effect on potential student entrepreneurs, need to switch their focus from learning to doing.

There are amazing lectures in Cambridge all the time; it’s all part of the 800-year-old Cambridge tradition of learning. To help breed more and better startups, the culture needs to believe in building and making things just as strongly. Which leads me to the next point below…

More smaller, dynamic groups

Here is a sampling of Ann Arbor groups: Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup, a2geeks, a2buildbunker, CoffeehouseCoders, Ignite Ann Arbor, A2 Mini Maker Faire.

Whereas in Cambridge, I know about Cambridge Tech Meetup, Cambridge OpenCoffee (which has been a bit anemic lately), SuperHappyDevClub, Refresh Cambridge, Cambridge Geek Nights and Cambridge Geek Day. (There are also paid events, like FOWA Tour Cambridge and StackOverflow Dev Day).

Oh, but wait… there are over 50 more groups for Ann Arbor listed here.

Cambridge needs to have people just plant a flag in the ground and start a group that focuses on cool stuff. This seems to be far more of a cultural issue than a capability issue. Individuals with some talent just need to get a small group together, do cool stuff, and make sure people talk about it. Of course some aggregation will be necessary to help people find the right groups… I’d be happy to advertise any and all of these at Cambridge Tech Meetups to help spread the word.

Summary

This started as a tale of two cities, but ended in lessons for the city of Cambridge. I’m just one person, these are just my opinions, and I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will disagree with me. But being in the midst of the startup scene in Cambridge has left me with an overarching feeling: poorly-tapped potential.

Cambridge is a fantastic city. There’s amazing talent, reaching from university labs to local startups to the R&D centers that are scattered around the city. There’s money ready to invest in cool new technologies and products. There’s mentors all over that have lived their startup experience and can help others’ with theirs.

What Cambridge needs is a cultural tune-up. (aka, a collective swift kick in the ass to go out there and MAKE something.) Some of the important things I think should happen:

  • A place for startups to cluster
  • A new focus on doing
  • A whole mess of small, dynamic groups that do different cool things

Going to see speakers and hear talks is fine. (There are millions in Cambridge.) But lets start taking that knowledge and turn it into action, products, and companies.

What are your thoughts?

Posted by jed at 4:38 pm

Copying Y Combinator - WHY and HOW

Analysis, Business, Cambridge MBA, Entrepreneurial, Geeking out, Highly Recommended, OpenCoffee Cambridge View Comments
Sep 212009

Have you thought about starting a program like Y Combinator in your city? That doing so would not only build a startup ecosystem but would also bring a good financial return? I studied Y Combinator, TechStars, Seedcamp, and many more programs to develop a framework for “Copying Y Combinator”.

(With apologies to Chuck Palahniuk…)

  • The first rule of copying Y Combinator is: Do Not copy Y Combinator.
  • The second rule of copying Y Combinator is: DO NOT COPY Y COMBINATOR.

The key to copying Y Combinator is to figure out how you can be just as good, but in a different way, than Y Combinator.

Background

This last year I’ve been an MBA student at Cambridge University. In order to complete the degree we had to do a substantial piece of research, and I chose to do it on the rise of Y Combinator and similar “seed accelerator” programs. My hypothesis was that a lot of people/organizations are starting seed accelerators without really examining the full scope of innovations they need to think about in order to achieve their goals.

I wanted to take the opportunity to look into why entrepreneurs choose to go into a seed accelerator, why individuals choose to start a seed accelerator, and then propose a framework for designing new programs.

Key results are described in this post, and the full paper is embedded via Scribd (a Y Combinator company) below.

Data

The very first step in examining these programs is to get data; it’s almost all posted somewhere, but isn’t consolidated. Between the data that each program publishes on their website, press on the various programme Demo Days, and Crunchbase, I built a list of virtually every startup funded by every seed accelerator.

Click this link to see the spreadsheet on Google Docs.

The only accelerator where this data isn’t as comprehensive is for Y Combinator; I’ve put in placeholders where known (ie, 8 companies in cohort X but only 5 have launched). That said, it should only be missing a handful of companies at most. And please note that nearly all exit values are purely speculation, though educated speculation based on exits of similar companies.

I also surveyed the founders of companies that have either been funded by accelerators or are looking to be funded by accelerators (Y Combinator and others). Specifically, I wanted to find out what they cared about when choosing a seed accelerator. The results are as follows:

  • Connections to future capital: 8.51
  • Brand/Alumni connections: 7.83
  • Business support: 7.42
  • Product support: 7.13
  • Pre-money valuation: 5.25
  • Level of funding: 4.14

These numbers did vary somewhat between different programs and non-funded companies. (For example, the average Y Combinator founder valued Brand/Alumni connections much higher than the average respondent.) But the trends show that entrepreneurs value the elements of programs that give them long-term chances for success: connections to investors, other connections, and product/business support.

Financial Results

Since seed accelerators are still in their early days, it’s too early to make a definitive verdict on their success. But the early data is promising.

Y Combinator and TechStars are two of the oldest seed accelerators, and are the only two to have had substantial exits. The TechStars exits have likely already generated a profit, and there are several companies that may still exit at some point in the future. The Y Combinator company exits have likely already brought Y Combinator to break-even, even after having funded over 100 companies. More impressive is that there are a good number of companies in the portfolio that could reach substantial exits at some point in the future. (And potentially a handful that could reach the vaunted $1billion+ exit.)

Recommendations – How to Copy Y Combinator

The bulk of my paper goes through the elements that are involved in a seed accelerator program. But the fundamental decisions that can define the potential success of a program are simple.

Success derives from the program’s founders and focus; together they must create a distinctive and compelling reason for entrepreneurs to join them.

There will always be entrepreneurs looking for funding; what a seed accelerator should provide is the right match of resources for those entrepreneurs. If the resources that entrepreneurs get by participating aren’t compelling, the program simply won’t get the highest quality applicants, and thus will not achieve maximum success.

This is why there has been little true competition for Y Combinator thus far: they simply have truly compelling resources to offer through PG and the other Y Combinator founders, the YC alumni network, and the combined program network. Until another program can be more compelling than Y Combinator, they will attract the best startups. (See rules 1 & 2 at top about copying Y Combinator.)

The key when constructing a seed accelerator is to look critically (and honestly) about the resources a founder has available; the founders’ experience and the expertise available to the entrepreneurs. Find the focus point that is different from Y Combinator that makes it distinctive and compelling. For example, FbFund REV accelerates companies building applications on Facebook. The new Springboard program in Cambridge (UK) is focused on B2B software applications.

Maybe your expertise is in mobile technology, maybe it’s in medical devices or maybe its in enterprise software. The key is that the founders and the mentors they assemble for a program in that focus area are a distinctive and compelling reason for entrepreneurs to apply and attend. Once the founders and focus are decided, many other decisions fall into place. For example, the program length and funding level will need to be adjusted so that companies can reach a significant development milestone during the program. Just because Y Combinator is three months long doesn’t mean that your program can’t be 9 months long, provided that’s right for the companies involved.

The full paper has far more detail, the point to take away is that the founders and focus must align, and must align to create a programme where an entrepreneur would travel from around the world in order to participate. (Even if there was an accelerator in their own backyard.) The potential to do this in the field of web applications is diminishing quickly.

Final Thanks

I want to say a specific thank you to the program founders that agreed to be interviewed: Paul Graham, David Cohen and Reshma Sohoni. And a huge thank you to the people that commented on my blog posts and Hacker News posts over the summer and took the survey I described above; your feedback was invaluable!

The Documents

Copying Y Combinator

Appendix A – List of Seed Accelerators

Click here to view the list of seed accelerators. Only seed accelerator programs are listed; see main paper for details.

Appendix B – Example Seed Accelerator financial model

Appendix C – List of all companies founded by Seed Accelerators

OR

Click here to view the list via Google Docs.

Posted by jed at 1:54 am

Kevin Roberts & his challenges

Cambridge MBA, Entrepreneurial, Highly Recommended, Inspiration View Comments
Mar 092009
KevinRoberts.jpg

Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, is also the CEO-in-Residence at Judge Business School. He came in to talk to us recently about Winning with an MBA, which was particularly useful considering the somewhat dismal job market that we’ll be entering later this year.

First off, he’s really an incredible speaker. His staff has a virtual command center to run his presentation, with multiple laptops and a sound mixer! Impressive, and it certainly created a good first impression toward Saatchi & Saatchi. I’m really, really looking forward to the Creativity Workshop that he’s going to be running for the MBA class later this year. From what I’ve heard, it’s a very unique experience.

I don’t want to write too much about his talk with us, but do want to point out three challenges that he set out for us. I think these apply no matter who you are or what stage in life you’re at. We’ve been tasked with thinking about these and writing the answers down; you should do the same:

  • What’s my 5-year dream?
  • When am I at my best?
  • What will I never do?

Particularly on the 5-year dream, he pushed us to push ourselves. He called the 5-year dream of running your own business, etc., “pathetic.” It was a bit of a shock, but a fair point. That’s not much of a dream; we can do that right now if we chose. What’s our real dream, something that seems completely impossible right now? That’s what we should be aiming for.

The other two questions are more straightforward. Still, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves when we answer them in order to really get an insight into our own abilities and preferences.

I went out to dinner with some of my classmates straight afterward, and we started talking about these questions – specifically our dreams. It was interesting to hear what people thought. Perhaps it’s the current job market, but it was generally difficult for everyone to really expand their horizons to answer the question.

While I think I’ve come up with my answer, I’m going to hold off from writing it publicly. But I invite you to really think (and feel) hard and answer the questions above for yourself; it could make for an interesting revelation.

Posted by jed at 8:18 pm

Meeting Michael van Swaaij, Chairman (and former CEO) of Skype

Cambridge MBA, Entrepreneurial, Highly Recommended, Inspiration View Comments
Nov 192008
MichaelSkype.jpg

On Monday this week our MBA class had the opportunity to hear Michael van Swaaij speak to our class. He is the current Chairman of Skype, having previously served as CEO of Skype and Chief Strategy Officer (amongst other roles) at eBay.

First of all, I have to say that he was a fantastic speaker. I’m always impressed with speakers that don’t need the crutch of PowerPoint slides to make their point, and Michael was a very engaging speaker for 40+ minutes solid. (Before the Q&A.)

I want to quickly paraphrase a few of his top-level points:

  • If your first job isn’t great… don’t worry. Things will happen. To a group of MBA’s that will likely graduate during what will likely be an extended economic downturn, this was encouraging. While we may not be able to do exactly what we want to straight away, I did get the sense we’ll get there in the end. (And probably by a route we had never anticipated.)
  • Don’t focus on the press. Focus on the consumers. The press doesn’t reflect the reality that we need to live if we’re growing and innovating. The press is a lagging indicator of where industries are going. If you keep focused on consumers you’ll rarely go wrong.
  • Great products/services allow people to do something they’ve never been able to do before. Enough said there.
  • In growing a startup, you must hire well ahead of the curve. Companies and roles grow so quickly that the people you’ve got must be able to do the job above them, and likely the one above that. If they can’t they’ll hinder your growth. Unfortunately, few people want to have a job where they’re capable of doing so much more.
  • In high-growth startups, missing an opportunity is much worse than not taking full advantage of the opportunity. I’m not sure I 100% agree with every implication of this, but certainly do agree that you’ve got to grab every opportunity you can.
  • Leadership isn’t about you… it’s about the team. Enough said.

The Q&A portion was also enlightening and quite straightforward; unfortunately the most interesting bits were strictly off the record!

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What’s this photo about? Well, about 15 students have the opportunity to have dinner with the “Leadership Series” speakers after their talk. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to continue discussions with Michael and the Director of Judge Business School, Arnoud De Meyer (also a Fellow at Jesus College) at a beautiful room in Queens’ College.

First of all, I have to say that Michael van Swaaij has to be one of the most down-to-earth senior business leaders I’ve ever met. He’s had a lot of important jobs and done a lot of interesting things, and has come out of it a very wise man.

But what I really feel like looking back on our talks (where I didn’t take any notes) is how inspirational (yet down-to-earth) he was. Whether or not it was what he was saying, I came away with a feeling that we’ll be well-prepared for life post-MBA, and not to be too worried about it. We need to work hard, keep our eyes out for good opportunities and take advantage of them.

QueensFireplace.jpg

[UPDATE]: The Judge Business School women have posted about this, too. Check it out here.

Posted by jed at 11:33 am

UPDATE: Keynote to YouTube and keeping cool transitions

Design, Geeking out, Highly Recommended View Comments
Oct 302008

i made a step by step series of screenshots here of these notes here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7601158/Uploading-Key…

and

http://www.slideshare.net/joshuascottpaul/uploa…

Originally posted as a comment by joshuascottpaul on Jed Christiansen’s Blog using Disqus.

A little over a year ago I had been having some problems uploading Keynote presentations (slides and audio) to YouTube and keeping some of the cool transitions between slides. After playing around with Keynote and iMovie for a bit, I detailed a workaround here.

Just a few days ago “joshuascottpaul” put my written instructions into a series of screenshots with everything you need to take a fully-featured Keynote presentation and upload it to YouTube. I just wanted to say thank you to him, and share his work with you below.

Uploading Keynote Presentations To You Tube With Transitions!
View SlideShare document or Upload your own. (tags: uploading keynote)
Posted by jed at 4:08 pm

Tim O'Reilly speaks at Judge Business School

Cambridge MBA, Entrepreneurial, Geeking out, Highly Recommended, Inspiration View Comments
Oct 242008
TimOReilly.jpg

Today we had the great pleasure of hearing Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media speak at Judge Business School. He was a speaker I was really looking forward to hearing, and he didn’t disappoint. (He’s on the left in the photo above.)

Tim has a very engaging speaking style, and his presentation was 100 slides of great photos, examples, and quotes. (Much better than the 5-6 slides of 13-point that Bob Diamond of Barclays used!)

The topic of the day was “Watching the Alpha Geeks,” which is something he’s been doing for 20+ years. (He’s been giving a version of the talk for about 7-8 years…) The technology and things that geeks and hackers use or do day-to-day is the stuff that becomes cultural mainstream in 5/10/15 years. It was nearly twenty years ago when the first webcam was hooked up to the Internet at the University of Cambridge. This was pre-WWW, by the way, and the sole purpose of the webcam was to show the level in the office coffeepot so that “the hackers” didn’t have to walk down the hall to check it! Now webcams are clearly mainstream. (Tim didn’t mention this, but I wanted to throw in a little Cambridge-specific info.)

The great phrase that Tim used a couple of times was:

The future is here. It just isn’t evenly distributed yet.

That’s a really powerful statement, and so very true. The future of the next 5/10/15 years is in research labs, startups, and homes of hackers right now. It just takes time and cultivation to get society to use it.

Tim talked quite a bit about Web2.0; not about the technology but instead about the principles behind the technology. His thesis was that there is an incredible amount of data that already exists; Web2.0 is the way different threads tie together to change the world. The most prominent example is Google. Google took information that already existed (links between web pages) and used it to provide the dataset for a much more powerful and useful search engine. Mashups that merge public data on crime with webmaps is another example of two datasets that are poor on their own, but very useful when tied together.

As Web2.0 becomes Enterprise2.0, this is going to shift even further. Sensors which already exist are going to be leveraged in new ways. The data that companies have in their ERP systems in regards to their customers, their suppliers, and their internal operations will be utilized in new ways to provide incredible new insights. And most importantly this will be done real-time, without judgement.

He clearly cares about the environment a lot, and spent a good chuck of his talk on technologies and ideas that are at the forefront of changing how we as a global society think and act in relation to global warming.

Another interesting note came in the Q&A portion; he was asked what technologies that he had been bullish about that didn’t pan out. After saying that quite a few didn’t mature on the timescale he had originally envisioned, he was a bit of a loss for words. But then he simply said, “I don’t think about failure a lot.” I think it was important for the room to hear this for two reasons:

  1. Failure’s not bad. While Europe is getting better with this attitude, it’s not quite as acceptable as it is in the US.
  2. There’s going to be lots of failure on the bleeding edge of innovation. Get used to it.

I highly recommend hearing him speak. (You can check out his recent talk at the Web2.0 conference by clicking this link.) If you are fascinated by technology, he’ll lead you on a fascinating journey.

It was great to hear Tim O’Reilly speak today, and highly recommend seeing one of his talks if you’re ever able to.

Posted by jed at 10:01 pm
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