Recession tips for new CEOs

I was reading this TechCrunch article this morning, and wanted to pass it along. Interesting perspectives, and nice justification for my opinion that people who are more aggressive in a slow market win.

Last laugh

I was watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with my kids (who for the first time ever seemed interested) when I was rick rolled (click here to get rick rolled yourself). Yep, there he was, Rick Astley, telling me he was "Never Gonna Give You Up." And I thought to myself, whoever planned that for the Macy's parade had a fantastic sense of humor.

Later, I was thinking about Rick Astley. Here's a guy who probably thought his career, at least major market career, was over. And then, he became an Internet joke sensation. He had two choices: fight it or rick roll with it.

Rick Astley's career probably didn't turn out the way he thought it would. But he's making the best of it, and taking advantage of his opportunities.

I'd like to think I'd rick roll with it, too.

Thankful

Thanksgiving is a great holiday. There are the obvious things: turkey and all the fixin's, pie (of course!), Lions football, and generally doing nothing all day but eating. When I started hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my house, I started a tradition. During dinner, each person must say something that they are thankful for. It doesn't sound like it should be that hard, and its not if you don't give it much thought. Over the years, though, its become a serious endeavor during our Thanksgiving meal. Last year, we spent Thanksgiving at my sister's in Michigan, having traveled there for my grandmother's funeral. We were all so emotional that week, we forgot the tradition, until my then 5 year old said on the way back to our hotel that night, "Hey! We forgot to say what we were thankful for!" And so, I suppose, I've created a tradition that hopefully I'll pass down to my children.

This year, we're in Michigan again. This has been an exceptional year for me, for lots of reasons. There have been lots of fantastic accomplishments, excrutiating heartache, and unbelievable stress.

Because I have this blog now, and I've got a little time to think before my official announcement at dinner tomorrow, here's what I'm most thankful for: peoples' belief in me.

I'm a fairly confident person. Some might even say too confident. But this year has tested my faith, my optimism, and sometimes my sanity. If not for the support of my amazing family, my beloved Tandemites, my friends who never fail me and my new friends with fresh perspectives, I'd not be so confident in the bright future ahead.

I have some amazing people in my life. They all support me in different ways, big and small. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm grateful, humbled, and truly thankful for the gifts of love and friendship I've received this year.

Happy Thanksgiving.

New

One of the hardest things for me over the last year has been venturing out into new areas...new markets, new clients, new technologies, new conferences, new, new, new. My natural instinct is to stick to what I know, what's comfortable, and what I know that I'm good at. Its difficult to know every day that you're probably doing something you haven't done before. For someone as competitive as I am, its almost crippling to not know if I'm going to be successful in the new things I do that day.

I hope in another year's time, everything won't be so new. And I hope that there are still lots of new things to challenge me. New is not intrinsically good, nor is it necessarily bad. Its just new, and has to be sorted out. Its the unknown of the new that makes it so nerve-wracking. New things open you up to make mistakes. But they also make you think, re-evaluate, and sometimes improve.

Although all of the new things at once has been a huge challenge this year, its been much better than the same ol', same ol'.

Regrouping

We had a looking-inward day; reviewing progress, processes, and plans for moving forward. We haven't done that in a while, with all of the activity over the past couple months. We realized that some things we have been letting slide that we shouldn't. We saw things that we need to do that we haven't.

Most importantly, we just took a moment to reflect. To talk as a group about some ongoing issues. We reconnected.

Sometimes there's nothing more valuable that you can do as a company than pause to look at where you've been, figure out where you are, and make a plan for where you're going.

Death of a Virtual World

Google announced today that they're killing Lively as of December 31st. For anyone in the virtual world space, I think this is a double-edged sword. Sure, its nice in some respects that Google didn't come in and sweep everyone else out of the market with the killer app that would take virtual worlds mainstream. At the same time, it sucks that Google didn't come in and sweep everyone else out of the market with the killer app that would take virtual worlds mainstream.

Most people agree that the internet will be transformed within 5 years to include virtual environments, avatars, and 3D interactions as a matter of course. Most people agree that virtual worlds are likely to be a primary means of interaction and communication in the future.

But until the technology comes along that has sophistication for skilled users and intuitiveness for everyone else, virtual worlds will continue to die.

RIP Lively.

DevLearn 08 debrief

Today was our first day back from DevLearn 08 and like good learning professionals, we conducted a debrief. Although we've been attending several conferences this year, this was our first conference where we were exhibiting. We made a lot of assumptions and we took a few leaps of faith.

Here's an overview of some of our major decisions:
-We were late in registering, so ended up with a lounge in one of the hallways instead of a booth in the Expo Hall.
-We spent a lot of time creating marketing materials to represent what we're doing.
-We planned a wine tasting event one evening to bring additional people over to talk to us in a more social environment.
-We did a Master Class where we were able to talk specifically about our Virtual Immersion methodology, and the Virtual Territory specifically.



At the show, it was clear that some of our decisions were good ones. Although we didn't intend to get a lounge, our location by the bathrooms, in a corner of the hallway by the Serious Games Zone and on the way to the lunch and keynote area, was ideal. And we had the opportunity to set up tables so that we could actually sit down with people and give demos. There were several other vendors that complained that we were given preferential treatment in our location--ha! I have to say, it was really much better not being clumped in the Expo Hall. We were complained about to the conference management. We were complimented on our display. We met some really interesting people throughout the show and at our wine tasting. Overall a fantastic coming out party, and sure to be the standard by which all future conferences where we exhibit are measured.



Here were the notes from our debrief today:
What went well:
• Having seating area to conduct demos and have more private, detailed conversations
• Crib notes for our talking points
• Having a large monitor to display our work
• Wine event
• Made noise and got people's attention
• Showed our expertise in the application of virtual worlds to learning
• Good coming out party
• Showed the ability to tailor our messages to different audiences

What we should do differently next time:
• New demo reel
• Maybe audio on the demo reel?
• Attend more sessions
• Always go to lunch with the attendees
• Practice the short and detailed pitches
• Prep more data