The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blog

Thought Streams: Mahayana, Wages of our Sins, Fortune Befriends the Bold and Laker Fan-dom

The Mahayana Path

In Buddhism, there are three paths to BE’ing and Becoming.  At one extreme, there is the Hinayana path, which is the thinking stage, where mind exists independent of body and others (i.e., other people). 

At the other extreme, there is the Vajrayana path, which is all about physicality and cutting one’s way to clear the brush and carve the road, so to speak. 

In the middle, there is the Mahayana path, which is all about negotiating, and engaging with others. 

I would argue that now is a time for focusing on forging a richer Mahayana path, neither retreating into the recesses of the mind nor grasping selfishly and plowing others down. 

If we learn nothing else from this time of financial/societal strain, it should be about creating accommodating space and committing to engaging others harmoniously.

The Wages of our Sins

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times does a wonderful job of capturing and framing narrative in a way that anchors the story behind the story; what I call ‘The Moral of the Story.’ 

In ‘All Fall Down,’ Friedman sermonizes on the financial crisis, shining a light on every link in the financial chain, concluding, “That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins.” 

Here is an excerpt from the article that provides a particularly grotesque example of fiscal virulence, excess and indiscretion at work:

“Long Beach Financial,” wrote Lewis, “was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self-destruct. It specialized in asking homeowners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, Calif., a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000.”

Fortune Befriends the Bold

I read this quote by John Dryden the other day, and it really struck me.  In times of peril, fear and unknown there is a tendency to curl up into the fetal position and withdraw.   But don't (withdraw). Be bold.  Engage the world, and get back on offense because fortune befriends the bold.

Good Times to Be a Laker Fan

 Time heals all wounds.  Just a few months back, Laker-loving brethren (yours truly included) were consoling themselves from a thumping at the hands of the Boston Celtics (see ‘Sweet and Sour Endings: Boston Crushes the Lakers’). 

After yet another blowout victory, this time beating the New Jersey Nets, the Lakers are now a league-leading 12-1, which is sweet. 

What’s changed?  As LA Times writer, Mark Heisler, notes in ‘Lakers are good, but we still don't know how good,’ a year ago, with Andrew Bynum hurt and Pau Gasol arriving to take his place, the Lakers had the No. 4 offense and the No. 19 defense. Now with Bynum back, they have the No. 1 offense and the No. 5 defense. Their point differential is 13 a game. The No. 2 team is Cleveland at 8.2. 

But, as Heisler goes on to caution, "Even in Chicago, a Bulls theocracy in the '90s, they didn't start talking about 70 wins until the team got to 50 or so." 

In other words, the NBA Championship victory parade is premature.  There is still 85% of the season (plus playoffs) yet to be played, including a Christmas Day rematch with the NBA champion, Boston  Celtics. 

Still, great times to be a Laker fan (see 'Laker-Celts, and the Sporting Metaphor').

Have a great Turkey day!

Wall Street Circle Jerk: On Feedback Loops and Efficient Markets

The concept of Wall Street as an efficient market where the prices of trade-able assets are a (mostly) real-time reflection of all known information, has taken a harsh beating these past couple of months. 

In its place has been a panic-driven, sell at ANY price mindset that has sent many a stock off the rail of sound pricing.  Yet, in the face of seemingly all-time low bargain prices, buyers remain scarce and in some cases, the selling accelerates.

While it is intuitive to suggest that fear begets more fear, creating a vicious cycle on the downside (just as euphoria begets more euphoria and a virtuous cycle on the upside), it's worth noting that other systemic forces are at work that make our financial marketplace especially volatile in times like the present.

Two different articles frame this topic from slightly different, albeit complimentary, perspectives.  In ‘Greasing the Slide,’ James Surowiecki (author of “The Wisdom of Crowds”) looks at the interplay of credit rating agencies, industry analysts and hedge funds, and the destructive harmony by which they amplify runaway trends (versus holding them in check and balance). Here is an excerpt:

“In a healthy market, there are countercyclical forces—mechanisms and institutions that go against the general market trend and encourage diversity of thinking—that make it harder for feedback loops and vicious cycles to take hold. Lately, though, many of these institutions and mechanisms have become procyclical: instead of countering trends, they amplify them.”

Read the full article HERE.  It is excellent.

By contrast, Andy Kessler, one of my favorite writers and a former hedge fund manager himself, looks at the technical drivers that lead the market to gravitate between efficient market and manipulative liar.

In ‘Ignore the Stock Market (until February),’ Kessler ponders, “So which is it now: an efficient mechanism or a manipulating liar? Should you listen to it warning of doom or anticipating renewal? I'd say stick wax in your ears and don't listen to the market until February.” 

He goes on to cite five major market dislocations currently taking place that leave the stock market at its least efficient today. They are:

• Tax-loss selling
• Mutual-fund redemptions
• Mutual fund cap-gain distributions
• Hedge-fund redemptions
• Margin calls

Kessler goes into some detail on the impact of each point, and guestimates when such dislocations should work their way through the market (hence, the February reference), arguing that investors should NOT read too much into any move until then.

Of course, there is always the contrarian call of following the axiom of Warren Buffet, who prophesizes that it is wise to “Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy.”

That is the funny thing about market cycles.  They do come to an end, and then we wish, oh how we wish, that we just had a bit more fortitude to trust and follow our convictions...all the way to the bank!

Related Posts:

1. Capitalism 2.0: TED Spreads and Lessons from Japan’s Lost Decade.
2. Death by Derivatives: on economic viruses and financial WMDs.
3. Engine Failure - When Financial Markets Fail: an analysis of the current financial crisis.
4. Black Swans and Bank Runs: on why this crisis was predictable.
5. Financial Tsunamis: connecting the dots in the sub-prime mess.

Obama’s First Cuts: On Administration Team Building

In trying to make sense of the presidential election process (as it played out), I turned frequently to David Brooks of The New York Times.

Why?  He was/is a Conservative (and a Republican, I presume), and as such, wasn’t going to default into the Obama Love-Fest.  I favor objectivity. 

While he signaled early that his enthusiasm for Mc Cain was tempered at best, it was only after the Palin choice that he seemed irrevocably conflicted (see Why Experience Matters: On Palin, Putin and Prudence).

The bottom line is with Brooks, one gets a sense of moral clarity combined with reasoned analysis and crystallized truths.

With that backdrop, take heart in Brooks’ analysis of president-elect Barack Obama’s transition planning decisions so far:

And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons…I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.  Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype.

Read the full piece ('The Insider's Crusade') HERE.

iPhone Your Life: Once you own an iPhone...

Good catch by Daring Fireball on Apple's new marketing campaign, 'iPhone Your Life.'

DF suggests that the effort is interesting because it shows you which iPhone apps Apple considers worth showing off. 

I agree and would frame it further; 

FIRST ASSERTION: From an ecosystem perspective, understanding what Apple is mentally committed to supporting provides some clarity on leverage points that you should take advantage of.

SECOND ASSERTION: By fully fleshing out complete digital, social, connected application scenarios, they are creating Bodhi space; namely, a path.

I like this because I am a big believer in the Outcome-Driven Innovation model (check out Strategyn).

The model views your target consumer in terms of jobs, outcomes and constraints. 

Essentially, your customer "hires" your product or service to perform certain "jobs" that meet specific outcome goals that they aspire to achieve. 

No less noteworthy, to deliver on their value proposition, these outcomes must work within your real-world constraints, too.

Think: time, cost, engagement level and technical know how required.

So with that as a backdrop, how does Apple think about the nature of the jobs it enables to be performed?

SUBTEXT OF THE ABOVE GRAPHIC: Once you own an iPhone, you discover that it’s more than a phone. It’s a way of life. Take a look at some ideas to help you get the most out of your iPhone, wherever you go. 

AS ALWAYS, GOD IS IN THE DETAILS, BUT BASED ON LOTS OF FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE, I CAN SAY THAT THE PLATFORM IS WITHOUT PEER.  IT DELIVERS.

SO WHAT, you say? Relative to the five "jobs" that Apple showcases above, they only have to get a user for a couple of jobs apiece to lock them in for the long haul (i.e., the whole lifecycle).  That's pretty good book, IMHO.

RELATED POSTS:

1. iPhone 2.0 - What it Means to be Mobile: a detailed summary of my experience to date with the iPhone 2.0 platform.
2. iPhone SDK - Mobile Reasons for Optimism: why the iPhone Universe is a big deal.
3. Apple's Mobile Gaming Gold Rush:  don't understimate Apple's gaming play.
4. Holy Shit! Apple's Halo Effect: how Apple has turned gravity into its friend.

Thought Streams: Confidence Reset, Epicurious and Putin's Russia

We need a Confidence Reset. Good Interview with Obama (and his wife, Michelle) on ’60 Minutes.’  Here’s an excerpt (check out the video below):

"There's no doubt that we have not been able yet to reset the confidence in the financial markets and in the consumer markets and among businesses that allow the economy to move forward in a strong way," Obama said.  "And my job as president is going to be to make sure that we restore that confidence."

Rocking Party at my Pre-school Fundraiser.  Oxymoron, I know, but after dancing with my wife to Sweet Child O’ Mine (and many other classic songs), and hanging out with a bunch of nice parents and great teachers at some place called ‘The Log Cabin’ in the Presidio, definitely a good time.  No qualifiers necessary.

Now We’re Cooking: Epicurious.  I have been cooking a lot more lately, which has refreshed my memory about why I love Epicurious so much.  Start with great recipes (sources: Bon Appetit, Gourmet).  Make them search-able by food type, ingredient, etc. and filterable by many, many different combinations.  Cultivate deep user reviews and ratings, including answers to “Would you make again?” and you have something special.  For example, the notes from other people who actually cooked the recipe are invaluable since they include suggested refinements and detailed sentiments.  All of this is easy to save, print (with some, none or all notes) and send to phone.  I have made a LOT of meals across all of the food courses using this service, so I highly vouch for.  Case in point, I decided to make some vegetable soup the other day but I did not want to spend a lot of time making it.  I was able to filter on lentils, soup and quick & easy to find and make French Lentil Soup.  Quick, easy, YUM.

Need a Bigger Boat. Thomas Friedman comparing the financial crisis with a pivotal scene in Jaws: If you want to know where we are right now, rent the movie “Jaws.” We’re at that moment when Roy Scheider first sets eyes on the Great White Shark and comes back and says to the skipper, with eyes wide with fear: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  Read the full article.

Putin Russian and the Financial Crisis.  In ‘Why Experience Matters: On Palin, Putin and Prudence,’ I expanded upon “Dead Soul,” the definitive assessment of Vladimir Putin in Vanity Fair (October). In essence, it documents how Putin’s Russia is an unseemly marriage of endemic corruption, Mafia-style criminality and 1984-like spy state tactics.  Well, Russia has not escaped the one-two punch of falling oil prices (a cornerstone of its wealth) and the global financial crisis (it’s stock market has fallen by 75 per cent since August).  Telegraph (UK) captures what’s going on.  Here’s an excerpt:

Until last week, Svetlana, a young mother of two, held decidedly middle-class ambitions. An executive at a construction company, she was hoping to save enough to send her children to school in Britain and buy a new flat in an upmarket part of Moscow. But then, without warning, she was made redundant along with about 70 colleagues. She received no severance pay and was instead forced to sign a letter saying she had voluntarily resigned.  "They said that if I didn't sign then I could look forward to burying my own children," Svetlana says. "What kind of country do we live in? I thought we were close to becoming a civilized nation, but I've been forced to realize that that is an illusion."

On Free Markets, Bailouts and Safety Nets: Rules of the Road Needed

Okay, so now that we have answered the Big Question, we need to collectively start focusing on a bunch of little questions…

On Creative Destruction 

Not so long ago, corporate giants with names like PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward roamed the earth.

They faded and were replaced by new companies with names like Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target.

The US became famous for this pattern of decay and new growth.

Over time, American government built a bigger safety net so workers could survive the vicissitudes of this creative destruction — with unemployment insurance and soon, one hopes, health care security.

But the government has generally not interfered in the dynamic process itself, which is the source of the country’s prosperity. (Excerpted from Bailout to Nowhere, David Brooks, NYT Op Ed.)

Bail Me Out, Please! 

In ‘How to Fix a Flat,’ Thomas Friedman listens quizzically to pleas for a bailout of the auto industry (and why it makes no sense):

They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the CEO of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees.

It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation.  I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?”

A Question of Principles

David Brooks of The New York Times frames the road ahead  in 'Bailout to Nowhere': Going forward, the larger principle is over the nature of America’s political system.

Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests?

Or is the US going to stick with its historic model: Helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.

A Failure of Enforcement, Not Free Markets 

Put it all together, and you have to ask yourself, "What's the Moral of the Story?"

Steve Forbes in Forbes Magazine offers a pretty crystallized view of the WHAT and the WHY behind our systemic conundrum:

"Free markets need to have sensible rules of the road. For example, we're free to drive where we want, but we're supposed to adhere to speed limits and signal when turning.

When the housing market became truly chaotic in 2004-06, and bankers were doing things they had never done before, the Fed--as road cop--had the power to turn on its siren and pull those bankers over. Greenspan chose not to. That was a failure of enforcement, not free markets."

SIDEBAR: Forbes also argues for formally announcing that a strong dollar is now US policy (agreed), suspending mark-to-market rules (totally disagree – see Capitalism 2.0), having the SEC reinstate the uptick rule regarding short-selling and enforce the rule against "naked" short-selling.

I guess this is one of those moments when you have to embrace the credo that when you get to the fork in the road, take it.

Apple’s Mobile Gaming Gold Rush

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a good article on the state of the iPhone/iPod touch mobile gaming segment. 

Netting it out: the data points suggest that iPhone/iPod touch is emerging as a classic low-end disrupter to the dedicated handheld gaming segment.

First and foremost, the raw numbers show that iPhone and iPod touch owners have downloaded about 50 million games, representing about 25% of the 200 million TOTAL apps downloaded from the iPhone App Store to date.

This level of uptake so soon after the launch of the iPhone 2.0 Platform is a testament to a few things.  One is pure diversity of gaming options, with more than 2,000 iPhone games available, virtually all of which have been created by the third-party developer ecosystem that Apple is cultivating. 

Two is cost.  Simply put, a disproportionate number of the downloads are for free games, and virtually every game is priced under $10, placing them well under half the cost of the games available on dedicated gaming consoles.

Three is the seamlessness of the App Store distribution model. Enticing pricing is great, but when you couple it with the impulse buy friendlessness of App Store’s wireless browse, click, buy, download, use & enjoy model, you really have a winning combination.

Finally, the fact that the iPhone/iPod touch is not a dedicated gaming console, and as such, lacks optimized physical input controls and is technically less powerful (in the hardware sense) than its dedicated competitors, is arguably its greatest virtue. 

Why?  iPhone’s sweet spot are casual gamers, and the early data suggests that everyone at some point of the day/week/month has a casual moment for which gaming is the antidote. 

Plus, because gaming is just one of the tasks that consumers use their iPhone/iPod touch for, the device is never far from their clutches – and their (virtual) pocketbook.

I see this truth play out several times a day, EVERY DAY, when my three and six year old sons ask if they can use my iPod to…play games, listen to music, view our photo albums, watch YouTube videos, use their favorite drawing program, etc.

The Developer Case Even More Compelling
On the developer side, the data is even more heartening.  Even with Apple keeping 30% of the proceeds of software sales through App Store, Simon Jeffery, the U.S. president of Sega notes that, "Games sold via the App Store are the most profitable in terms of any of the formats we work on."

(SIDEBAR: Sega has sold 500,000 copies of its middling “Super Monkey Ball,” although it's worth noting that Apple has heavily promoted the game and that while Sega sold 300,000 copies in its first month of release, it has ‘only’ sold 200,000 copies over the last three months.)

Part of the key here is that the combination of Apple’s built-in App Store marketplace for game review, purchase and distribution, and a stellar development platform (see my post ‘iPhone 2.0 - Swinging for the Fences’) has lowered distribution costs and made it possible to profit on games that sell for just a few dollars or are supported by alternative monetization models, such as advertising.

Thus, devotees of Clayton Christensen’s classic book on new market/product innovation, "The Innovator’s Dilemma" are entitled to smirk a bit when they read about Sony’s assessment of the potential of the iPhone/iPod touch to emerge as a serious threat to the Sony PSP:

"Sony doesn't consider Apple as big a threat because gaming is secondary to its devices," said John Koller, director of hardware marketing for Sony's PSP, adding that "The consumer is using the mobile gaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch as a time waster."

Good So Far, What's Next?
I won’t spend any more cycles on Sony-think for the moment.  Instead, I would like to close by noting some of the less obvious aspects of this evolution in mobile gaming. 

One example is Apple's support of elastic pricing models within App Store such that developers can test demand for their products by changing product pricing as frequently as they like. 

In fact, many a developer I know has tested pricing models for days or weeks at a time – some have even created event-oriented pricing, such as tying a temporary discount to the presidential election. 

All of this empowers developers to let the data tell them what the right pricing model is, in the process providing them oodles of near real-time user and usage data.

(SIDEBAR: In some respects, this hearkens back to the way Google disrupted the online advertising market by making the process of creating, selling, buying, monitoring and managing ad inventory a more malleable, transparent and market-driven process than the incumbent approaches afforded.)

A logical extension of this approach is product hybridization in the form of the embracing 'free-mium' product segmentation models, where a pared down version of the game is free (or ad-supported), and a premium/paid version supports deluxe functions or provides greater customization/personalization options.

It is not hard to imagine this model evolving to the point where complimentary product/solution providers bundle downloads of iPhone games with their products, similar to the way Apple did deals with Pepsi to offer free iPod song downloads with the purchase of Pepsi products. 

Similarly, how hard would it be with certain types of games to offer custom-sponsored, custom branded versions of a given game, similar to the way that Hasbro has created different city and theme-centered variants of Monopoly?

On a completely different front, this model changes the nature of the traditional six-month product development 'develop,' 'release' and 'update' cycle. 

Why? Because the App Store model provides built-in hooks for automatically notifying users when application updates are available, and makes it one-click easy to grab and apply the update.

As a result, I have seen many a developer release frequent updates of their product seemingly so that they can realize the marketing potential of such updates; namely, to use update cycles as a periodic opportunity to connect with their customers and affirm their value proposition in the form of new features and enhancements.

So where is all of this headed?  History suggests that some smart developer or gaming house will leverage a variety of these elements to build a new kind of mobile gaming suite that fosters deep engagement and creates brand loyalty in the same way that Microsoft collapsed word processing, spreadsheet and presentation building tools together to create the 'Office' category killer.

How will such a game developer accomplish these lofty suite goals?  By aggregating scores and accomplishments across all of the games that you play from them; by connecting you with like-minded or similarly-skilled players; by supporting head-to-head challenges with prizes and other recognition systems; and by integrating with your favorite social networks, media, utility and locative services in a value-added fashion. 

Namely, by embedding richer mobile, social and connected attributes into the gaming fabric's DNA, a construct that is only in its infancy today.  That said, it bears reminding that the iPhone 2.0 Platform launched less than six months ago (on June 9), so logic suggests that this 'infant' will grow up fast.

UPDATE 1:  Ars Technica reports that hidden SDK features allow iPhone/iPod touch to be used as TV gaming device.  Very cool.  Also, good interview with Bernie Stolar, former games evangelist at Google and a veteran of many game companies, on state of gaming biz,.

UPDATE 2: Good VentureBeat interview with Atari president Phil Harrison on creativity and the future of video games.  Excerpt: (VB) Where do you see the future of games heading? (PH): I don’t think the games industry is going to be making too many single-player epic stories any more. I think consumers are demanding that games be embedded with multiplayer, community and expandable options moving forward. Those are the games resonating most with our audience and single-player games are becoming less relevant as time goes on.

UPDATE 3: Great post by James Currier of Ooga Labs, “Gamification: Game Mechanics is the New Marketing.”  Excerpt: After all, there is no more consistent way to predictably induce desired behavior in humans than engaging them in a a context that uses game mechanics such as leader boards, leveling, currencies, stored value, privileges, super-powers, status indicators, random reward schedules, etc. It’s like life, and we were designed to respond to these stimuli… Gamification is coming to everything in the next few years. The next portal is a game. The next email is a game. The next social network is a game. Your next trip to the supermarket could be a game. Your next job could be a game. That means a lot of things, but for one, people with an understanding of those mechanics and how to create contexts will be highly valued.

UPDATE 4: Good article in The New York Times on how 'Apple's Shadow Hangs Over Console Makers.' I especially like the quote from top Japanese game maker, Square Enix, that "The next breakthrough in gaming is not going to be in hardware.  It's going to be in how to create a successful business model." Major transformation for that segment in the months ahead.

Related Posts:

1. iPhone 2.0 - What it Means to be Mobile: a detailed summary of my experience to date with the iPhone 2.0 platform.
2. iPhone SDK - Mobile Reasons for Optimism: why the iPhone Universe is a big deal.
3. iPhone 2.0 - Swinging for the Fences: an analysis of the WWDC Keynote by Steve Jobs.
4. iPod touch: the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform?

Marketing Patterns: It's Easier to Motivate than to Persuade

Seth Godin makes a great point in his post, ‘Marketing lessons from the US election.’ 

In it, he asserts that motivating the committed outperforms persuading the uncommitted.

In the case of the Obama campaign, the “committed” were blacks and college age voters that too often in past elections did not show up in numbers on Election Day. 

The genius of the Obama campaign is that by motivating these groups and tactically ensuring that they made it to the voting booth on Election Day, Obama managed to expand the electorate pie, a Herculean accomplishment that literally changed the equation.

Godin’s conclusion sums it up best: “Every marketer can learn from this. It's easier (far easier) to motivate the slightly motivated than it is to argue with those that either ignore you or are predisposed to not like you.”

Related Posts:

1. Social Media: It’s About Breadcrumbs and Conversations
2. Online Community Building: Three Critical Ingredients
3. The Serial Killer, Gustave and Creative Marketing
4. Are You Working with Chickens or Pigs?

Thought Streams – Privilege, Poverty and Overcoming Adversity

While I think that Malcolm Gladwell (of ‘Blink’ and ‘The Tipping Point’ fame) has a penchant for writing the end of his story and THEN finding the facts to support it, he is nonetheless an immensely enjoyable storyteller, specifically because he so fancies the frame and measure of good narrative. 

Hence, in the weekend reading bucket, read Gladwell’s “The Uses of Adversity” (online @ The New Yorker) with the same ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ that you mentally sign up for when you enter a movie theater; i.e., come to be entertained, just don’t over-think.

In the article, Gladwell prophesizes that sometimes being an underprivileged outsider trumps being the insider born with the silver spoon.  Similarly, he argues that there are times when being an outsider is precisely what makes you a good insider.

To support his argument, he tells the story of Sidney Weinberg, for 40 years the face of investor banking giant, Goldman Sachs.  As Gladwell details, the man who created what we know as Goldman Sachs was a poor, uneducated member of a despised minority, yet he rose to the top, becoming the trusted source of presidents, corporate heads and the generals of industry.

An underlying theme of the story is whether in these troubled times, we need more people who have been “cradled, nursed and reared in the stimulating school of poverty,” as Andrew Carnegie, the consummate self-made man, once put it. 

Put another way, does a life born into adversity better prepare one for handling turbulent times than pedigree, socio-economic status and connections? 

There is clearly not a binary answer to this one, but it’s a fun read nonetheless.

Read the full article HERE.

When Does it Get Easy? In the Box!

You must be thinking that these are tough times, unseasonably tough times, no less.  So when does it get easy?

I hearken back to my first mentor, a gentleman by the name of Sam Bachner, who I worked with at my first startup, CBM.

Sam had built a personal fortune well into the 'eight figures' range.  Yet, despite his good fortune, there was Sam working like a dog well into his sixties.

This prompted someone to ask him, "Sam when does it get easy?  You've worked hard, you've achieved great success, you could count your money and call it a day.  When does it get easy?"

Sam just smiled, and said, "In the box. When I am in the box it gets easy.  Until then, I work, live and fight for my daily bread."

Course Correction: What Obama's Victory Says About Us

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer…It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.” – President Elect, Obama

God bless America.

This is what makes America such an amazing place.  We took an ugly fork for the past eight years, and we are all paying our share of the price – lest we forget the lessons learned anytime soon.

But in America, the past is prolog.  It is not destiny.  What makes our country so great is its ready elasticity and ability to accommodate seemingly head-spinning change.

In four years, we have gone from the re-election of George W. Bush to the election of Barrack Obama.  From the scorched earth politics and division to a commitment to unity and global outreach.

This election was fought in 50 states, which ironically is a departure from recent times.  Most campaigns are constituency plays and chasing ‘winnable’ states with meaningful electorate counts.  We have elected a president that recognizes that not all of these good folks voted for him.

But unlike his predecessor, “THAT ONE,” as McCain euphemistically called Obama, reaches out versus squeezing out.  The headline is clear:  Hope (once again) Prevails over Fear.

How improbable that such an audacious vision should take hold in the face of a meltdown, no less (too see where our markets/economy is headed, read my post ‘Capitalism 2.0’).  We Americans should take great pride for being willing to hold such a vision as essential and true.

Slaying the Rove and Clinton Dragons
But it wasn’t easy or bloodless.  To be the king, you must slay the dragon, and our political system has many such dragons, and the one question that this long campaign has answered is whether Obama is mere orator and academic, or couples that goodness with the boxer’s intensity and ability to go for the knock out (read, 'Obama and the Dems').

By perennially exhibiting grace under pressure, by being reasoned, well-prepared and showing good temperament, Obama slowly, but surely, squeezed the life out of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. 

It was amazing to watch.  The way that they were out organized and out funded is impressive, but the way that they ultimately fell on their own swords, says as much about the failure of our current political system (which Clinton and McCain are offspring of) as it does about Obama’s own prowess.

For Clinton, it was stumbling out of the gate when the official story line was invincibility and quick victory.  For McCain, it was the campaign suspension ‘hail mary,’ which coupled with the Palin pairing, raised all sorts of questions about his judgment and temerity to lead.

Some Thoughts on the Road Ahead
Let me leave you with three thoughts.  One is that we have a tough road ahead.  Every day I see the old homeless lady in my upscale neighborhood I am reminded that the line between Capitalism 2.0 and ‘eating dog food’ is relatively thin.

Two, we as individuals must commit to “something” real, no matter how small the ambition committed to is.  We must own the outcome and become more compassionate and more engaged in the ambitions of others.  Change begins within.

We must find our own call to action, and I believe that this president is committed to harvesting our willingness to be enlisted.  His roots are as a community organizer, after all.

Three, CNN commentator, Alex Castellanos sagely compared Obama and McCain, and their respective campaign approaches to ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar,’ Eric Raymond’s seminal piece on the yin-yang marketplace of open source versus closed architectures.

While chewing on how embracing such a credo might open up new market horizons, know this; the results prove out (as NYT’s David Brooks frames it) that the Obama election “marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once.”

In terms of where this leads us to (beyond Capitalism 2.0), it’s worth also noting that in an age of irrational financial markets, the concept of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ passed a litmus test in this election. 

Specifically, the prediction marketplace (Intrade is my source) did a pretty good job of pegging an Obama blowout in the 364-174 electoral vote range for two plus weeks running.

Even more amazing, other than Indiana and Missouri flip-flopping in the last week (from Blue to Red, and vice versa) the rest of the map in terms of which states voted in favor of whom, was completely accurate. 

If you haven’t read James Surowiecki’s ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ you should as this is a long term trend that touches media, markets, communications and ideation.

So what’s next?  Happily, this is the beginning and not the end.  To frame this truth, in ‘Finishing Our Work,’ Thomas Friedman imagines all of the would-be McCain voters that flipped for Obama on voting day, wondering aloud why did they do it:

“Some did it because they sensed how inspired and hopeful their kids were about an Obama presidency, and they not only didn’t want to dash those hopes, they secretly wanted to share them. Others intuitively embraced Warren Buffett’s view that if you are rich and successful today, it is first and foremost because you were lucky enough to be born in America at this time — and never forget that. So, we need to get back to fixing our country — we need a president who can unify us for nation-building at home…There is just so much work to be done. The Civil War is over. Let reconstruction begin.”

Amen.  Only in America.

Related Posts:

1. Capitalism 2.0: TED Spreads and Lessons from Japan’s Lost Decade
2. The Politics of Hope over Fear: The underlying narratives of McCain v. Obama
3. Eating Dog Food: On Safety Nets
4. Obama and the Dems: The need for killer instincts in an election of change
5. Predictions, Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds: on Intrade and prediction markets

Have You Voted Yet?

Great quote by David Brooks, in today's NYT OpEd, 'A Date with Scarcity':

"Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once. Economically, it marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983. Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which began in 1980. Generationally, it marks the end of baby boomer supremacy, which began in 1968. For the past 16 years, baby boomers, who were formed by the tumult of the 1960s, occupied the White House. By Tuesday night, if the polls are to be believed, a member of a new generation will become president-elect. So today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots."