Ditching the word “Incubator.”

As many of you know, I’ve been spending a lovely summer here at Betaworks (despite the fact they are located in NYC). Since I’ve been here, I’ve been thinking about the use of the term “Incubator.” Incubators these day tend to spawn images of Y Combinator and Y Combinator clones. There’s no doubt that these programs are great, but based on my understanding of them and my own experience in Facebook Fund’s REV incubation program, these programs are more about education than launching real companies. I won’t deny that they do launch some great companies, but it seems the vast majority of these companies end up spinning their wheels. Now, just like real summer camps, there is definitely a place for 3-month-long start up camps, but I don’t think we should kid ourselves about whether that is actually the right environment to build a company.

Betaworks, on the other hand, is really building companies. The companies that exist in Betaworks (Chartbeat, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck among them) are not there because they couldn’t exist elsewhere, they’re not there to hang out and be educated. There are no office hours or guest lecturers (okay, there are a few of those), nothing like this. There are a groups of people working, attempting to build companies that create value, and share resources with each other. Betaworks is not just educating these companies on how to be entrepreneurs, they’re taking real professionals and putting them into a new environment. They’re working with these companies day in and day out to really build something. 

To me, these are not the same thing at all. The summer-camp-y image of today’s “incubators” really clash with the hard and sustained work that these guys are doing. I would love to see more work in incubating companies in this long-term manner, but to do that, I think we’re going to need a better word to describe what, exactly, is going on here. Betaworks has discussed the term “accelerator” in the past, and I’ve been thinking about the word “green house.” How would you describe this?

“Fun is just another word for learning. Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun. With games, learning is the drug.”

Raph Koster (via)

I’ll take a second to point out that much of the thinking around social gaming at the moment is a bit surprising to me - why is it that people view gaming on a social level as a “hits based business”? Why are Zynga and others cranking out game after game, while we watch other social gaming (MMOs, MMORPG’s, etc) having years of stability and popularity? 

Here’s the thing: Just as Koster mentions, there’s an element of mastery and the joy of mastery that comes with these MMO’s, and, coupled with the pride one gets from showing off to your peer group (your guild, crew, whatever), this creates its own sort of network effect, creating communities around games that last for years. If you’re at level 70 in World of Warcraft, why would you switch to a new game and start at the bottom of the totem pole? 

So, then, if social gaming on Facebook isn’t showing these effects, then what is going on? There’s two options: 

  1. The developers are not smart enough to develop social games that demonstrate these network effects. I have a hard time believing this, though it is entirely possible: with the gold rush going on in Facebook apps right now, it seems that many developers are just copying what is working for others, rather than developing novel approaches. And if everybody’s just copying and iterating on everybody else, that means we’ve got a whole bunch of exploration in one narrow channel. 
  2. People don’t want to play skill-based games on Facebook. I hadn’t thought of this idea until recently, and it makes perfect sense to me now that I’ve thought of it. One of Facebook’s biggest problems is bringing intelligent discussions and movements onto the Facebook platform. What I mean by this is, by and large, when people go online to talk about your favorite sports team, your industry, or your hobbies, they find themselves using other tools - Twitter, blogging, forums, etc. This makes sense: Facebook is for talking to “friends,” but when discussing these other topics, one benefits from talking to others who show related interests, even though they are not necessarily your friends. In the same manner, if a person is going to invest time in becoming “good” at a game, why do it where your skill is only visible to the small group around you. For hardcore gamers, they already have a community that they are a part of and “want to impress.” As for those that are new to social gaming, they are either facing a small world of friends on the game (and if you’re the first, why bother getting good at the game when no one else might ever appreciate your efforts?), or a world too crowded with strangers when you expected to find friends. 

Just some random thoughts. Perhaps someone with more experience in the social gaming world would care to pick my argument to smithereens in the comments. 

Design & behavior change for AT&T’s problems

    If you’re an Apple fan, you’re probably aware that AT&T recently switched from the hallmark “unlimited” plan for Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices to a segmented data plan - 250 MB and 2 GB (don’t worry - if you already have an iPhone or iPad, your current plan isn’t changing). To make things simple, and more humorous, I will henceforth refer to the iPhone/iPad as the “iPhad.” Anyways.
    In my mind, this is a pretty big mistake on AT&T’s part, in terms of the experience they provide for the iPhad. As Chris Andersen likes to say, there’s a big difference between $0.00 and $0.01, or in this case, 2 GB and unlimited. Even though AT&T claims that 65% of their users would be content with the 250 MB plan, and a further 98% with the 2 GB plan, there’s still a big difference. One of the contributing factors is that the average person has no idea what 250 MB or 2 GB looks like*. Nor do they know how much data each of their individual actions takes up - how much data is a Foursquare checkin? A tweet? An email download? This, by the way, is the same problem that people have with counting calories. Many will just try to cut back, and be mindful of their data usage - calling the theater instead of checking Fandango, etc. And the experience of the iPhad is ruined (my bet is that Jobs is pissed. All you that have been waiting for a Verizon iPhone, well, I’d start paying attention now).

    It might seem that this is the only option for AT&T, as this little chart shows, data usage is going up. Way up. But that’s not necessarily true.

    Let’s start by doing a quick and very, VERY oversimplified rundown of how AT&T’s (and others) cell service works. These telecoms have backbone networks underneath all the areas of the U.S. that they service. These are the same cables that deliver internet service to your house. As I understand it, these cables are chugging along fine, and aren’t really in that much danger of being overwhelmed. The problem lies in the cell phone towers themselves - cell phone towers connect to a limited number of cell phones or wireless devices in its covered area, transferring and connecting data to them. The cell towers are connected to the network infrastructure in the ground. So, the issue is when too much data centers around one tower - that’s what makes the network run slow and shitty. That’s why I can’t post tweets during a Sharks game at HP Pavilion, yet have no problem with posting about my favorite chocolate at Woodside’s fairly underpopulated Robert’s grocery store.

    It’s true. Limiting data plans will decrease the overall load on the network, which will include these overloaded cell towers. But why not try by addressing the problem directly - those overloaded cell towers? How might AT&T recreate the experience on overloaded cell towers so as to provide better service to all its consumers? I don’t have the winning answer to this, but I think you could get creative about it. Here’s one solution I might try.

    While the status updates are already a little much - at the top of my screen, I get my network information (signal strength, 3G or EDGE network), the time, and my battery life. But it might be worthwhile to put in a fourth - the amount of bandwidth I have in this connection. This could actually be limited (for example, if 5 users are connected to a cell tower, each gets 20% of the bandwidth, or more likely, a more complicated model), or just a “suggestion” (there are 50 other people on this tower, so that means you ought to aim for a lower data consumption).

    Tragedy of the commons aside, we really do know how to share resources if you put us in the right position. I’d even argue that we know how to share bandwidth (I think of slow connection days with my brother yelling at my sister to stop streaming Hulu so he can play video games). But we get the concept of “our fair share,” and we don’t hold people in contempt if they relegate us to our fair share. Having information about how much bandwidth is available due to the number of other people on the network can start to dip into strong social instincts. Researchers have found that sharing how much energy neighbors use will decrease heavy energy-users use. So, even if you don’t actually limit the amount of bandwidth so everyone is getting a “fair” amount, people will naturally begin self-regulating and this, in turn, will naturally help AT&T’s issues with network usage.

    Further, even just having feedback and predictability about the service quality we’re getting will reduce anger about it - partly because the user can now take steps to do something about it (they have more control). Having more control over a situation almost always reduces stress about that situation. When I can’t place a call in an area with 2-bars, I gently curse AT&T, move to an area with better signal, get over it and make my call. If I can’t make a call with 5 bars, I curse AT&T and don’t know what to do about it. By limiting the amount of data I have available to me on a crowded cell tower, I might realize that Union Square is not the place to be streaming Netflix, and I might opt for a lower-bandwidth activity instead**. In addition, this change would encourage iPhad users to connect to wireless networks instead of cellular networks naturally - there’s nothing more rewarding than a big fat 100% or full 5 bars - further helping AT&T’s network load.

    When the cell phone was invented, it was invented purely for the purpose of making voice calls. Or, if I was feeling really adventurous, I might send an SMS, but that still traveled over the voice network. If I wanted to make a call, the quality of said call was purely a matter of how well connected I was to the nearest cellular tower. Nowadays, we’re connected to two different, completely separate modes of data transfer - that same voice network, and the newer data networks. But instead of building a mental model that these two modes are different (as they have by providing a separate signal for wi-fi connectivity), cellphone hardware’s reliance on those little signal bars communicates to consumers that they’re one and the same. It makes sense to delineate these different networks, because they are different. One of the basic tenants of interaction design is to provide feedback. Currently, no provider is doing that for these data networks. So, it just makes sense that we do. The fact that this feedback might change our behavior is just a plus. Sure, we might have to rethink this when we start on 4G networks, but for now, that’s a ways into the future for the AT&T locked-in iPhad users.

* Sure, the users most likely to know what this looks like are those data hogs that AT&T is going after. But really, soon we’re all going to be datahogs (video on iPhone 4, anybody?), and even while we’re not, it still ruins the experience for the rest of us.

** When you think about these examples, you realize these types of behaviors might even increase the sales of AT&T Microcells and similar products - if I understand that bandwidth is a shared resource, and I can pay a one-time $150 fee to have my own personal stock, this might make more sense to me than paying $150 to access a network I’m already paying for.

Did Facebook make the mistake of assuming their only comparative advantage was their sheer number of users?

The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly… Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.

- Mark Zuckerberg (via)

I believe Facebook would make more money if they allowed more privacy in their system. To me, regardless of whether Facebook’s privacy policy is “good” or not, I think from Facebook’s perspective, they’ve missed a huge opportunity to re-imagine privacy - to their benefit. There was a chance for Facebook to take their customer’s expectations for privacy and turn that into a real opportunity for themselves. To me, the difference between Facebook and Google, both data mining companies, is this: Google creates products built for me and my needs and uses data to pay for it, versus Facebook, who is currently building a product to get my data. I believe Facebook could be in a position to balance both, and do it well. So, let’s take a minute to consider a little informal history of Facebook.

Three or four years ago, Facebook was actually a very private place. In the midst of the internet, a place that at that time was open and flat, Facebook came up. Instead of having any given comment, quip or photo broadcasted to the millions on the internet, these morsels were broadcasted to friends and peers. When you thought about what that experience was like for the users, they believed Facebook was a trusted source for managing their identity and communications with friends. I say trusted, because they knew who they were talking to, they weren’t worried about information escaping this closed system - on a scale that was revolutionary for the internet, Snapfish aside. They had their own space, space where they could collect messages from their friends, and display their photos - they had control over your profile. At this point, users were complaining they didn’t have the customization that Myspace allowed. The other users of this system were students, generally at their own school, and this affected how students created their profile - think, classic Facebook party photos (things you actually probably wouldn’t want to share outside of your friends), versus the resume they might put up on Linkedin. Even when high school students were brought onto Facebook, the dynamic was very similar. Also remember, at this stage, how recruiters began spying on student’s Facebook profiles before hiring them. There was a general outrage over this because it broke the social standards and conception people had about Facebook use.

Then, Facebook got big. When Facebook opened its doors to the world, all of a sudden, it was no longer a place for students. Suddenly, people were not just talking to their peers, they were talking to their family and work colleagues and god knows who else. They had to figure out how to display an identity that can fit for all these different components of their life. The separation between work and play had suddenly been yanked down. Think of the Facebook conundrum of, “Should I friend my boss on Facebook?” Even new users weren’t sure about how to manage this new paradigm, since they’d been privy to a story about Facebook use that centered around their friends and social circle. At the same time, changes in people’s Facebook profiles meant that these were no longer their spaces, but rather a center for information about their actions, statements, and what was said about them. As people lost control over this space, and more action moved to the News Feed, the sense ownership over this space fell quickly.

Now, of course, we have the outcry around Facebook privacy - websites like Openbook  driving that, and commentators from the NYT to various personalities crying foul. Facebook didn’t think clearly about the thing that attracted people to their product in the first place, and so not only did they undermine the reason to use their product for many people, but they also destroyed the advantage their brand held in the realm of privacy. I believe that Facebook is trying to create opportunities to make data more “sellable” or “mineable,” and also encourage new areas of conversation on Facebook - instead of discussing who dumped who, but the latest movie or new album release. It’s not a mistake that the second class of items is vastly more sellable than the first. But in their rush to do this, they’ve gone after models they see that work - Twitter being a big and not so subtle influence on Facebook - instead of trying to re-imagine what they could do given their product and the relationship people had with it. And when they do this, they’re implicitly comparing Facebook to Twitter, as if the two services were offering the same thing to customers. But they’re not the same.

It’s clear people are happy to talk to people they don’t know online - they even want to do so. But many people want to have relationships and conversations online that are different, and often protected from their real life identities. Chatroulette, the current iconic leader for talking to strangers online, offers a certain level of privacy - the lack of even a username to track a person down leads to anonymity. And the Internet, from Fake Steve Jobs to Poblano, is littered with mythology of anonymity. Indeed, one of the advantages of anonymity is the flattening effect it has - the Korean nobody who became a leading economic commentator, the 14 year old leading a guild, and the women finding second careers on Etsy who overcome their real world situation to craft new identities online. Not only that, but this diversity is part of what makes the conversation so fantastic. But for this type of exploration, conversation and behavior to take place on Facebook’s turf, there has to be trust in Facebook, trust that multiple identities can be managed from one account, that things won’t go spilling out from one identity to another. This is a huge challenge in terms of experience, interface, and structure, but it’s something I believe Facebook could have tackled head on. It is hard because there is no current model for what this could look like, but that’s also what makes it such a large opportunity.

Moving forward, regardless of whether Facebook’s privacy policy is “right” or “wrong,” or “good” or “bad,” Facebook needs to think about the business case for leaving the policy as is or changing it. Facebook had, at one point, a strong sense of privacy throughout their network. Facebook seems the ideal tool to managing your network of friends, family, peers, colleagues and acquaintances. The thing is, if Facebook leaves more control over what is shown to who, people will use it to share more. And it doesn’t matter whether a person is starkly segmenting their different identities, or if they’re an open book. Facebook can connect that data under one account, and paint a very sellable, mineable picture of it’s users. After all, you can’t read what’s in my email account, but Google definitely “knows” that my Flickr pro account is about to expire, that I run a blog about design, and even about my not-so-secret obsession with Alexander Wang (all very sellable information).

Do you know what your biggest risks are? Really?

I’ve been spending some time at the Stanford business school, taking a class on venture viability research. What’s surprised me in particular, though, is the weakness people have in assessing risks. It’s funny, because assessing risk isn’t actually that hard. So let me explain why it gets people.

I’m going to assume that there are three types of risk:

The first type of risk is the “out of left field” risks. These are the risks that you didn’t know about, and couldn’t possibly predict - some might refer to these in other circumstances as “black swans.” For example, the risk that a volcano in Iceland explodes and grounds all air traffic to and from Europe for a week. These are indeed dangerous, but there is not much to be done besides doing a healthy amount of research so we make sure these risks are really coming out of left field and not something we should have known about. Indeed, doing more would probably be a waste of your time.

The second type of risk is the type of risk that people are most familiar with, and good at, assessing. These are the “know all about it” risks. We find these through our research, and we can get pretty good at knowing how much of a risk they really are through research. Most importantly, though, is the fact that we can prepare for these risks, and do things to minimize them. No one teaches risk assessment without also teaching risk management and minimization. We know what they are, so we’re prepared to do battle.

It’s the last type of risk that really gets us. It’s the “didn’t assume it would be an issue” risks. What exactly does that mean? Exactly what it implies - we actually knew about the risk, we just didn’t assume it would be an issue. It was a self inflicted blindspot, something we’re not monitoring as we would a risk we knew about. And why would we do that? Quite simply, we make an assumption. We don’t often take the time to test our assumptions. But these are crucial to our success - if we’re assuming something, we’re generally not concerning ourselves much with that assumption. We understand this intuitively, we tend to pity those who have been damned by this tendency - the music industry, publishing industry and soon the tv industry.

But think about your own projects you might be working on… Are you making a news reader and assuming people still subscribe to RSS feeds? Are you starting a bookstore and assuming people still buy books at bookstores? Are you building an iPhone app for TV and assuming people want to watch TV all by themselves?

What fascinates me is the opportunity for some of designer’s softer skills to help here. So much of the design process is just about testing assumptions. Design research, that initial stage, is said to be most successful when you “look at the world through a child’s eyes,” questioning everything. This allows you to make assumptions based on what you see actually going on in the world, as opposed to preconceived notions of your predictions. Then, one refines the assumption’s language and credibility through continued research. But everyone’s favorite way to test assumptions is prototyping, building something to test that assumption.

Here’s my generalized advice: I’d begin by making a list of key assumptions you’re making - a lot of these happen to be the main features of your project, and your justification for why you’ll succeed. Then, plan out how you’re going to make sure you’re right - questions, research, and prototypes (even if it seems obvious, spending a minute to double check even in just a vague manner isn’t a bad idea). Then go out and try to kill your blind spots.

Spring Break

Ah, spring break. For this week, I’ve headed back to Park City, Utah. As many of you know, I [ski] raced here in high school and some of college. One of the single things I love about coming back here is the way that it makes me feel. There’s something peaceful about being here, but something that reminds me of what’s important in life.

I love the chance to just get outside, feel the mountain air and just sweat a little. It’s true, I’m out of shape and my back is destroyed, but it feels good to move. It feels good to ski, to have the quietness and the focus of the rhythm.

Mistakes are something that everyone likes to talk about, mistakes and failure being one of the things that Silicon Valley is all about, that you have to do to learn during school. But it doesn’t always feel like that. I love the feeling I get, looking around and seeing people who have made mistakes - whether that was not following what you should have in college, or driving a bus full of kids into a river, or dating your future husband’s best friend - I’m reminded that life moves on, and you can get past it. Nothing is the end of the world.

Most of all, though, I love being with my friends. The feeling of relaxing with a group of people, no show, no glitz, just a group of people enjoying being together. It’s amazing how no one ever makes time for this anymore, it’s amazing to me that we don’t leave our troubles behind to just let ourselves enjoy the company of people who matter to us. No matter what you do, there’s always this. It’s been a long time since I spent so much time smiling, laughing, and fighting over food.

If there’s one thing I have to remember to take back with me, it’s a little bit of laughter.

Emergent Branding at the Olympics

Photo from Julia Mancuso’s Facebook.

I was slightly amused by the media this past Olympics. It was interesting to me. For several years now, Lindsey Vonn has spoken about her desire to be the “next Picabo Street,” to be the American woman ski racer. To that end, Lindsey has spent lots of time perfecting her image, refining her message, and generally allowing herself to be the center of the five-ring circus that is the Olympics. This sort of messaging is familiar and comfortable to the media: they know how to do interviews. They know how to construct stories and images around an athlete, an athlete that’s undergone media coaching, whose agent or PR person has sit down and constructed a story and image… It’s really not that different from dealing with traditional branding.

On the other hand, there’s athletes like Julia Mancuso. I love Julia. She’s done nothing but focus on having a good time and skiing well, and in turn, that focus has allowed her to win. But, her focus also means that she hasn’t spent a lot of time building her brand or media presence. Instead, Julia has been an avid user of Facebook and Twitter, using these tools to communicate with friends and family. When Julia uses these tools, she sounds like she’s talking to her friends, not the media. And, these facts, combined with her bubbly personality, the fact that she is the most medalled woman skier in US history (yes, even more than Lindsey - she won her gold in ’06 in GS, and two silvers here in Vancouver) and her interesting background (Julia lives in Maui!) have allowed Julia’s reputation to grow in a natural way. Julia has an image, but it wasn’t based on some set of things she wanted to communicate about herself. Julia’s brand is an emergent brand. And while some people are fascinated by this, the media just doesn’t know what to do about it. They quote Julia from her Twitter while complaining that she didn’t go through the media tent after her runs (says Wired: “After her first run of the GS, Mancuso didn’t come through the mixed zone. (Incidentally, this is a big no-no for athletes, who are supposed to have to come by the press, but what are you going to do?) … But about 30 minutes after her run ended, Mancuso posted on Twitter.”), they try to shadow her by Lindsey’s presence. It’s funny to watch Julia too - she doesn’t understand why the media can’t handle her. She told Sports Illustrated, “Why does the media have to have just one star? … It seems like a popularity contest.”

While the media is busy trying to figure out how to deal with Julia and Lindsey’s failure relative to expectations (you can see my view about this on my Society page), there’s another interesting trend. The younger generation is just not watching the Olympics. They’ve moved over to the world of action sports (OK, so they may have watched Shaun White win his gold in the Olympics). At an event like X Games, instead of shuffling competitors through media tents, they’ve first got to walk through the fans - the fans are front and center. Not all these athletes tweet and blog, but their sports are organized throughout to be more approachable to fans: summer camps and promotion events, competitions, and even action sports media. Media focused around action sports tend to encompass a broader range: it’s not just shots of them competing, but shots of them partying, traveling, and training. The athletes are in control of their development as a brand, in conjunction with (not controlled by) their sponsors. The focus is around the athlete as a person, not just a brand. This interaction forces them to be more transparent, and thus, more emergent. Their brand isn’t just what they say it is, but also what the fans say it is, too.

So why are kids attracted to this? Sure, it’s been painted as a “cool” thing to do, but I think there’s something deeper here. Even if you’re not a huge participant in one of these sports, it’s still possible to feel like a fan. These emergent brands feel authentic to the fans, they feel like they know something about these athletes that’s unique and personal. I’d say that it’s akin to being a fan of an indie band: the thrill of discovering something new and cool that no one else knows about, and being able to talk about it with authority. Ten years ago, there was a sense of shock and awe at all these crazy sports in the Olympics - man, have you ever heard of curling?! Can you believe that crazy downhill course the skiers are on!? Now, the power to follow these sports is just a Google search away, and it doesn’t feel that out there. If we want to engage the next generation in the Olympics, we’ve got to give them room to feel like an authentic fan of these sports and athletes. And while the media and misguided Olympians might focus on deriving an image and distributing that image through as many articles, interviews and TV segments they can, others will reach out directly to the fans, and make them feel like they really know what’s going on.

Oh, and speaking of emergent behaviors, dang! - those Canadians are really fans of the stadium-wide wave.

Lastly, a quick thank you to Michael Spencer of Ego Sports Management for helping to develop these thoughts; he is one of the smartest people involved in action and Olympic sports.