Bill French on cow bells and his new Mac notebook computer

Bill French of MyST Technology fame is speaking this evening at the 2007 EntConnect conference about some issues he has encountered in his business and also showing off his new Mac notebook computer.

The main subject of Bill's presentation was "Selling What You Have" and the need to be willing to "Say No" to business opportunities that simply aren't consistent with your stated business aim. He says that MyST sells "cow bells" and doesn't sell "church bells" or "jingle bells" or any other kind of bell or coat rack or whatever.

He gave an example of a new Blogsite that has yet to go live and has cost MyST much more effort than they have gotten paid for their work.

He also gave an example of a projects which brought in significant revenue but required only a minimal amount of effort. It was a great "fit" for their service.

He used the term "fitness of purpose" to describe matching the customer business needs and you business interests and actual capabilities.

The bottom line is that you have to be willing to walk away from business which is not a "good fit."

He also mentioned the need to define what "done" really means. Otherwise, projects can drag on and not be worth the effort.

He's having a lot of fun with his new Mac notebook computer with all its fancy features, but the PC is still important to his business.

-- Jack Krupansky

Bill (William E.) Gates on professionalism

Earlier today, Bill (William E.) Gates of Midnight Engineering fame spoke to the 2007 EntConnect conference about professionalism. In the past he has spoken at length about personal productivity, but has now become much more interested in professionalism, in particularly how it has been "leaking out."

He asks us what the marks of a professional are, or how we define professionalism.

He gave an example of a service employee who acted in a very professional manner, but shortly later he encountered that employee delivering bad service. So, maybe professionalism is something transient.

The discussion with conference participants centered on service and how good service really sets a business (or employee) apart from service that is merely predictable but not helpful in solving problems.

A counter example is McDonald's where you get what you expect even though the service is very predictable and quite bland.

Someone gave an example of thousands of employees being layed off to be replaced with lower-cost employees since the existing employees are not being productive enough relative to their cost.

Time to run to lunch.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogging via email from EntConnect 2007

I was able to successfully mail my previous post from the 2007 EntConnect conference meeting room once I manually mangled my main email account to use the SMTP mail server for my website (Opixia.com) and Port 587. I tried port 25, but that was blocked by the hotel Wi-Fi. Port 587 works fine.

I had spent over an hour back in December to figure out this port setting, but luckily I had blogged about it and was quickly able to do a web search to find that blog post.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogging from EntConnect 2007

The Saturday session of the 2007 EntConnect conference is now underway.

This message is simply to make sure that I have figured out how to configure my email to send a post to this blog using the free Wi-Fi in the conference meeting room.

First, I'll test if I can use my ISP's outbound email.

That first test failed, with the following error message:

Response received is: 452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later

I believe that this is simply the response of the hotel Wi-Fi blocking the outbound email.

Next, I'll re-configure my main outbound email account to use my website domain name and Port 587 to bypass any port blocking.

-- Jack Krupansky

Kicking off 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference tomorrow

The 2007 EntConnect conference kicks off tomorrow (Thursday) evening (or earlier if you're a skier.) The skiers will be getting back around 6:00 p.m. or so and people expect to meet in the hotel lounge around 7:00 p.m. I expect to be there by 5:00 p.m. and will probably hang out in the hotel lobby doing some reading or writing or blogging.

Last year Dave Shaver of NeoTool led us through some goal-setting exercises. We were supposed to write down two goals we really want to achieve and give "an easy first step" for how to achieve them and file that list away. Now, we're supposed to bring that same list to the conference. It will be interesting to see how some of us did over the past year and how we update our goals.

I would like to do some blogging during the conference, but somehow that never seems to work out well. I think what I'll try to do is record my notes in a file and then consider posting that raw list of notes (bullet points) in this blog several times a day. That won't read very well given my clipped note-taking style, but we'll see how it goes.

If my plane gets in just a little early I'll be able to catch an earlier SkyRide bus out to the Sheraton Denver West hotel and be there by 4:15 p.m., otherwise I get the later bus and arrive at the hotel around 4:45 p.m. I'm still not thrilled about blowing almost a whole day due to travel, but that's the way it is. Hopefully I can relax at least a little, since this will be a vacation day for me.

I will be bringing my Toshiba notebook PC. Most of the time I will be too busy to mess around with it, but there will still be plenty of opportunities to make use of it. For example, sometimes in the middle of a discussion you want to reference the Web to make a point or challenge a point. An occasional blog post might be warranted as well. Or, maybe, I might get bored at some point and wish to do some writing. How much I use it at the conference depends on what their Wi-Fi arrangement is this year. And, there is also the wait in the airport since I do intend to get there early to avoid any unexpected "contingencies."

See the official 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) web page for conference details.

Hope to see you there!

There is a chance that Bill (William E.) Gates of Midnight Engineering and ME/Ski and ENTCON fame will be at the conference this year. we'll see.

-- Jack Krupansky

Final preparations for EntConnect conference

There are just a few days left before the 2007 EntConnect conference kicks off Thursday evening (or earlier if you're a skier.) Time to finalize my plans. I already have my plane and hotel arranged. If my plane gets in just a little early I'll be able to catch an earler SkyRide bus out to the hotel and be there by 4:15 p.m., otherwise I get the later bus and arrive at the hotel around 4:45 p.m. I'm still not thrilled about blowing almost a whole day due to travel, but that's the way it is. Hopefully I can relax at least a little, since this will be a vacation day for me.

I think I decided to go ahead and bring my Toshiba notebook PC. Most of the time I will be too busy to mess around with it, but there will still be plenty of opportunities to make use of it. For example, sometimes in the middle of a discussion you want to reference the Web to make a point or challenge a point. An occasional blog post might be warranted as well. Or, maybe, I might get bored at some point and wish to do some writing. And, there is also the wait in the airport since I do intend to get there early to avoid any unexpected "contingencies."

See the official 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) web page for conference details.

Hope to see you there!

I'll be hanging out in the lobby/lounge area until the skiers get back around 6:00 p.m. We may have dinner there in the hotel or even light dinner in the lounge. The big "Italian Feast" dinner is Friday evening.

I'm wondering what the hot topics will be this year. It's very difficult to say.

The conference itself has a rather open agenda. Hopefully we'll hear about some exciting new projects.

-- Jack Krupansky

Rah! Rah! Siss! Boom! Bah! You've got to love being a cheerleader

Another quality of entrepreneurs that I never truly appreciated is the need to be a constant cheerleader for your products and services and employees and organization and vision and short-term mission.

I've always been a hard-core "professional" in how I approach what I do, and very loathe to participate in any aspect of cheerleading, corporate, entrepreneurial, or otherwise.

Alas, being a successful entrepreneur means constantly being in cheerleading mode.

Funny, I've never seen any business seminars on cheerleading... am I wrong about how important this is?

-- Jack Krupansky

Energy and focus required for entrepreneurial pursuits

Another pair of the reasons that I was never quite a blinding success as an entrepreneur is that I never quite had the extreme energy level and extreme focus needed to zoom to the moon.

On the one end of the spectrum we have corporate drones whose very positions require little in the way of energy and focus. In fact, their energy and focus comes from their environment which excels at keeping them in their boxes.

On the other extreme end of the spectrum is the entrepreneur with literally boundless energy and a laser focus on innovation, their vision, and their immediate mission. Rather than being in a passive environment that keeps people in their boxes, entrepreneurs are like surfers on huge business waves and with strong crosswinds that collectively conspire against the entrepreneur, making it very difficult to stay on their surfboard, and making it in fact impossible to stay standing unless they have the requisite level of energy and focus.

Personally, I've always been in a limbo state, caught halfway between the corporate drone and the entrepreneur in terms of energy and focus. I've always had significantly more energy and focus than the typical corporate drone, but have always fallen far short of the energy and focus needed to be a dramatically successful entrepreneur.

Where do you stand in terms of energy and focus?

-- Jack Krupansky

What I expect to get from attending the 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference

Although I am personally no longer working in entrepreneurial mode, I am still very interested in the topic as well as collateral benefits. So, here are some of the things I expect to get out of attending the 2007 Enrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference out in Colorado at the end of the month:

1. Get a sense of how vibrant the entrepreneurial spirit is these days.
2. Meet up with old friends.
3. Network with other technical professionals, who are also into or interested in the entrepreneurial thing.
4. Gain insight into how people are dealing with the many issues that confront entrepreneurs.
5. Learn about recents technology developments.
6. Get a feel for how the economy is treating people and technology businesses these days.
7. Learn from the successes of others.
8. Learn from the failures of others.
9. Share visions of the future.
10. Lots of interesting after-hours discussions with technical entrepreneurs.

-- Jack Krupansky

I will definitely be attending the 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference

This morning I finally made up my mind to go ahead and attend the 2007 Enrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference out in Colorado at the end of the month. I got a tentative travel itinerary yesterday and wasn't quite happy with it, but after sleeping on it I figured out how to "fix" the trip to work out for me. I'll be flying out from Seattle Thursday morning, March 29 and returning Sunday evening, April 1.

I had wanted to fly out Thursday afternoon so I could work half a day and not waste a vacation day, but the mid-afternoon flight didn't get into Denver until 30 minutes before I wanted to be way on the other side of Denver (more than an hour away) for dinner. On the revised itinerary, I'll leave in the morning (taking the full day off as a vacation day) and get into Denver in the middle of the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to rlax and enjoy Colorado before dinner at 7:00 p.m.

The conference nominally runs until the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, and I hate rushing to the airport, so I had planned to fly out on Monday morning. It turned out that the cheap flight was shortly after noon, so I would essentially spend the entire day traveling, eating up another vacation day, not to mention the extra hotel night. I also hate flying at night, especially late at night, but in this case I decided to go ahead and take a 9:30 p.m. flight and not waste Monday as a lost vacation day or waste the cost of the extra hotel night.

Unfortunately, the return flight doesn't get into Seattle until 11:20 p.m., barely five minutes before the last express bus to Bellevue. Sure, maybe my flight will be fifteen minutes early and I can run to catch the bus, but I won't bet on it. There are later buses to downtown Seattle, but only two late-night buses that go from downtown to Bellevue. The best I can do is catch a 2:15 a.m. bus from downtown Seattle that gets me into Bellevue at 2:33 a.m. Yuck. I have a choice of waiting two hours at the airport to catch the 1:30 a.m. bus to downtown, or catch the 11:54 p.m. bus from the airport and then spend two hours wandering around a relatively dead Sunday night Seattle bfore catching that same 2:15 a.m. bus. I'll have to ask somebody what fun and exciting things you can do in downtwon Seattle at 1:00 a.m. in the morning.

I made the hotel reservation as well, to stay three nights, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, for the conference group rate of $74 per night,

My flight was more expensive than I had hoped, but works out better schedule wise and saves me an extra night of hotel stay. The round trip fare, including taxes, fees, and my travel agent's fee, came to $323.

I'll be using up two vacation days, but be able to relax most of Thursday and enjoy the pre-conference activities on Friday, and won't be travel-weary on Friday evening.

I will probably be quite tired on Monday, but that was the tradeoff. Besides, I never count on getting much work done on a Monday anyway.

Three weeks to go. If you're going too, I'll see you there.

-- Jack Krupansky

More info on the 2007 Entrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference

I still haven't made an absolutely final decision about whether to attend the 2007 Enrepreneurial Connections (EntConnect) conference out in Colorado at the end of the month, but I am leaning towards going. I'll probably decide within the next few days.

Just today, some more details on the conference were announced. See the official conference web page, but here is the essence:

Skiers will gather Thursday morning, March 29th, at the Sheraton Denver West.  Non skiers should join us Thursday evening, March 29, 2007 in the bar at 7:00 PM, also at the Sheraton Denver West hotel, 360 Union Blvd.  Lakewood, CO.  303-987-2000.

The special hotel rate of $74.00 per night, single or double occupancy, is also good for March 28th, and April 2nd, so if you want to come in a day early, or stay a day late, we've got you covered. Currently the plan is to ski on Thursday the 29th, and tour the Coors Brewery on Friday the 30th, free samples included. :-)  Gambling is also available in Central City and Blackhawk, about an hour away.

We'll feast on Friday night, and have a number of sessions, pretty informal, but very informative, starting Saturday morning, and running well into the night, with many assorted beers to choose from for the evening sessions.  We'll finish up Sunday by 3:00 PM.

If I do go, I'll probably fly in to Denver from Seattle late on Thursday afternoon, to participate in the Thursday evening dinner and Friday activities. Alternatively I might fly in late Friday afternoon and skip the activities so that I can use one less vacation day. I hate to be pressured with rushing to the airport on Sunday, so I may stay over and depart on Monday or even consider spending Monday visiting Boulder and then fly home Tuesday morning or Monday evening.

-- Jack Krupansky

Are good ideas really a dime a dozen?

It is a common belief among professionals and entrepreneurs that good ideas are a dime a dozen and that it is your ability to "execute" on an idea that really matters. I've always gone along with this "belief", but deep down I've never believed it, not for a moment. That may have something to do with my lack of significant success as an entrepreneur, but it is nonetheless how I feel.

I feel (and passionately believe) that so many ventures are quite lacking in really good ideas. There are plenty of "okay" ideas that got tossed around and talked up as if they were great ideas, but the simple fact is that it is also a common belief that great execution of a mediocre idea trumps mediocre execution of a good idea.

That is one of the stumbling blocks that has prevented my from being a great entrepreneurial success. I've always looked for the better ideas and not been so great on the execution.

At heart, I'm an idea guy, not an execution guy. If you want entrepreneurial success, you've got to flip those priorities around.

Even if I had managed to do that flip, I would simply have risked having an entrepreneurial success which I wasn't passionately into. In other words, even if I achieved entrepreneurial success and was financially set for life, what would I do? I'd quit and focus on identifying, elaborating, and refining ideas.

Maybe there is no money in pursuing ideas, but that is what interests me most. My belief is that many of the big social, economic, political, and technological problems of the world are simply due to lack of sufficiently great ideas.

To answer my question, good ideas are not a dime a dozen,but an entrepreneur should answer: so what... execution is all that matters anyway.

-- Jack Krupansky