Seth hits the nail on the head in this presentation by saying that we all have a little part of our brain that can cause projects to collapse. It’s the little part of our brain that says “If I do this, I might fail” or “What if it doesn’t work?” or even “This is totally going against the rules or the status quo”.

What he tells us is that we all need to quiet the lizard brain to ship. He also mentions that the world does not lack creative ideas. What we do lack is the ability to ship products.  Delays are usually caused by too many people getting in the way of your project by thrashing at it with too many of their own ideas.

Thrashing is ok but If you want to do this, make sure to do it early on in the concept stage as it doesn’t take much time or money to revise. Once it’s in development, quiet the lizard brain and get out of the way.

I have been blessed to work with some amazing developers who have seen the vision and built amazing things in such short periods of time.

Here are just a few projects that shipped:

Projects don’t take time to ship as long as you don’t get bogged down in the minor details and you make sure to quiet the lizzard brains that surround you every day.

Stay tuned for more things to ship…

Ok, so I didn’t technically just meet Ashton Kutcher, but I just became his first follower on Google Buzz.  That is not really anything special when you think about it because, by the time the day’s over he’ll probably have thousands of followers given that he has about 4.5 million followers on Twitter.

What’s really cool is the ability to communicate directly with people you’d never thought you could bringing the world one degree closer.  What’s also exciting is that we are experiencing the birth and adoption of so many new technologies today and one day we’ll be able to tell our grandchildren about how we were there when these technologies that we use everyday were just released to the public.  I’m starting to feel really old.

BTW….If you haven’t seen it, you have to see Kevin Kelly’s classic TED talk on the first and next 5000 days of the web. It’s a little old (like a couple years ago), but it really puts things into perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDYCf4ONh5M

Just to finish up here. I understand that this post is probably the geekiest thing I’ll ever say but it seemed cool at the time. Contrary to what my wife says, that IS the real Ashton Kutcher…it has to be right?

My first impression is that Buzz is a way more useful social/sharing tool than Google Wave is as it’s fast,  there is no need to sign up and you don’t have to wait for that elusive invite.  You are also automatically connected to all your gmail contacts. My Gmail contacts are different from my Facebook or Linkedin contacts, but you can search publicly for anyone with a gmail account which makes it very cool…yet creepy. The true beauty of Buzz is in it’s mobile functionality. You can check the people buzzing around and engage in conversations that you normally wouldn’t be able to do very well on Twitter. I also noticed that people seem to listen better in Buzz. I can see a lot of cases where you can walk into a neighborhood and ask for help by surrounding buzzers or offer geo located services in real-time. This type of technology also allows for GeoSpam but there will always be people looking to abuse anything if it becomes popular. That’s why you haven’y heard about too many Google Wave scams recently or the great Orkut scam of 2010.

Again, time will tell if Buzz becomes something that we really need. Right now, we mostly connect using  Facebook and Twitter but I remember a time when MySpace was all the buzz.

I’m just sayin’

I thought it would be fitting to post my favorite Steve Jobs quotes:

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

“It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

“You’ve baked a really lovely cake, but then you’ve used dog sh*% for frosting.”

There you have it. Words of wisdom from Steve Jobs. Whatever comes out today, I’m sure it’s going to change the game for a few industries.

We’re all waiting….

Think about it for a second. Twitter relies heavily on “power users” to keep it alive and so does Wikipedia. Only 1 or 2 percent of Wikipedia visitors actively contribute  and about 10% of Twitter users actively Tweet so Twitter’s not doing too shabby.

I do believe that Twitter is becoming the real pulse of the planet, and you might not need too much growth for that to remain true. What Twitter might need to do is research what makes a “power user” tick and figure out how to keep them happy just as Wikipedia needs to rely on their power users to stay alive.

Twitter is for people who know people are listening, and think that people are listening. It’s contribution function was designed and serves a purpose for a very specific type of person.

My wife is not concerned about getting on Twitter because she has no desire to contribute as she would also never update a Wikipedia entry. That being said, if she Google’s something and sees a link to Wikipedia or finds a tweet, she won’t hesitate to click, thus bringing trust in her answers. As results appear in Google, non-power users will begin to rely on the value of real-time results. And for the record, my wife does not care about how amazing real-time data is….in her eyes, she thought she was already looking at real-time data.

I’m not concerned about Twitter’s flattening growth as long as they allow their data to flow freely so that non-users can easily find information. Thanks to Google and Bing, this is starting to hit the broader mainstream…. and thanks to Google, Wikipedia exists, just look at the top 3 results when you want to learn something.  A lot of non-Twitter users don’t really find the need for Twitter, but again, “non-tech” users weren’t necessarily dying for Wikipedia…it just happened…thanks to their power users.  It would be weird if Wikipedia no longer existed, and people will feel the same way about Twitter one day as well.

Keep the the power users happy and make sure there are enough situated around the world, and everything will be just fine.

• Try your best to come up with a name that ends in a .com. Unless your planning on doing charity work, go with the .org. How many great .net names have you been to lately?
• Avoid using  hyphens in your domain at all costs. Imagine telling someone to go to your great site over the phone. “Go to awesome..dash..site…no wait..awesome..hyphen..ahh forget it.”.
• Try saying the domain name 3 times fast without stumbling. Wikipedia seems kind of long but say it 3 times fast
• Don’t try to get a generic name like (FlashGames.com) unless you are purely focusing on driving traffic from search engines and don’t care about being a true leader in your space.
• Coming up with a one word generic domain  is near impossible unless you’ve been sitting on it since 1996 or you have money burning a hole in your pocket.
• Don’t make it confusing to type by adding a number. Is it Website1.com or websiteone.com?
• Avoid coming up with a name that may be confused with a plural. (Example: Is it GreatThing.com or GreatThings.com)
• Alliteration sometimes helps people remember things better and it may give a nice ring to your domain name. Names like  Marylin Munroe, Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse roll off the tongue nicely.
• Don’t get too crazy with a domain extension hack. Many folks can’t tell the difference between an address bar and a search box, and now you want them to remember rid.iculo.us?
• Slightly misspelling a name can be a good idea and works well for Digg, Google, LinkinPark. Hey , if you can’t get that one word domain, add a letter or replace a few:)
• Try blending two words together to come up with a unique name like Expedia or Travelocity.
• It’s ok to make words up completely like Vizu, Weebly, Posterous.
• Try combining two words together like Foursquare or Techcrunch.

Once you’ve come up with a few ideas, head on over to DomainTyper and go nuts. This is a great tool that’ll let you know right away whether a domain name is taken or not without a page refresh.

In the end, it’s really about creating useful products that solve real problems for people and generally make their lives easier but coming up with a unique, easy to spell domain name does not hurt at all.

Here are a couple of things that are encouraged if you want to sabotage your online sales:

• Make a very long vertical navigation of product categories.

The more you sell, the more they scroll.
Your average visits will most definitely increase, but you’ll confuse the heck out of your potential customers.

Running an e-commerce site is like running a fast food chain. Next time you walk into your local Burger King take a look at their menu. It’s pretty much the same online, you have about 4 seconds to capture your visitors attention. Narrow your focus on your top sellers and be available if they ask for something special. If you can’t simplify your product range, continue to keep it simple and build awesome search capabilities.

• Create a multi-page checkout process.

You lose 50% of your traffic on every click and you do not want to lose anyone who’s so close to buying your latest and greatest invention.

While we’re on the topic of the checkout process, avoid making it mandatory for your customers to create an account on your site, you may be able to retain some customers, but many will fall through the cracks.

The list of mistakes are virtually endless so as I launch and break, I’ll learn and post.

This wonderful colleague of mine went as far as sending me a “cease and desist” letter trying to stop me from wearing the same clothes as him. I still cannot locate the contact info of his lawer.

I figured the only thing I could do at this point is this. I figured that paying “homage” to his family name would ease the tension in the office .

For some weird reason, I don’t think that helped. Anywho, his last name online now belongs to me but I will be very respectfull of his family name as I’m now technically part of the family now