The City Gets It….Do We?

I wondered in 2009 and 2010 why the government of New York City seemed so far behind in making the city a digital hub, especially since New York is the only city in America actually run by a tech entrepreneur.  Last year, and now in the start of 2012, all that is changing…

I’m a moderate liberal in terms of politics, but I don’t believe that far outdated cliche that a liberal wants government to do everything.  Rather, the best place for government is to foster ideas in the private sector, support where it can, and provide services which it is better suited to provide than the private sector (such as mass transit, where the necessity to serve the greatest part of the city’s population as is possible should outweigh the profit motive).  Either way, the city has taken two large and important steps toward ensuring its digital future:

The first was the $100 million contest to build an engineering school, which was won by a joint bid between Technion and Cornell (a second-rate hockey school, if that).  This will be vitally important for adding new engineers to the ecosystem, and the first large startup that comes out of this school and headquarters in New York will more than make up for the city’s investment through direct and ancillary economic activity.  It’s a perfect example of public-private partnership gone right.

The next amazing step is the Software Engineering Academy, backed by Fred Wilson and slated to open in Union Square this fall.  This is a tremendous opportunity to start ‘em young, as they say….I loved my high school but our only “computer” education was, I kid you not, a very basic course on the COREL OFFICE SUITE.  I know everything I do through learning and self-instruction, but this will be great for the students of NYC.  In fact, 2 suggestions: the NYC startup community should provide engineers as adjunct instructors to the school, and we should all team up to support a Virtual Enterprise program at the school……in fact, I’m going to send an email about that this afternoon.

On the other hand, we have the recent board elections for the NY Tech Meetup, the pre-eminent grassroots community for the NYC entrepreneurship scene.  I think Brandon Diamond was a phenomenal choice, and he’ll represent the community well, but one thing stands out for me:

3% voter turnout

That is completely unacceptable for the group and reflects badly on its members.  The future of NYTM, and the community at large, is not just the city’s responsibility, or the executive board’s responsibility; it’s our responsibility.  In 2012 we should continue to support these efforts but also take ownership of the future of our city and our community.

“Jimmy Died Today”

Jimmy died today,
He blew his brains out into the bay,
In the state of mind,
In my own private suicide……

- Green Day, “The Death of St. Jimmy”

I’m finally back, and once again resolving to stick with this blog.  As the year 2012 dawns, I want to reflect on these lyrics, even though the American Idiot album has been around for many years.

I’ve listened to the album many times (many more after seeing the show on Broadway, which was great), but a few weeks ago I nodded off on the Long Island Rail Road and woke up right as those lyrics were playing….and after all these years, I finally fully grasped their meaning.

For those who have never listened to American Idiot, or need a refresher course, there are three main characters: Jesus of Suburbia, his girlfriend (Whatsername), and St. Jimmy, Jesus’ new friend who introduces him to drugs and the underbelly when he moves to a new city.  However, later in the album, it’s revealed that St. Jimmy isn’t a character at all - he’s the main character’s alter ego. 

You’re Not the Jesus of Suburbia,
The St. Jimmy is a figment of -
Your father’s rage and your mother’s love,
Made me the Idiot America….

- Green Day, “Letterbomb” 

In that way, St. Jimmy didn’t commit suicide in the traditional sense…..Jesus of Suburbia killed a part of him that he finally realized wasn’t serving him and was in fact causing problems.

We all have the St. Jimmy in our lives, whether it’s a bad habit, our inner wantrepreneur trying to stop us from achieving our dreams, or something altogether entirely.  Either way, let’s commit to this year bringing the death of all these St. Jimmys.

Here’s to a great year!

The Post-PC World Isn’t Coming…

…For many, it’s already here.

I graduated college 4 years ago, and while I go back to commiserate with a former professor who has become an adviser, mentor, and friend, I don’t have as much interaction with current students.  That changed last week, because I was up to help promote the Boston Startup Weekend (which will be held at BU October 14-16, for those interested).  This involved a lot of meetings with students.

4 years doesn’t feel like a long time, but we all know it’s an eternity in tech, and I was amazed by the changes I saw.  The biggest one, which may seem minor but is a major harbinger of things to come, was the proliferation of Macs.  I went to the School of Management at BU, and as a result nobody, literally nobody, had a Mac.  That’s all now changed.  Macs were anywhere from 30-50% of the computers that I saw when observing students, which is an unbelievable jump.

This has major implications moving forward, and it’s something I’m trying to dive right into with the creation of Fahros.  It’s a natural progression from my realization that younger relatives of mine will never know a world without iPads and tablet computing in general: in a few years, students who may have never used a Windows-based PC will be entering the workforce.  

This is a new paradigm for corporate IT, and very few companies are truly equipped for it.  This will create a huge disparity in expectations between new employees and companies, and it will create parallel challenges in management and systems support for these companies.

It’s yet another way corporate IT is changing, and the world won’t wait for the stragglers to catch up.

Challenge Your Mental Models

One of my favorite books is The Power of Impossible Thinking, which, among other things, is a call for people to think about the subconscious beliefs underlying our decisions, called “mental models.”  It’s very important to consider any mental models that may be contained within your startup, business, or technical system.

For example, last year I was in Boston as part of the UK Trade & Investment cloud computing mission, with my job at the time.  One stop on our journey was Akamai, where we heard a talk by Chief Security Officer Andy Ellis and toured the Akamai NOC.  Little did I know how profound and inspiring that talk would end up being.

At one point, Andy started talking about system availability, which for the uninitiated is exactly what it sounds like it is.  Traditionally, companies measure system availability by the amount of uptime, or the time a system is connected to a network and responsive.

Akamai, as a global content delivery network with a distributed architecture, realized this measurement made no sense for their needs.  Instead, they decided to measure availability on a transaction level - the system counted as available if content was successfully delivered, regardless of how it was done.  The cloud has changed everything in IT, so it made sense to make this change.

As you build your product, run your startup, or work within your company, think about the underlying mental models that support the decisions you make and the assumptions you hold.  There could easily be an opportunity, like Akamai had, to completely re-imagine a metric or belief to be more relevant to you and your mission.

Get to it - take a breath before every decision and examine those mental models.