You Me and My API

Fred Wilson's Excellent Thoughts

I found this fascinating quote today:

I don’t know squat about government and I’d be a terrible politician. I am not suggesting I could build the turnaround plan or execute it. But I am saying that is what we need. We need way more than change. We need our leaders to make some very hard and unpopular decisions that will get us to a place where we are once again in control of our own destiny. Because right now we are not in control of our destiny. And that’s frightening to me and most Americans.A VC, Oct 2008

You should read the whole article. Though I am not in agreement on the fact that the Clinton government is any better than the Bush government. Ultimately, they  were all  undone by the political expediency of agreeing with the false idea that everyone should own a home. The support of those various organizations who enabled this fallacy for the past 15 years is what has brought us to this point.

That's why I  like this last quote. We as Americans can guide our politicians by calling for hard choices and making those same hard choices in our own lives. It's time to buckle down remember our Puritan roots and add a dose of global awareness and creativity. It's that fundamental prescription that can help this great country continue to grow in the 21st century.

Umair Haque Video on my Tumblr

I found this fascinating quote today:

I am not a huge fan of online video, I rarely watch, but for those who don’t read Umair Haque, this is probably the easiest way for you to consume his rather profound ideas.Tyler's Trying Tumblr

You should read the whole article.

Reblogging from Tumblr

I am using Zemanta to Reblog from Tumblr, having dumped those three terms in my first sentence, I'll let you take it from here.

“

Deciding friendability has become a new and necessary social skill. Here is a hierarchy that works for me: Friend — Most of the people that Facebook calls “friends” I call Acquaintances.

Actual Friend — Someone whom I’ve had a meal with, or has visited my home.
Real Friend — Someone who would drive me to the airport at 6 am.
True Friend — Someone who would get me out of jail.

”Tyler's Trying Tumblr

You should read the whole article.

Really Loving My Tumblog

Sorry for the lack of blogging, as usual it is a combination of work/life stress/focus and the consequence is that I have not devoted the time to thinking about much else, then how do we move Sympact forward. With that said, my brother Garrett started blogging via Tumblr and I have really enjoyed his blog and seeming ease of sharing information via that format. So why don't you head on over to Youmeandmyapi.tumblr.com. Check it out and let me know what you think.

When Data is the Hippest Dude in the Room

Like many of you or perhaps, few of you, I am fascinated by the the data flows that mark the Petabyte Age. Despite that fascination I am utterly mentally unprepared to make sense of all this data. I am not alone in this struggle and the consequence has been an incredibly fascinating melding of art and data simply termed, data visualization. Wired magazine does a great job of experimenting with data visualization. Sometimes this experimentation is a triumph of organization and coherence and other times it is a miserably complicated mess. One of Wired's favorite data visualizers had put together, what up to this point in time, had been my favorite piece of art in this genre, The Annual Report. It is an incredibly simple view into a single year in the life of this hip dude that allowed the viewer to drill down and gain a deeper understanding of the dude's life. The result was extraordinary and it is a masterpiece of data visualization and management.

Despite this appreciation for data visualization, when I watched Radiohead's, those unassailable arbiters of cultural cool, video for House of Cards I was completely blown away with the art of data visualization. I mean they made a video without cameras or lights, but with data visualizations generated by their interactions amidst a set of data gathering tools. Completely boring and silly and yet utterly fascinating beautiful and engaging. Engadget has the description, and you are welcome to go down that technical rabbit hole, but I prefer to sit back and marvel at what data visualization's can be. Enjoy the video.

The De-Industrialization of the US Economy

Etsy
Google AdSense
F8 Platform
Digital Nomads
Independent Farms
Amazon Web Services
Hedge Funds
1000 true friends

The US economy is de-industrializing. The future of the US economy rests not in industrial efficiency and traditional means and methods for maximizing that efficiency, but rather in new tools that make the diverse and interconnected individual an efficient economic machine. The future is one where millions of small businesses use distributed tools to maximize their efficiency. The big winners of the future are not those that serve the conglomerate, but those that serve the individual.

All of the articles, businesses, tools and trends that I linked to or mentioned above are a product of this decoupling of the individual from the corporation. That decoupling is the path to our economic salvation (maybe). It is also a decoupling that in the mid-term is going to cause massive problems in the US and possibly the world as we restructure our education system around individual performance, accountabililiy and creativity and away from lowest common denominator, passing the buck and bureaucracy.

The core of the argument is that all of those structures that were built to maximize the efficiency and success of the corporation, have to be rethought. Do our stock markets work when 85% of earnings are happening in the long tail? What does enterprise sales look like? What about the gap between the haves and have nots?

It seems to be that there is something significant going on.

Insights into Sympact

Sorry for the lack of posting. We are in the midst of some pretty heavy duty stuff here at Sympact and the consequence has been a lack of focus for blogging. I almost said that I didn't have the time, but that's not true, there's always enough time, my deficit is focus.

Regardless, I wanted to share a quote from a recent Seth Godin post that neatly encapsulates the reason why Sympact is building a business the way it is:

Imagine that half the cars in the US get 10 miles per gallon. And half get 40 miles per gallon. Further stipulate that all cars are driven the same number of miles per year.

Now, you get one wish. You can give every low-mileage car a new set of spark plugs that will increase fuel efficiency by 5 mpg, up to 15. Or you can replace every 40 mpg car with a car that gets 75 mpg, an increase of 35 miles for every gallon driven.

Which is better?

It turns out that the 5 mpg increase is far better for overall mileage than the 35 mpg increase, even though it's smaller both as a percentage and absolutely. That's because the 10 mpg hogs use up so much gas. They're the low-hanging fruit, not just easy to fix, but worth fixing.

When you sell your product in less than 30 minutes and complete the integration in less than 10, you begin to see why this business model can be so powerful. Make it simple to buy and to integrate and as a result expand your marketplace by orders of magnitude. That's what we're doing with Sympact and we hope you'll keep an eye out as we continue to grow our business.

What driving a Zipcar indicates about you

My wife and I live in NYC and don't own a car, we use Zipcar, a brilliant service for the urban dweller that I recommend to anyone. It turns cars into commodities and in this time of rising gas prices, maximizes the efficiency of each car unit. Pretty brilliant! In any event, I read the following today, which was a description of how bumper stickers make people more aggressive drivers:

A vivid illustration from yesterday's Post:

Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other "territorial markers" not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage -- by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love -- "Visualize World Peace," "My Kid Is an Honor Student" -- or angry and in your face -- "Don't Mess With Texas," "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student." ... Aggressive driving might be responsible for up to two-thirds of all U.S. traffic accidents that involve injuries. ... Drivers who do not personalize their cars get angry, too, ... but they don't act out their anger. ....

Drivers who individualize their cars using bumper stickers, window decals and personalized license plates, the researchers hypothesized, see their cars in the same way as they see their homes and bedrooms -- as deeply personal space, or primary territory.

Which led me to think about my own feelings while driving a Zipcar. Upon reflection, I realize that I am actually rather mellow behind the wheel, perhaps because I have nothing personal tied to the car, it is only a means of transportation. Which led to my final insight. If we stop individually owning cars and instead turn car travel into a commodity it will solve all sorts of problems related to traffic, road rage and even car jacking. Have a great day.

We're Not the Only Ones who Think Sympact is Cool

This is cross-posted at the Sympact Blog:

Over the past few weeks we have had some amazing discussions with prospective investors and business partners. The terrific insights generated have been a product of our technology bumping into some amazingly insightful and commercial business minds. One of those great minds that we bumped into was Jack Aaronson and his synopsis of Sympact's impact on email is fantastic. I have included the relevant passag below, but encourage you to read the full article and to make a habit of keeping up with Jack's thinking:

Not Just Banner Ads, E-mail Ads, Too

An exciting new technology is surfacing that lets this type of personalization of graphical ads get to a whole new level. A company called Sympact is enabling dynamically changing graphic ads based on mash-ups of any kind of external data.

One of their examples is an e-mail about a new movie. It's one thing to get an e-mail announcing a new movie like "Sex and the City." It's another thing entirely for that graphical ad to include show times at a local movie theater for today and tomorrow. Moreover, because these ads are dynamic, a user who goes back to look at that e-mail next week will see updated show times based on the current date, not the date the e-mail was sent out.

What excites me about this technology is e-mails are rendered in real time. That means if you open the same e-mail next week, the ad might be different. Imagine a whole new kind of e-mail campaign based on this.

For instance, some companies send out a "12 Days of Christmas" promotion, where each day they deliver a new e-mail with a different special. Instead, what if you send one e-mail and tell the user to look at it each day. Every day it updates to the current special.

Or what about promotion codes e-mailed to people? They probably save the e-mail, and then the promotion is expired by the time they use it. What if the promotion code is always updated to reflect current promotions?

This ability to do multi-stage campaigns with a single e-mail over time opens up a whole new level of e-mail marketing.

For anyone interested in figuring out how to use dynamic data in email, please do not hesitate to give me a shout.

Thanks Taleb, I Couldn't Agree More

Sympact is out for investment at this moment. Therefore, I couldn't be more pleased than to see Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, stating that high tech investments are the best place for your high risk money:

From the London Times

the good investment strategy is to put 90% of your money in the safest possible government securities and the remaining 10% in a large number of high-risk ventures. This insulates you from bad black swans and exposes you to the possibility of good ones. Your smallest investment could go “convex” – explode – and make you rich. High-tech companies are the best. The downside risk is low if you get in at the start and the upside very high. Banks are the worst – all the risk is downside. Don’t be tempted to play the stock market – “If people knew the risks they’d never invest.”

Thanks to EconLog for finding this quote, even though they disagreed with it.

McCain Definitely Has Some Campaigning Issues...

I hope that he can figure them out or Obama is going to wax him. This video lays out this problem with a bunch of young talking heads that I relate to and I'm sure my Dad, one of my ardent readers, will find terrificly offensive:

Enjoy.

You Pick 'em - Whose gonna be the VP?

So back in November 2007 I predicted that the 2008 election would be between Obama and McCain. Well it looks like I was right and so my friend Steve asked for my VP predictions. I have absolutely no idea how to make this prediction, but I am going to go for it.

The tickets will be:

Barack Obama and Bill Richardson
John McCain and Bobby Jindal

I would love to hear your predictions as well. If you get it right, I'll buy you two Kati rolls from Kati Roll on MacDougal. Good luck.

Thanks Teddy...Hope you're Right

One of my favorite quotes from a great man and a would be neighbor were I transported back to the 1860's:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

Man vs Dancer

I received two sets of terrific photos from friends of mine over the past two days. These sets highlight the profound difference between my city bound life and that of my more rural buddy. Let it be known, while I may never stop dancing the fool, I would love to hook a fish like my buddy did.

Biking in NYC is Not Easy

Biking in NYC needs to be easier and more accessible. I have been riding around town since I moved here 7 years ago and there is truly no better way to commute about the city then via your bicycle. However, it remains a pain in the ass. I desperately want G to become a biker around town, but until NYC does more to make biking easy for the masses it will remain the domain of the early adopter and I will be left to bike alone.

I am with Charlie on this one and pledge to be more active in those groups that are taking proactive and constructive measures for improving the biking climate in NYC.

UPDATE: BIKE TO WORK WEEK RUNS FROM 5/12-5/16