I am reminded of a time when I was in kindergarten and the year end play was “The Little Engine that Could”. Back then, it just seemed like a fun story about a little engine that was trying to make it over the mountain top, but could not get any help from any of the passerby trains. So, to his (or maybe her, I am not sure what the “actual sexual orientation of the engine was and I am not even sure that it mattered) delight, he / she continued trying and finally made it over the mountain, hurray! What I now know is that fun and innocent little story has great meaning when applying it to life and especially in raising children.

In “The Pursuit of Happiness” there is a point where Will Smith tells his son never to let someone tell him that he cannot do something or accomplish something (my paraphrasing there, sorry if I did not get the quote exactly right). Little tidbits of advice and guidance like this go a long way in shaping the confidence of your children, it also teaches them that in order to achieve / obtain certain things that you have to work really hard at them. I know that it seems trivial and common sense, but it is amazing at how powerful these little lessons can be.

So the next time that you are feeling like you are ready to throw in the towel, remember back to your childhood and the story of The Little Train that Could and keep chugging away, you will eventually cross that mountaintop.

Seth Godin has a great post recently on the magic of low hanging fruit, and he focuses on the marketing side of it and how attacking and implementing the marketing side of low hanging fruit, you can accomplish quite a deal of good. See, often times in the product feature decision making process, we look at the things that we can accomplish with minimal effort and it may be a feature that has been requested by an influential group of users, or it may be a feature that could drive more traffic or usage. According to Seth, it makes more sense to go after those features that would drive more traffic and usage by the masses rather than those features that may have been requested by that group of influential users. Looking at it from that perspective, it makes sense. By going after the low hanging fruit that could convert the average or passive user into a more active user is more worthwhile that trying to make the already amazing users even more amazing. Seems simple in theory but a little harder in practice.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you sit down for your planning session to determine what the next features should be, take a look at the whole picture when you are picking that fruit .

NOTE: sorry Doug, this post was not inspired by you

Through an IM conversation that I will not recount here (no need to bore you all), Doug had a typo, well at least that is what I thought. In fact, it was not a typo, but a word from a language that I did not know, the language of the Internets. He went on to say that the “typo” that I thought he typed was part of a language called L337 (that is Leet for those of you that do not speak it, and Elite for those of us who have no F’ng clue what it all means). Of course, I was like WTF? about this whole “language” and Doug was so kind as to point me to the Wikipedia page for it. That’s right folks, it is a language alright because Wikipedia says so (after all, everything on Wikipedia is 100% accurate, right?). I was floored, how could there be a language out there that I was not familiar with? Once I understood the meaning behind it all, I quickly realized why I did not know of it. I fashion myself a fairly savvy Internet user, but apparently not savvy enough. I am not down with using various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters.

Lesson learned here for me, I am not one of the cool kids, I guess I have some catching up to do. In the meantime, I am going to get schooled on L337 so I can hang with the cool crowd. Once I do, you all will be pwned by me .

It all started with a little birthday party when I got home early from work. Nothing extravagant, just my wife and kids, birthday cards, presents, a hand made sign and an ice cream cake. This was completely unexpected and meant so much to me, it was a bunch of little things that brought out so much emotion and pride, it made me feel extremely important. Later, we were off to a wedding where amidst of all of the commotion, the bride and groom took the time during the ceremony to tell me happy birthday and went as far as to have a birthday card for me on the table waiting for me. As if that was not enough, they had the band sing happy birthday to me. Saturday we were back at it, headed to a beer festival with friends that I had no idea we were going to. My wife coordinated the whole thing without me knowing, and I was so surprised and extremely happy. It was the little things that meant so much.

It amazes me at how something that seems so small can have such an impact on you at that moment, that in hindsight, those things were actually bigger than they first appeared. I am thankful for the wonderful weekend I had, and can say that the little things really surprised me, and I really enjoyed it. Little things can have the greatest of meanings, so pay attention and give thanks when they happen.

There are others that are on the other end of the spectrum. They like to swoop in at the last minute, just as something is about to be finished and claim they were a critical part of the overall success. Bad move on so many levels, but I have seen it happen time and time again. Why are people that way? Why not roll up your sleeves and get dirty and be part of the team and make the magic happen? Don’t try to steal the thunder of those that have put in countless hours, sweat, and dedication to make something a success. If you are not going to be part of the team, then stand to the side when the credit is being doled out and let those that deserve it take it.

There have been several instances lately for me where I have been part of something, but I have not been the major contributing factor in it’s success. To those that have been the major forces behind it, I say THANK YOU. You know who you are and if it were not for you, we would not be on the brink of something truly remarkable. You have poured your heart and souls into this and for that I am thankful. For others, thank you for having the blind faith that something great was going to come of it, if it were not for you, it would still just be a thought. My success throughout my career has been the result of some amazing work by some amazing people. I have been privileged to work with such greatness.

Success breeds success and something as simple as giving due credit can go a long way in continuing that success. Many a great leader have recognized that in order to be truly successful, you need to ensure that your team is successful. This is a lesson that is easy to understand, but sometimes extremely difficult to implement.

Here at Mixx (in case you did not already know, that is where I work) we pride ourselves on the fact that we have a very active community and we have engaged with them, one of us probably speaks with the community on a daily basis. It is a great feeling to know that the line of communication is completely open and that they can reach us, and in turn, we can reach them. There have been several occasions that I will get an e-mail thanking me for a quick response to a question someone had or I will read a blog post on how pleased the community is with the fact that they can get a “real” person on the other end of the e-mail, on a weekend no less. All in all, it is a great feeling to know that we have such a passionate community and that we are part of that.

Some of our community members have taken the two way street analogy of engaging the community to a new level. There is a subset of our community that have created their own web site and forum for the members of the community (called the MixxingBowl), and as part of it, they do a weekly podcast. They have been doing it for six months now, and they frequently have members of the Mixx staff on as guests. I was asked to be a guest this past week, and I must say that it was a complete honor to be part of the podcast. This is a great example of how engaging your community (I mean really engaging them) can lead to a complete two way street. Not only are we bringing them into the mix (no pun intended, well OK), but they are reciprocating by incorporating us into what they do.

It is a good feeling when you have reached that level that you have a thriving community around your product and they are passionate about it. That community and passion is something that money cannot buy, it comes by way of transparency, dedication, and an open hand.

Thanks guys, you have really helped us make something special here.

There is a fine line that we all must walk when it comes to “pimping” our stuff, if we “pimp” too much, the value of our content is lessened and perhaps our credibility is tarnished. With that being said, there are some that do not even recognize the line exists or do not care about it’s existence. Those are the ones that I feel are gaming the system(s). They have amassed a following and then either flood them with stuff or get them to vote (on social media sites) their stuff up simply because they follow that person and feel that whatever they vote up, the other will return the favor. This sort of scratch my back and I will scratch yours mentality has the potential to create an environment where sub par content is being popularized when in reality it is not worth the popularity it is garnering.

Whether it be a networking utility to socialize an URL of a blog post, or a social network where I am trying to leverage a friend to make a connection or submitting something to a social media site, I go out of my way to make sure that I am not taking advantage of my contacts and only try to share good content. At the end of the day, we all want to feel special in some little way that is why we join these social networks. For me, my reputation on all of these sites is important and I do not want to do anything to harm that, like perhaps game the system. People pick up on that quickly and before you know it, you become a friend’s list of one.

Over the last week and to some extent, the last couple of months; I have been reminded of what my personal foundation is, and that is my family. Families can amaze you and surprise you, they can inspire you and guide you. For me lately, my family has been doing all of these things. When I was looking for financial assistance, they were there and did not ask any questions. They simply said we have faith in you and know that you will do great things with it. This is what a strong foundation can do for you, it gives you the strength when you need it, it supports you when you are feeling like you cannot do it alone.

Our children have been sick lately (a lot actually) and my wife has been so amazing in her ability to continue carrying on day in and day out, lack of sleep and all, taking care of our children when she herself is running on empty. That is what strength in a foundation can do. I am thankful to have such a strong foundation in my life and I hope that I can in turn be the strong foundation that they each need when the time is necessary.

Thank you all, I am lucky to have you all in my life, I love you.

The other part of the equation that I feel is equally important is the amount of transparency you as the leader of your startup show towards your team. If you are guarded or vague with what your plans are (or Value Proposition of the company to put it in other words), they less likely your ultimate success will be. If you are guarded or vague, it sends the message to your team that you are either unsure of what the plan is, or you do not feel that they need to know what it is. Either way, those are both bad perceptions to be giving your team. If the success of your company sits on the shoulders of the entire team, how do you expect them to execute on a plan if you either do not have one fully together or you are not giving them all the information necessary for them to make the company successful. It is paramount as a leader that you provide clear direction for your team, you clearly state what the Value Proposition is, and that you live by those words as well and execute right alongside them. That is being transparent with your team. The more they know and understand on what the direction is, the better equipped they are to get you where you need to be. Obviously there are some things that the entire team need not know in order to execute, but the Value Proposition and core direction of where the company is going is a must.

So as important transparency is outwards, it is equally important inwards. In my book, transparency is the best policy, but not everyone is reading my book ;-).

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is
no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive
to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who
spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

It amazes me at how quickly people are to jump at the opportunity to be a naysayer on a particle issue, idea, company, etc. It is extremely easy for someone to point out flaws in something that they have not either been personally involved in or even taken the time to understand all that went in to it to make it what it is. It is better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. A lot can be learned from failure that can be applied to your next venture, whatever it may be. On the flip side, if you are successful, there will be plenty of people waiting in the wings to quickly point out your flaws and try to put your down. Perhaps it is jealously or sheer ignorance, but whatever the reason, it is wrong.

The next time you are considering being a naysayer about someone else’s accomplishments, walk a mile in their shoes so you understand what they have gone through. Only thing do you hold the right to criticize.

Thanks marchdoe for sharing the quote