A month in Silicon Valley, and 5 reasons it’s worth it to be out here

August 2, 2010 //

I decided to take a trip to San Francisco for July, partly because I was getting pretty tired of the Boston tech community, and partly because I won’t have the same opportunity to come back until at least December (if not June) (reason: college). From my past four weeks here in the great state of California, life isn’t completely different from Boston: I’m spending most of my time here working and cooking and waiting for the subway.

But there are a number of more interesting things at play that do cause Silicon Valley to have the reputation it does as the premier place for startups (and founders) to be.

The environment: “you better be hauling ass right now” attitude. Silicon Valley really sets the tone of startups. I can hardly walk in the city for a day without noticing a startup in the basement of some office building with engineers tapping about. The atmosphere is a mixture of the “hauling ass” attitude and knowing that 80% of the people you know here are working on or at a startup. And there’s a mutual understanding among this group that each one is working hard towards success.

Something that Silicon Valley has is the idea of moving fast. Everyone here moves fast. Startups are launching every day. Engineers are pushing code every few minutes. Acquisitions are happening weekly. If you’re walking in SoMa or down University or California Aves in Palo Alto, there’s a massive amount of startups just like yours around. So many people around you are focusing on building a disruptive product, or increasing conversion rates, or designing experiences. In this environment, it’s hard not to be inspired to get back to work, whether that means answering emails, or pushing code, or setting up a meeting with a potential client or investor or advisor.

Because of this environment, work feels great. There’s this thirst for success that Silicon Valley has, imposed in various ways. Your friend is doing stuff at this startup that’s making the headlines. Your other friend is the founder of a startup that just got half a million in angel funding. And when you hear that, you know you want that too. And you know that the only way you’re going to get that success is if you start hustling right damn now. There’s a rush of endorphins when you’re bombarded with what might be in your old hometown (Boston, for me) the stuff of legends, but in fact happens all the time in the Valley. Work gets boring when we forget that when we work, we’re getting that much closer to success. Doing work means working toward success. Success feels great, and as a result, work feels great. Everyone here believes that the work they do is awesome, and they inspire others to do the same.

Events… and some of the most interesting things are the most serendipitous. This is something I kind of expected, but it still rings true. Events happen all the time here, in so many areas and so many meetups. If you want to attend both a huge TechCrunch August Capital party as well as a super-focused group of startup entrepreneurs that are focused on the idea of lean startups and failing fast, then hitting up a random night at a bar that your friend organized that an angel you’ve been wanting to talk to is also attending, this is the place to be. Anywhere else, and it’s like experiencing theater without being on Broadway. Or clam chowder without being in Boston.

Randomness is a huge thing at play in Silicon Valley. A lot of events happen on a whim (and services like the excellent Plancast only help you somewhat keep up with the scheduled ones). In most places outside Silicon Valley, stuff like my friend texting me and letting me know there’s a Heyzap party that’s going on tonight and I should go, resulting in meeting an incredible amount of great people. There’s so many brilliant and well-connected people here, and it’s so easy to meet them.

Close proximity to people you want to know and meet—and the ability to get introduced to them. An incredible amount of people really worth knowing are here. Advisors, fellow startup guys, founders of the company you want to partner with, angels, venture capitalists, and just smart people working on amazing things. For example, as I was spacing out thinking about database design at Starbucks, the guy next to me pulled up Hacker News and later mentioned he was a founder of a Y Combinator company. Or, perhaps something that could become one of the most important relationships I’ve ever revived:

Two weeks ago, I crashed a party held by a guy that worked at Zappos I didn’t know, only because I saw that Francine Hardaway was attending on Plancast. I did a panel with Francine Hardaway about how generations have been affected by technology and vice versa at Gnomedex three years ago. As we caught up and chatted about everything, we delved into business in China, which she vehemently urged me to pursue. I’ve never been really huge about China, but she persuaded me to talk to Dave McClure and her other friends from the East Asia group on Geeks on a Plane (a conference-hopping air vessel with, well, geeks aboard). This stuff happens here. It’s this dynamic that makes amazing things happen.

Live a life here, too. We all need a time and place to relax and experience life. San Francisco to San Jose, the bay is an incredibly dynamic environment for social activities as well as places to go to reset (at least from my limited experience. I’ve been told (by Abby) to stay away from the beaches up north because you’d have to bring a sweatshirt. Not unlike Boston beaches.) Jane H. from Twitter introduced me to an amazing dance event in Palo Alto called Friday Night Waltz; I hear there’s a massive nightlife culture going down at Mission; the different neighborhoods in the city have their own special feel. It’s cultured and it’s an amazing place to lead that thing-on-the-side-of-doing-work that we call life.

Five reasons Silicon Valley’s right for me—and could be for you. We’re creating the future of technology, and this place is the catalyst.

What’s Next in Entrepreneurship, Nonprofits and Change

July 19, 2010 //

This is my piece as published in ‘What’s Next: 25 Big Ideas from Gen-Yers Under 25′

In the past few years, something has changed with the perspective and mindset of the members of the “new generation.” Indeed, we call this group Generation Y. It represents not only a change in the modernity of the generation, but also a dramatic change in both forward-thinking as well as access to technology and resources at a younger age.

One of the affected areas is entrepreneurship. A gradual change in entrepreneurship has been taking place in the past few years, towards the idea of creating businesses and products as something that’s more approachable than before. With the resources available to anyone in today’s times, the barrier to entry to entrepreneurship is lower.

Creating value is a term that reverberates throughout the halls of this new entrepreneurship. Creating value, or as entrepreneur and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki puts it, making meaning—is quite important to the development of your company as well as evaluating the benefit your company and your company’s products create.

However, as more entrepreneurs emerge and start creating value, I want to make sure that doesn’t go in a dead-end of monetary gain. Entrepreneurship has two halves: creating a business, and then giving back. Giving back can be attainable in quite a large number of ways. Your goal is to maximize both the effectiveness and far-spreadingness of the benefit you give back.

One thing I highly suggest is creating a part of your company that is devoted to nonprofit work. For example, my business Genevine, which helps families keep in touch online, has a side foundation called The Genevine Foundation, the mission of which is to fight homelessness and promote family and community values. A portion of Genevine’s revenues goes directly to The Genevine Foundation.

And if you don’t have a company at this time, create one! Or, focus on creating a nonprofit: one of mine, The Center for Ethical Business, is an independent nonprofit working towards business ethicality change.

Older businesses lose sight of the value of giving back. You can’t exactly quantify the magnitude of your impact perfectly in any kind of metric, nor will many of the things you do to give back result in higher profits. That’s good. What really does matter is the simple fact and action that you’re making an impact—and making meaning—to make the world better. That’s your personal impact on the world, and as a member of the global society, your goal is to maximize that.

There’s a lot you can do, and you can start now. Go and create what’s next!

The Strange Thing about Apple, and FaceTime

June 18, 2010 //

I just read John Gruber’s article ‘First to Do It’ vs. ‘First to Do It Right’. It talks about how Apple is, essentially, going to be “the first to do it right” on video calling. This brings up an interesting situation:

We currently can make calls from devices such as N900s (over Skype) and HTC EVOs (over Fring). It’s already been established that such functionality exists and has existed, but nobody’s been able to get it right. In other words, the manufacturers that currently have tried video calling have established video calling as something that industry onlookers have described as “it’s been tried before, and it always fails. nobody uses it.”

But why is it that when the iPhone 4 is introduced, everyone that I know that is getting an iPhone 4 is “excited about the video calling” and “will be using it all the time”? Why is it that people that aren’t into technology at all are talking about the iPhone 4 video calling functionality in the break room? Why is there, all of a sudden, a belief in the idea that video calling can be resurrected by Apple and FaceTime?

There are a few reasons, none of them mutually exclusive.

The simplicity of FaceTime adds greatly to its appeal. John Gruber argues this point in his article, and compares this to the video call procedures of the HTC EVO with a quote from David Pogue’s review of the HTC EVO.
Apple’s track history in making perfect experiences. Subconsciously, do we think back upon Apple experiences, and draw extrapolations on those experiences regarding their future products, such as FaceTime? Compare this to if Microsoft launched a front-facing camera on their new KIN line of phones. Usually, when people think Apple, they think excellent user experience, whereas Microsoft—which reminds me of Windows Mobile and even the clunky and slow KIN interface—they’d be thinking the opposite.
Advertising of the FaceTime feature as a flawless, seamless experience (see video below.) Especially the fact that they included FaceTime as a prominent feature of the iPhone 4, whereas the HTC EVO—even though there was a lot of chatter about there being a front-facing camera—with other phones, didn’t.
Is it the first real video calling solution that normals have been introduced to? Have normal users really been introduced to mobile video calling before the iPhone?

I’ve joined Branchr Advertising as CTO.

May 25, 2010 //

Hi there. If you follow what I do, you’ll know that Branchr Advertising acquired my small business collaboration suite SaaS app Atomplan back in August. During that time, I was also building an advertising system called Adaptance Advertising, based on two algorithms I designed and developed called HyperTargeting and FairAds.

I’m happy to report that I’ve joined Branchr Advertising as CTO, joining Christian Owens (CEO) and Arjun Rai (aka: Aaron Ray) (COO). Adaptance Advertising is now exclusively licensed for the moment to Branchr Advertising, and we’ll be integrating our top-notch technology with Branchr’s existing, extensive customer base of publishers and advertisers.

I’m really really excited about this opportunity. Branchr is relaunching with Adaptance technology in the next few weeks, so look out for news here!

A Return to Blogging.

May 25, 2010 //

Man, if there’s something I regret, it’s not writing more during childhood. That reminds me of some Chiddy Bang lyrics, actually.

I once was a kid, all I had was a dream, mo money mo problems, when I get it I’m going to pile it up…

Hey, yo, I once was a kid with the other little kids
Now I’m ripping up shows and them fans going wild with us
Tell mommy I’m sorry, this life is a party
I’m never growing up

I’m not quite sure why I put those lyrics there, but I’m pretty nostalgic about childhood. So that’s probably it.

Serious documentation required starting now, man. Never too late.

China’s Detrimental Obsession with Cutting Costs

April 30, 2009 //

China is the manufacturing capital of the world. With over 800 million workers, its workforce is the largest in the world. The obvious answer to manufacturing anything anywhere is China. Because of one reason: it is cheap.

China has a detrimental obsession with cutting costs. Lower costs to their manufacturing means more corporate profits. (Obviously, workers aren’t seeing any of that. Their wages are decreasing.) In fact, the sole reason that China is really any manufacturing power is because of the two reasons:

Cheap labour.
…due to the arbitration of cost of living and currency value.

Currency value drives the low manufacturing expense. Workers work for dollars a day. Their living expense is lowered, because of the low cost of goods in their country. The low cost of goods in China makes less money for the people selling the goods, which is okay because they don’t need much to live up on either. It’s a vicious cycle. If you go to any city in China, your one dollar will get you far more than what it would in the United States.

Even still, cutting costs is something that is still being done. However, the cutting of costs leads to many, many downsides with its quality, workers, Chinese residents, and China as a whole.

Lower quality
Less inspection (high risk to consumers)
Worker conditions and nonexistent worker rights

Lower Quality

The lower costs to production lead to lower quality goods. Products made from cheap materials are rampant in China. Unfortunately, the words “Made In China” is sometimes associated with low-quality goods. And in some cases, it is fitting.

Although the quality of goods is decent in exports, the quality of goods for consumption in the nation itself is a completely different story. The production of products for use internally by China is governed by an extremely aggressive cost-cutting strategy. There have been, however, incidents with exported Chinese goods that are indeed low quality, and unless the clients of the manufacturers change, nothing in that area will ever change.

Less Inspection (high risk to customers)

Throughout the years, there have been cases of anything extremely awful happening with exports to the United States or other purchasing companies, including a few large incidents that are usually few and far in between. However, as previously stated, the story is different when dealing with Chinese goods.

I rarely go to China these days. I love the country, but the quality of goods there is something to take note of. Although the risk is low, I’m extremely wary of the low quality of goods produced in China. I try to avoid buying manufacturered goods and foods and instead opt for direct-from-farm food.

There are two foodstuffs that I try to avoid from manufacturers at all costs: meat and milk. Those to have been through many internal incidents (since they are rarely exported, to the best of my knowledge.) Milk is very different in China than in other places.

The inspection problem is rampant in China. Many times, I do not even opt for the direct-from-farm milk produced by farmers and delivered directly to the door. At China’s massive size, reach, and traditional village and individual autonomy, it is virtually impossible to impose laws and inspections upon the farmers that produce the foods. One does not, for example, know even if pasteurization had been performed on the milk. With farmers barely getting by every year, it is not difficult to imagine the cost-cutting that farmers may take part in.

Manufactured is not better, nor does it give much more confidence to the informed consumer. Although one may say that manufactured milk is more regulated and less autonomous in terms of government intervention, that argument has some merit, but not much. The government seems not to care much about its own people and inspections, though I imagine exist, are not powerful enough. Nor does the government want them to be powerful enough: the more interventions, the higher the cost for the manufacturers, the higher cost for the consumers, and thus, less money exchanges hands, cutting off the blood supply of the national market. Like the small individual farmers, the manufactuers have a will to cut costs.

The problem with laissez-faire economics and market ideals is this very idea. China, despite its socially Communist connections, is a very much based on laissez-faire economics and markets. This is not because the government pushed for this. It is because in a normal capitalist society like that of the United States, United Kingdom, or any other established power, interventions exist in the trajectory of capitalism. With a free market, none of these interventions exist, effectively giving the corporation more power than the government. A normal established capitalistic society has these interventions to protect both their power in their respective nations as well as the well-being of their customers. These are inspections and regulations such as with the FDA.

The difference here is that American manufacturers deal with these inspections and imposed regulations. Thus, the quality of goods is directed by the government, who does have the power to change the regulations and tell manufacturers to comply or get out. Interestingly, China has some power in this as well, despite its extensive size. There is little will to do so, though.

Labour

Labour is a huge problem in the nation. Few laws really govern the rights of workers in China. Even still, such laws are rarely followed, given the large extent of the nation. The working conditions in China are notoriously miserable. Cramped areas, hard, fast-paced, dangerous work, in any sector of work, be it manufacturing, mining, buliding, anything.

It is difficult to gauge the quality of working condintions in China. The problem is with the indifferent mindset of consumers: we know that someone produces the goods that we purchase. But do we care about their conditions? Are they just not simply replacable, behind-the-scenes workers?

This disappointing mindset is the block for change towards responsible and ethical working conditions.

Though there seems to be some reports of manufacturing factories being not as bad as they seem, one has to understand that, especially in this economy, the amount of manufacturing work that is outsourced to China is increased every day. They are pushed to produce and produce more. It is most likely true that the amount of new clients and new manufacturing contracts to China outpaces the improvement of working conditions in China.

Interestingly, labour is one thing that can be changed, at least for manufacturers that serve 1st world clients. That’s my next article.

Giving It All Up

April 9, 2009 //

How to determine what’s important, and what you should drop

Throughout high school, I’ve racked up many achievements and leadership positions related to school. Every year, though—I’ve decided to give it all up to focus.

Sophomore Year: Sophomore Representative to School Council (and the year before as well) — could have done junior year, decided to quit
Junior Year: Debate Club President — could have won President again, but decided to quit
Junior Year: Convention Coordinator at the Northeast State of the JSA — could have campaigned for the top position as Governor, but decided to quit

All decisions, all about giving up positions of authority and prestige up, after working very hard to get to them. I’ve found that I sometimes regret these decisions, and whether they were the best to make.

The Problem with Focusing

The main problem with focus is that focus usually means dropping other things. When we’re talking about things you’ve worked hard to achieve—positions of leadership or otherwise—it’s hard to let go.

However, the things that you do that don’t line up with what your real focus (and areas of development) will act like leeches on your time and energy. In many cases, that’s more detrimental than hanging on. When you’re at that point, it’s important to know how to rotate your focus ring with precision.

Areas of Development

I’ve identified three areas of development that I’d like to see from everything that I voluntarily work on.

personal development — helping me work with teams, people in general, getting work done
social development — chances of meeting new and valuable people in the process of work
college and résumé/career development — chances to improve my chances in college and in my career
extrapersonal benefit — helping others, including those who can’t help me back (a life goal)

Think about your own areas of development. Like above, write down the area and a description on why it’s important to you to develop.

Questions I Asked Myself

Indeed, they weren’t easy decisions to make—each of them required a lot of thinking beforehand to determine whether they were the best decisions to make. They were based on:

If I continued, how much workload (time) would I have to spend on it?
Will this workload affect my ability to do work that I really, really want to focus on? (entrepreneurship)
Is continuing an acceptable sacrifice for the areas of development?
Is quitting an acceptable sacrifice for focus?
Is this really something that contributes to my life goals and areas of development? How?

Ask these questions to yourself with regard to your areas of development. Is it something you’d like to still pursue?

Through experience, I’ve seen that maintaining focus is important. It has affected my hard-earned positions of leadership, but it’s important. A tough choice to make, but in the end, one that is very valuable.

All Of A Sudden, We Are Connected

March 23, 2009 //

As I step on the subway, I take note of society around me. I love the subway. It’s one of the best places to explore one’s curiosities about society and the world. However, today I notice one thing.

Everyone is connected.

Through mobile.

Let’s take a step back. Let’s look at mobile from the big picture standpoint. Mobile is what connects us. It is what breaks barriers of distance and time. It allows humans to communicate notwithstanding the normal constraints of communication. We can call, text, or MMS anyone we know in the world.

Everyone around me there are mobiles. iPhones, Blackberries, Nokias, Motorolas. All of them connected in an international network that connects all people to each other.

What is so amazing about mobile is that it is the first technology to connect people wherever they are. As opposed to before.

It’s a completely revolutionary technology. Mobile. 3 billion subscribers. And we’re just getting started.

A Little Case in Statistical Bias

March 19, 2009 //

Although I’ve expressed approval for the new Facebook redesign, it’s obvious that many, many people hate it. If you’ve been on the new Facebook for more than a few milliseconds, you would have figured this out.

Let’s analyse this disapproval. Firstly, every single Facebook redesign or new feature, since it went mainstream, has been criticised by users. Everyone seems to hate them.

News Feeds 2007
Applications/Platform 2007
Beacon Ads 2008
New Facebook 2008
News Feed Redesign 2009

With the exception of Beacon Ads 2008 (and hopefully News Feed Redesign 2009), all users have gotten used to them and realised the potential and usefulness of the new features or redesign. This is obvious.

A Little Poll Comes Along

Some guy develops a Facebook app, covered by TechCrunch: Facebook Poll: 94% Of Users Don’t Like Redesign. This is an area which I really, really like to think about all the time: statistical bias. In a specific area: how bias is achieved through ignorance.

Main gist: there are three barriers to entry in this voting system.

Giving a crap.
Clicking through to the poll.
Installing the application to vote for the poll.

People that feel that the Facebook redesign sucks will go ahead and have an initiative to ask Facebook to change it, because it apparently sucks. They pass all three barriers, because they have a drive to be against the Facebook redesign.

Others that feel that the design is indeed a pretty good design, and the “yes” people accept it as the status quo, and don’t make any noise about it. Therefore, many of them don’t have the initiative to fight against the naysayers, and go through the trouble of installing the application, so therefore we see a lesser-than-actual “yes”-sayer audience.

Another Facebook-related bias is the outrage against the Facebook Terms of Service change. Although probably less than 0.1% of people really cared about it (and that’s a pretty high estimate, since that’s about 200,000 people) are the ones who made the most noise and had the biggest audience. Not saying that’s a bad thing—it can be an important matter to concerned users—but that’s the reality of it.

Do you think anyone that didn’t really care about the Terms of Service changes had any initiative to argue for it?

No.

11 Things I Learned From Speaking and Networking at Gnomedex

August 24, 2008 //

Gnomedex was an amazing experience and the best technology conference that I’ve been to (which is admittedly not many.) Excellent sessions, excellent setup, excellent people. These are mostly lessons learned from mistakes, a couple of what I did right, but mostly mistakes.

Speaking

Gnomedex was my first speaking gig ever. Presenting in front of 280 Gnomedex attendees in addition to 850 viewers through the Ustream stream online was a nervewracking experience, which wasn’t particularly helped by some hardball questions. Nor did it help that, at 16, I was the youngest speaker at the conference.

1. You aren’t talking to 1130 people– you’re conversing with just one person.

This advice was given to me by Todd Sawicki of Lookery an hour before my presentation, which, as much as I wanted to make happen, on stage didn’t. The knowledge that more than a thousand people are watching you is intimidating. You aren’t afraid of speaking, you’re afraid of making a mistake.

After the presentation, Brian Westbrook asked me to participate in a radio interview. During the interview, I felt completely comfortable. Without stuttering or giving vague answers, I was able to bring up points I’d forgotten to mention in my presentation.

The way I’m going to look at this from now on is to think of the entire audience not as 200 people but a person directly in front of you that you’re demoing your deck to. The seats are empty.

When answering a question, you’re not addressing the entire audience, but the questioner.

As Todd also mentioned, it’s also much easier to think of that person in front of you or that questioner as someone you’ve talked to and feel comfortable with. In my case, I should have thought of this guy or that questioner as Brian or Todd or Ben Huh (of I Can Has Cheezburger.)

With this mindset, it’s much easier to hold a relaxed speaking session.

2. Actually take said advice, or you’ll be worse off.

On stage I doubted the effectiveness of Todd’s advice. (Though in hindsight, why the hell would I? He’s experienced in the matter.) Would I mess up that way, by applying that advice, taking the audience and removing them? Would it put me in the wrong mindset?

Answer is, if you don’t take it, you’ll be worse off. Still doubting? Consider my experience, first hand experience. First hand experience is what I lacked when trying to apply advice given, and now I have it. And in a way, now you do, too.

3. Don’t be a pessimist.

There are many times and places where it’s appropriate to be a pessimist. Speaking is not one of them. If you think you’ll mess up, chances are you will. Your mind will be far too preoccupied with that thought, and you’ll be dedicating concentration and attention to that, and you’ll have to ask for things to be repeated, not think correctly, forget to deliver vital points, and so on. Think positively.

4. Be humble.

Gnomedex pushed a lot of (maybe too much) recognition for myself, which was mostly my fault. I’m just as much of a developer as the next guy (or less so) and I wasn’t really anything special, nor was the stuff that I did that I was recognized for, even though that’s the idea that was given off.

Being an arrogant dbag doesn’t really go down well with the audience. When you can, refute false claims people make about you (or those that are simply exaggerated) make instead of laughing them off.

In addition, if someone underestimates you, don’t correct them unless it is vital to do so. I made the mistake of looking like an arrogant dbag, when Chris Pirillo said “he’s sold a Facebook app” and I corrected him with “actually like three.” (Update: Thanks all for your opinion. Didn’t really know what the audience thought – now I do. Many thanks!)

5. Even if you’re winging it, rehearse. A lot.

Not many presentations these days have the speaker looking down on a script (though you could say the new scripts are four-level bulleted 10 point text size slides, in which case put on your headphones and just read the slides like the speaker is.) Most presentations, people are taking it from their head. Rehearse a lot, and that doesn’t mean rehearse silently in your head. The ideas originate through your head, the ideas come through your mouth. It’ll get you into a procedure and regularity and you’ll help to prevent forgetting points and nervousness.

6. You have friends, they have a minute.

Chances are, your friends would be down with helping you rehearse your presentation and giving feedback on them, like my friend and business partner Dan Grover of Wonder Warp Software. Not only is it a relaxed environment, you’ll get better feedback than that voice in your head since they’re like an audience member. Do this with a few people to get a diverse range of minds. Do it over iChat theatre, Adobe Acrobat Connect, or send them the slides (if applicable) and do it over Skype or the phone. If you do this a few times, with the right people (as in those that are like the audience that you’re presenting to) you’ll get a general idea of what the audience will think.

Furthermore, don’t shrug off criticism, find out what caused it, if changing things would help, and then decide whether if you need to fix it. And, remember to return the favour.

7. Say “I don’t know.”

At my Gnomedex session, 30 minutes of the 45-minute session were devoted to Q&A. Many of their questions asked me to predict the future and make blanket statements and observations about Generation Y. Many of these I couldn’t answer; I’m an entrepreneur, not a fortune teller. So I opted to bullshit my way through. As a friend suggested, it would have been more effective to just say “I don’t know.”

8. You can’t please everyone.

After I stepped off the stage, I was in a state of panic. I thought I had screwed up badly. This wasn’t helped by the anonymous reviews on RateMyTalk, which contained a few “not interesting”s (more than one which made my blood pressure high.) J.P. Taylor offered the following, though: You can’t please everybody. There will always be critics. And that’s the risk you take when doing a speaking thing or presentation like this.

Jason L. Baptiste of Publictivity also offered the following to me online. You can’t lose confidence with yourself. Once you do, you’ll lose everything.

Networking

9. Continue the connection.

Often during the conference, someone would say “hey Mark, nice presentation” and I would say “hey, much thanks!” followed by an awkward period of both of us walking and not looking at each other. In this situation, STICK OUT YOUR FUCKING HAND and introduce yourself. Nothing sucks more than a loose end, and immediately after you miss the connection you’ll feel a sharp pang of regret, followed by you looking for that person, but they’re not anywhere in sight.

9a. Just network, damnit.

Like mentioned at Gnomedex by Ignite speaker, “relax, damnit!”, just network. Damnit. Chances are, the other person you see is just as happy to network with you as you are with them. Again, stick out your hand and introduce yourself. The worst thing that can happen is that they ignore you and don’t want to talk to you. And in such a case, is that a connection you really want to have anyway?

9b. If you’re just walking around trying to find someone to talk to, look for the guys that are as lonely as you are.

Actively seek, don’t passively wait. If you’re walking around, so is at least one other person that is trying to find someone to talk to. And don’t be afraid to get into a group conversation. Return the favour; if you see someone trying to get into a discussion circle you’re in, invite them and introduce them to the group.

10. Follow up.

This was a step I (and many other people) kinda forgot a lot. Following up serves two purposes, as a courtesy, and more importantly to initiate conversation that would have not been possible during the five minutes that you talked. This is part of continuing the connection. Don’t follow up immediately afterwards (“hey, it was a pleasure meeting you a minute and a half ago”) but rather the night or the next day after the event. And, it’s always nice to follow up, and since not many do so, you’ll be a more memorable contact, so do it.

11. If they don’t have a business card, you have a pen.

“I don’t have a card [with me]” and “oh, that’s fine, you have mine anyway” kind of sucks. A majority of people don’t follow up (and I used to not do so, so I’m also guilty of the sad truth) so grab an extra card of yours and a pen, and have them write it down on yours.

I’m extremely grateful for Chris and Ponzi Pirillo and Maryam Scoble for inviting me to speak at Gnomedex. That was the best weekend I’ve had, ever.

I’m also very thankful to have great people supporting me and giving me advice either at Gnomedex or outside of it.

–

Much thanks to Dan Grover of Wonder Warp Software for editing a first draft of this article.