Marc's Musings

My brother-in-law, Paul Bruce, introduced me to Microsoft’s Photosynth. It’s a cool tool that will synthesize your images, putting them together and, if possible, making a 3-D composite.

Well, I didn’t have the zoom to make too much of a 3-D composite, but I dumped the 138 photos I took from my phone while at Fenway last night into PhotoSynth and got this:

It’s pretty fun! (First hit the “Click to view synth” button. Then hit the “play” button for the easiest way to see the pix.)

P.S. The Red Sox beat the Orioles 7-2. Big Papi even hit a home run in the first inning!

I got spammed on LinkedIn.

There wasn’t anyway to report the message. So I replied telling the sender that it was an inappropriate. My exact response was:

This type of spam is incredibly inappropriate for LinkedIn.

Please don’t ever mail me this kind of message again.

His heated response, basically telling me he was offended that I was so ungrateful for the incredible opportunity he’d offered. Check out his last paragraph:

If you’re so self-righteous that you can “do business” then feel free to remove me from your contact list. Don’t be such a priss. If you’re not interested then just archive the message, don’t snivel about it.

My email may have been out of line. I might have been better saying something like “I’m am confused by this use of LinkedIn. Please don’t include me on this list.”

But the way to win over me if I screw up is not by calling me names. (I’m not even sure what he means by “do business.”)

Have any of you received blind, spam-like email on LinkedIn?

A colleague recommended a particular book this morning, so I went to Amazon to check it out.

Here’s what I saw on the home page:

Take a look at this close up:

Do you see the book on the right? It used to cost $10 but now Amazon buyers can get it for only $14.04?

I wonder if Amazon’s experimenting with a new pricing structure. Pretty bold in a down economy.

The moment not so many of you have been waiting for…only one person I can think of, really…

But, drum roll please.

Announcing the name of my latest beer: F.M.A.!! [the crowd goes wild]

Give the weirdness of the last few brews, my wife asked me to brew one that she would drink. So I named this Irish Red Ale “Förlåt Mig Ale”, which in English is “Forgive Me Ale.” (Cool how the acronym works in both languages, huh? [crowd chuckles in appreciation])

I was going to call it “Atonement Ale” but that sounded too pretentious. And I liked Larry Hehn’s suggestion of calling it “O’Darn” given it’s Irish nature. But I’ve settled on F.M.A.

It’s sort of an apology for the last few. And a celebration of second chances (an third and fourth and fifth chances)! With the last few beers, I felt obligated to explain the history as in the origin of a bock, or the spices used, or why the beer really tastes like an iced coffee.

Not so with this one. It’s just a good beer. Very drinkable, not high in alcohol content, and best of all, I don’t have to explain anything. I can just say, “Would you like a beer I brewed?”

So, bottoms up and I hope you have fun celebrating the Fourth of July in your own way!

I finally read the Jim Collins interview from Inc. magazine called “How to Thrive in 2009.”

I’m a fan of his books Built to Last and Good to Great so the fact that I loved this article is no big surprise.

Here are some tidbits:

How do you define entrepreneurship?

I take a broad view of it. The traditional definition — founding an entity designed to make money — is too narrow for me. I see entrepreneurship as more of a life concept. We all make choices about how we live our lives. You can take a paint-by-numbers approach, or you can start with a blank canvas. When you paint by numbers, the end result is guaranteed. You know what it’s going to be, and it might be good, but it will never be a masterpiece. Starting with a blank canvas is the only way to get a masterpiece, but you could also blow up. So, are you going to pick the paint-by-numbers kit or the blank canvas? That’s a life question, not a business question.

I like paint-by-numbers. It’s a great feeling as a first born to “get it right.” But, personally, I’d really prefer to create a masterpiece.

Here’s another one:

It has to do with your ability to handle risk, no?

Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two. My students used to come to me at Stanford and say, “I’d really like to do something on my own, but I’m just not ready to take that much risk. So I took the job with IBM.” And I would say, “You’re not ready for risk? What’s the first thing you learn about investing? Never put all your eggs in one basket. You’ve just put all your eggs in one basket that is held by somebody else.” As an entrepreneur, you know what the risks are. You see them. You understand them. You manage them. If you join someone else’s company, you may not know those risks, and not because they don’t exist. You just can’t see them, and so you can’t manage them. That’s a much more exposed position than the entrepreneur faces. But there’s lower ambiguity on the paint-by-numbers path: very clear but more risky. The entrepreneurial path: very ambiguous but less risk. Of course, the truth is that it’s all ambiguous, anyway. If you think you can predict the future, you’re crazy.

Isn’t the difference between ambiguity and risk a helpful distinction?! Those of us who’ve grown up seeing companies layoff employees know that cradle-to-grave security left the social contract decades ago. Having all your eggs in the “job” basket is indeed risky.

Check out the rest of the interview on Inc’s site. Hopefully it’ll spur your thinking as it has mine!