Erich Stauffer

Blog

  • The Future Was Now

    In the summer of 1988, my parents bought a Chevy Suburban and drove our whole family down to Walt Disney World (the only time we ever went). My dad worked for GM at the time and so when we got to the Epcot Center, we got to cut in line to the now closed, World of Motion ride. It was a view of the future. Or should I say, a view of a possible future – one that mostly hasn’t happened – but that’s not what this post is about.

    Rebecca Murphey, a JavaScript engineer at Bocoup, wrote in her blog about how her dad bought one of the first personal computers:

    “In 1982, Timex came out with the Timex Sinclair TS-1000…the computer, a few times thicker than the original iPad but with about the same footprint, cost $99.95.”

    My dad bought one too and I remember having to hook it up to a special data tape player/recorder that acted as the ‘hard drive’. It’s what loaded and recorded changes to programs that displayed on the screen. I remember piecing the parts together and waiting for it to appear on the black and white television screen. We could load BASIC and type in commands, but we didn’t do much more than that. This post isn’t really about my early exposure to technology, it’s more about the man who exposed me to it.

    While we didn’t have humanoid robots in our kitchen, we had dishwashers who washed our dishes for us – and a furnace that detected a sudden change in temperature and automatically adjusted accordingly. My dad grew up in a house with no running water. He took a bath in a metal tub in the middle of the kitchen next to the fire-burning stove. He used a Sears catalog for toilet paper in the outhouse out back – yet he was the only person in his class to build an automobile from spare parts.

    Silly Robot

    I can only imagine my son re-discovering a vehicle from today, trying to understand this “hard app” (car radio) he found. What is it like growing up with a computer in every room and in every pocket? What is it like to always be on the Internet, always knowing where everyone is and what everyone is doing? What is it like to have your entire childhood documented in status messages, online galleries, and Youtube channels? When I went to high school, we weren’t even allowed to carry beepers.

    I can only imagine how no running water, building your own car, learning how to program, and buying one of the first personal computers can shape the way you teach your children about technology. And I can only imagine how growing up with Timex Sinclair TS-1000’s, Atari 2600’s, Nintendo NES’, Windows 3.1, Netscape, Winsock, Windows 95, Nokia Cellphones, College Club, Myspace, and finally Facebook can change how I teach my children about technology. I worry that technology enables too much using and not enough doing. That’s part of what this blog is about – giving back to what I’ve learned from the Internet – and my dad.

  • Grain Harvest? More like Great Harvest!

    I recently wrote about how I typically work and network in Indianapolis and while it started out as a way to discuss how to get the most out of little pieces of the city (what in my mind I call “hacking the day”), it ended up being more about networking and how I spend a typical day in the Carmel, Indiana area.

    After writing it I ended up telling my friend, Jason, about Jerry at the Great Harvest Bread Company in Carmel, Indiana. Jerry recently joined our BNI group in Carmel, and his business cards can be used to get a free loaf of bread.

    They are located next to the Stacked Pickle across from Meijer on Penn and Carmel Dr. They grind their grain each morning and only use natural ingredients.

    They want to do catering so Jerry is wanting to come give a groups a free catered lunch as a way to advertise their catering service. If you’re interested, contact:

    Great Harvest Bread Co.
    12505 Old Meridian, Suite 100
    Carmel, IN 46032
    317-575-8800

    I recently had lunch at Great Harvest Bread Company and I wanted to share a little bit about the experience. When I first walked in I got greeted by a fresh-baked slice of bread to try while I looked over the menu. Since I had just got back from Tom and Chee’s in Cincinnati, I was still craving a BLT so I ordered a BLT panini. Drinks were self-serve and coffee was available from a pump carafe in three flavors. After a short while, my sandwich was brought to me along with a wrapped pickle spear, which was delicious.

  • (Net)Working Indianapolis

    Every Thursday morning I attend a BNI networking group in Carmel. After the meeting I head over to the Subway next to Jason’s Deli and Office Depot. I get the $3 breakfast combo, which includes a 6-inch breakfast sandwich and a regular drink. I then sit down with my laptop and get online using the local Wi-Fi. LePeep, La Hacienda, and Jason’s Deli all have Wi-Fi so I encourage you to try any of those during lunch.

    If the seat by the outlet in Subway is taken, I head down the strip to Starbucks. This particular Starbucks is loaded with outlets and many coworkers, commuters, sales persons, and solopreneurs hang out here during the day. I believe this is primarily because of a) the size of the Starbucks – it’s unusually large for a Starbucks, b) the sheer amount of outlets to plug in your laptop or mobile phone, and c) it’s central location to Indianapolis and Carmel.

    After attending meetups and other networking events, I’ve started to know a lot of people around Carmel and Indianapolis. Usually, whenever I’m in a Starbucks I’ll run into someone I know and because of that, these cities have started to feel more like a community. I don’t know everybody, but my chances of running into someone I know are now greater than not running into someone I know. And although I check into Foursquare, it doesn’t ever seem to help me run into people, which is odd.

    As I am an Indianapolis web designer, my meetings are sporadic and sometimes far in between. I use these ‘holes’ in the day to work out of various locations such as Starbucks, Subway, or Panera Bread. After doing it a while, you start to learn what other business professionals have chose to use as their personal office. There is a dog walker and an oil salesman at the Starbucks at 96th and Meridian and of course there is my habitual use of the Starbucks at Meridian and Carmel Drive.

    The greater Indianapolis area is large in size, but it’s a small community. The people you actually want or need to talk to is relatively very small compared to the population of the whole city. For me, it’s business owners who can make a decision to buy from me direct, can be a referral partner, or can be a connector to someone I need to talk to. This is really what networking is all about because you also want to be those same characteristics to other people in your network. You want to be that power connector.

    Robby Slaughter, a business process consultant in Indianapolis, has made it his goal in 2012 to help 1000 people. Because Robby is a power connector, he’s able to help a lot of people and I actually took him up on it and Robby had a one to one with me over the phone. Robby is a fellow BNI member of another chapter and he helped me figure out what would be some good referral partners for me and how to tweak my 60-second asks, some of which I’ve implemented. Thanks, Robby!

    I’ve actually mentioned Robby Slaughter before as being one my local heroes. I ended up finally meeting Robby last August at Blog Indiana and then immediately saw him again when he spoke at Linking Indiana. Robby also wrote a guest blog post on my web design site entitled, Increasing Productivity In Website Maintenance, which was appropriate since he’s a productivity expert and I design websites around a CMS called WordPress. Thanks again, Robby.

  • Fear of Rejection

    I recently wrote about how fear of rejection in my tips for graphics designers starting out article on my personal blog, but it was only after reading Dr. Ivan Misner’s article on Fear of Rejection that it really started to sink in.

    Dr. Misner is the founder of BNI and an prolific author. His latest book is entitled, Business Networking and Sex: Not What You Think.

    In his article on Success Net Online, Dr. Misner shares his story of how scared he was of asking a local bookstore to buy his book. “I wasn’t sure that they would be willing to carry a book from an unknown author. I sat there too embarrassed to make any moves toward the entrance,” he wrote.

    He rationalized to himself that there were really only two options, of which only one that would result in success. This made the decision, which just a moment prior had seemed so frightening he couldn’t force himself to get out of the car, to being the most logical decision.

    Do I struggle with a fear of rejection? While it pains me to admit I’m deficient at something, asking something for someone when there is a chance they will say no is terrifying to me. But I know that tenacity is a key tenet of a successful business person and so it’s something I’m working to conquer.

  • Arnold Neumaier, The Next von Neumann

    Von Neumann helped develop quantum mechanics theories, economic and game theory, nuclear technology, and computer science – so one should take notice when someone is quoted as being “The Next von Neumann”

    Arnold NeumaierArnold Neumaier, who some call, “The Next von Neumann”, is an avid Christian and physicist interested in the global Optimization (integrating convexity, optimization, logic programming, and computational algebraic geometry), foundations of mathematics (building an automatic mathematical research system), the foundations of theoretical physics (interpretation of quantum mechanics and statistical physics), and applied mathematics of all sorts (from protein folding to cattle breeding to uncertainty modeling in space system design). He has written books on topics in finite geometry, numerical analysis (Introduction to Numerical Analysis), and Lie algebras.

    One of Neumaier’s most cited works (coauthored with Martin Fuchs) is entitled, “Autonomous robust design optimisation with potential clouds,” which states that, “The task of autonomous and robust design cannot be regarded as a single task, but consists of two tasks that have to be accomplished concurrently.” Neumaier writes, “Science is the truth only in matters that can be objectified. In the spiritual world, where values, goals, authority and purpose are located, science has nothing to say. It is a poor life that is restricted to the scientific standard of truth, where you and I are nothing but a collection of atoms without meaning and purpose. Realizing the narrow-minded nature of science opens the gate to an understanding of God that complements the scientific truth and gives life, love and peace.”

  • Indianapolis Networking with BNI and Rainmakers

    Yesterday, I wrote about attending an Indianapolis networking group called Linking Indiana, but recently I have joined both BNI (Business Networking International) and Rainmakers.

    I go to the BNI in Carmel, Indiana called “Network Masters”. It’s a referral group where only one person from each professional specialty is allowed. This means that there can’t be two web designers in a group, for example. They call it “exclusivity” and it helps you to be “the guy” for your particular industry or specialty.

    BNI is also strict on attendance, meaning that you have to either attend every meeting or find a substitute. You’re only allowed a limited amount of absences per year, but this can be a good thing because you know people are actually going to be there to hear what you have to say. The point is to learn about each other’s businesses so you can be a good referral partner when you’re out working in your field.

    Rainmakers is different than BNI in that its events aren’t required, but its “power circle” meetings are. The power circle meetings act more like BNI meetings because their seats are exclusive, meaning you can have only one type of profession in each meeting. The difference in power circles to BNI is that power circles are supposed to be made up of service professionals who naturally refer to each other, making the group potentially more effective than a general BNI group.

    Anyone can invite visitors to a BNI meeting or a Rainmakers event, but visitors can only attend twice before having to sign up as a member. BNI and Rainmakers are comparable in price per year and both have their advantages. If you’re interested in attending one, but don’t want to go alone, contact me and we’ll see if we can go to an event together.

  • Big Opportunities No One Claim Yet

    A while back I wrote about a new trust system for the Internet called, “YourSCOR – A New Metric for a New Economy”, which is an idea for a Self-Collected Online Report, or SCOR for short. It would be similar in use to how a FICO score works today, but instead of being built from credit history, it would be built from social transactional history such as your Klout, Ebay, or Amazon score. It could also include your FICO score, but that would only be one part of it – just as your credit history is one part of who you are as a person.

    As Marc Andreessen pointed out in the May 2012 issue of WIRED magazine, the Internet in Netscape’s day was all about anonymity, but today, there is a large push toward knowing exactly who you are online. Google was part of that push when it required all Google+ users to use their real names instead of pseudonyms.

    Even FAKE GRIMLOCK said, “BECOME REPUTATION SYSTEM FOR INTERNET ONE OF BIG OPPORTUNITIES NO ONE CLAIM YET.”

    That’s because it’s hard.

    But don’t hackers like hard problems to solve? Don’t they want to change the world? The problem with hard problems is that they are hard. I later regretted writing Problem Solver Seeks More Things to Fix because of all the problems that came sans-knocking wood afterward. I won’t laundry list you, but it made me rethink the whole “hard problem” love thing.

    Reverse anonymity is not the only trend happening on the Internet today. There’s also a move towards hyper-localism. In a world with perfect information, there would be no need to travel farther than the nearest location to get what you want and the Internet+Mobile Apps is bringing us closer and closer to 100% knowledge of our surroundings. This knowledge allows us to make better decisions and #shoplocal.

    So what’s the next big thing?

    In my last article about Why Google and Facebook Might Not Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years I talked about how Forbes thinks Google might not know how to pivot to mobile. My guess is because their going to leap over it and create the Next Big Thing: Google Goggles.

    Why are Google Goggles the next big disruptor? Because they can do everything cell phones can do, but better. Why do you need a mobile phone when you’ve got a heads-up, augmented reality GPS device with retina and voice recognition? Does all of that exist today? No. Will it eventually all fit on a contact lens? Probably.

    Almost everyone thought Google bought Motorolla to enter the mobile marketplace or to get access to their patents. What if it was to create a whole new industry around a new way of interacting with the world? The same world they helped organize? Now that’s an augmented reality.

  • Linking Indiana

    I recently attended a Linking Indiana event where Blake of Blaze Communications gave a presentation on personal branding. Personal branding is to branding what you are to your organization. In other words, if branding is the reputation for your business, then personal branding is your reputation.

    It was raining in Indianapolis and yet the light from the sun was still shining through the clouds, which made for some interesting views of the city. There were also some interesting views discussed after Blake’s presentation when we all sat around discussing possibilities for our personal brands. My favorite was of the IT guy who described his business as fitting like a glove.

  • Why Google and Facebook Might Not Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

    Forbes recently wrote an article about Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years, which had echoes what Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in Outliers, when it said, “Your long-term viability as a company is dependent on when you were born.”

    The author (and Forbes) were getting ripped on this article on Hacker News – but no one can predict the future – we can only look at the past – and even though the timeline is short (15 years), history says Facebook and Google will fail unless they [can] pivot. The gist is that they can’t pivot. It’s not in their paradigm to accept what’s next. Can you?

    But the statement, “X will fail unless they can pivot” is true for every company. The companies that make up the Fortune 500 don’t have a long life on the fortune 500. To say that the web will die out and vanish is reaching, and to say that it will in the next five years is really reaching.

    Does the author (or any analysts) really expect mobile usage to dry up the well of search advert dollars or that mobile apps will eliminate the public/customer need for search?

    The anti-trust lawsuit that is being dredged up against Google will do more to slow them than anything else in the next five years.

    And, to say that Facebook can’t have staying power because MySpace didn’t is far from an analysis.

    I do agree that the web is not dying – all apps need a website even if they think they don’t. Facebook will do (and has done) better than Myspace because they are a software company first, ran by programmers who have kept Facebook constrained, which has helped it grow.

    The problem is that Google only got into social because they were chasing Facebook, just like Microsoft went to the cloud to chase Google. And Facebook only got into mobile because the people demanded it – but they were (and are) late to the game. They are buying Instagram because they are scared of it – not because it will help them grow.

    I read something from Seth Godin today that said basically that not all companies can grow. Some do better when their small and can’t scale across that middle “dead zone” to be a big company. Some companies don’t work as a big company either (like web or graphic designers – at least not using the business models in place now).

    “Perhaps getting a little bigger isn’t what you want, and it might not even be possible.” -Seth Godin