This was one for the scrapbooks: I was on a panel at the European Media Leaders Summit at the Renaissance Chancery Lane. About 15 minutes in, the moderator turned to ask me a question when all hell broke loose in the form of a sprinkler that went off from the heat of a spotlight just below it. That shorted the spotlight and also triggered the fire alarms. Needless to say, the panel was of the short and sweet variety. The Guardian’s MediaMonkey blog has a good description here.
Fat Men Can’t Fly
That’s the intriguingly titled first chapter of a crime novel, titled The Well Trained Moose, that my close friend Ricky has written. He’s submitted it to a contest that Gather.com is holding with the winner scoring a publishing deal with Borders. The first round is chapter 1, the second chapter 2, then the judges, including David Baldacci and Harlan Coben, see the full manuscript.
The way you advance is either by popular vote or judge’s
vote. Ricky can’t win the popular vote as he’s only recently joined Gather whereas others have networked on the
site for years in advance of this contest and so have the inside edge.
But he can do well enough to maybe get noticed by the judges. There are
260 initial entrants. Something like 15 go to the second chapter (which
means that on December 9th, they post their second chapter for another
reading period). There are maybe 10 popularly voted ones and 5 that
advance on merit. Ricky’s hoping for the latter, but could use some help
building momentum. To win the popular vote, it’s not your rating that
counts but the total number of 10 votes.
So give it a read if you’re at all into that kind of fiction. It takes 10-15 minutes and it’s good. I’m biased, yes, but trust me, you’ll like it – it’s funny and it will make you want to read more. And if you do really like it, give it a 10 (you’ll have to register for Gather but will be abundantly rewarded with karmic points).
A Special Day Last Tuesday: Teaching At Princeton
Ten years ago, I took a
course called High Tech Entrepreneurship during my senior year in college. It changed my life. It was the first year that the course was offered and it was taught by Ed Zschau, a former professor at Stanford GSB, HBS and someone who has done startups, VC, big companies and even politics. The course was taught like a b-school class with case studies and guest speakers, and designed to teach students about startups and entrepreneurship – things like business plans, business models, fund-raising, exists, strategy — all sorts of good stuff. I was hooked. I was already committed to joining a management consulting firm after graduating, but, less than a year in, I had left and joined the startup that became Live365.
Management consulting and investment banking are two well-worn career paths out of Princeton and the course really opened my eyes to other possibilities. Through the years, Ed has been a resource, advisor and mentor to me and so, it’s safe to say, that he has changed my life. He’s done the same for others includingproductivity and lifestyle guru Tim Ferriss (we overlapped for a few years), who has called Ed an "uber-mentor". I agree.
So it was a great honor when Ed asked me if I would help teach the HBS case that has been written about Brightcove during the 10th anniversary of his class. This happened last Tuesday and it was an exhilarating experience. The students were engaged and insightful, and they ‘cracked’ the case in less than 45 minutes. I’m looking forward to doing more teaching and mentoring myself. Below are a couple of pictures of Ed and yours truly in action.
Giving Thanks / Faizal Sheikh Exhibit At Princeton Art Museum
It’s a cold, rainy night in London and my family and most of my friends are thousands of miles away. This has not been the typical Thanksgiving. And yet, despite the pain I’ve been through this year, I have so many reasons to give thanks:
- I have a loving and supportive family and friends
- I’m in good health
- I enjoy my work
To name but a few. I was especially
reminded of this when I visited my alma mater the other day (about which more later). On a lark, I stopped by the art museum, which I’m ashamed to admit I had never visited while at college. They had a special exhibition of photographs by Faizal Shekh: "an artist-activist who uses photography to create a sustained portrait of
different communities around the world, addressing their beliefs and traditi
ons, as well as their political
and economic problems." 
The current exhibit is titled "Beloved Daughters’ and encompasses two sets of works in India. Moksha documents the plight of widows in Vrindavan, a holy city in India where my grandparents used to live. Ladli explores the lives of girl-children in contemporary India. The pictures are haunting,
beautiful and moving and, along with the stories of their characters, brought tears to my eyes. Here is a link to my pictures from the visit. These people and their stories certainly puts one’s life into perspective. 
Most of all, I give thanks for all that I have.
Asking Permission vs. Begging Forgiveness
[This was a recently published guest column on GigaOm]
Despite all of the issues plaguing the music industry these days,
there is plenty of innovation in digital music to be found from a range
of startups out there. Many of these startups require content from the
labels, yet choose to plow ahead with their product marketing without
getting licenses. This irks the labels, of course, but it’s of their
own doing — it is generally much easier to beg forgiveness than ask
permission.
Given all the hoops that need to be jumped through — technical,
financial and legal, to name a few — negotiating content licensing
deals with labels can take months. And that’s if they’ll do a deal with
you at a price you’re willing to pay. Of course, the labels have sound
business reasons for making companies jump through such hoops.
But from a practical perspective, a cash-strapped startup typically
won’t have the patience, expertise or resources to ‘ask permission’ as
such. Instead, they calculate that it’s better to move forward with
bringing their product to market and deal with the consequences if and
when they gain traction (because if they don’t gain traction, no one
will come after them and it will all be moot anyway).
The founder of one innovative service (with good traction) whom I
recently spoke to said his backers encouraged him to follow the ‘beg
forgiveness’ route rather than negotiate directly with the labels. On
the other hand, I know of another startup that has tried to negotiate
direct deals with the labels over the past couple of years, holding up
its full launch in the process. Traction for them? Not so much.
While the original Napster is one example where begging forgiveness
didn’t pay off, more recent examples abound of successful startups that
begged forgiveness once they had traction: iMeem, YouTube and MySpace immediately come to mind. I also know that some labels look askance at Last.fm and its $275 million acquisition price and, given the license fees it paid, are determined not to let that happen again.
It’s understandable that the labels want to capture more of the
value that they feel their content creates. But in order to do so,
they’ll need to not only increase the cost of begging forgiveness, but
make it quicker and cheaper for sites to license their content.
Finally, I think the labels recognize this and want to do something
about it (full disclosure: my company, Brightcove, is working with some
of them in this area)…but the quicker they do so, the better off
they’ll be.
Of Currency Exchange Rates And Squash Racquets
I’m in the market for a squash racquet so I went online and did some research. I’ve recently demo’d a couple of racquets by Harrow Sports, and I liked them very much. First, it seems that Harrow doesn’t distribute through a lot of channels. There are a few sites that sell them but I checked a couple of sports stores in NYC (Paragon and the squash/tennis store near Grand Central, to no avail). So I went to Harrow’s site and put together an order that came to $220. Except that when I specified my UK shipping address, it automatically put the order into Sterling, which came out to £135. Now at the current exchange rate, the dollar value of that would be greater than $270, meaning at least a $50 difference. That’s absurd! Just out of principle, I may have them ship to a US address and then have someone bring it over or ship it to me.
Kiva.org: Connecting Social Lenders With Small Businesses
I’ve been intrigued by the idea of microfinance and had heard about Kiva, whose President, Premal Shah, is an old friend of mine from our days at Mercer Management Consulting, for a while but finally got ’round to making my first loans this weekend. Microfinance is the concept of providing small amounts of capital to individuals and businesses in developing countries at no or low interest rates so that they can gain greater economic security and, ultimately, pull themselves out of poverty. The best known microfinance insitiution is the Grameen Bank founded by Muhammed Yunus, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2006.
Back to Kiva: They raise money from ‘social lenders’ like myself and funnel it to microfinance insitutions around the world that source the businesses and entrepreneurs and manage the loans. Kiva is a non-profit itself and does not take a cut of the money you lend. They rightly ask for a donation during the checkout process (though I did have a few issues with their site). The coolest part is that you get to know a bit about the person or business you’re funding and, over time, they provide updates and pictures as they repay their loan.
For instance, I’ve made 4 $25 loans: 3 of them are women in the Ivory Coast that manage a general store or are in food production, and the last to a woman in Mexico. I chose women because I’m a big believer in the societal benefits of economically empowering women, not to mention that I bet women are a safer risk in terms of repayment! You can view my lender page here.
I’m excited to finally get my feet wet in the world of microfinance, and I hope Premal and Kiva continue their great work.
Casino Night Next Friday In NYC
If you’re in NYC next Friday, the 16th and looking for something fun and charitable to do, sign up for Casino Night to benefit the David Dawes Nee II Foundation. It should be a blast to benefit a great cause and I’m looking forward to it, even though I’m terrible at games of chance.
NYC Marathon Recap: Go Stags! Go Brian!
Two of my friends, James "Stags" Mastaglio, and Brian O’Kelley ran the NYC marathon today. Marathon running is a feat done for very personal reasons.
Brian writes poignantly about his reasons for running. I especially love the playlist he put together for the run.
Stags ran to raise money for the David Dawes Nee II Foundation. This page contains all of the pledges that people made in conjunction with Stags’s run. You could pledge for every mile he ran, every minute he came in under 4 hours and other random ones. Our friends, Pierre and Jordan, hosted a watching party at their place in Long Island City that was near the race. One of my random pledges was to pay extra if Stags did a hop, skip and a jump in front of them; and I’d double it if someone caught it on camera and put it up on Youtube. Looks like I’ll have to pay up! But it’s a great cause and I’m glad to do it, and seeing the video of Stags is a great bonus (watch for the near collision at the end of the clip!).
I’m even gladder that Brian and Stags achieved the goals they’d set for themselves. Way to go guys, I’m proud of you.
A Short But Sweet Trip To Stockholm
I spent a very enjoyable day and evening in Stockholm this past week. Stockholm is, at once, sophisticated and casual. The city’s majestic buildings, winding canals and picturesque harbor make for inspired surroundings. The boutique shops lining the old part of the city, Gamla Stan, and the southern part, offer the best in Swedish design and add a stylish flair to the city.
And yet the Swedes, despite their Viking heritage, tend to be laid back ("neutral" is how it was described to me) with a great love for the outdoors. There is a lot of parity on the socio-economic ladder, primarily due to the high rates of taxation. There are wealthy people, to be sure, but they don’t flaunt it…instead of having a great big house for all to see, they instead live on an island in the archipelago. The photo below pretty much sums up the Swedish mindset…in America, you’d never see the word "probably" in such a sign!
It was great to meet some family that I’d never before met and we had a great evening. After dinner, my cousin Marco and his girlfriend Klara (both gifted musicians) took me to the one touristy spot I’d wanted to visit – the Aboslut Ice Bar. They were very kind to do so — I’m sure it’s like someone visiting the US and you get asked to take them to the Hard Rock Cafe. The Ice Bar has a max time limit of 45 minutes but I think we only stayed there for 15 before getting too cold, although we did snap the requisite photos.
I got a short but sweet taste of Stockholm and I look forward to visiting again.