horsepigcow

I am staying in New York City for the holidays and get to hang out with some of my favorite people (back to that, “I’m a lucky bastard” scenario). Last night I had dinner with one of my favorite people and co-founder of the amazing New Work City coworking space in lower Manhattan. At one point, we brought up the topic of #themewords and discussed mine and his. Although I don’t want to reveal his here as it’s his own, I will say that it sparked something for me. His focus for the upcoming year around on prioritizing his health and personal well-being and it really resonated with me because, without really even thinking about it, I’ve been doing the same thing for the past 8 months…since I started getting back into shape.

We’re often told when we are younger that to put ourselves first is selfish, but in reality, I’ve found it to not only benefit me, but the people around me. Since I started prioritizing my fitness and health, I’ve become a much easier person to be around. I lose my temper less often, I have more confidence in general, I’m easier going when things don’t quite go my way and I can handle much more stress than previously (which is good because I have more stress than previously!). That hour a day at the gym or on the running paths helps me focus on my work, smile while doing it and be a better co-worker. I used to sit at my desk all day being much less productive than I am now by taking that fitness break. My friends have noticed a difference. I get the ‘you seem more content’ observations quite often. So, focusing on myself is not selfish at all. It’s good for everyone around me, too.

When my friends at the Make Yourself Movement asked me to write a post on my one secret to being/staying healthy in the New Year, I instantly thought about my conversation and said, “Prioritize ME”.

That’s it. Set a schedule of ME time and be ruthless about it. If you’ve planned to hit a fitness class or go for a run at a certain time, nothing…I mean NOTHING…gets in your way. If a friend just had a bad breakup with her boyfriend and needs to talk now, she’ll have to wait. If your boss wants you to work late, you can’t tonight. Even if your kids have a request or need a ride to a friends, they’ll have to wait. Unless it is life threatening circumstance or an act of God (like a giant blizzard or an earthquake), that time is yours to go to your run or to your class.

Don’t compromise. Because once you do, you will compromise again and again. Next thing you know it, you’ll be doing everything for everyone else and you will feel stressed and awful.

That’s been my secret to staying healthy – both in mind and body – prioritizing fitness. Prioritizing me. I only felt guilty about it for a couple of months…then I realized the major benefits and everyone who was put off by my rigidity in my exercise schedule did, too.

So…for 2011 and beyond, I recommend that everyone should make themselves the priority. It’s not selfish, it’s necessary.

I realized lately that I’ve been a grumpy grumbler the past couple of months. I keep focusing on what is beating me up rather than all that I’ve accomplished in the past decade. Last year at this time, I was much the same. I was being all “Bah humbug” and “screw the Aughts/Naughties (2000′s)”.There’s a feeling that there is an ending and a new beginning in sight, but in reality, everything just keeps going. And moreover, if I look back over the past decade…and even the past year, things have been pretty darned awesome.

Where was I a decade ago anyway? I remember ringing in 2000 in Calgary, Alberta. I think I went to the biggest, lamest party of the millennium. I put too much weight on that particular night and bought overpriced tickets to a night in a convention center where I was crowded in a room where I knew nobody and couldn’t get to the bar to have a drink to toast with at midnight. I was working at a job I didn’t particularly like, my son wasn’t with me at the time (I had temporarily given up custody for reasons that don’t seem clear now) and I had no idea where I was going or really wanted to do with my life. Yet, I was hopeful and thankful.

Everything changed for me in the Aughts. I started my first business, which gave me the opportunity to run a national campaign that won several awards, both in the digital space and in the print design space (I just hung a few of the posters from that campaign in my apartment and several people have told me how amazing they are). I moved to Toronto first where, sure, I gave up my business to a SARS ravaged city, but I ended up running a totally fun, successful DJ night where I got to spin old school Funk, R&B and Disco with amazing people. We even ended up in the National Post and several local papers. My 404 page is me in one of my crazy disco outfits from that time. I also started blogging and really exploring the web as a learning, socializing and personal growth tool. In 2005, I got drafted by a hot new startup in Silicon Valley to run their marketing and moved to San Francisco. That was an amazing time. My career grew. My personal life soared. I started being asked to speak in front of large audiences. I got a literary agent. I sold and wrote a book to a major publisher (now published in 8 languages!). I spent the next several years living the dream of traveling all over the world, meeting and talking with amazing people who were (and are still) changing the world. I got to work with amazing startups and people who I really admire. I got PAID for this. I made really great money. I spent way too much money. I discovered heirloom tomatoes. I fell in love. I had my heart broken by someone worthy of breaking my heart. I was looked to by people as someone who knew what the hell she was talking about. I was interviewed and celebrated and given opportunities people would kill for. I got to be part of movements that have grown to change the world (coworking, barcamp, microformats, etc.).

Then I got to travel across the country in an RV – fully sponsored – to KARAOKE with awesome people. I mean, really. Who gets to do that?! I got to sing on 47th and Lexington in NYC. Sick! Then I landed in Montreal where I was instantly part of a freakin amazing startup scene in a wonderfully interesting and artistic city that is damned cheap to live in (shhhh…don’t tell anyone). I met two of the most amazing people in the universe – Jerome Paradis and Cassandra Girard – who were crazy enough to want to join me in doing a startup. We appealed to friends and family and raised some great convertible debt that allowed us to hire some more amazing people crazy enough to believe in what we are doing so that we could LAUNCH a freakin web app! At TechCrunch Disrupt no less. There were nearly 1,000 applicants to this launch platform and we got picked as one of the 24. Wha?!

And when we launched, we had over 2000 people waiting to get in, even though what we launched with is pretty bare bones. And of the now 2500 or so people who are using it, there are several hundred that give great feedback, ideas, tweet, support and generally cheerlead for us.

And sure, I get morally downtrodden because fundraising is hard and heartbreaking. And sure, I haven’t met ‘the one’ yet. But WTF Tara?! Count your blessings, girlfriend.

As for this year, besides the amazing accomplishment of launching a startup in under 6 months of development with an amazing team of people I’m proud to call friends, I’ve gotten into the best shape I’ve ever been in, I’ve traveled to San Francisco 3x, Paris, New York City 3x, Las Vegas, Austin, San Antonio, Toronto 4x, Guelph, Minneapolis/St Paul, Palm Springs (where I went to TEDActive), Sonoma 2x, Miami, Sydney, Tokyo, Boston, Jersey Shore, Brighton (Utah – but I got free snowboarding lessons and sweet equipment given to me!), Halifax, Phoenix and Oklahoma City! Pretty much all paid for. I have an amazing life. I have the world’s cutest, most easy going dog. My son is happy and healthy and independent. People send me free products: books, skincare, training gear, etc. I know the most amazing people doing killer awesome things in the world. People who appear on the cover of magazines regularly. I have people who care about me and love me. People who would totally notice if I disappeared.

Time to stop being grumpy. Time to stop being all, “Stupid Aughts” and count my blessings. My life wasn’t nearly this cool in the 90′s. Not at all.

I’m ringing in this New Year this year with HUGE gratitude to everything the 00′s have given me. And with that gratitude in mind, I hope to be able to give everything back tenfold in the decades to come. I promise to focus on the victories and the all of the blessings I have rather than the ways I feel frustrated. It’s now about my commitment to making it happen and seeing the silver lining through the cloud. And mostly, it’s about my commitment to thanking each and every one of you for joining me on this crazy journey and recognizing everything you’ve given me along the way.

So…happy holidays. And happy new year. And thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

Not a lot of people know this about me, but I ran away from home when I was 16. There were all sorts of reasons why, but the biggest one was that I thought I was ready to be independent (my parents didn’t really agree, but I didn’t seek their opinion). Of course looking back on it, I probably was NOT ready and took a whole bunch of sidesteps before I really found my stride as an adult and a human being. But one thing I know is if I was to do it all over again, I don’t know if I would do it differently. It fits my journey and its part of what made me the survivor I am today.

So, when my 17 year-old son told me last summer he was going to move out and head back to the US (where he has a green card), I was apprehensive, but not surprised. Tad (or Thaddeus by birth) is a lot like me. He’s always craved independence and never been one to follow the easy path anywhere. If someone gave him the choice between a treacherous course that had an uncertain destination and an easy route that ended in something certain, he’d definitely choose the treacherous course. Maybe it’s a quest for adventure or maybe it’s just rebelliousness, but I’ve always admired him for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I was concerned when he left. He had only worked at one job and that was for a couple of months. He also hadn’t finished high school and wasn’t looking too motivated to do so. He wasn’t super helpful around the house, either, making me think that he may not be as driven as he could be. But he landed in San Francisco in July and made a go of it. And guess what? He’s been doing pretty awesome. He got a job in August and has been working (albeit part time) ever since. He’s reconnected with old friends, made new friends and seems to be really enjoying life.

Then the other day he texts me: “I have a great idea for a startup.” I couldn’t be prouder! His idea was a good one, though it’s been done (I told him that it shouldn’t stop him from continuing to think up great ideas or even from pursuing it if he thinks he could do a better job!). He’s also getting tutoring to take his GED and told me his tutor thinks he’ll ace it. After that, he’s hoping to take a degree in graphic design at the Art Institute in San Francisco (who he interviewed with).

I know he’ll do well. He seems to be taking fewer side steps than I did at his age and he is more driven at his age than I ever was.

For now, though, he is looking for work in San Francisco. He’s working part-time for a bike store, but wants to take on more part-time work. He said he’ll do just about anything. As he said, “Even if ur friends need errands or something. I’ll work for minimum wage just for the experience!” He’s a smart kid. Fast learning. Reliable. Funny. And sweet (he’d hate that I describe him that way, but he is). He’s also a very talented artist. In pre-school, he was already drawing 3-D and perspective. I have folders full of the comic books he used to make and a few of the clay figurines he used to meticulously craft (then sell to my neighbors). Perhaps a job somewhere he could do various errands, but be pulled in for creative work every now and then would be perfect. Any startups looking for the next generation of creatives? That’s my son.

Here is his resume. I pointed him to Emurse and he did the rest. He updates it with every new job and skill he gets. Someone said there are typos, but I think it’s perfect (of course! I’m his mom!). You can contact him through Emurse or ping me on my contact form and I’ll get it to him.

Thank you in advance. He’s awesome. And I know I’m his mom so I’m biased…but I think you’d think so, too.

Lately I’ve started to think more and more about how everything I put into Twitter and Facebook is akin to throwing my memories into a black hole. Links, thoughts, conversations, reviews, places, etc. – they are relevant as long as they show up on my main page. After that? Buried. Or worse on Twitter…gone (I’m not sure how long they allow you to search back nowadays, but I died a little the day they removed everything older than 6 months).

I’ve spoken about the signficance of us creating our histories in real time. It may not seem pressing for people today, but as we age, we’ll start to feel more and more attached to this and our children and grandchildren will benefit from our real-time diligence to details on how we lived.

And to tell you the truth, I didn’t even recognize this as an issue until I was well into my addiction with social media. It first slapped me in the face the day I went to look for a conversation I had on Facebook a couple of months back. I logged in and opened my page. I typed the person’s name into the search box at the top. It pulled up their facebook page…but I was looking for the exchange between the two of us, not his page. So I went back to my page and started clicking on “Older Posts” (yes, technically it just loads them as you scroll down, but you know what I mean). Ten minutes later, I find the conversation, click on the link and I’m off to the races. Seriously. Ten minutes to scroll through about 6 weeks of posts. And yes, I’m pretty noisy, but imagine future generations!

Twitter has the ability to search, but it’s not so great and it only goes back a short time now (which seems to be getting shorter and shorter all of the time – couldn’t go back more than a page to search @’s the other day). I fondly remember the day I could link back to my original tweet. I should have taken a screenshot.

Okay, I get it, these sites could give a flying snake about me and my writing my history. There are backups for this stuff, right? But what about the more recent panic around Delicious shutting down? Whether it is a rumor or fact, it raised additional flags for people who rely on it and other properties we choose to store our resources on. The same thing could happen to Flickr or YouTube or any other site we rely on to store our digital lives. It’s not just storage, either. Sure, we can export and Backupify and whatever else, but without the context of the sites, the comments, the connections, the tags, the notes, etc., it’s just a bunch of data taking up space. Without being able to search, organize, share, interact with and comment on the content, it’s meh.

And sure, there are cool looking projects like Diaspora that show promise. I could also start syndicating everything into my very own open source CMS of sorts a la Drupal or Buddy Press. But it requires a good amount of extra work on my part and is a bit anti-social (Tara Island?) as all of my friends are on the latest, greatest network.

So what is there to do? I heard a great quote on Twitter today (that took me hella long to find in order to credit and it’s only a few hours old!):

“Would you rather pave the world in soft leather or buy yourself a nice pair of shoes?” (via @timoreilly quoting Adam Greenfield

And though the soft leather world image seems a little odd (and environmentally disastrous!), I get what he’s saying and agree that web standards are really the only way to go. Yeah, sure. Exportable data. Wa-hoo! Facebook now does it. Even Shwowp does it. But then what? The content is as much about the medium as it is about the message. Or, as McLuhan said (even before the social web existed), “The medium is the message”. Design decisions made in social networks effect our interactions on them and becomes part of the history itself (tagging, retweeting, notes, comments, etc). And social interactions around the content also add to that.

An XML file just doesn’t cut it.

This isn’t a new problem, of course. Lots of smart folks have been working on this for a long time. But the denizens of the social web go way beyond the geeks and early adopters. There are lots of people using the online tools that could be gone in a second tomorrow. It’s got to be easier than OpenID or XML files or even Microformats (though I think Microformats gets pretty close). It’s got to be easier than hosting it myself. At the very least, i should be able to search my Facebook content and see the history of my tweets somewhere (the Library of Congress will do this?). That we can’t do that seems ridiculous to me.

What do you think?

There is something about a new year…

This year I’m traveling to New York for New Years, partially for work and partially to catch up with my friends there. I really look forward to just hanging out in one of my favourite cities for an entire week with no real agenda. It seems like a perfect thing to do to reflect on everything.

And reflect I will. The photoshopped image attached to this post is how I’ve been feeling for most of 2010. Constant pressure. “Nearly almost verging on just about approaching bordering on *egad* just a little more and I’ll have that ring!” is my first and last thought of the day. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve achieved quite a bit. And grown even more! But as I was telling someone the other day, this is the first really hard thing I’ve ever done. I’ve done hard things. I’ve been through loads of challenges. Doing a startup takes the cake.

And let me qualify that even more. Building a product is challenging, but not the really hard part. It takes time and it’s never quite right. You make a million mistakes. And the stuff you think will be awesome actually isn’t. But I’ve done this within organizations. I’ve worked directly on product. I’ve tweaked and tested and planned and launched before. I’ve worked on everything from wireframes to design to UX. I’ve got it right and wrong. It’s the fun part of a startup. And I’ve worked on the community building/marketing end of things, too. That, too, is a challenge. People are busy and don’t care about your messaging, etc. But I’m good at bridging building something with meaning to match people’s desires. And I’ve gained an amazing group of supporters over the years who are really patient when I screw up.

So, yeah. Building a product and selling a product is challenging, but well within my abilities. The Frodo-photo was imagined in the past month or so as we look for funding. I’ve built businesses before. Small but profitable, sustainable businesses. I’ve never had to seek outside funding (other than a line of credit). Building a startup usually requires outside capital. And, well, we are no exception to this rule. We’ve spent the year, all of our savings and some generous loans from friends and family bootstrapping Shwowp. We held out as long as we could from pounding on those doors. There is a good reason why. This shit is heartbreaking. I used to think there was nothing more frustrating than dating. I was wrong.

Let me set the scene:

You make a connection, prepare a pitch and demo, have a great meeting filled with amazing ideas, you shake hands and they utter the words, “Next steps.” You leave with butterflies in your stomache. You liked them a LOT. They GOT it. You dream of not only being able to pay your rent next month, but how they would be great additions to your board with their experience and connections. You send an upbeat follow up email.

So you cheerfully type another follow up: “Let’s explore those next steps you talked about!” And the airwaves are silent.

Then comes the part where you start beating yourself up. “Is it ME? Did I say something wrong? Did I come across incompetent? Not realistic enough? Should have I worn the blue dress instead? Maybe it was a tweet? Or maybe I tweet too much and they think I’m not committed? Maybe I should write an email explaining that my tweets are part of the overall marketing. Staying on top of things. Maybe I should stop tweeting. Could it be the product? Yeah, it’s pretty early on and we’re super beta. But they realized that. They *said* it looked like a great start. They understand that we can iterate quickly…especially if we can hire another developer. They understand we’ve built quite a bit on very little. Right?”

You give yourself pep talks. Read blog posts from other CEO’s that tell you they talked to hundreds of potential investors before they got to a yes. Hundreds?! The dozen or so you are talking to are already shortening your lifespan.

Yeah. So that’s kind of my every day right now. Yes. It sounds a lot like dating. But at least I can AVOID dating!

Don’t get me wrong. I will go through this pain as long as I need to in order to build my dream. I don’t give up easy and I love the people I’m working with and how the product is evolving. I’m so excited about how fast we are progressing (launched in 6 months and improving significantly every week). I got giggly tonight on Tummelvision.tv talking about an upcoming bookmarklet we will be releasing. I’ve never been known to throw in the towel when it comes to hard work.

Dammit. 2011 is the year I grab that motherf&*)ng ring. I’ll get to put the focus back on building an amazing product and user base. It’ll still be hard work and there will be many trying days, but I *will* level up and breath a little bit easier than I have for the past few months.

It’s going to be a fantastic year. A year of building and growing and learning and reaping…I will make it to Mordor and destroy that ring and be ready to meet my next big challenge with renewed strength.

What are you shooting for in 2011?

[part 2 of The Hole in the Soul of our Culture]

As I waited at the Paris airport (CDG) for my plane bringing me back home to Montreal, I typed the following into my phone to remind me of what I was feeling at that moment:

Any action that results in making money (or building numbers) is valued over actions that aren’t. Such as having an interesting conversation, helping someone out, learning empathy. Sure, these things can be valued…if they lead to prestige or wealth.

My entire trip to Paris – Le Web, my book event (big ups to Rodolphe Falzerana, Luc Bretones, Sophie Reynal and everyone who organized it), the HEC Digital4Change event (big ups to Olivier Maurel for this opportunity), my lovely lunch discussion with my dear old friend Stéphane Distinguin, staying with Emilie Dupré and William Hutter, being picked up at the airport (and getting macarons delivered) by Dominique Gibert, meeting young Alaric (gorgeous new son of Rodolphe and Morgane Falzerana), running with Emilie and William with a lovely view over Paris in Parc de Saint-Cloud, wandering Paris late at night looking for a cab in the snow with new friend Jason Gegere, attending a lovely dinner organized by Renee Blodgett, staying up until I had to leave for the airport talking with the amazingly inspirational Tariq Krim and all sorts of other magic moments I’ll never forget – was a whirlwind of amazing generosity, human connection and talk of changing the world.

This directly contrasts with my recent experience of the world, where raising funds for Shwowp has been a slightly painful experience (though learning, too), where only numbers and how we fit into current paradigms or not matters. What’s our traffic? Our traction? Can we offer more deals like Groupon? Are we using gamification? Are we too much like this and that and whose-it? I think in terms of how it will help people in the long term, how it will change the customer/vendor relationship, what we can build that will empower people and actually deliver something meaningful: all things that were talked about as important at Le Web, but don’t seem to be important to those holding power. When I hear someone like Mitchell Baker say:

“If you start something and everyone looks at you like you’re crazy, step back, you just might be on the right track”

…as she did at Digital4Change made my heart fly a little. Yes…that must be it. I’m on the right track and just too darned visionary. Right?

But me and my own struggles aside, I see this everywhere. I’ve been frustrated with this most of my life. The ‘success stories’ we hear about, the validation people seek for paying attention to anything, the justification for doing anything that means a damn requires some sort of big number or incredible buzz attached to it. But in reality, so many things that are truly successful today weren’t the result of numbers and buzz first, they were the result of doing something that positively impacted people’s lives. Who could have predicted Twitter would be so big that it’s practically a household name? Well, I did, but that’s beside the point. Most people didn’t. They thought it sounded stupid and inane. Foursquare? Initial reaction (other than those of us at SXSW who were playing with it) was ‘meh’. Matt from Kiva said everyone thought he was nuts. Mozilla has changed the world in unconventional ways. WordPress is still giving away their IP. Microfinancing? The Grameen Foundation has proven that lending money changes the world and makes a profit consistently (without bailouts). All of these started out as crazy ideas and have become huge success stories.

And by success, I mean impact on real human lives. Some make money, others sustain. But there are countless examples of social companies that make an impact and do well by doing good. They change the world, employ people, sometimes bring profits and continue to grow their impact. Contrast that to ‘for profits’ that have a fairly high failure rate – whether they take big money or not. [aside: someone has to have a link to a study where social business success is calculated]

But lets go back to the issue at hand. Even many of the companies I know and love have taken on the twist of highlighting the traditional metrics of success. I spoke to Georges Duverger (who I’m working on some cool projects with) about some of Twitter’s earlier design decisions and how it changed the raison d’être of the community. By choosing to demote @ replies (hide them from the public stream) and promoting RT’s (retweets), Twitter encouraged a growing cult of celebrity. What started out as a virtual water cooler where we could discover, join and debate conversations became a race for who could be retweeted the most often (to get ‘more followers’). When people introduce me, they love to mention my number of followers. I rarely check, though I know it means more to most people than the content I produce. “I have 35,000+ followers, bitches!” Whatever. Do I impact people’s lives? Inspire? Connect? Why am I still alone on a Friday night? Will it pay my rent next month? It certainly doesn’t help where it should help me (opening doors). It means way less than my real-life relationships. Twitter has become the new bullhorn for people. A promotional tool. Conversations have moved to Facebook, Quora and other networks that promote the connection over the status. With all the misgivings I have about Facebook, I actually like that they encourage me to weed out non-friends so my relationships are more manageable on there (ie. they don’t build me tools to scale more and more friends like MySpace did – they actually punish me for it, limiting the number of groups and friends I can connect to). I could never keep up relationships with 35,000+ people IRL. Nor do I really want to.

But it all comes back to what we value and why I think we have a hole in the soul of our culture. It isn’t merely the businesses and boardrooms where there lies an issue. It’s all around us. In North America at least. We pay lip service to wanting to change the world, to being better human beings, to ‘balancing’ our lives, but when it comes down to it, we tend to be more impressed with big numbers: 1 MILLION hits, 100,000 followers, $1 BILLION market capitalization, etc. When was it that Kevin from DIGG was on the cover of Business Week? 2006? “How this kid made $60Million in 18 Months!” How much is it worth today? Kevin would be the first to admit he didn’t have $60 Million in the bank in 2006.

I was happy to see an influential conference like Le Web focus on value other than money. I’m hoping it’s a trend. I think that, besides a few conferences like TED, SOCAP and Personal Democracy Forum, we tend to focus on the money and traffic numbers rather than real social impact. And to get to social impact, we need to do all of those things that don’t really have any ROI attached…like have conversations and help people and read stuff – some of it will ‘pay off’ and some of it will just be part of our human experience. Focusing on the wrong stuff will lead us to focus on the wrong stuff…if that makes any sense. Like the executives from day one continually repeating their commitment to user experience without, what it seemed like, having ever even had experience with users.*

Because, at the end of the day, our businesses aren’t the only entities lacking a focus on beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. Our entire culture is. Just visit Paris for a week. You’ll *feel* what I mean. It’s nothing you can assign ROI to because, well, it is a true experience, not a production.

* It would have been great to see any number of these execs responding to the naysayers on Twitter…setting up a meetup in Paris to get feedback…even just attending the after parties.

The title of this blogpost is liberally borrowed from one of my favorite business articles of all time written by Gary Hamel on the WSJ Blog. The part of the article that really grabbed me was this one:

Why is it that managers are so willing to acknowledge the idea of a company dedicated to timeless human values and yet so unwilling to become practical advocates for those values within their own organizations?

Some of the human values Hamel covers in the article are beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. I was so inspired by the article that I ended up structuring much of my new material around this core thesis: The companies who lead with human values are the companies who are going to win going forward. The ones that are inspiring us and growing at crazy rates (see Apple, Google, Foursquare, etc.) value human above all else.

I just returned from Le Web in Paris, where I saw the sharp contrast right before my eyes. Day 1 was mostly filled with interviews of those companies (mostly American) struggling to understand how to regain market share and customer trust. From the Microsoft WP7 Phone to MySpace to Nokia to RIM, I heard many murmurs around me in the crowd that people didn’t even want to listen anymore. They were waiting for Dennis Crowley from Foursquare or Mikael Hed from Rovio (maker of the uber popular game Angry Birds). Not that the audience was incredibly representative of everyone in the world, but I would say that I was sitting amongst the early adopters and taste makers of what is happening now and going forward. The thing I heard over and over from the companies, like Microsoft and MySpace, was that they were ‘focused on user experience’ to an almost eye-rolling level. Nobody defined what that meant and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to wonder how they could focus on the experience of the people they were so out of touch with (I plan to write another post on this soon).

Each of the speakers appeared smart and probably were users of social web technology themselves, but came across so fundamentally out of touch with what was going on around them. The mannerisms, the media training and the dancing around answers consistently spoke “corporate” even though they were dressed casually. A really significant question directed towards Paypal regarding Wikileaks and the controversy of removing the account resulted in a complete regurgitation of all of the press releases I’ve read before. Positive spin and corporate responsibility (not to customers, but to the corporation itself) bled through the human being addressing the audience.

Contrast this with the amazing heart and soul exhibited in the Day 2 lineup and you’ll totally understand where I’m coming from. My first stand-up-and-shout-YES! moment came listening to Alexander Tamas (DST International) who said:

“The urge to built something meaningful that changes the world is a life time chance.”

I nearly cried. Not another badge gamefication geo-location iPad/iPhone social recommendation deal-of-the-day coupon garnering social media impact measuring whatchamacallit. As Dennis said during his Q&A the day before, “We didn’t sit around a boardroom thinking, here are 10 ideas to build into a company. We like building products, and if it became a business? Great!” Not that I will poo-poo the money-making ability of companies who come up with a business idea in a boardroom that will make a gabillion dollars…I just want to see the world lean more towards Tamas’ vision of building a company.

An appropriate follow up to Tamas’ Q&A was Phil Libin of Evernote, a little app that helps users gather important stuff and notes. A simple idea with a humongous impact. Libin gave me my second and third ear-orgasm when he said:

“Never once were the companies we fixated on as our ‘competition’ relevant in the past. Don’t think about what other people are doing. Don’t look backwards.”

and;

“everyone asks about conversion rates. the short answer is ‘it doesn’t matter.”

I believe strongly that it is Libin’s insanely awesome focus on making something meaningful and useful (so useful that Evernote users are rabidly in love with the tool and report often that it ‘changed their lives’ for the better) that resulted in 5 million registered users (18k per day growth) and an entire book section devoted to maximizing Evernote in Japan.

Libin’s final remarks were equally thought provoking:

“The worst reason to start a company is to make money. If you want to save humanity (or the city of paris shutting down for one day because of 1 inch of snow), that’s a better reason.”

I instantly downloaded Evernote (yes…I’ve been holding out).

And on and on it went. Matt Mullenweg and Tony Schneider (Automattic) – more inspiration – then Mitchell Baker (Mozilla) who inspired me at Le Web, then blew me away later at Digital4Change (more later). A little later, the ever-inspiring Shai Agassi (Better Place), Jack Hidary (SmartTransportation.org) who gave me more yes moments with his car sharing ideas and then Mel Young’s interesting Homeless World Cup project. The singularity stuff was also incredibly thought provoking with Ariel Garten, Salim Ismail and Henri Seydoux.

I can’t pick a highlight. It was one cheer after another. A million brain synapses firing in all directions. I was so inspired I wanted to hug everyone in the room. After that morning and early afternoon, all hope was regained for me. Le Web gave me several “TED moments” – bravo Loic and Geraldine!

Unfortunately, I had to leave a wee bit early to go and moderate at the Digital 4 Change conference at HEC Paris. Because of my crazy schedule, I hadn’t sat down to really absorb what I was walking into. I shared a taxi with Cédric Giorgi, who was one of the most amazing co-moderators I’ve ever had the pleasure of co-moderating with. His presence helped keep me calm in the face of: OMFG, I’m moderating two panels with the likes of Mitchell Baker (Mozilla), Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize recipient & founder of Grameen Foundation), Matt Flanery (Kiva) and Walter de Brouwer (OLPC) amongst other notables. With my mind already buzzing from Le Web’s inspirational message, I thought I may collapse at any moment. It was such a GIGANTIC contrast from the ‘we are focusing on user experience’ PR spins the day before.

An entire day of how social business is changing the world (and the numbers are in and it’s working!) made me reflect hard on the hole in the soul of business as we know it. Between Hamel’s article, the clear evidence that social business works from Le Web and Digital4Change and Umair Haque’s recent post entitled “I’m Bored – The Significance Manifesto” I started thinking…this is more than just a hole in the soul of business. It’s a hole in the soul of our culture (and when I say ‘our’, I mean mostly North American).

I want to continue…but in order to make this easier on the eyes to read I’ll make my own observations a second post.

Part 2: here…

So far, the big highlight of LeWeb has been the interviews regarding the more popular gaming companies like Pet Society by Playfish and Angry Birds by Rovio. The numbers of people playing, paying for and getting excited by games are ASTOUNDING. Just a few numbers to chew on:

• Rovio’s various games sell 90 MILLION virtual goods PER DAY. Virtual goods are rarely cheap. Do the math!
• Angry Birds PAID version has been purchased by 12 MILLION people and the free version has been downloaded by 30 MILLION people. A loss of revenue? Nope. The free version makes Rovio $1M/month in advertising revenue.

It’s clear to me that gaming has broken past the ‘teenage boy’ barrier and has become very mainstream. The majority of gamers these companies are seeing are women who are 40+:

This is an amazing growth space…and I don’t see gaming going away any time in the near future.

Interesting to note…there were a gaggle of traditional press gathering around the stage all morning…but went away when the social gaming interviews came up. Just shows you how incredibly out of touch the press is with what’s coming down the pipe.