horsepigcow

My life has been on such an amazing whirlwind since I posted that Hillary and I made the decision to shut down Citizen Space.

First off, nobody was very happy with the news. Where I was feeling just fine with letting it go, the residents, the other coworking catalysts and many others who have been involved were sending me messages that went sort of like:

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

I explained over and over again that the decision wasn’t a *bad* thing. It wasn’t done because we were at wit’s end. Just that we couldn’t put the energy needed into keeping Citizen Space the vibrant place it once was and, well, that there were lots of awesome spaces now to continue the legacy. Still, multiple people responded to my very logical answer that they were still unhappy with the whole idea of shutting down CS.

Then the offer emails started pouring in. At one point, Hillary, April and I had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the people who were interested in taking over the space. Some people wanted to raise money to keep it open for a short while, others wanted to take over the space and rebrand it and some wanted to take over the name AND the space. This wasn’t an easy decision. Of course, keeping CS alive meant that the name AND the space should remain intact, but we didn’t want just anybody carrying that on. We had to make sure that someone would remain true to the Coworking values as well as keep those awesome things like ‘free dropins’ alive as much as possible (even though this was never a good business decision, it was definitely something we treasured as it brought energy to the space and gave weary travelers somewhere they could be without concern).

All of this and I’m still a gazillion miles away and busier than I can already handle, so Hillary (who has the world’s craziest travel schedule AND a small child) and April had to coordinate and meet with everyone. Thank goodness I have the world’s best co-owner and the world’s best GM (big ups) because they helped narrow it down to the final decision.

And that decision is…Citizen Space will remain open! yay! It will be re-invigorated with new ownership (Hillary and I will remain shareholders and advisors) and energy. And I got to meet Toby Morning and his crew at SXSW Interactive and I’m excited to say that his love and enthusiasm for coworking and the legacy of CS will make it an even better place to work from now on.

Toby Morning will bring his energy and love of startups into the space starting April 1, 2011. He thinks big. He loves the community. He is passionate about startups and the amazing culture that the social web has fostered. I look forward to seeing Citizen Space and all of the projects he has planned around it blossom. I’ll do a more in-depth video interview with him this Friday when we do the transfer and post it here and on the CS blog so everyone can meet him.

But if you are also in San Francisco this Friday, March 25, 2011, COME TO THE CITIZEN SPACE TRANSFER PARTY!! We’ll have a dj, beer (as in free as in beer), wine and nibblies for everyone. You can meet Toby and his partners in person as well as help us celebrate the transfer and the rekindling of the space. Sign up for it here.

I’m really happy that this all came together like it has and that the Citizens can continue working from CS every day.

And thank you for your continued love and support. Coworking and Citizen Space are projects I’m proud to have spent the past 6 years pouring my love into because I’ve gotten so much more out of both.

I’ve been attending SXSW Interactive since 2005 and I’ve been lucky enough to watch it grow from a toddler to an awkward teenager and now an interesting young adult. When I started going, there were probably a couple of thousand people there. It was pretty young and I barely knew anyone, but since it was still fairly small (in relative terms), I met most everyone by the time I left. I was really taken by the friendliness of the event.

Over the years, the event grew quickly, pretty much doubling year after year. The parties grew. The lines grew. The panels grew. Pretty soon SXSW Interactive was no longer a conference, it was a marathon. I missed most of the panels I wanted to attend because I’d run into people constantly in the hallways or, more likely, I was moving too slowly to get to them from party-hopping the night before. Lineups became a standard and I started avoiding the parties with the long waits.

Then the ‘stuff’ came. Big corporate sponsors realized that SXSW was a gold mine of early adopters, influencers and other movers and shakers. I started packing lightly because I’d come home with a suitcase full of schwag, free stuff and new tee shirts and hoodies from all over the corporate landscape. There were also more free dinners and open bars, which meant I was missing more panels than ever.

But in 2009 and 2010, the event I love was getting over run. It started to look different and almost awkward. I’d walk down over-crowded conference hallways and not recognize a soul. The lineups at the parties were so out of control, I started skipping them altogether. Even if I had a VIP pass, once I got in, I couldn’t move because of over crowding, let alone reach the bar for that free highball. The number of panels offered made it impossible to keep a schedule straight and I kept getting lost instead of lost in conversation at the conference center. Everyone seemed grumpy about it. I heard lots of murmurs around people I knew skipping it in the future.

But something happened this year. It seemed to grow up. All of the awkwardness of the previous two years that were bound to happen as the event grew bigger and bigger (beyond what probably anyone could imagine) melted away and all of a sudden, the world’s biggest geek fest became a magical place once again.

It could be that I, myself, have matured and decided to pace myself a bit more this year. I had some serious daily responsibilities (emceeing the Accelerator, my panel, breakfast meetings and a couple of planned runs in the early morning) so most nights were relatively early and I went to bed after one or two drinks rather than trying to pack a year’s worth of gin into my system. It could also be that a few companies decided to forego throwing the crazy HUGE parties and created nicer, more intimate affairs that allowed for much better mingling. I really enjoyed these gatherings and hope it becomes more of a trend in the future. Sure, they make for some exclusivity, but it helps curate great conversations whereas the big open bar parties attract people looking for, well, open bars and a big party.

Another thing that really added to my experience was staying with a group of friends at SF Embassy, a really awesome dorm-type apartment block organized by people from the SF Bay Area. I’ve been living alone for a while and I realized that I really miss ‘coming home’ to a bunch of activity. I’m a pretty sound sleeper, so it didn’t matter if the group was partying later than I was, but on those nights when I wanted to come home and talk about the day, I had plenty of opportunity. Since I’ve been back, I’m really missing the buzz of the SFE.

Once again, I missed most of the panels I wanted to go see, but this was due to actually planning a schedule of meetings, breakfasts, lunches and other events. At first, I was concerned that by over-planning, I would miss out on the serendipity I previously experienced, but in retrospect, the planning allowed me to get together with the people I really needed to see and still allowed me to run into others serendipitously between meetings and at the parties. In fact, recalling previous years, part of the problem I had with the growth of the event was that there were SO MANY people I wouldn’t run into OR meet anyone because it was overcrowded. I’ll definitely be planning all of my future SXSW’s.

Rumor has it that there was something like 24,000 people there for Interactive this year, once again doubling from the previous year (I think I was told 12,000 people attended the previous year). SXSW Interactive has grown into a festival, not a conference. I wonder if they could actually pare back the panels and focus more on the festival stuff. The panels seem to be more of a pre-text for actually attending. I don’t need an excuse. I would go no matter what.

Some observations, too, about the type of people who are attending these days. In 2009/2010, there seemed to be loads of corporate types and self-defined social media ‘gurus’. I think they were still there this year (which is great), but there were also more women and more startups and more angels and venture capitalists. And the corporate sponsors did a GREAT job of being part of the community (as well as serving it well). I thought Samsung did an amazing job of their lounge (bigger and more entertaining than previous years), Chevy did a bang-up job of offering drivers to SXSW Interactive participants and Pepsi had a pretty cool stage area. Nobody stood out as hustler pitch-y or slimy. It was as if they were one of us…but with more money (and the ability to make our experience that much better).

As for standout apps? I really enjoyed my switch to Gowalla this year. I prefer the pins and uncovering fun stuff when I check in rather than competing for an unattainable mayorship. Once I figured out how to use the Android app properly (my bad, but I did corner their Android dev at their party to give usability feedback), it was a great experience and I got the hottest tank top that I can’t wait to sport in Montreal this summer. I was also glad to leave my business cards at home and use Hashable instead. After past SXSW Interactives, I came home with oodles of business cards and the inability to make sense of them. By sending someone a digital business card with notes, I now have a wonderful list of follow ups with context to go through and no stack of wasted paper. I may never order another business card!

I’m actually sort of suffering post-SXSWi depression right now. I think I’ll stick around for music next year so I don’t have to leave right away. It was amazing to see everyone I did and if I didn’t get to see you this year, hit me up for a breakfast/coffee/lunch/drink/taco next year! Now I just need to find a way to keep that magical feeling in my life every single day.

Thank you Hugh Forrest and all of the people who work so hard to make this event so amazing!

A series of events led me recently to decide to make a really big switch – from checking into Foursquare to checking into Gowalla. Yes, Gowalla DOES give you the ability to check in everywhere at once, but there are always switching costs involved in joining a new network. New profile, find your friends. Connect this and connect that. Then learn the new ins and outs. Oh…and in this case, download a new app for my Android. Not to mention that many of my favorite apps are connected into Foursquare (like Runkeeper).

Either way, there are always switching costs. Always. Even when a product is new – like, um, Shwowp – it takes time to set everything up and learn a new behavior. And the higher the switching cost (do I need to give anything up for this switch? will it take a long time?), the less likely a person is to make it. I know this, not as a marketer, but as a customer (I’ve always been a customer first). The prize at the end of that journey (the time/effort put in) has got to outweigh the cost of the journey itself.

So, first let me tell you about my decision tree on the switch.

I’ve been a Foursquare loyalist since 2009 when I signed up for it right before SXSW. Signing up for Foursquare that year had a switching cost in itself. I used Twitter. Why did I need it? Now I’d have to check where my friends were and what they were doing in two places (mind you when Twitter started, I was loyal to Dodgeball, Dennis Crowley’s initial geo-location app). I recall telling Dan Fost in an interview that year that I was ‘yet to be convinced’ by it. Boy did I miss the boat on that one (usually I’m pretty good at picking the winners).

So when Gowalla came along shortly afterwards, I had made my switch and didn’t feel much like budging. I did what most early adopters do. I joined, claimed my ‘missrogue’ url and slapped up a profile pic. That was all you saw on Gowalla for the past 2 years. I had been there. Once.

Then a series of events fell into place that made me think about going back:

1. I spoke at Canada E-Connect, a conference for the Canadian tourism industry. At the dinner the night before my keynote, the group of organizers were having a lively debate on the advantages of Gowalla over Foursquare. They had been incredibly impressed by the Biz Dev guy, who was very responsive and really focused on creating value for their city guides based on checkins. (my status: still unconvinced)
2. The next day after my talk a very sharp dressed guy walked up to me to tell me how much he liked my talk. He happened to be the very same Biz Dev guy the group was impressed with. He introduced himself as Andy Ellwood. (my status: impressed with his style, willing to listen)
3. I ended up going to Andy’s panel on using geo-location for promoting tourism and really loved the way he described what they are doing, “A way to discover the world around you, share it with your friends, and have a record of places you’ve been. A Social Atlas/Digital Passport.” (my status: impressed with his outlook, considering, but still too early to switch)
4. Andy and I then became Twitter friends and went back and forth a bit here and there. I liked the way he thought about many things. (my status: liked Andy himself, and still considering switching, but not on the top of my priority list)
5. Then I get an email from Foursquare at one of the busiest times of my life. I barely had the chance to scan it, but it went something like, “We’ve limited the number of friends you can have, so we, basically deleted all of your friends except for the first 100.” I told a friend of mine who asked why I wasn’t following him anymore that, “I was too busy to be annoyed at the moment by Foursquare’s move, but I would take action once things died down.” In basic terms, THEY REMOVED THE SWITCHING COST. I had a choice. I could go through my thousands of followers and find my friends and follow them again, or… (my status: It was time to make a decision…and I was annoyed, so it made the decision a little easier)
6. Meanwhile, Andy contacts me to have a drink at SXSW and discuss a really wicked conversation we had on Twitter. Then he gives me the final nudge…mixed with an appropriate amount of guilt ended with a flirty emoticon, “http://gowalla.com/users/missrogue Looks like beginning of something awesome. =)”. (my status: switching)

It was a perfect switch scenario. A personal relationship formed that made me tempted to switch – in spite of the costs – then the switching costs themselves disappeared. I most likely would have switched anyway. Andy won me over. I’ve known Dennis and Naveen for ages. Not on a deep buddy-buddy level, but I had a Shake Shack shake with Naveen a couple of years back and Dennis came to a book launch party that Brian Solis and I co-hosted when our books came out. Enough to say I had a closer relationship to them than anyone from Gowalla. I still really like Dennis and Naveen, so it’s nothing personal to them. And the nice part of all of this is that I still get to ‘use’ Foursquare when I’m using Gowalla, so at the end of the day, I can be friends with everyone.

Oh…and as an added bonus: When I complained like a princess on Twitter that I would have to sit and approve friend requests all night in this switch, Andy ‘fixed’ the issue in about 5 minutes. He gave me my very own ‘approve all’ button.

The lessons here for anyone running a startup, whether you are the market leader or not:

1. Personal relationships reduce switching costs. They bring loyalty. And they matter more than anything else.
2. Reduce all other switching costs. Technical (make it dead simple). Time (make it fast). Emotional (make it compelling). Etc. (ask yourself what the switching costs are for the people you want to have use your service over other ones – even if there aren’t direct competitors – Gowalla is smart to integrate with everything else).
3. And if you are the leader, don’t take your lead for granted! Think logically about what you are changing for your users. You may be giving them the perfect OUT for making that change they have already considered. This doesn’t mean you lock people in (that’s an out in itself). It means that YOU SHOULDN’T GIVE THEM THE REASON TO LEAVE.

Off to give Gowalla a whirl. And looking forward to our drink, Andy!