Steve Garfield captured the event, so check out his 20 minute video if you’re curious.

He told me that he asks people to follow a few simple rules when sending him email. These seem obvious, but Im amazed at how many people don’t know them.

To: Adding an email address to the To field implies you want the person to take action. Either they owe you a response, or they need to act on some instruction in the email.

CC: Implies that the email is for information only. No action is necessary

BCC: Best used for large lists. If you’re sending to a lot of people, don’t have 50 people in the CC list. Invariably someone will click “reply all” and send uninteresting information to everyone!

Additionally, if forwarding a message where there is only one person in the “To:” field, you can modify the subject line to say “NRN” at the beginning. This tells the recipient there is “No Response Necessary”.

As email volume increases day by day, simple methods can help us stay sane.

Send these helpful tips to the worst offenders you know.

Maybe.

But so far, we’re not there yet. The best bicycle seats money can buy have been made by Brooks Saddles pretty much the same way since 1866. Their flagship model for first appeared in the 1898 catalog! Sure, the process has probably been improved, but the widget is pretty much the same.

I first learned about brooks saddles through people who have been touring the world by bike since 2002. They have much more experience than me and claimed it is the best bike seat. The people at the bike shop agree. When I asked a guy “would you ride across the country if you weren’t using your brooks saddle?” He said no.

In a world where newer is better. It’s refreshing to see something old be the best there is.

I attended a lecture tonight on Immigration by Professor Kim Williams from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her lecture focused on politics around race as it applies to illegal / legal immigration in the United States. Im additionally interested in the economic impact of ignorant immigration policies.I am disturbed by the trend I see.

Politicians, pundits and the mass idiocracy in the US blame illegal immigration for all the woes of the country. Closing our borders is hailed as the solution to social service problems, terrorism, loss of jobs. The list could go on infinitely.

Xenophobia and isolationism are rearing their heads as idiotic rallying cries. “We would be a great country if we could get rid of all the foreigners”, they yell.

In a global economy, countries trying to be islands will die.

As an example of a country whose attitude is moving the other way, look at China. For centuries, China was one of the world’s greatest examples of isolationism and poverty. China wizened up to globalization just a few years ago, and relaxed it’s isolationist attitude. In that time the country has experienced staggering growth. As a foreigner, you had no chance to go and live and work in China ten years ago. Today, I have numerous friends who now work in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities in China.

If I may, I’ll make a nostradamic doomsday prediction for the United States:

Fifty years from now, there will be no issue with immigration in the United States. Fifty years from now, there will be no immigration to the United States.

Isolationist political moves will cause the already fragile economy to further stagnate, fueling more isolationism. Idiots, confused, will add more tariffs to foreign goods and more subsidies to domestic goods. Idiots, further confused, will spend more tax dollars making it hard for foreigners to come to the United States for vacation, education, work, innovate. Free trade with the United States will all but disappear.

The country will undergo dramatic inflation as the currency devalues (we see this beginning now). Foreign creditors sell their US currency reserves. Foreign investors withdraw their money from American markets. The country goes bankrupt. 

Im here now, because there is no better place in the world for technology startups. In the US, we are still the great innovators of the web. This won’t be the case forever. Other countries are now “more connected” than us. Talented developers and talented designers exist all over the world, often offering a better deal for all parties involved. I don’t believe fully distributed teams work, but what about moving your whole team to Buenos Aires or to Bali, Indonesia. Seems romantic, doesn’t it? Well, who knows you’re there? When you’re building the next facebook, or flickr, your audience is the world. You would live like kings earning US / European salaries and office expenses would be low.

When the proverbial “shit hits the fan”, I’ll be long gone. Sitting on an island, under a coconut tree, sipping a Piña Colada. Will you?

Reputation
This is key. I don’t need to know your real identity. I do need to know your pseudonym can be trusted. The number of reviews a user produces, as well as the number of friends they have, compliments they have received and review votes all play in to answering the question “Can you trust what this person is saying?”. So, after a while of using the site, and by looking at the users profile, you can get a sense of a users reputation.

Users have a way to evaluate the trustworthiness of other users. Now we can go on to bigger, better and more fun things!

Yelp succeeds in attracting foodies; people obsessed with restaurants, eating out and socializing. For the most valuable yelpers in the community, they award an “elite badge”. This serves as a reward system – like with airline miles. The elite badge gives a user additional credibility – with the community at large and especially other yelp elite members. elite reviews seem to appear higher in the list of reviews on a business. Becoming elite on yelp also provides admission to special “elite” events. Off-line rewards for online behaviors are highly motivating.

Yelp and it’s community provide a great feedback loop to each user. It’s easy and fun to give others feedback. With every compliment a user receives, every friend request, every “useful, funny or cool” that gets checked on a review, with every private message received, users are encouraged to contribute more to the community. Get the wheels spinning enough and you’re elite. Then you’re addicted!

Even if users get bored of reading reviews, the message boards are a place to chat with other yelpers. Questions range from “What’s your favorite book” to more personal questions like “Where to get a colonic in boston?”. These usually trigger long funny discussions from other yelpers.

User reputation / status, the community feedback loop, and offline rewards all help to align an individual’s selfish goals of entertainment, social status and being liked and respected with yelps goals of having great business reviews. Yelp is a great model to learn some lessons when building an online community. Do you yelp?

Number of times I moved: 4
Number of companies with which I had a full time job: 4 (incl. my own company)
Amount of time spent away from home (wherever that was): 3 months
Countries Visited: 4 (not counting transits)
Distance Flown: 80,872 mi
Longest Bike Ride: 73 mi
Longest Car Trip: 1,845 mi

Being unsettled created an amazing amount of stress for me in 2007. However, I couldn’t be happier where the year is ending. The bike ride statistic was accomplished yesterday when Ben and I biked from our place in Cambridge to Newport, Rhode Island. Im a little sore, but dancing tonight should loosen me up. See you next year!

Virosity provides development and product management services for early stage start-ups. Our typical client has an idea, and access to funds but doesnt want to / have the connections to hire a full development team to get it done. That’s where we come in! We turn great ideas into reality.

Right now, my team is building good2gether. From good2gether:

good2gether is a new search and social web service that connects people to causes.
And it’s about to reinvent philanthropy.

So far, the good2gether experience has been really educational. Greg McHale is a great CEO. He spends more time on the road selling than anyone I know. Check out his blog to see what part of the country he is in today!

good2gether is a fantastic product. Im thrilled to be building it. Look for more on Virosity and good2gether soon.

As a side note, we’re looking for talented front end designers, and ruby on rails developers to add to the team. Our Boston launch date is fast approaching.

Was my perception wrong? Is it ok to be a little scruffy when meeting with clients? I usually dont worry about it with up to 3 or 4 days of facial hair.

I didn’t really think too much more about it until I saw this hilarious post and set of pictures through the flickr blog – “Whiskerino ‘07“. What are your thoughts on the Whiskerino Manifesto and wearing beards to work?

“I WILL HAVE A BEARD!! I WILL BE A MAN!! I WILL NOT CONFORM TO YOUR RULES!”
– Whiskerino Manifesto

While I was gone, it seems like the big news was all about Facebook’s Beacon. It seems like the bad press is in full swing at zuckerberg and facebook. If curious you can always dig in to Mark Zuckerberg’s private life.

What struck me about the event was the attendance by young people. To me it appeared that 90% of the people at the event were in their 20s and 30s. That’s really a great sign. It might have been the open bar that convinced people. Im not sure. All in all, my first charity event was a positive experience and I’m going to get more involved. I’ve been waiting (for 2 weeks) to hear back from icouldbe.org for a mentoring position. Maybe Big Brothers has their act more together than icouldbe.org.

super secret hint
I’m excited that in the future (1q 2008), organizations like Horizons for Homeless Children will have a lower cost to get their message heard about their organization and events. They’ll lower their cost to make an impact on you and on me. Im excited that I’ll be part of that.
end super secret hint

Im glad to say that my cynicism about charity events and charities is diminished. It still bothers me a dollar donated does not equal a dollar of difference due to overheads but I’m getting a little softer on my stance.

Check out some pictures from the event