But having lunch in Covent Garden inspired me today.  While out there I watched a group of three people taking on pledges/donations for the NSPCC.  I watched person after person turn them away, say they were too busy or do what I did (avoid, duck and swerve).  Don’t get me wrong, I think the NSPCC is a great cause and should be supported, I just hate having to discuss my charitable giving with a stranger on the street.  This brought back memories of my days doing telemarketing, I lasted a week, but I do believe everyone should spend some time doing a job like this.

Not because jobs like this are bad, which they are, but I truly believe jobs like this build resilience.  They help individuals not take no for an answer, or to not take rejection personal.  I was terrible at telemarketing, I’m okay with that, but hearing no so much has definitely made me stronger to when things aren’t go absolutely swimmingly.  This is a skill you definitely need in a start up, doing sales for an unknown product or the gajillion other tasks you have to do as an entrepreneur.  So you’ll excuse me as I put my shoulder back to the grindstone.

Your Linkedin profile is not like a CV or resume – I’m going to use CV as its fewer letters and I’m lazy. A CV should be more specific, when I looked for a job I would have different CVs for different industries, if I was looking at banking roles I had finance things highlighted and with more detail, if I was looking for consulting gigs I had consulting type roles and accomplishments highlighted. My internet company CV was specifically peppered with my technical and product capabilities.

A Linkedin profile should be updated constantly, should have your recent wins and metrics. The focus should be on getting people who’ve worked with you to recommend you – thanks to everyone who’s recommended me on my profile btw! The reason is that you never know who or why someone’s looking at your profile. It could be a recruiter but it could also be a potential partner, customer, or some other relationship that will grow out of Linkedin. You should have some recommendations from colleagues, managers, suppliers and customers if possible. This covers you regardless of who’s looking at your Linkedin profile. Before I had the landing page for AdAvengers.com ready I had “stealth mode” as the company I worked for, when it was ready I changed it. I’ve already got a recommendation on the latest role and it’s for my contracting work not for the work that I’m hoping Ad Avengers will end up doing. Doesn’t matter, what matters is that people see your doing something – anything – of value for someone – anyone!

If you’re lucky you’ll spend most of your time employed rather than looking for a new gig. Your Linkedin profile is like a Google search for you or like your twitter account, i.e. organic and alive. It should reflect the person you are and not focus on a specific role. Think of it as a funnel, your profile is a tool to get people to find out more about you, to ask someone they know about you, or to ask you if you’re interested in a role or opportunity and that’s when you focus on the specifics about the role and your fit for it (in your CV), not when you’re doing your Linkedin profile.

So here are some of my basic’s for a successful Linkedin profile:

• reflect your character, think of three words you want someone to think of when they read your profile and then write your copy
• ask for specific recommendations from people you’ve done work for, and who worked with you on work you’re proud of
• recommend people, people you really like and would want to work with / for/ or have working for you again
• use metrics when you can – from budgets to impact
• Highlight brands that you worked for – if you worked for a big brand, lucky you, if you worked for brands that aren’t so big outline what they did and if they had big brands as clients
• join groups and participate wherever you can – you never know when a connection might be made
• If you’re on twitter then connect your Linkedin profile – at least highlight it in your profile and send the occasional post to both Linkedin and twitter (Tweetdeck is great for this)
• Be careful of highlighting your credentials in your profile title, I get pretty annoyed with people who have Firstname, Lastname, MBA in their profile,  imagine how someone who thinks MBA’s are useless would feel about that (and believe it or not there are people who feel this way)
• Make a significant amount of content available to all, so anyone looking at your profile can get a decent understanding of you without clicking the “View full profile” link
• update frequently – don’t wait till you’re actually looking for a job, you might miss a customer / supplier / partner

Funny enough, Seth Godin has a great blog post today about what kind of story you tell about yourself, your Linkedin page should tell a story about you.

If there’s any truth to the Simmons-Smith Lebron-Wade-Bosh-Paul conspiracy to all play together (note: that post is a must read for all ball fans) than this is even worse than I thought. Lebron was playing for a move to Miami and that explains his no-show against the Celtics in the playoffs and Bosh mailed it in while he was in his last season in Toronto as well. I’m getting angrier as I write this.

The point is that if you’re going to make a decision that has a huge impact on a number of different stakeholders be careful how you package the announcement. Durant has won a lot of praise for the class he has shown, by not making it a big deal and by signing with the team that brought him into the league and is assembling a really good young nucleus. Lebron in comparison has dragged the city of Cleveland, where he grew up and grew famous through a really bitter off-season not revealing his hand. Don’t even get me started on Chris Bosh.

I hope none of these guys wins a title for Miami. If there’s any truth to the idea that what goes around comes around, Miami will lose to Orlando or Boston or Chicago, or the Lakers, or Durant and the thunder. I won’t be rooting for these guys even if Lebron does go to the Knicks with Amar’e, unlike Simmons who believes he could sign off on a decision to bring basketball back in the Mecca, I just couldn’t bring my self to root for a guy who acted so carelessly.
This could have all been avoided if some of these players had just shown more class, more dignity more loyalty to their franchises and less selfishness. More Kevin Durant less Lebron James.

There’s a parallel here with basketball, lot’s of free agents in the NBA this year are figuring out where they want to play next year. It’s interesting to watch as a fan because you’ll see if players value winning, they’ll go to a team that is set up to win or can get other free agents and become successful, or if they value making maximum dollars.

Knowing why you do something is really important to doing it right / well. When I graduated from B school, I focused on the commute, focused on the location and the brand of the company I wanted to join and that meant a big US company, so I applied for and got a job at one. It looked great on paper and on Linkedin but I wasn’t really happy. I didn’t have the “why” right. Now I know I want to create something, make a difference, create some jobs, and build something that makes an impact, so I know the “why” and I’m much happier professionally.

Don’t get me wrong, there are basic needs like a salary or the availability of a job in a location, but aside from the life basics I think real happiness comes from knowing why you’re doing something. So before you take on the next job, move to a different place or whatever it is you do, make sure you know why you’re doing it.

I’ve been working out of the Yahoo! offices for a couple of days a week and then out of the London Business School Library and most recently I was granted access to Camden Unlimited’s Collective project this is great as it allows early stage entrepreneurs some office space for a short period of time. I’m really hoping I can help shape the space and make it a really good environment.

Then, the Bee and I were having a conversation that turned into an idea for a work space that could encompass childcare and working space, and then someone tweeted about Third Door which is trying to do something just like that. I think this is a great idea and I really hope they’re able to get it off the ground and expand it into different areas.

And finally, today I came across this great blog post from Seth Godin, goodbye to the office, it’s great post discussing why do we need an office and how technology and our society has progressed beyond the need for a traditional office. I think Seth’s right, but I do think there’s something to be said for social interaction with individuals, they just don’t necessarily have to be in the same company.

Imagine if there was a group of hubs in different areas of cities where local residents could go with childcare and an office set up. Where people were working but not everyone worked for the same company. Where you could socially interact, where you could hold meetings, where video conferencing capabilities were available, but it was walking distance from your home and everyone had access to one of these work hubs. Companies pay a lot for overhead, where they have to pay for cleaning, supplying basic stuff like utilities, water, coffee etc. Imagine if they gave employees a work space allowance that allowed individuals to subscribe to a office away from home but close enough that you could roll out of bed and be at work. People may say that working in the same place helps as your team helps productivity but having worked in traditional offices for the most of my career and having worked away from my teams for the last couple of months I don’t buy that.

I’m a big fan of Scott Adams, the creator of dilbert, and I love the fact that he has an office across the street from his house, or something like that. Why can’t everyone have an office across the street. Think of the environmental impact (transport emissions saved), the societal impact (less time commuting means more time with the family) or the productivity impact. I think that’s the future of the office.

The issue is having control over technology. I have the TV on waaaaay too much. I accept that, it’s a hard habit to break, the Bee absolutely hates it and sometimes we get roped into watching a silly TV show rather than having a conversation. At the same time we both have iPod’s, blackberries and laptops – our house has two of everything and 4 laptops right now – so we spend a lot of time on devices. And this is likely to grow rather than stop.

We need to take back control. Just because we have Blackberry messenger, or skype, or email, or facebook, or twitter, or whatever doesn’t mean we need to be on it all the time. I’m a bit torn because I love watching TV with facebook or twitter on in the background, and I don’t think I want to give up the occasional sporting event or series that I’m really interested in. But it’s about balance; it’s about spending time wisely rather than wasting time.

Returning a piece of kit, or killing an account on a social network is not the answer, the answer is being conscious of how much time we’re spending with technology and what the opportunity costs are of that time.

Here’s the thing, it’s nothing new! Sony Ericsson had a video calling phone more than a few years ago. A colleague at Yahoo! reminded everyone about this with his tweet and link to some Germans on YouTube making avideo call using the Sony Ericsson k-800.

The difference is that the experience is way better now than it was then. The resolution, the camera’s and wifi mean that you’re not dependent on network access and it can be a pretty good experience. That’s all pretty big. Overall the technology is ready for mainstreaming, and Apple is great at releasing a technology when it’s ready for mainstreaming.

Launch a service too early and it’s restricted to the UberGeeks’s of the world. I have friends who had Sony Ericsson phones with video calling capability, problem was as most of us weren’t ready for the calling capability these friends spent most of their time using the phone and texting rather than video calling. It’s like people using email in 1991, facebook in 2001, twitter in 2008 etc. If the network isn’t ready for the technology it’s not going to really get adopted. I call this my technology mainstreaming theory and I’ve drawn up a little visual explaining the principle and how this might apply to video calls. Apple is potentially right on the money, launching right when the technology is ready for mainstream, I expect Android to follow suit quickly, and the fine folks at RIM, Windows to lag a bit – don’t even get me started as to when Nokia and Samsung will catch on.

(Note – if you have trouble seeing this, click on it for notes on the flickr page)

This seems to be a general trait with Sony Ericsson, they seem to be great at creating things when the technology is there, rather than when the technology has matured to a point where it becomes a really good experience. Which is what Apple’s doing here and done since their foray into smart phones.

As well, by launching Facetime as an open standard Apple’s hoping other phone manufacturers will build on it, but I’m sure they’re banking on most people wanting to buy and use the video calling capabilities on the iPhone 4. Not a bad bet by Apple.

Personally, I think the idea of eating your own dog food is bull. If you’re a dog maybe this works but if you’re a human being with some idea for taste, quality, performance and functionality dog food is just that, food for dogs. How do you get better than the competition if you don’t know just how good the competition is? How do you succeed if you’re not familiar with what works in the market?

My belief is that employees should be charged with making products they want to use, and that the aim of the corporation to be to build products so much better than the competition that people inside the company don’t want to use other products, but rather become evangelists for your products to their friends and contacts outside of the company.

If you work in a company where people within the company are using your competitions products or services, don’t out law it, charge them with the idea to build products better than the ones their using now. Get people to build something, use it for two weeks and then see if they switch, if not, why not? Can you fix it, can you make it better, do it, switch again, and now? Repeat often until your employees switch to your own product by choice. I call this the “stop eating dog food and start making caviar” or “caviar” approach to product selection and development in an organisation, i wonder if it will stick.

Now this is Jim Joyce, an umpire who made a mistake on a baseball play that costed Armando Galarraga a perfect game, he’s contrite, he says things like “I missed it… I kicked the sh*t out of it, nobody feels worse than I do, I took a perfect game away from this kid”…:

When you mess up, take responsibility and apologise. Be honest and upfront and say you’re sorry. Joyce did this, he found Galarraga and apologized after wards and everybody was big and understanding.

Zuckerberg and Facebook continually do things with privacy and instead of being honest and quick with an apology they act defensive and put the blame on users rather than accepting the issues on their site. This is one of the reasons why my pictures will be on flickr, my blog posts will be here and not on Facebook and my status messages will be on twitter and linkedin as well as facebook. I’m not naïve, I’m not going to quit Facebook, it’s too big a part of my communication with people, but it won’t be the only place I store information and a lot of this decision has to do with the way the company handles themselves and their apologies.

3. Why set up your start-up in the UK? Especially in the current environment of higher taxes (VAT, capital gains, etc) and reduced government spending?

Here’s something controversial for you, I don’t mind paying taxes. Especially for things like education and health care. As someone who grew up with a single mom who worked very hard, I had to take on a huge debt to go to University and then graduate school so I appreciate everything the state does and if that means that I take a little bit less home so be it.

At the same time London is one of the most active entrepreneurship and digital centres so anytime you can get a mix like that you’d be mad not to take advantage of it.

The capital gains tax hits entrepreneurs and investors hard, but I do believe the government won’t take it higher than 40% which is what it was a couple of years ago. Hopefully, the government will include some breaks and exemptions for entrepreneurship.

Right now you have to be where your market is and where you can build a business, if you get to a point where you’re worrying about how much of your profits are being taken by taxation you’re going in the right direction. For me, the amount of connections, meetings, clients, advisors, investors you have in the UK and especially in London is phenomenal. People always talk about Silicon Valley and that’s great if you’re a tech company, but in places like London and New York you’re closer to the real world, where most people look at you funny when you say you “tweet”.

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