Have you ever tried to learn a language from a native speaker? How about being taught a sport by someone with incredible natural talent? I had a college roommate who was nearly a savant when it came to math, but he couldn't explain to anyone how he did it.

In the same vein, most of the great baseball managers were rather mediocre players. The reason was because they had to learn the sport, make mistakes, and work really hard to even be half as good as the next person. That meant spending twice as much effort to figure out how to gain any advantages they could...all through learned and practiced behaviors--behaviors they can actually teach.

It's hard to teach someone when it comes naturally to you.
For college students, much of their online behavior just seems natural--having grown up around computers and the internet. They don't think about how they participate in social media... they just do. Ask them to participate in social meda on behalf or because of a brand, and you'll get a blank stare--despite the fact that they've got glittery corporate logos plastered all over their MySpace profile.

"You want me to ask people to use this?" That's what you'll get when you put a service or product in their hands. They don't understand that the subtleties of what they d on walls, in chat, over sms is what marketers wish they could capture in a bottle and activate with a single click.

So if you think you're going to go hire a bunch of college or high school kids to push your brand around social media, think again. You'll probably find them to be a lot less adept at it than you'd expect, even though its something they do everyday.

Gizmoz is a favorite of Mike Arrington's, because he likes tech for tech's sake.  Being 3D is all you need to be his favorite avatar service.

So when the news came out that Gizmoz raised $6.5 million, he failed to note that they're getting clobbered in web traffic by Voki--the avatar site that I helped launch as its first product manager.  It was also Voki, not Gizmoz, that got nominated for a SXSW web award.

Still, Voki hasn't fulfilled its potential and that's been really disappointing.  Gizmoz just integrated with AIM and that's a heartbreaker for me because I met with AOL about this exact same integration last June. 

AIM has the ability to trigger sounds from flash through the text you type in your chats.  So, you could record custom messages for your character, and, for example, have it laugh your laugh when you type "lol".   How cool would that be?

In fact, I made a mockup of the user interface for this back in June...

AOL loved the idea.... so why didn't it happen?

AOL's biz dev team was undergoing some reorganization, but, to be honest, it was our side that dropped the ball.   We should have just built the integration and showed them a completed product.  That would have easily gotten a deal signed with them.

Unfortunately, we were always short on development resources, because, instead of being dedicated to a product, they were shared across the whole organization.  Oddcast has two other revenue generating product lines--Sitepal for small businesses and its custom business for agencies (Think Monk-e-mail). 

I was a product manager without a dedicated development team competing against companies like Meez and Gizmoz who only did one thing. 

When I left, I left basic plans for AIM integration, and also integration into blog comments as well.  Imagine being able to leave a talking avatar with your own voice as a comment in a blog post.  Why type "first!" when you can scream it at the top of your lungs!?  It wouldn't be that hard to do either...  Our partner API was designed for that kind of remote creation and comments could be threaded with a piece of javascript at the end of your post, just like Disqus works.

That didn't happen either though...   so while I applaud the marketing work Oddcast has done since I left, I sure wish we'd see some more feature development and interesting integrations.   They're a great bunch of people and I wish them the best in the road ahead.

JP Morgan is buying Bear Sterns for just about the same price as Meebo got valued at, right?

Buzz!!   Wrong.

JP Morgan is buying the EQUITY of Bear Sterns for just about the same price as Meebo's equity.

There's a big difference...  one that at least a few tech writers don't get.  While it makes a good headline to compare the two, it doesn't make the least bit of sense.

In the startup world, we mostly deal with companies that have no debt, so equity value and company (asset) value are usually pretty much the same. But when you're talking Bear Sterns, there are hundreds of millions of dollars sitting on top of your equity, and that debt comes first in line when it comes to liquidation of the company.

So if you're sitting there going, "Jeez... Bear has a billion dollar building... that's a steal!" than think again.  If it actually came down to liquidating buildings, all those debt holders would get paid back before the equity holders saw dime one.

So, if you really wanted to buy the company outright for the assets, you'd have to buy out not just the equity, but the debt as well, and those two combined equal the company's market cap.  As of yesterday, Bear's cap was sitting at around $580 million.  Add to that the value of all it's debt (which gives you the "Enterprise Value", which was at $300+ million as of some recent filings, you've got a company whose assets are worth a lot more than $250 million--but still a far cry from where it was.

But wait, so what does that mean if you own all the equity, but not the debt?  That means you get voting control of the company, but if there aren't enough assets on the books to cover the debt holders, you'll lose it and your equity can be worth squat.

So, you could have a company whose assets are worth billions of dollars, but whose equity is worth zero because there's also billions of debt on the books.  That's what some distressed debt investors do... they buy debt with the hopes that the company will go bankrupt, and they'll essentially be left with the rights to the assets. 

It's important for parents to read with their kids., originally uploaded by ceonyc.

So nice to see this father/daughter pair reading together on the subway... :)

I'm a wannabe.

I wannabe a successful entrepreneur.  My definition of success is making a big positive impact on a lot of people's lives.  If I accomplish that, I'm sure the money will come, but in the words of Zuck, "I'm not really focused on that right now."

I wannabe a better person tomorrow than I was yesterday.

I wannabe someone that inspires others to go after what they really want.

Being called a wannabe isn't that bad.

However, I heard the term used to describe a local outspoken entrepreneur in a less than endearing way and I didn't quite see it as accurate.  The reason why this person rubbed others the wrong way wasn't because they were a wannabe--because that's not so bad.

It was because they were a "thinktheyare". 

There are definitely too many of those around for my taste.  The last thing in the world I think anyone could accuse me of is being a thinktheyare, because it's so incredibly important to give credit to the people around me and I feel like I'm incredibly fortunate to have such great people around me.  Anytime anyone tries to throw credit my way for something, I try hard to figure out who else helped get me somewhere, because I don't think I'm much more than someone who has a great circle around them.

When word of mouth is faster and cheaper than it ever has been before, the self-marketers really come out in full force.  Sometimes, it's tough to really figure out who's legit and who's just blowing smoke. 

But it's pretty clear to me who is a "thinktheyare" and I'll tell you that there's usually a strong correlation between being a thinktheyare and a smoke blower.  

Here are some easy ways to spoke a thinktheyare:

1. They like to tout the fact that they are the "only" or "first" person to do something.
2. It's never clear exactly what they did and where they did it.  You've often never heard of the companies they've worked with, or they namedrop with companies, but the exact role and what they accomplished is often unclear.
3. Thinktheyares are often attracted to or try to create artificial scarcity.  If they see something as being exclusive, even if it seems pointless as to the advantages of exclusivity in that situation, they're on it. 
4. They need to get their name attached to everything and they try to make everything "bigger". 
5. They speak at a lot of events, but when you ask startup pros who they'd want to do a particular job, the thinktheyare is never at the top of anyone's list for whatever their supposed expertise is.
6. They have a lot of "associations" with people... but as for strong two-way connections, the jury is out.
7. Thinktheyare's often feign help.  They tell you they'll hook you up with something, but it either never quite comes through or seems to come with some kind of unforseen string attached.

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"I had been living this life for 27 years, and bits and pieces of me were all over the place, in many different people. I was, and still am, a chameleon, a changer, a morpher. Always a work in progress, and drawn toward newness like a crow toward shiny objects.

In the words of someone else who said it best.. “I am a mover of in betweens. I slip among classifications like water in cupped palms, leaving bits of myself behind. I am quick and deft… I am a chameleon. And the best chameleon has no center, no truer sense of self than what he is in the instant.” (Andrew Pham, Catfish and Mandala)"

My new favorite blogger.

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Clothing System Leakage, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Anyone who has ever worked with me will attest to the fact that I will inevitably bring clothing into the office. I guess because days get warmer and I'm always leaving with less than I came in with.

For the last few days, I've been thinking about a professional acquaintence turned new friend... They have a family member with a serious health issue, which happens to everyone at some point or another.

I was struck because, when I spoke to this person, she was more concerned with letting me get back to my business than what was going on in her life. I couldn't do it. I couldn't say, "Hey, um, yeah... sorry about your sick uncle...I gotta go return some important e-mail."

E-mail! "F" e-mail.

If it's important, they'll call. People don't call anymore. You know why? It's never important...not as important as a friend with a really serious problem.

I have another friend who recently busted a wheel on her car swirving out of the way of a pothole. It was raining and late at night. Rather than call anyone for help, she slept in the car in a parking lot until morning and then called a tow truck.

Have we gotten so low in our expectations of people? Have we gotten so self absorbed that we give off the impression that we can't be bothered with any kind of personal inconvenience?

At the end of the day, I want to deal with people who not only think I can make money for or with them but who care about me as a person. Our monthly board meetings include a few minutes for "How are you guys doing?" To me, that's almost the most important part of the meeting, because we're building applications for people, leveraging people, empowering people...if our own people aren't doing so well, it is highly unlikely our people centric application will amount to much.

That's $850 million they never would have had to spend had they figured out how to build AIM into a social network.

Good luck monetizing it without Curt Viebranz and Dave Morgan at Platform A.

*Slaps head*

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If you should discover that, after decades of marriage and a meteoric career, I have spent $80k on high priced hookers, please dump my ass...

...right on the street...

...in public...

...right in the middle of my press conference.

Do not be supportive.  I do not deserve it.

Do not keep my kids around me.  They'd be better off if I wasn't around.

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