Life and Learnings from Startups and False Starts

The importance of making things — Day 9 #100Days100Words

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 21:50:56 -0800

There is something satisfying at the core of my being when I make something with my hands. We were all once makers, it was a part of us, and still is, but unfortunately it’s no longer something we get to practice in this day of Amazon Prime, on-demand everything, and the cost of replacing less than the cost of repairing it.

I made the above magic wands last Spring for my God-daughter Mahri’s Harry Potter birthday party. It felt amazing to turn ordinary blocks of wood into an object of delight and a tool for her imagination. Each piece of wood, metal, fabric, and plastic has a character and a voice and lets me know what it wants to become.

I love my day to day work of building technology products to transition this planet to a sustainable, circular economy, but just as much, I need to be off of the computer and hopefully building something or exploring somewhere in the wild.

The power of learning another language — Day 8 #100Days100Words

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 22:26:03 -0800

We had a wonderful conversation at dinner today about the power of language and culture on our lives and perception of reality. Over the course of my travels across these 3.6 decades, I’ve noticed a very different experience when I know enough of the local language to use it instead of English.

One: there is an acceptance by the local populace. They may not think of you as one of their own, but they definitely appreciate the effort.

Two: using the local language allows for a more varied perspective on items and activities. My favorite dish from my time at Sichuan University is 鱼香茄泽, which we know from US Chinese restaurants as “Eggplant with Spicy Garlic Sauce”, but the literal translation is “Fish Smelling Eggplant”. This is a Sichuanese dish and while it’s served at ALL Chinese restaurants in the US, it’s not really known outside of Sichuan. This led to a hilarious incident when I asked a waiter for this in 湖南 Húnán, I was literally brought a dish of undercooked eggplant that had been rubbed all over some fish.

Three: You’re more confident to step out and explore. The phrases being spoken around you, possibly about you, don’t have the same weight and danger as they may have before.

If you don’t know several already, I encourage you to learn more languages. If not to fluency, at least enough to ask for directions and order food. Some resources are: Duolingo, Memrise, Tim Ferriss on Language Learning, Fluent in 3 Months.

Tell me what languages you know and are working on in the comments. I’m still decent with Spanish and Chinese, although they’re both quite rusty from my peak. My Hindi and Italian are rudimentary, and my French and German are somewhere between Day 1 and Day 5 of class. :P

It’s hard to write everyday — Day 6 #100Days100Words

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 21:26:57 -0800

While 100 words is not that many to put down to paper, finding things to write about is. I don’t want to just write about what I had to eat, or where I’ve been, but something meaningful each day. I thought that ideas would just flow to me and that it would be very easy, but it hasn’t been.

First, I plan to write when I get up early which is my normal creative period, but because I’ve been sick, I’ve been sleeping in and feeling behind the eight ball from the moment I arise. Either I need to get well quickly so that I have the extra time in the day during my creative time, or (AND) I need to shift my focus to allow myself shortened days when I’m ill.

Fire is part of our DNA — Day 6 #100Days100Words

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:10:06 -0800

There is something amazingly primal about starting a fire, sitting in front of it, and conversing with family and friends.

We had a fire in our backyard this evening, after checking to see if there was a spare the air alert in effect of course. We had a few friends over and had great conversations about a myriad of topics, but I really don’t think it would have mattered what we spoke about. The cool dark air and the bright, warm light settles you into a space as if you’re meant to be there. Having a fire makes it seem later than it is and even with the artificial lights of the city. The greater intensity of the flames seem to make the electric bulbs seem dim, and the darkness at 8PM seem even darker. The color temperature of fire is definitely below 3,000K for the most part but there is some blue in those flames. With that, I’m wondering if there is some other mechanism that makes us want to go to sleep rather than wake up like when we’re looking at artificial lights late at night.

Anyone know?

Be Prepared — Day 5 #100Days100Words

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 23:22:41 -0800

Yesterday morning just before 3 AM, we had a 4.4 magnitude earthquake located about two miles east of our house and about 8 miles below the surface. I was already awake, laying in bed, so I felt the build up of the waves and the final violent snap as if someone was cracking the earth like a bullwhip.

The earthquake came at the perfect time, when 95% of the Bay Area was in their beds rather than at work or commuting and it was the perfect strength too. Strong enough to scare people, but not strong enough to cause significant damage or injuries.

I’ve been a bit of a “prepper” for a long time time and after the Nisqually quake in 2001 in Seattle got CERT certified in Seattle and was officially part of the Search and Rescue teams for my neighborhood. Now, I’m redoing my CERT training through the City of Oakland’s CORE program. Feels great to be relearning and practicing these skills and preparing our home and neighborhood for when the Hayward fault does fully release again with a 6.5M or greater and does $200B worth of damage and cuts off clean water and power for weeks. The best thing to do is to get trained by your local CERT program and follow their instructions on home preparedness, vehicle bags (although those are difficult to keep in the Bay Area) and Go Bags.

Just sit down and write — Day 4

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:36:39 -0800

I’m going to count this as day four still since I haven’t gone to bed yet. I was going to bed, but I felt really down on myself because I didn’t get my post written before. I had planned to write about this morning’s earthquake and preparedness, but meetings, fighting this cold, having guests over and all the other distractions that arise during life got in the way.

Why? Because I haven’t scheduled 15–30 minutes to write my 100 words each day. I had planned to do this early each morning as that’s my good quiet and creative time after I’ve worked out, but thanks to my cold and waking up at 12:30 and then falling back to sleep at 6AM, I didn’t get up again until 9. I guess I could have done it while I was awake then, but I didn’t.

Put it in the schedule and stick to it. That’s the plan for next week.

Your EV won’t go 1,000 miles — Day 3, #100Days100Words

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 16:45:32 -0800

This is a thought experiment I’ve been playing with for a while on what the future of our daily-driver cars will be as we both electrify and give autonomy to our fleet of vehicles.

Elon Musk has said that Tesla models will soon have ranges above 500 miles and eventually 700 miles, and there’s speculation of an eventual 1,000-mile range car, but I don’t think we’ll reach that goal for mass-market vehicles. While this could be a multi-thousand-word essay, I’m only going to scratch the surface here and outline my main points.

1) The cars we drive now are essentially the same Swiss-army knife design that’s been around for 100 years. Motor compartment now becoming front storage compartments AKA frunks, five-person passenger compartment, rear storage compartment. That is more space than we need for 90% of our daily usage. We can redesign our vehicles to better suit our needs and call to us the vehicle we need for that situation.

2) The range of today’s vehicles need to last long enough to make refilling the energy cells, whether liquid or electric relatively convenient for the human operator. As we add autonomy to both the vehicle and the charging stations, we remove the human’s convenience and schedule from the sizing equation.

3) There have been essays written that this shift will lead to people living even farther away from their work since they won’t be driving, but sitting in a car commuting to and from work still sucks and I believe people won’t give up more time with their family than they already do. Dimitri Dadiomov links to some good research that as long as the average commute time remains less than 30 minutes, people will increase their commute distance. I think it will be a long time before our average fleet highway speeds double to accommodate an en-masse migration as he proposes.

4) Smaller, motorcycle like vehicles get far superior energy-economy than sedans and thus need smaller battery packs to travel the same distance. We will need far fewer Lithium-ion batteries, super capacitors, and other energy storage systems to electrify the fleet if our fleet is made up of smaller vehicles reducing the cost and time of transitioning our global fleet to an electric one.

And there are still more points to speak on, but I’ve already gone well past the 100 word mark. Oh well, until tomorrow everyone.

100 Days, 100 Words - Day #2 The speed of CleanTechnology growth

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 11:04:09 -0800

Back at work today (officially) and very excited for what 2018 is going to bring.

With (under)estimates from BNEF that the CleanWeb/Cleantech2.0/ClimateTech/Digital Energy Economy will reach $64B by 2025, there is going to be a massive scale up in investment and entrepreneurial activity in the coming years.

As I was pondering evidence to show that the BNEF model was an underestimation of the growth of this industry, I realized that I might be falling into the classic entrepreneur’s stance of being overly optimistic. Which truth is correct? Probably somewhere in between.

I love the quote by Roy Amara, former President for the Institute of the Future

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run,

One problem with most long-term models is that that they do not or cannot account for innovation in a particular sector or for a particular technology. It’s difficult to predict the tipping point for anything to “go viral” and become widely adopted.

For our CleanTech industry, I believe that software will act as Archimedes lever and further increase our rate of transition to clean energy and a sustainable, circular economy and show that in technology, eight years is a long time into the future.

Until tomorrow…

Picture source

100 Days 100 Words: Day 1

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 21:33:02 -0800

Happy New Year, 2018! I’ve once again taken on a goal to increase and improve my writing, but am doing it in a much more measurable and attainable fashion this time. For the first 100 days of 2018, I’m going to write at least 100 words each day. I can go longer if I want to, but I have to write at least 100 words each day, which shouldn’t be that hard.

For my topics, I plan to write a lot about: energy and the environment (my life’s calling), woodworking and photography (my current creative pursuits), travel and camping (my favorite outdoor leisure activities).

I also plan to sprinkle in some essays on politics and other interesting things that spark my curiosity and have a running reading list for 2018 since that seems to be a popular and useful way to collect one’s thoughts on the books that I plan to read this year.

Look at that, didn’t even break a sweat and I got 170+. Here’s to 2018 and achieving our goals and dreams.

Stretching my fingers

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 07:04:25 -0700

It’s been over a year since I’ve written on here. instead switching to LinkedIn and Medium for posting. I think I will come back here soon with my next piece.

Hidden Behavioral Assessment - 6 Days Without My Luggage

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:00:07 -0800

I just got back from a trip to London where I spoke at the In-House Recruitment Expo on how to assess employees and candidates in the 21st century. Not all assessments are on paper though, some are hidden, done through role-playing or other actions. I just went through one such assessment on this trip with my initial flight being delayed a day, then canceled and my bag never leaving SFO.

Saturday 17th
Mechanical problems kept us on the tarmac for close to 6 hours before they sent us home with plans to fly out on the 18th and vouchers for food, taxis and hotel rooms.

Sunday 18th
I speak on the phone with Virgin 2X and am told that we’re set for 8:30PM departure. Can switch to 7PM flight and much worse seat if I want to, but 8:30 flight is fine.

5PM - Get to the airport extra early in case any problems arise and I can switch to the 7PM flight. Everything still appears fine and I stay on my flight.
7PM - VS20 departs for LHR
8M - Go down to my gate for boarding. No line of people, just a buzzing mass of humanity. I think to myself “this can’t be good”. As I near the counter I hear “We’ll begin testing the engines in 60 - 90 minutes and depart around 10:30PM. I go to the empty end of the counter and speak nicely to a gate agent and tell her that I’m speaking Tuesday morning and so need to leave tonight to guarantee that I am there on time. She calls about a dozen people then tells me to go up to ticketing so that they can change my ticket directly and gives me a voucher for $25 for food.
8:30PM - ETD is changed to 12:30AM.
9:30PM - The ticketing agent has me and another guy, Nik booked on an Air Canada redeye to Toronto and then another AC flight to London. It leaves in 20 minutes. They go to get our checked bags. We sprint over to AC and check in for our flights, 17 minutes to go, agent tells us good luck and that we may not make it.
9:35PM - Stop back at Virgin to see if they have my bag for me. Nope. The head agent says that they will put it on the next day’s flight and that we need to make a claim with Virgin in London so they can deliver it to us at our hotels.
9:38PM - Make it through a short but very slow security line, grabbing my stuff and sprinting down the terminal. Luckily, this flight is at the very last gate in the terminal so I well-exceeded my 10,000 steps goal for the day. A man in a suit calls out to me "Air Canada?” “Yes, Mikkelsen” I barely get out as my lungs heave for air. He speaks into a walkie-talkie and I keep pushing on, determined to make this flight.

9:40PM - I sweatily give my boarding pass to the gate agent and am ushered on in French and hand gestures.
9:41PM - I happily make the walk of shame down the plane’s aisle to the glares of people who don’t know my story, returning their gaze with my own joyful one.
9:42PM - With belongings stored I sit under the full arctic blast of the ventilation system, both cooling and drying my self off. (FYI being bald rapidly speeds this process)
9:44PM - Doors are locked and we begin pushing back from the gate…

Monday 19th
After a very long journey, we make it to LHR and I make my way through customs where the border agent asked me job-search tips for about 5 minutes (It’s what I get for working in recruiting I guess). I was then met by my two London brothers who helped me navigate to Terminal 3 where Virgin is located. Nik and I make it back through security to the baggage handling to file our reports with Virgin to get our belongings delivered to us and are met with this response.

“You need to file your claim with Air Canada.”

It took us about 3 or 4 tries going back and forth each saying the exact same thing as we said before until I finally realized what he was saying. There’s this weird rule that even though Virgin had our bags and would be sending them over on a Virgin plane, because we landed in the UK on an Air Canada plane, they were responsible. As it was 9:45PM there, the AC baggage team would be leaving and we wouldn’t be able to speak with them that night. He then gives us the direct phone number for that desk and tells us to call the next afternoon after the flight from SFO has landed and they have brought in our bags.

At 11PM I get to my hotel and they have no record of it being paid for. The clerk looks several times and insists that I pay even though I had confirmation that it was already paid for. I called the conference chair who had taken care of it for me and just as I was leaving a message for her, the manager finds the record and I finish off my vm with an apology for waking her up and wasting her time.

I bid adieu to my brotherly greeters, have a quick Skype hello with my partner to let her know I’m safe, wash my clothes in the hotel sink so that they are at least fresh for my talk the next morning, and get 15 naps in 3 hours of sleep before jetlag wakes me up and doesn’t let me sleep again.

Tuesday 20th
3 cups of coffee and 4 shots of espresso later, I am ready to give my talk. I must have written a really good intro for it as the room was jam packed. Nobody left or threw anything at me so I know that it wasn’t awful. Since I was discussing new ways of assessing employees and candidates, I got to include my journey as a hidden behavioral assessment.

That afternoon I called baggage at LHR and my bag was not there.

Wednesday 21st
2nd day of the conference and again, my bag was not at LHR.

During this time I am keeping up a lively discussion with Virgin Atlantic via twitter. They preferred to send me private messages, I preferred to air my problems publicly (go figure). I was about broken down and ready to buy new clothes and Virgin said I needed to get reimbursed from Air Canada (responsible to me) who would then get reimbursed from Virgin (at fault). Air Canada has a stipulation that they may not reimburse someone if they don’t make a claim on the day of the arrival. It’s now 48 hours later.

I call them and tell them I’d like to make a claim and am told that I need to go back to LHR to make the claim “in person”.

60 minutes later at LHR…
“Hi I need to get into the baggage area to make a claim about lost luggage.”

“Oh no, you can’t go through security. There is a phone down at the end of the hall and you have to use that to call them…”

“%$A@$#@#@!!”“ Seriously? I have to travel an hour to be at the airport "in person” to make a phone call about my bags? Ok then…

I get on the phone and explain my story and after conferring with a few other staff I’m told that this is too strange a tale to do over the phone. They send someone out to get me.

As my original baggage claim ticket was on my VS boarding pass and was surrendered when I was booked onto AC, I didn’t have a reference number to give them and so filled out a list of external descriptors and internal contents to help them locate it.

Thursday 22nd
More tweets with Virgin about my bag, I tell them to put it on today’s flight or send it to my house in Oakland.
That night, I get a text from Nik who had just returned from his trip. His bag was still there… So was mine. Turns out it was never sent at all.

I tweeted this information out. About an hour after my tweet, my mom gets a call at her house (Haven’t changed ID information in about 10 years) from Virgin that they had my bag and that I had elected to leave it there in SFO when I switched planes. This person also told her that I needed to file a report so that they could send it to me implying that they wouldn’t take any action without that report.

Friday 23rd
I get a response from Virgin that they are confirming that my bag is still there and that when I return I should go to ticketing to be reunited with my bag.

Also Friday, I decide to do no more washing and just buy a pair of shirts for my remaining meetings and events and the flight home.

Saturday 24th
Feeling really weird heading to the airport with only my laptop bag and a small shopping bag, I check in for my flight and wait the couple of hours for boarding.

The plane leaves just slightly ahead of schedule and I’m feeling good that things are going to be right on this flight. As a vegetarian with a gluten allergy, there isn’t a lot that I can eat and so ensure that I order the Asian Vegetarian option and not end up with pasta salad, veggie “bolognese” over penne pasta, and a roll, for my lunch.

As they begin hand delivering the dietary-restriction meals, I can’t fail to notice that two people in my row were given their meals, but not me. It seems that this behavioral assessment is not quite done yet for me. I speak to the head flight attendant and he finds me a vegan meal. rice and peas and spinach and also the pasta salad. It was quite tasty and much better than eating nothing at all, but quite a bit less than I was hoping to eat. The 2nd meal on the plane was a sandwich, chips and a brownie. I traded my sandwich and brownie with the man next to me for his chips so I had two tiny bags of chips and a cup of coffee.

Land back at SFO, breeze through customs (get Global Entry, it’s worth the $100)

At 3:56PM I was reunited with my bag, 143 hours after I had relinquished it into Virgin’s care.

Sunday 25th
I’ll be working with Virgin now to get reimbursed for my expenses and compensated for my troubles and to help them fix this issue so that it doesn’t happen again. They are making up for it and as long as that happens, I plan to keep taking their flights and being an evangelist for their brand.

Getting my Hands Green Again

Thu, 08 May 2014 22:33:42 -0700

First, it’s been almost a year since I’ve contributed anything to this blog, and almost 2 since I actually wrote something on here. All of my writing has been on jobFig’s blog.

Last night I went to a meetup for Data Science for Sustainability, a very cool group here in the Bay Area that is focused on data analysis to improve energy use and environmental stewardship. It was hosted by OPower, a company that uses energy usage data and behavioral science to help consumers save money on their energy bills.

The talk was by Dan Chatham of UC Berkeley, discussing SFPark, the city’s demand-pricing experiment for on-street and garage parking. The goal being to reduce on-street cruising for parking and always have one spot available on each block. The result? After two years, on-street vacancy has increased only slightly. The biggest finding in my opinion is that the SF Constitution states that parking can not rise above $6/hr. In order for demand-pricing to really work, there cannot be an artificial ceiling.

I’m hopeful that this law will change so that the city/county can more fully implement a demand pricing program for its parking and reduce congestion and pollution within the city.

Not only did I get my hands green again, I got my fingers typing again. My plan is to continue to write on energy and entrepreneurial related topics here as I write more behavioral posts on jobFig.

Red Sky at Night, We all Can Delight! #noFilter, #beauty

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:34:55 -0700

Red Sky at Night, We all Can Delight! #noFilter, #beauty

The Siren Call of the Ocean, Ever Draws Me Westward.

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 12:54:12 -0700

The Siren Call of the Ocean, Ever Draws Me Westward.

In my thinking chair. #summer #wastingTimeIsntTimeWasted

Sun, 07 Jul 2013 18:07:59 -0700

In my thinking chair. #summer #wastingTimeIsntTimeWasted

City in the Fog #SFLove , #beauty, #bridges

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 12:12:29 -0700

City in the Fog #SFLove , #beauty, #bridges

Another gorgeous #sunset in Seattle! #lastNight, #picOfTheDay,

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 21:01:55 -0700

Another gorgeous #sunset in Seattle! #lastNight, #picOfTheDay,

The Reunion!

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:11:27 -0700

The Reunion!

Seattle Summer Rooftops can’t be beat! With the brotha...

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:02:50 -0700

Seattle Summer Rooftops can’t be beat! With the brotha from anotha motha, @atuanya #sun, #highLife

Sunshine+water+trees+ mountains = Seattle in the Summer

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:59:03 -0700

Sunshine+water+trees+ mountains = Seattle in the Summer