Acumen's Wanderings

New Home

2007-10-12T11:30:00.001-04:00

So getting the new site up and running has been more challenging than I expected, particularly given my schedule as of late. I've finally got the new domain running with a template background. In addition, I've transferred my posts from here.

Go check out the new blog at rockytopmba.com.

Unless things change, this will be the last post on this platform.

Hiatus and New Project

2007-09-19T19:52:00.001-04:00

Hi, folks. This blog will be on hiatus for the near future. I'm working on a new online project, and I've got a crazy class load for the final semester of my MBA.

Once/If the new project comes online, I'll be sure to post a redirect.

Vacation in Chicago

2007-08-15T21:46:00.001-04:00

Just returned to TN after spending some time in Chicago with the Girl. Met her family and spent a few days in downtown Chicago. I must admit, it was a nice city with some good people.

Me and the Girl at Buckingham Fountain:

Wrigley Field during Tuesday, August 15th Reds vs Cubs game:

Me and the Girl at Grant Park for an outdoor concert:

And last but definitely not least, a picture at Legends bar with Buddy Guy. Yeah, I met one of the greatest guitar players alive.

StartupWeekend.Com

2007-08-01T16:28:00.000-04:00

StartupWeekend.Com

This is a project from a blog author I follow. The StartupWeekend.com folks come in and facilitate a 3 day weekend, concept to completion, start-up workshop for entrepreneurial communities. Being the conference junkie that I am (I can't help it, I designed and directed leadership conferences for three years!) I am a sucker for this idea.

Now, how can I get this idea off the ground in Knoxville, TN. This place has the money, the ideas, and even pockets of entrepreneurial leadership. Could this be the tool for giving the community the entrepreneurial confidence and publicity needed to take off?

Video: The Call of the Entrepreneur

2007-08-01T16:21:00.000-04:00

There is a new video documentary coming out called "The Call of the Entrepreneur." I'm looking forward to checking it out, particularly since I agree with the theme of the trailer that entrepreneurship drives the economy.

I'm sure it has its fair amount of typical elaboration and inflated egos, but it's entrepreneurship. How can you avoid that? Entrepreneurs by their very nature are salesmen and strategists.

LeadAmerica Live Feed Presentation

2007-07-28T17:03:00.000-04:00

I was scheduled this afternoon to speak at a LeadAmerica business conference in Boston, MA. Unfortunately, US Airlines (boo, hiss, etc) had other plans for me. After spending my afternoon/evening/night flying to Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, my connection to Boston (as well as every connection for the next 24 hours) was canceled. I got on a plane and flew straight back to Knoxville, TN.

Today, thanks to the technology included in an Apple MacBook, I was able to do the presentation via a live video feed. The students were fantastic, and I really enjoyed my first video feed presentation.

Here is a quick recap of my presentation:

Business Mythbusters (aka 5 Misconceptions of Professional Life)
1. Entrepreneurs don't have bosses.
2. I've got a full social calendar, so I'm out the door at 5pm everyday.
3. Right out of college I'll make 100k, drive a new car, purchase a house and vacation in Europe.
4. If I only had an iPhone/Blackberry/laptop/venture capital/etc I'd be happy and succesful!
5. Life is fair.

Man v. Market (aka How to Separate Yourself from the Pack)
1. Learn to lead through following.
2. There are more important things than salary.
3. Your reputation is your most valuable asset.
4. Think differently.
5. Always put the team first.

Update: A friend and staff member at LeadAmerica placed this little clip of my presentation on YouTube.

Rock-N-Roll Doesn't Care About Your Day Job

2007-07-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

I broke the "no going out on a work day" rule last night to catch a show and see some classmates. We started the night watching replays of the Tour de France and ended up at Blue Cats for a Detroit Cobras show.

The Detroit Cobras are kind of punk rock meets girl rock meets rock-a-billy. The first few songs were rough, mostly due to the sounds being very poorly mixed. Once the sound was corrected and the band got comfortable, the audience experienced a rare thing for a Knoxville Wednesday night-- unadulterated rock-n-roll.

At last night's show, the lead singer had an awesome voice, good stage presence and a very sarcastic attitude. You could tell she was a little frustrated by the half-packed venue and horrible sound tech. At times her dry humor worked for her, other times against her. The band as a whole was enjoyable but awkward in a good kind of way. Overall, the band's energy was driven by the female guitarist and drummer.

While I'm having a bit of a slow start this morning, it was definitely worth it. Like my buddy said last night, "Real rock-n-roll doesn't care about your day job."

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

2007-07-24T15:42:00.000-04:00

Dunning and Kruger, two academics at Cornell University, developed the Dunning-Kruger effect to study the notion that people with little knowledge tend to think they know more than others with much more knowledge.

They concluded that, based on an individual's level of skill and sensitivity:

incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

The idea of the Dunning-Kruger effect has been extraordinarily relevant in my experience as a venture capital intern. It's not just me, even the fund partner has stressed the importance of understanding our own limitations. Only once you push yourself to the border of known and unknown (through humility and diligence) can you expand your circle of knowledge.

Confusing, right? Let me simplify. Imagine the knowledge you possess as a circle. Inside the circle is the knowledge you possess, outside of the circle is the infinite unknown, and the circumference of the circle represents those things you've realized you don't know. As you gain more knowledge, the circle expands, thus increasing the circumference of the circle and your knowledge of what you don't know.

So remember this, the next time you know there is value in an investment/project/employee that others can't see, think about the Dunning-Kruger effect. Maybe they lack a critical piece of knowledge to see the value... or maybe you just overestimated your own ability to analyze a situation. :-)

Learn more about the Dunning-Kruger effect here(Wiki) and here (academic journal).

The Swamp of Social Networking, Hugh's Law

2007-07-24T07:13:00.000-04:00

Hugh MacLeod, author and artist of Gaping Void, left an incredible profound message on Twitter.

"Hugh's Law": All social networks turn into a swampy mush of spam eventually.

Hugh's law is possibly even prophetic.

Update: Hugh himself payed AW a little visit and posted about Hugh's Law on Gaping Void. Rock on. The Gaping Void is one of the reasons I got involved with blogging.

Update 2: Another favorite blog author, Fred Wilson of AVC, recently wrote about his frustration with Facebook and LinkedIn. This begs the question, how can we drain the swamp?

R&R: Ramsey Cascades Hike

2007-07-22T18:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I hiked the Ramsey Cascade's trail at the Smokey Mountain National Park. This is my second attempt, after a medical bail 1/2 mile from the cascades. Needless to say, I wanted to conquer the trail this time.

The trail is 8 miles total with a 2000 foot elevation increase. At the top are 75 foot cascades, feeding a steam that the trail criss-crosses. The trail is a moderate level of difficulty, but we decided to add some excitement by setting an aggressive pace. We completed the entire hike in around 4 hours, including 30 minutes to play in the cascades. To top it off, the weather was perfect, ranging from 72-82 degrees Fahrenheit with clear blue skies.

Here are some pictures from the top:

Debunking More Crap on Venture Capital

2007-07-18T08:38:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, over the last couple of months I've been interning at a venture capital fund. The experience has been awesome, but every day I am amazed at how many misconceptions there are behind venture capital and venture capitalist.

A former venture analyst turned start-up officer, Charlie O'Donnell, runs a blog that provides valuable insight into the life of a young professional entrepreneur. I've never met Charlie, but hope to some day. He posted his comments/criticisms to a Vault.com (motto: "the most trusted name in career information") article on the uppers and downers of venture capital. Charlie's comments are in parenthesis.

Venture Capital uppers

1. You often get to be the one making decisions because you have money. (Except when a deal is a good deal, of course... I mean, you *could* decide to pass on Twitter, but then you'd be an idiot)

2. Over the long term, you will certainly become rich because the job is well paying and you should eventually get "carry" or equity in the firm. (Yup... all VCs become rich.. every single last one of them... except of course if you suck at it.)

3. Being "in the middle of it all" in some of the most interesting industries. (Ok, I'll give them that...)

4. You have access to the best minds -the people you work with are typically very smart and interesting. (As an analyst? hmm... :) )

5. Your job is to absorb and enjoy the positive creative energy of entrepreneurs and direct it toward successful execution. (What exactly does that mean? I couldn't imagine sitting at my desk in reception at USV and telling Brad and Fred, "I'll be absorbing and enjoying creative energy for the rest of the afternoon")

6. You could suddenly become rich if one of your companies does extremely well and you were able to co-invest or you have carry. (You could also stand in a field with a big metal pole during a lightning storm...)

7. You have access to the best information systems. (Really? All I got at USV was a laptop and a phone... Isn't the whole lack of information what enables outsized returns in VC?)

Venture Capital downers

1. You don't have pride of ownership in anything. You're just an investor, not a builder. (I'm pretty sure ownership is what you get when you hand someone a check... unless I'm completely mistaken about what "equity investment" means. Also, a quick read of VC blogs will show you that there is no lacking on the pride side.)

2. VC is a slow path to wealth compared with the immediate cash income you get in investment banking, hedge funds or even management consulting. (No, book publishing is a slow path to wealth. That's like saying the guy who finishes 22nd in the Tour De France was too slow of a cyclist.)

3. You are a jack-of-all-trades, not an expert. After a few years, you can't do anything other than VC because you grow spoiled by making decisions without much compromise. (And your muscles atrophy, too... from all that absorbing and enjoying...)

4. Venture capital is fundamentally a negative process. Because you reject 99 of every 100 plans, year after year, over time you focus on figuring out what is wrong with a company so you can reject it and get onto the next deal. What is wrong with the management? The technology? The deal terms? The strategy? After just a few years, that mentality may bleed into your life. What is wrong with my partners? What is wrong with my spouse? What is wrong with me? Oh, the angst! (I really need to know which VC they interviewed to get this answer.)

5. Because you reject 99 of every 100 entrepreneurs, you make a lot of enemies, no matter how nice and helpful you try to be. No one likes rejection, and passionate entrepreneurs have long memories. (Yes... that's why so many VCs are killed in the line of duty--like a passionate district attorney putting thugs away.)

With a last name like O'Donnell, it's got to be Irish sarcasm. From Charlie O'Donnell's This is Going to be BIG.

Funny: Gary the Snowman VC

2007-07-17T21:24:00.001-04:00

The Wrady-Miller Debate

2007-07-17T19:12:00.000-04:00

I've recently engaged in a very relevant and lively debate with a friend from undergrad. This friend is attending law school and is someone with whom I have intellectual respect. As it would be, it appears we fall in very different camps when it comes to American foreign policy. Feeling strongly about our perspectives, debates have been known to break out from time to time. Today was one of those occurrences. I suppose that we could categorize this as a civil libertarian (Wrady) and conservative(Miller) debate on American foreign policy, particularly in its consideration of 9/11 and the Iraq war.

While the debate started on facebook, our responses are constrained by a limited number of characters for posting. Additionally, I'm not sure that everyone who visits our page wants to read the dialog (although they would probably benefit from it).

Follow the comments for the debate so far:

Mankiw on the Tax Gap

2007-07-15T11:40:00.000-04:00

Greg Mankiw in tomorrow's NYTimes on taxes.

With the use of facts and some economics-101 analysis, Professor Mankiw debunks the criticism from the democratic presidential candidates, Warren Buffet and Robert Reich on America's tax structure.

Simply put, the folks above would like you to believe that those in the top 10% income bracket are paying too little on taxes. It's the classic "the rich don't pay their share and the poor can barely survive." The reality is, we now have a class of "working rich" who are far from the elite crowd of 50 years ago sitting on their yachts sipping mint juleps. If you look at the chart below, the top 10% pay more than their share of taxes.

Highlight quote from the article: Fairness is not an economic concept. If you want to talk fairness, you have to leave the department of economics and head over to philosophy.

PS: Mankiw is awesome.

PSS: President Bush had a campaign promise in 2000 that no income group would pay more than 33% of their income in taxes. It looks like he kept that promise.

Guy Kawasaki Online Interview

2007-07-12T16:48:00.000-04:00

At Ustream.tv on Thursday, July 12th at 5pm EST(2pm PCT).

Guy Kawasaki is a former Apple evangelist turned entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Guy also wrote an entrepreneurial must read titled The Art of the Start. This guy is amazing, end of discussion. For notes from the interview, visit Innovation Valley Venture Journal.

Addicted to Blogging

2007-07-12T08:40:00.000-04:00

According to a little survey, I am 70% addicted to blogging.

70%

Mingle² - Online Dating

Internet Apps: Value Added?

2007-07-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

With my new experiment ivvj.blogspot.com, I've taken an interest in driving traffic through freeware and zerocost advertising. Following the blogs of folks smarter than I (i.e. Marc Andreesen), I picked up a few Internet applications that can drive traffic. This includes digg, reddit, and stumble upon.

So far, I'm not really sure what value any of those applications bring my Internet user experience or my blog author experience. Stumple upon is kind of fun for killing time, but I don't need a value-add for killing time. After all, that's what facebook is for, right? (insert sarcasm)

My issue with so many of these online applications is that they bring no real value to my experience. On the rare occasion that they do, there is a substantial learning curve for use. With all this venture capital money flowing into social networking and online applications, I'm concerned. Are we creating another Frankenstein's monster; a self-generated, larger-than-life, flawed creature that can't survive without the guidance and protection of its maker?

For all you computer geeks out there, if you really want to make bank while making a difference in the digital space, focus on ease of use and practical application. Make it real and trendy, but make it useful to more than just the 50,000 early adopters. The rest of us don't have the time, patience or understanding for it.

UPDATE: Bay Partenrs are actually doing a VC investment experiment called AppFactory. The whole point is to push mini-vc investments into application development. I think there is huge potential, but how do you focus the creative spirit of the developers without breaking their spirits? Without the focus, you are going to end up dumping money into a bunch of small applications that provide no real value to the user. Sure they look cool, but the tech early adopters aren't a large enough market to warrant a 250k investment.

Young Professional's Survival Guide

2007-07-09T15:33:00.000-04:00

I just returned from NYC where I spoke at a LeadAmerica conference focused on business and entrepreneurship. Seeing as my audience was 200 high school leaders interested in business, I focused on those things young professionals should know to get an advantage out the gate. Being the Discovery Channel dork that I am, I selected Mythbusters and Man v. Wild to spoof. Here is a quick synopsis of the key points:

Business Mythbusters (aka 5 Misconceptions of Professional Life)
1. Entrepreneurs don't have bosses.
2. I've got a full social calendar, so I'm out the door at 5pm everyday.
3. Right out of college I'll make 100k, drive a new car, purchase a house and vacation in Europe.
4. If I only had an iPhone/Blackberry/laptop/venture capital/etc I'd be happy and succesful!
5. Life is fair.

Man v. Market (aka How to Separate Yourself from the Pack)
1. Learn to lead through following.
2. There are more important things than salary.
3. Your reputation is your most valuable asset.
4. Think differently.
5. Always put the team first.

Happy 4th of July

2007-07-04T10:03:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th of July!

New Project IVVJ

2007-07-03T14:12:00.000-04:00

Here is my new project-- Innovation Valley Venture Journal

This is a pseudo-serious attempt at bringing social networking to the Innovation Valley of East Tennessee. Check it out (for all 3 people that read this blog).

On a side note, IVVJ allows me to really utilize this blog as more a personal page. Rants, raves, likes, etc.

Reasons and Excuses

2007-06-28T12:58:00.000-04:00

I got these from Seth Godin's blog.

Most organizations need a good reason to do something new.

All they need is a flimsy excuse to not do something for the first time.

And they often need a lawsuit to stop doing something they're used to.

The Thompson Fire

2007-06-28T09:34:00.000-04:00

From Bloomberg

On Tuesday evening, I had the opportunity to volunteer/attend a Thompson function in Nashville, TN. The Senator spoke briefly on some key themes including: federalism, inalienable rights, and the danger of radical Islam to Western culture. Most of the evening was spent more casually, as the Senator chatted casually with guests.

Your author even had a few moments to chat with the Senator about our shared hometown of Lawrenceburg, TN. Like all good Southerners, within 30 seconds we had managed to find relatives who knew each other-- his father and my grandfather were friends.

Experiencing a moment of such historic value was exciting. Seeing a candidate that was this humble and straight-talking was exhilarating.

The Future of Blogging?

2007-06-26T06:56:00.000-04:00

For those followers of AW (all 3 loyal readers), you may have noticed a slip in postings for the past few days. It hasn't been because I've been too busy to keep up. In my opinion, some new discoveries have actually allowed me to become more efficient.

Here are the widgits/tools that I've learned to utilize:
-- Twitter: this little program has replaced my random "what I'm doing" posts; if you don't have it, get it!
--Google Reader: instead of having to visit hundreds of blogs with multiple posts, Google Reader lets me subscribe to RSS feeds and scan blog update from one easy to read page
--Ligit: This delightful little device adds a search bar to my site and tracks the most often searched words from my blog
--Last.fm: I've always been a fan of this program, but I recently became reassociated due to some software and support updates.

So why haven't I been blogging as much? The better question, why aren't you exploring the mediums above?

Edwards Feels Pretty

2007-06-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

I almost lost it when I saw this. I know all candidates (regardless of party) spend time thinking about image... but this is too funny.

Okay, let's do a quick recap of the former senator from North Carolina:

1. Two $400 haircuts that were billed as campaign expenses
2. Building the largest house in his county
3. Personally invested and worked for a hedge fund
4. Trial lawyer
5. Receives speaking fees for thousands of dollars

Does that sound like a solution-oriented poverty advocate?

ARO's Party Lines

2007-06-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

So I'm participating in an online debate at American Republic Online's Party Lines column. Click here for the website.

I'm looking forward to this, and the first topic is fixing gas prices.