First Impression Management

It seems like every social networking service is full of bugs today. There seems to be this approach afoot of making changes on the fly without testing. Twitter seems to just throw up new loads willy-nilly to see if they work and pull them down when they don't. Suddenly text will be garbled across the screen, then it goes back to normal.

I'm not sure how I feel about that - coming from a "bullet-proof is the only option" background where we made sure our products were strong before showing them off, it seems very haphazard. Then again, nobody is scheduling surgery or controlling aircraft through twitter (yet) so perhaps you can get away with it. But it does erode the sense of a smooth, elegantly crafted-by-pros brand.

Then again, my service isn't even ready for prime-time, so I should talk. Fail early and fail often is the new mantra, but there is something to be said for making a good first impression as well.

Researchinator is a long way from a first impression, still...

Collaboration Time C'mon

Have some collaborating students that should help to move things along a little in my project. It's a good deal, but isn't free - takes a bit of my time moving forward as well. They seem eager, hope that keeps up.

Making some progress on my coding lately, for a change. Had some routine disruption with change of venue. A bit tough to adjust to the home office space again... but I'm persevering.

Plus the weather has changed. Cooler days mark the passage of time, and the passing of the nice summery time. Wearing a coat again today - yikes.

I'm shopping myself around a bit as well. Thinking about finding some paying employment, and moving the venture into the background. Need to both keep connected and would like to contribute to something funded again. My venture stuff can still progress on the side for a while. Hope to go-live with some features near the end of the year, in a very low visibility testing sort of way, with a handful of users.

Researchinator enjoyed the cool, schooly feeling day visiting students...

Diffuse Effort

Changing gears between consulting work and my venture development is a very inefficient time. As well, my shifting from leased office to the home office hasn't done me any favours, though I am progressing. The consulting stuff has very rigid deadlines, which motivates me better than a flexible, long term goal does. I really must return to my typical approach of setting some short-term goals for my days and weeks.

I've had people compliment me on my ability to be productive in a home office environment, but I'm afraid I'm still not very good at it. There are a lot of distractions, and for an unstructured project like mine, it can erode your effectiveness.

Still, I've done it successfully before, and will get back into the routine again. I need to invoice my previous work to get some cash coming in though. Oh and should check my investments to ensure I remain reasonably solvent.

I also have half a dozen other wanna-do simulation projects... but I will resist. When the urge overtakes me, I instead work on a description document for those other projects. That way I can capture the thoughts, but avoid getting into the rat-hole that is starting to render the code.

Researchinator tries to focus.

Distraction For Cash

Some contract work is providing income... well, it will in a few months when I can complete the billing payment received cycle. For now, it's mostly a drain on my energy, since it involves reviewing someone else's work. That alone isn't an issue, it's reviewing someone else's work anonymously, with no means to do a close inspection, and without any means to fix the huge gaping holes. Tough for a manager of complex technical projects to look at one from the outside and critique without opportunity to propose the repairs. But such is the life of a venture funding contract reviewer.

Making it tougher is that these venture folks tend to fund stuff regardless of the review process, so all I can do is stick to my principles, process, instincts and experience and let them do what they want with the info. I'll likely get the last cringe (not, laugh, I hate to see tech things fail) down the road when the venture fades away.

Meanwhile, my venture is fading into the background, but only as I'm distracted with this project. I think I'll be finished with distraction today, and be able to turn my attention back to my stuff tomorrow, finally. I'm eager to move forward under a new routine. I can again see a nice path rolled out in front of me. Even though it likely means funding opportunities for me are over a year away, I can at least conceive of a path that gets me there.

For now though, it's distraction for cash, and I should get onto it. The quicker I start the quicker I'm through with it.

Researchinator turns researchy eyes to someone else's mess, neglecting one closer at hand...

Free Form Week, With a Bit of Structure

Last week with office space before I shift to conserve some cash mode for the fall. I suppose if I came across somewhere with an office for 2 or 3 days a week, on a month to month basis for a $150 or something, I'd consider that. But for now, it's probably better for the wallet to save some cash.

I've got an actual deadline this week with a scoring and review document to be written for my consulting client. It's not going to put money in my pocket right away, but they'll pay up in the next few months. It adds a bit of structure to my otherwise flexible week. Meanwhile I'll make due with the tough life of total intellectual freedom and a flexible schedule.

Things could be a lot worse. You've gotta love economic downturns.

Researchinator runs frugal and free...

Still Holding On

So the doldrums seem to continue to a certain extent. I have been doing some application clean-up and some reach-out to funding folk, but everything is quite quiet. So, that means I'm also putting some resumes out to the usual suspects.

I guess in retrospect, the schedule I've kept over the past year has pretty much met my guess of the most likely path forward. I still think my venture concept is a strong one, and look how much stuff I've accomplished. However, my inability to find other collaborators has in large part been due to the pervasive fear people with families have about the economy. It's not very common for someone to want to drop their job and throw their lot in on a new venture once they are over 30 I think. People get too comfortable.

That's a good lesson for the future too perhaps, find myself a new grad with lots of enthusiasm, and a short list of dependencies. My success in planning ahead gives me the flexibility to skip a salary for a year here or there without feeling it. My scales balance freetime for my own intellectual exploration pretty highly against my normal 6 figure salary. Some people don't see life that way.

Taking some chances certainly gives you more of a sense of being alive. I think about some of those six year stretches I've done in the same job, and realize it all goes by pretty fast. When you're doing something more risky, you notice every month that goes by and you feel like you've gotten a lot more out of it.

So I think if I count venture concepts I've pursued at least for a short time, this is probably my 4th or 5th, including a couple hardware concepts that I explored on the side. Hell maybe 6th. But there have been two with substantial year plus investments and teams. One with a small virtual team that didn't go anywhere, and a three that took many hours of my time over a year or two on evenings and weekends. What does that add up to?

Theoretically, the bandied-around wisdom is that one in ten attempts succeeds. So perhaps I'm due. I just would hope that I could get my one success somewhere in the middle of the ten, so that the next few to complete the group were well funded failures, rather than underfunded failures.

I'm certainly not counting this one out yet though. If nothing else, I'm sitting on a patent from the investigations involved. Perhaps that will get me fifty bucks somewhere down the road.

Researchinator hangs in but is looking for somewhere to land as well...

Monday Reflection

Spotty coverage on Summery mornings. Where was I at this point last year? I was working on the project already, and relating both an interest in archeology and analyzing the psyche of the average software developer. Well, year later, I'm still in that boat, working on bits of software, more system level issues.

But I'm squarely in the trough of my enthusiasm. Facing an economy where every day I hear another story about lack of venture funding, tough times for entrepreneurs. I realize that really the only path forward will be finding an angel with a passion for this space. And my social connections probably don't include the right people to scare up some wealthy sports folk.

I'll persevere for a little while, while starting to layer on some salary hunting work, and simultaneously trying to cut my costs somewhat. Nice that the stock markets are growing, but it's hard to take advantage of that without truncating the growth. Perhaps I'll pick up a bit of low risk stuff this week, while I have a some spare cash that is not immediately alloted to something pressing.

Researchinator faces the bumpy road ahead as seen from the perspective of a Monday morning...