I recently appeared on the Rule 53 Podcast from DartBoston with Tom Petr from Schedr.com. Rule 53 is a new and wonderful podcast where they team up more experienced (older, slower, fatter) folk with people that are just starting out (younger, more energetic, no kids).
DartBoston is run by great people including Alexa Scordato who I am convinced I was BFFs with in a former life.
Had a great time and hope to do more podcasts in the future.
Looks like I had my facts wrong. The first store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona. I have to say from the photos, it looks a lot different from the Paris version so far.
During my recent trip to Paris I dropped by the Microsoft Cafe to see how it was going. Based on all I have read, it seemed as if it would look identical to the Apple Store. Check out the pix - what do you think? According to Gizmodo they are supposed to open Oct 22nd. But based on what I saw on Oct 17th, that seems unlikely. Will they be delayed like a version of Windows? Well, based on Windows 7, maybe they will pull it together in time.
The neighborhood they picked I found to be interesting. I don’t know much about Paris (only there for 4 days), but it wasn’t the "nicest" area. It was definitely bustling, a ton of people and lots of commerce. Seemed to me to be more for your average consumer compared to the high end malls that you typically see Apple stores in.
So this post is a long time coming but I finally got it together and it’s a doosie. As I had posted a while ago about following my dreams, I in fact went out to Petaluma, CA to hang out with Leo Laporte and his entourage for a week. First, I have to give a big thanks to my wife Kim for allowing this to come to fruition. She is a huge supporter of everything I do and I love her; she completely handled the house and the kids for the week while I was out “playing” with Leo. It was really “work” but when you love what you do and get to hang with your idols it can easily be classified as “play”. I consider myself a Leo Fanboy so I will stipulate that this was more play than anything.
My time in Petaluma was great. Leo’s staff was extremely welcoming and friendly. I immediately got a great vibe from them. They are serious about what they are doing. They want to grow their business but are not going to rush into something simply because they can. And I believe they can. They are able to maintain a high quality of life while continuing to be a force to reckon with the technology media space. Leo was great, down to earth and easy to work with. I could easily see myself moving to Petaluma to work for him…
Come on, one can dream.
I realized before the trip that there was a chance that I wouldn’t actually be able to affect much seeing that I would only be there a week, so upon arrival I focused on things I could easily accomplish or lay ground work for someone else to finish. I think it worked out well even though most of my stuff was probably lost. But that is something you get used to when you build software – it is often 3 steps forward, 2 steps back to achieve greatness. I am happy to see that one project that I worked on with Colleen, Twit Picks, rolled out recently. http://twit.tv/picks
After I left The Cottage, I soon started my new gig at Unigo.com as the CTO. Since then it has been a whirlwind of development, press, and networking. While in Petaluma, my initial thought was that I would keep on consulting on the side for Leo. I really wanted to finish what I started because I really enjoyed working with that group. But after I returned home that idea was quickly put aside for my new CTO responsibilities.
After a couple months at Unigo along with some decent press I reached out to Leo and Amber MacArthur suggesting that my CEO Jordan Goldman would make a great guest on net@night, one of the TWIT Network’s podcasts. net@night covers the Web2.0 space. Unfortunately at that time my emails went unanswered and life went on.
After another month or so, we were able to score an interview with another one of my idols, Robert Scoble.
Jordan and I met Robert downtown at the Club Quarter hotel. Robert was also great and seemed genuinely interested in our business model and our offering. I got to see Robert again just recently at SXSW…but I don’t believe he remembered me. Of course ones memory is impaired while at SXSW. This was the only interview I actually got a little face time. Woo hoo.
A short time later we scored a really big fish AND another one of my idols, Walt Mossberg. We affectionately refer to him as Uncle Walt. Jordan and I trained down to DC to meet Walt at his office. We had heard that he really liked our site and that he may write about us. I was so excited about this interview that I tweeted about it the day before.
After a week and a few dozen back and fourth emails Walt released a very favorable video and in-print review of Unigo in the Wall Street Journal paper and website. SCORE!
With all this great exposure I reached out to Leo one more time. I heard through the grapevine` that Leo had been talking about it, but nothing happened. I let it lie until a week ago when I heard Leo talking about his daughter’s search for information about Emerson College. I emailed Leo again reminding him about Unigo. This time it stuck and with a little luck I was able to get Jordan on net@night a couple days later. The interview was great, at least I think so… Leo gave Unigo great praise and said some very nice things. He also talked about yours truly a little which didn’t hurt either.
So my good friends Dave and Mara just found out they are having a new baby girl. Mazel. As I was ranting about what an expert I am with babies this old diddy came to mind. I figured I would revive it from the archives.
It was late on a balmy evening in October.She had to make a decision.
What would she decide in her current state of mind?
Having slept only 2 hours in 3 days one could question her mindset.But all she was thinking was that she needed to sleep.God knows what she would be like, whose head she would rip off the next day if her condition remained the same.She had to make a call, make the decision that could affect the next 6 hours."How", she asked herself, "Do I accomplish this?"With what little sanity she had remaining and with little regard to the consequences she made the call - she removed the clothing exposing the ominous belly. The belly being the only thing that would tame the beast.
He looked on watching and waiting to see what she was going to do.When it finally happened, he considered saying something even objecting, but knowing her state of mind he thought he would rather suffer the consequences that question her choice.
Trouble subsided quickly and the wish was granted. Her decision paid off.6 hours of blissful, peaceful sleep; uninterrupted…
Early morning came, birds chirping in the darkness and the daily routine started again.Some level of internal satisfaction went unspoken between them not knowing what lied ahead.She wouldn’t know the outcome of her actions the night before until later since she disappeared into the dewy morning leaving them both behind.
He went about his morning - the typical rushed-waiting that he typically experiences at this time of day.Anxiously straightening and fixing things up, trying to stay ahead of the curve he went from one room to the other as quietly as he could.In his mind he was accomplishing something, but in reality it could be debated. Minutes seemed like hours and then finally it happened.The muted shrill emanated from the upstairs bedroom.It hit him like a needle going through his arm.He reacted quickly.Like a trained soldier, he jet upstairs toward the bedroom just like he had done many mornings before. Eighteen months of this routine was ingrained in his soul.He knew what to expect, the anticipated outcome, the possible variations…
As if it didn’t exist, he went through the door toward the screaming. Before he could say "good morning" the thing he had only subconsciously feared came to reality.
It was glorious!It was everywhere!One might say massive.On her hands, her face, the sheets, the walls, the crib…Nothing escaped her wrath.It came so easy to her; as if it was inconsequential. He dug deep into his soul considering the previous 8 hours…What could he had done different?Would it have been worth it?He then came to the only conclusion that made sense.It had proven time and time again to be effective against the child’s will.
In my post-TPR (The Princeton Review) - trying to figure out what I want to do state of mind I decided to do something a little different. All of us get whims and in most cases, at least with myself, I tend to be all talk. Lately, with a sort of "nothing to lose" attititude I decided to attempt to follow through with some of my whims. One of these whims stemmed from my fan-boy status of a particular tech celebrity Leo Laporte. I have been listening to his podcasts for years and watched him on TechTV before they went caput. I have always admired him and been amazed by his overall knowledge of not only the history of technology but all things new and cool.
So here is the beginning of the story. I sent Leo a simple email volunteering my time for a week, where I would fly out to Petaluma and intern for him. I truly didn’t care what I did for him. Be it washing his car, making coffee or something more useful like help with his websites.
To mitigate my barrier to entry I told him I would pay for all my own expenses. A couple weeks later I got a message back from Mara, Leo’s email person. She told me that she would pass my email over to Leo. To be clear she told me that he reads all of his email eventually. To my huge delight, I was soon contacted by Leo who extended the invitation to visit him.
I am planning on going to Petaluma on Sept. 15-18.
I recently appeared on the Rule 53 Podcast from DartBoston with Tom Petr from Schedr.com. Rule 53 is a new and wonderful podcast where they team up more experienced (older, slower, fatter) folk with people that are just starting out (younger, more energetic, no kids).
