>Hey GuyR – Can You Explain This? Please?

>What is it about the southern hemisphere? Not enough ozone? Too much agricultural flatulence? Increased lifestyle risks associated with Socialized Medicine?

Ever heard of Steve Irwin?

http://www.thefishingshow.co.nz/video

digg

Hey GuyR – Can You Explain This? Please?

What is it about the southern hemisphere? Not enough ozone? Too much agricultural flatulence? Increased lifestyle risks associated with Socialized Medicine?

Ever heard of Steve Irwin?

http://www.thefishingshow.co.nz/video

digg

>Dude.

>1971. Col. Bruce Hampton. Music to Eat. Happy New Year Hendon!

Contents under pressure.
Do not puncture or incinerate.
Yeooowwww!

I had no idea he’d released a new album November of last year.

Crunchy Crunky
Hot Southern Grits and
Smoked Sausage Chunky
Scattered Smothered and Covered
Jerry Garcia
Frank Zappa
Les Claypool
Country
Fried
Funky

Official home page and sample here.

Check it out. Crunk it up.

Available via iTunes.

Dude.

Dude.

1971. Col. Bruce Hampton. Music to Eat. Happy New Year Hendon!

Contents under pressure.
Do not puncture or incinerate.
Yeooowwww!

I had no idea he’d released a new album November of last year.

Crunchy Crunky
Hot Southern Grits and
Smoked Sausage Chunky
Scattered Smothered and Covered
Jerry Garcia
Frank Zappa
Les Claypool
Country
Fried
Funky

Official home page and sample here.

Check it out. Crunk it up.

Available via iTunes.

Dude.

>Great Answer. Wrong question.

>Design Review navigation? Yes.

Design Review functionality: View? Print? Measure? Markup? Select? Move? Isolate? Slice? No.

Reset Current View function? Mildly Ironic.

Overall Rating: Stop funding Clever and start funding Useful.

There’s actually quite a bit of potential here if someone would put this idea back in the oven.

Great Answer. Wrong question.

Design Review navigation? Yes.

Design Review functionality: View? Print? Measure? Markup? Select? Move? Isolate? Slice? No.

Reset Current View function? Mildly Ironic.

Overall Rating: Stop funding Clever and start funding Useful.

There’s actually quite a bit of potential here if someone would put this idea back in the oven.

>Cousin Camp

>It’s that time of the year again. Cousin Camp.

It’s Camp. For Cousins. It’s a Family Reunion without all of the complications and messy politics. Kids don’t understand that stuff. Maybe they shouldn’t. Because as the sky is blue they believe everyone gets along with everyone else and we adults all love each other as much as we love them and they love their cousins.

And for the forth year in a row, my sister Carolina has organized, planned and even conscripted my nephews as camp councilors. That’s her in the photo to the above, with my daughter Millicent. On a side note, Mills has a very evolving fashion sense and since the age of 6 insisted she needs a cell phone. To call her friend. That lives next door.

What’s a dad to do. Hunter? Dave?

Carolina lives in Gumlog, Georgia. Her wonderful husband Ricky is a local contractor and the hardest working man I know. They have two sons: one is in high school studying the opposite sex and the other is in college studying Architecture (which of course includes the studies of the a fore mentioned younger brother).

And for the past three years she’s taken time off work as a nurse in order to create a wonderful, loving and artificially fun filled week of activities for six children. Six children that aren’t even her own. Why she does this is between her and the angels. Activities include:

• Matching Themed T-shirts
• Golf Lessons
• Fire Works and Laser Shows at Stone Mountain, Ga.
• Six Flags
• Water Park
• Steam Train Excursion
• Boating
• Fishing
• Marsh Mellow Roasting
• Movies
• Bowling
• Camping
• Video Games (limited use)

Uncle Ricky once offered to teach the kids how to butcher a real live farm animal. But the women all agreed that would kind of ruin the overall spirit that is Cousin Camp. Sorry Rick.

Here’s the lot of them the other afternoon at Stone Mountain. Note the sullen teenager to the far right? Sucka! How cool does it look to be surrounded by kids when the oldest is ten? Thanks again cousin Daniel! Uncle Phil will be there on Saturday. Bearing gifts. 🙂

And then, a few months after Cousin Camp – a photo album arrives in the mail, highlighting activities with witty descriptions. Good times.

I don’t know how you threaten your kids: no video games, no TV, no internet, etc. Around my house, the most serious of all threats involve not being permitted to go to Cousin Camp. When Cousin Camp is mentioned, backs straighten, voices still and even broccoli is eaten.

Anyway, none of us are actually sure how much longer Aunt Carolina can keep this up. Not to mention that one of these years, one of these kids (and dearest Allah/God/Budda/Vishnu/SpagettiThing/Etc, please let it be my other sister’s kids…not mine) will sneak beer (or worse) into the sacred confines of Cousin Camp. But Aunt Carolina will know exactly what to do. And it will probably involve saying sorry to baby Jesus and then calling home to confess. As it should be. 🙂

My wife and I are planning to bring Aunt Carolina to Las Vegas this year during AU. If I’m not around, please make sure she doesn’t buy her own drinks. Then come and find me and we’ll settle up.

My kids are so very blessed.

If only every kid in the world had an Aunt Carolina.

Cousin Camp

It’s that time of the year again. Cousin Camp.

It’s Camp. For Cousins. It’s a Family Reunion without all of the complications and messy politics. Kids don’t understand that stuff. Maybe they shouldn’t. Because as the sky is blue they believe everyone gets along with everyone else and we adults all love each other as much as we love them and they love their cousins.

And for the forth year in a row, my sister Carolina has organized, planned and even conscripted my nephews as camp councilors. That’s her in the photo to the above, with my daughter Millicent. On a side note, Mills has a very evolving fashion sense and since the age of 6 insisted she needs a cell phone. To call her friend. That lives next door.

What’s a dad to do. Hunter? Dave?

Carolina lives in Gumlog, Georgia. Her wonderful husband Ricky is a local contractor and the hardest working man I know. They have two sons: one is in high school studying the opposite sex and the other is in college studying Architecture (which of course includes the studies of the a fore mentioned younger brother).

And for the past three years she’s taken time off work as a nurse in order to create a wonderful, loving and artificially fun filled week of activities for six children. Six children that aren’t even her own. Why she does this is between her and the angels. Activities include:

• Matching Themed T-shirts
• Golf Lessons
• Fire Works and Laser Shows at Stone Mountain, Ga.
• Six Flags
• Water Park
• Steam Train Excursion
• Boating
• Fishing
• Marsh Mellow Roasting
• Movies
• Bowling
• Camping
• Video Games (limited use)

Uncle Ricky once offered to teach the kids how to butcher a real live farm animal. But the women all agreed that would kind of ruin the overall spirit that is Cousin Camp. Sorry Rick.

Here’s the lot of them the other afternoon at Stone Mountain. Note the sullen teenager to the far right? Sucka! How cool does it look to be surrounded by kids when the oldest is ten? Thanks again cousin Daniel! Uncle Phil will be there on Saturday. Bearing gifts. 🙂

And then, a few months after Cousin Camp – a photo album arrives in the mail, highlighting activities with witty descriptions. Good times.

I don’t know how you threaten your kids: no video games, no TV, no internet, etc. Around my house, the most serious of all threats involve not being permitted to go to Cousin Camp. When Cousin Camp is mentioned, backs straighten, voices still and even broccoli is eaten.

Anyway, none of us are actually sure how much longer Aunt Carolina can keep this up. Not to mention that one of these years, one of these kids (and dearest Allah/God/Budda/Vishnu/SpagettiThing/Etc, please let it be my other sister’s kids…not mine) will sneak beer (or worse) into the sacred confines of Cousin Camp. But Aunt Carolina will know exactly what to do. And it will probably involve saying sorry to baby Jesus and then calling home to confess. As it should be. 🙂

My wife and I are planning to bring Aunt Carolina to Las Vegas this year during AU. If I’m not around, please make sure she doesn’t buy her own drinks. Then come and find me and we’ll settle up.

My kids are so very blessed.

If only every kid in the world had an Aunt Carolina.

>Two Weeks After the Day After

>Ever driven past the house of an ex?

Yesterday, I actually drove up and talked to some of the people inside.

Yes, they tried to give me beer and break down by inhibitions and I kept bringing up what it was going to cost for what I wanted them to do and they kept bringing up quality and range of services but I kept thinking I was half-buzzed and quality of service wouldn’t really matter cause I was getting sleepy anyway and they kept talking about better interoperability and I kept talking about why should I pay more than their competition was willing to charge me and how this was better for the market cause eventually they’d have to lower their price to align with their competition and this would be better for everyone and then they finally agreed to lower the cost this time but I’d have to pay full price next time but I really won’t.

Overall – everyone was honestly gracious. Hunter wasn’t there, which was a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully we’ll catch up later in the week. But if I remember correctly, he needs to get home promptly on Monday night in order to make sure the staff have polished his Bugatti Veyron collection in the appropriate clock-wise direction (as this is the northern hemisphere) with just the right force, using the 50 year old single malt which he says makes the cars glisten and yet impervious to police radar.

On a side note – I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand the science behind the radar absorbing qualities of expensive Irish beverages. But Hunter drives faster in reverse than most people drive going forward (and he never gets a ticket). How fast? Well, this one time on the way to Rhode Island, I glanced down at my watch and observed the second hand slow, stop, and then tick backwards.

As for Revit development, I get it. If a subscription renewal costs X and a brand new license costs 4X – who do you want to buy your software? It’s a chapter in a marketing book entitled, “Lowering Barriers to Adoption.” The challenge is that many would-be customers just don’t get it. You’re trying to explain the value proposition of working in a concurrent database for buildings, and they keep raising their hand and asking numbnut questions, most of which are variants of, “Can I do _ with _?”

So rather than attract new customers by creating software which appeals to the mediocre masses that don’t yet understand the question (much less the answer) what then?

New customers are risk adverse. They are not motivated by hope or promise or potential: these are the early adopters. They got it. They get it. They’re on board. They adopted it years ago, ran user forums on Linux boxes in their basement to support it, lurked in other forums to defend it, and a little more than panicked when, for about a year and a half worth of then net revenue someone else acquired it.

But now you’ve got the bulk of customers still waiting to adopt. They’re still somehow unsure. They still think that software is a differentiator. And for a while it is. But then, like many things it becomes a commodity. A loss lead. My observation is that the late adopters are much the same and for the most part are most unfortunately motivated by one word:

Fear.

Want to lower a potential customer’s ‘barrier to adoption’? Create meaningful functionality for your existing customers: crazy-ass, tricked-out, ohmygodIknowyoudidn’tjustdothatohyesIdid, mind-blowing, absolutely insanely great kind of functionality. Then show the results of the efforts of your existing customers to your potential customers. And then go one step further: show it to your potential customer’s customer. In other words, don’t just show it to the architect. Show it to that architect’s client and contractor. Because the architects are just the teenagers in this equation and their clients and contractors are the parents. And if you want to get the teenagers to shape up, why not appeal to the people that pay the bills, feed them, buy the iPods/tennis shoes/high-speed internet connections and basically keep a roof over their heads.

Now you’re not just showing a potential customer what a bit of software can do for them. You’re showing them what a bit of software is already doing for their competition. And for their competition’s clients. And for their competition’s contractor. And so on.

And when they realize their competition has already done it – they won’t ask so many numbnut questions.

Two Weeks After the Day After

Ever driven past the house of an ex?

Yesterday, I actually drove up and talked to some of the people inside.

Yes, they tried to give me beer and break down by inhibitions and I kept bringing up what it was going to cost for what I wanted them to do and they kept bringing up quality and range of services but I kept thinking I was half-buzzed and quality of service wouldn’t really matter cause I was getting sleepy anyway and they kept talking about better interoperability and I kept talking about why should I pay more than their competition was willing to charge me and how this was better for the market cause eventually they’d have to lower their price to align with their competition and this would be better for everyone and then they finally agreed to lower the cost this time but I’d have to pay full price next time but I really won’t.

Overall – everyone was honestly gracious. Hunter wasn’t there, which was a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully we’ll catch up later in the week. But if I remember correctly, he needs to get home promptly on Monday night in order to make sure the staff have polished his Bugatti Veyron collection in the appropriate clock-wise direction (as this is the northern hemisphere) with just the right force, using the 50 year old single malt which he says makes the cars glisten and yet impervious to police radar.

On a side note – I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand the science behind the radar absorbing qualities of expensive Irish beverages. But Hunter drives faster in reverse than most people drive going forward (and he never gets a ticket). How fast? Well, this one time on the way to Rhode Island, I glanced down at my watch and observed the second hand slow, stop, and then tick backwards.

As for Revit development, I get it. If a subscription renewal costs X and a brand new license costs 4X – who do you want to buy your software? It’s a chapter in a marketing book entitled, “Lowering Barriers to Adoption.” The challenge is that many would-be customers just don’t get it. You’re trying to explain the value proposition of working in a concurrent database for buildings, and they keep raising their hand and asking numbnut questions, most of which are variants of, “Can I do _ with _?”

So rather than attract new customers by creating software which appeals to the mediocre masses that don’t yet understand the question (much less the answer) what then?

New customers are risk adverse. They are not motivated by hope or promise or potential: these are the early adopters. They got it. They get it. They’re on board. They adopted it years ago, ran user forums on Linux boxes in their basement to support it, lurked in other forums to defend it, and a little more than panicked when, for about a year and a half worth of then net revenue someone else acquired it.

But now you’ve got the bulk of customers still waiting to adopt. They’re still somehow unsure. They still think that software is a differentiator. And for a while it is. But then, like many things it becomes a commodity. A loss lead. My observation is that the late adopters are much the same and for the most part are most unfortunately motivated by one word:

Fear.

Want to lower a potential customer’s ‘barrier to adoption’? Create meaningful functionality for your existing customers: crazy-ass, tricked-out, ohmygodIknowyoudidn’tjustdothatohyesIdid, mind-blowing, absolutely insanely great kind of functionality. Then show the results of the efforts of your existing customers to your potential customers. And then go one step further: show it to your potential customer’s customer. In other words, don’t just show it to the architect. Show it to that architect’s client and contractor. Because the architects are just the teenagers in this equation and their clients and contractors are the parents. And if you want to get the teenagers to shape up, why not appeal to the people that pay the bills, feed them, buy the iPods/tennis shoes/high-speed internet connections and basically keep a roof over their heads.

Now you’re not just showing a potential customer what a bit of software can do for them. You’re showing them what a bit of software is already doing for their competition. And for their competition’s clients. And for their competition’s contractor. And so on.

And when they realize their competition has already done it – they won’t ask so many numbnut questions.