We are less than a week out from the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference #AZEC09 and once again I open my email and it is full of "volunteers." People who want to volunteer to help us with the conference, and even PR people volunteering their clients to speak. It made me furious this morning, so here's the rant.

Listen, you cheeseballs and dirtbags, we needed volunteers eight months ago when we started planning the conference, not now.  We have had them lined up forever — members of the community who have done the web site, the program, the PR, the logistics, the marketing, the video, etc.  We make them sponsors. The entire friggin conference is put on by volunteers: only the food and facility get paid. And why is that so?

Because, cheeseballs and dirtbags, this conference is a FUNDRAISER. for a CHARITY. That means we don't put the money in our pockets.  We use it to fund programs for laid-off workers, domestic violence victims, returning felons, and others who are trapped in low wage jobs or no jobs.  We want to teach them how to be self-sufficient by finding their passion or their expertise and building a business around it. We run a 501(c)3 that has NO OVERHEAD. None.  Every dime goes to give programs.

We also don't want your motivational speaker client to practice his shtick on us.  We are motivated, and so is our audience.

Our speakers are hand-picked by me or by the panel moderators because 1)they are very valuable in their own fields and have something exceptional to share about entrepreneurship 2)they are willing to contribute their time and energy to the conference, or  3)they are people from out of town that our audience wants to hear from. You can't just pop in a week or two in advance and ask if there are "holes" in the agenda.

And you can't email me and hope to defray your expenses by "offering to give a small presentation." That just tells me you have never attended.

I'm trying to create value.  This isn't the Bay Area, and we aren't charging $2995 a ticket for the day. We are charging $150 at the door, and if you wish, you can still get the Mashable discount by using the code AZEC09. Although that expires soon.

I am offended that you think I won't know it when you sign up for a ticket and indicate falsely that you are a speaker or a sponsor.  I'm not an algorithm, I'm a human, and Joan and I look at every registration. Steven Groves has walked every inch of the facility. Merlin's got all his volunteers for the day of, including people to work registration. Someone actually did that this morning, and I caught him.

Cheeseballs and dirtbags, people who don't care enough to watch the site and take advantage of the early bird discount, which was $99, I'm tired of providing bargains to Arizona's cheapo community. Get a grip, people.  If you want to grow an entrepreneurial community here, someone has to pay SOMETHING.  If $150 is too much to support entrepreneurship in Arizona, I'm outta here.

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

Most small businesses have it really rough. Whether they are retail or b2b, marketing is a huge problem for them because the can't do sponsorships, brand strategy, advertising and slick PR like the big boys. They've still got to get customers from somewhere, though.

About five years ago, Stealthmode Partners had a consulting agreement with the City of Phoenix to help businesses affected by light rail construction. Those businesses along the construction route were typical small businesses — everything from  yogurt stores to hairdressers to Chinese restaurants. When the sidewalk in front of them was torn up and the construction signs appeared, their walk-in traffic went away and many of them suffered 40% revenue losses.

Ed and I went about showing them the glories of online marketing, showing them products like Constant Contact, Typepad, and even MySpace. We taught them how to collect business cards (some were already doing this) and make email lists, and then we taught them how to do email marketing. For most, this was like revelation. Constant Contact was a huge leap. They were amazed at how many existing customers opened, read, and acted on their emails.

Fast forward five years. While they all have email lists now, and they are sending out the same emails, fewer are being opened. The tools have changed, the analytics are much better, but small businesses can't understand or afford the combination of SEO, social media, monitoring and tracking tools they need. Nor do they have either the time or the professional marketing team to leverage all the social media stuff that's out there.

So Ethan Bloch, a young, energetic entrepreneur I met through another young, energetic entrepreneur (these are the ones I really love) decided to do Flowtown.

Give Flowtown an email addresses and it can tell you who a person is (name, age, gender, location, occupation) and where they hang out on the web (facebook, twitter, linkedin, myspace, flickr, amazon and more). It makes the emails more relevant, and allows them to be targeted and better performing. Or it intelligently routes the marketing effort to where the customers really are, and what services they use. It also lets the businesses follow up with their customers (potential, current, and even past) and keep in touch with everyone wherever they are. You can then build or maintain mind share through social media messaging.

Most of our small business clients now know that they should be doing online marketing differently now — they just don't know how to do it. I'm looking forward to showing my Fasttrac programs Flowtown, because I think it will coordinate their sporadic and often ineffective efforts at both email marketing and social media marketing.

[Disclosure: I went on the Advisory Board of Flowtown because I think this is going to solve a big problem for both the businesses and their technical assistance consultants:-) ]

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

Because I'm tangentially a part of the Bay Area echo chamber, I have a chance to sign up and test a lot of new software. I also advise companies, and I try their products, too. Listening to TWIST with guest Mark Suster made me think about my own reactions to the sites I try early.

Here's the cold hard truth.
I never come back to most of them. I'm not going to mention any names, but some pretty well-publicized companies have lost me.

Why?
1)The site is slow or the log-in fails, or it's too tough to sign up. In other words, it wasn't really ready for a beta. I hate those cutesy messages that tell me "oops! something went wrong, try again." It shouldn't take me three tries to register, and if I register, I should be immediately able to navigate the site. If I can't figure out how to upload a photo, download a file, or find friends, I'm outta there.

2)After I sign up, I realize I already "own" a piece of software that does this. That happened with many Twitter clones. After I was on Twitter, I realized I didn't need them.  This is what's wrong with being something more than the first mover in the space.  The same thing is true for me with video sharing software, and with video watching sites. Joost, Hulu, Boxee — I don't watch enough TV to use them all, and I don't take enough video to use UStream, Qik, and Kyte. I have accounts in all these places, and I never go to them.

3)They don't fully meet my needs. That goes for the defunct TeeBeeDee , the site for older people, and also for MySpace, the garish network for younger people.  I want to be with good people, not older or younger people.

4)They end up spamming me.  This is the case with PlentyofFish, and some of the other dating sites.   They somehow always have "new matches" for me that I have to visit the site to see. And then I can't communicate directly with  I get tons of emails from sites I no longer wish to hear from, and I don't have the patience to unsubscribe.

5) I'm tired of them. They involve effort I'm not willing to put in. DailyMugShot would be one of those. Doing anything every day bums me out.

7) For some products, I'm just the wrong beta tester. I'm not interested in losing weight, or reading about fashion, or playing pirate/Zombie games. I'm probably not the right beta tester for Google Wave either, though, because I don't do much collaboration.

So what kinds of sites do I luse?

6) Sites that help me: Freshbooks and Mint. They both simplified my life.

7) Sites that give me information I need, like EmpowHer or

Sites my friends use, like Facebook and Twiiter.

9) Sites that are fun, like Foursquare. I'm not a person who plays games, so who knew I would fall in love with Foursquare? But it's easy to do, easy to "win," small things, like being Mayor of Starbucks on my block, and connected with my friends..

10) Sites with great, fast e-commerce and free shipping (Amazon).

Once I'm gone from a site because it no longer interests me or integrates into my life, it's VERY dfficult to get me back. So when you launch software, be careful who beta tests it and extraordinarily careful how their user experience goes. It's not good enough to call them after a week and ask them how they are doing.

The takeaway: When you launch your beta test, target the right customer with the right product, and make sure in advance that they'll love it.

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

This morning I was listening to The Diane Rehm show, because it was a segment on health care and the economy. What was amazing about the show was the consensus among guests from varying backgrounds:

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; coauthor with Thomas Mann of “The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track.”

Bruce Bartlett, columnist, former Reagan economic policy aide, and Treasury Department appointee under George H.W. Bush. Latest book: “The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward.”

David Cutler, professor of applied economics, Harvard University, senior advisor to the Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign, and author of “Your Money Or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America’s Health Care System”

Not all people of the “left.” In fact, two people who could be expected to be on the “right.” But all in agreement that the current bill in the House has some very good things in it, and would be a good start toward health care reform, and all in agreement that if we don’t do something, we will never get the economy back on track.

These people were not saying we can’t afford to pay for health care because it will raise the deficit. They were saying that the only way to get the deficit DOWN was to pay for health care. They’re canny, savvy people who know that we pay for sick people one way or the other, and we have cost shifted and jiggled all we can with the current system.

As a group, they seemed to think we should get started somewhere, and fine tune it from there. They agreed that the cost of health insurance was making American companies uncompetitive. They also taught me that Medicare Part D cost as much as Obama’s reform plans, and every penny of it was unfunded. This deficit/budget thing is pretty complicated, and we can’t just believe the talking points.

Posted via email from HealthworksAZ

Trying to duck the trick-or-treaters on my block tonight (Halloween induces a bark-a-thon at my house), I escaped into the closest movie, Michael Jackson's "This is It."  I expected nothing. Like everyone else, after Jackson died I watched every person who ever met him once parade through Larry King Live saying what a good person he was, and listened to Liz Taylor moan about how she couldn't go on. While I never thought Michael Jackson was a child molester, I wasn't a true fan, either. And I probably believed he couldn't make it through fifty shows on the drugs he was on.

I now question my own judgment. The very first show would have electrified the world and given Jackson the adrenalin to go on. The man was a genius. Coming into rehearsals, he clearly knew every song, every move, every note. It was as if the music poured out from inside his DNA , where it always lived and now was being given the chance to express. Having never been anything BUT a performer, Michael Jackson was still a performer at 50, capable of astounding dance moves and exquisite timing. Not only that, but at 50 he was happy to be in the role of mentor to the younger dancers and musicians, rather than a competitor with them. He clearly wanted to give them an opportunity to shine. The audience would have loved him. Did he do every acrobatic move that the younger dancers did? Of course not.  But he reminded me of a great tennis player who can win a match through superior strategy even though athletically past his prime.

At the rehearsals, he seemed comfortable with the show. Never irritable on camera, he appeared gracious and loving. By the time they were set to go to London, he had accepted the cast and crew as family, and they gave him the adulation he deserved. Many of them had traveled around the world to audition for the show. It's sad they never got the chance to hear the applause. And it's sad Michael never got a chance to do even ONE show, because the sets, costumes, lighting, and graphics would have been out of the ballpark.  Go see this movie to see what they were working on; this production would have been worth the ticket price even if the understudy went on for Michael Jackson:-)

The footage was shot with two cameras, fortunately in high definition, but nothing like a finished movie. It was meant to be for Jackson's personal archive, and it is truly a documentary — it documents the rehearsals without window dressing. In it you can see the mutual respect between Kenny Ortega, who directed the movie and co-directed the show with Michael, and Michael Jackson. Clearly they are used to working together, and they help each other out. I especially liked it when Ortega told Jackson to "hold on" to the bars on the cherry picker the first time Jackson took a ride on it. Jackson seemed fearless, wanting to take it higher and sing while doing it, but Ortega only wanted him to take the ride and test the safety.

Was Michael Jackson a sick drug addict? No way. Did we, the public and the media, hasten the death of a man who felt for the planet and wanted to deliver a message of love to the world? Probably. We have a grim way of eating our public figures alive these days. I'm sure Michael Jackson wasn't perfect, but neither are we.

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

Trying to duck the trick-or-treaters on my block tonight (Halloween induces a bark-a-thon at my house), I escaped into the closest movie, Michael Jackson's "This is It."  I expected nothing. Like everyone else, after Jackson died I watched every person who ever met him once parade through Larry King Live saying what a good person he was, and listened to Liz Taylor moan about how she couldn't go on. While I never thought Michael Jackson was a child molester, I wasn't a true fan, either. And I probably believed he couldn't make it through fifty shows on the drugs he was on.

I now question my own judgment. The very first show would have electrified the world and given Jackson the adrenalin to go on. The man was a genius. Coming into rehearsals, he clearly knew every song, every move, every note. It was as if the music poured out from inside his DNA , where it always lived and now was being given the chance to express. Having never been anything BUT a performer, Michael Jackson was still a performer at 50, capable of astounding dance moves and exquisite timing. Not only that, but at 50 he was happy to be in the role of mentor to the younger dancers and musicians, rather than a competitor with them. He clearly wanted to give them an opportunity to shine. The audience would have loved him. Did he do every acrobatic move that the younger dancers did? Of course not.  But he reminded me of a great tennis player who can win a match through superior strategy even though athletically past his prime.

At the rehearsals, he seemed comfortable with the show. Never irritable on camera, he appeared gracious and loving. By the time they were set to go to London, he had accepted the cast and crew as family, and they gave him the adulation he deserved. Many of them had traveled around the world to audition for the show. It's sad they never got the chance to hear the applause. And it's sad Michael never got a chance to do even ONE show, because the sets, costumes, lighting, and graphics would have been out of the ballpark.  Go see this movie to see what they were working on; this production would have been worth the ticket price even if the understudy went on for Michael Jackson:-)

The footage was shot with two cameras, fortunately in high definition, but nothing like a finished movie. It was meant to be for Jackson's personal archive, and it is truly a documentary — it documents the rehearsals without window dressing. In it you can see the mutual respect between Kenny Ortega, who directed the movie and co-directed the show with Michael, and Michael Jackson. Clearly they are used to working together, and they help each other out. I especially liked it when Ortega told Jackson to "hold on" to the bars on the cherry picker the first time Jackson took a ride on it. Jackson seemed fearless, wanting to take it higher and sing while doing it, but Ortega only wanted him to take the ride and test the safety.

Was Michael Jackson a sick drug addict? No way. Did we, the public and the media, hasten the death of a man who felt for the planet and wanted to deliver a message of love to the world? Probably. We have a grim way of eating our public figures alive these days. I'm sure Michael Jackson wasn't perfect, but neither are we.

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

This Tuesday is the first Tuesday of the month, so it’s Tech Tuesday at 6:30 at It’s Italia in Half Moon Bay. If you are in the neighborhood, come on by! Meet all the coastside geeks who work out of their houses or over the hill and are gradually coming together as a community. Because after all, when the economy isn’t perfect, “it’s the community, stupid.”

Admittedly, this is a fast-changing story, but here, from the Health Affairs Blog, are the highlights of the new House Bill. The writer is an attorney who has written a book on health law, so it's a trustworthy summary.

• First, the bill would dramatically reform the insurance market, prohibiting pre-existing condition exclusions; eliminating underwriting based on health status, gender or occupation; limiting out-of-pocket expenses; removing lifetime or annual coverage caps; and mandating medical loss ratios. It would also define “essential” benefits that must be covered by insurance plans, improve insurance disclosure and transparency, define marketing standards, and require fair grievance and appeal procedures.  This part of the bill closely resembles the Senate bills and is likely to be part of the final legislation.
• Second, the legislation would create a national health insurance exchange through which all new nongroup policies would be sold and through which insurance would also be available for employees of small and perhaps eventually large employers. The exchange is supposed to increase the accountability of health insurers and the transparency of their products as well as reducing costs through increasing competition and limiting administrative costs.  The Senate bills also create exchanges, but at the state level.  The final legislation is likely to include exchanges, but as will be discussed in my next post, the House version of exchanges is the most ambitious approach.
• Third, the legislation would require employers with payrolls exceeding $500,000 per year to provide health insurance to their insurers or pay a penalty (which does not fully phase in until payroll reaches $750,000).  According to House leadership, 86% of American businesses would be exempt from this requirement, though most employees would be covered.  The legislation would provide tax credits to small businesses who offer their employees health insurance.  The Senate Finance bill has a much weaker mandate, but the final bill is likely to include a mandate of some sort.
• Fourth, individuals would be required to purchase health insurance or pay a tax of 2.5% of their adjusted gross income above the income tax filing threshold up to the cost of an average insurance policy.  If insurers are not allowed to underwrite based on health status, healthy as well as unhealthy individuals must be in the market, and this mandate would help drive them into it.  For this reason, all of the bills contain an individual mandate and one is likely to be in the final bill, although this is one of the provisions of the bill that evokes the most visceral opposition. 
• Fifth, affordability subsidies are available to help lower income individuals and families purchase insurance and to lower their cost sharing obligations. This should lessen the burden of the individual mandate.  The subsidies are set at the levels established by the Blue Dog amendments in the Energy and Commerce Committee.  On the whole, the premium subsidies are much more generous than those found in the Senate Finance Committee but less generous than those in the HELP bill, while the cost-sharing subsidies are generally more generous than those found in either of the Senate bills.
• Sixth, the bill would expand Medicaid eligibility to 150% of poverty level and eliminate current categorical eligibility requirements.  The Federal Medicaid match for those to whom coverage is extended would be 100% in 2013 and 2014 and 91% after 2015.   The Senate Finance bill sets eligibility at 133% of poverty, as did HR 3200. Because Medicaid coverage costs the federal government less than would the premium subsidies needed to cover those between 133% and 150% of poverty through private health insurance, however, HR 3962 lifted the coverage ceiling.  Significantly, the legislation would increase payments to primary care practitioners who participate in Medicaid to 100% of the Medicare level by 2012 and transfers most of the cost of the increased payments to the federal government. The legislation goes a good distance toward reducing the burden of Medicaid expansions on the states, which are currently reeling from the recession. The states are likely to continue to be wary of the future costs the legislation threatens, however.
• Finally, there is the public plan.  HR 3200 had a “robust” public plan, while the Senate HELP bill provides for weaker, state-based plans and the Finance bill has no public plan at all.  HR 3962, as has been widely reported, continues to have a public plan available to individuals who purchase insurance through the exchange.  The public plan, however, would have to negotiate rates with providers, which, as will be discussed in a subsequent post, will in all likelihood doom it from the start.

Posted via email from HealthworksAZ

I borrowed this cool list of Phoenix events in November from Brent Spore, the most creative guy I know and one of the organizers of PodcampAZ, is always determined to work for the good of the community, and he compiled this list. I'm borrowing it, with attribution.

The craziness actually starts at the beginning of the month. Ignite Phoenix #5 explodes in Tempe on Tuesday, November 3rd. Then the inaugural TEDx Phoenix happens in Mesa on Friday the 6th, followed by the BIL Conference in Scottsdale Saturday the 7th. Each promise to be a great evening of knowledge-sharing by some of the brightest minds in the area. If you're from Phoenix, make plans to attend all that you can.

And then the "week of" happens, and things are crazy. Tuesday the 10th is Creative Connect, a great place to meet new creative folks. Hacknight at Gangplank takes care of Wednesday the 11th, and Thursday contains both the Arizona Entrepreneur Conference during the day and Social Media Club Phoenix that night, both at Desert Willow Conference Center in Phoenix. (http://www.azec09.com)

WordCamp Phoenix dominates most of our plans on Friday, but leaves enough room for the massive #pfn meetup/tweetup/drink-up that night!

And somehow… we have to find the energy to get out of bed and crank out PodCamp AZ the next two days. But we're dedicated. We are young-ish. We can handle it.

Click on the links above for more information about these events. And this *just* scratches the surface of the cool stuff going on in Phoenix. Now you see why we live here? See you soon!

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

I have the first, worst Kindle, the one most of my friends didn't bother to get, and the one Scoble discarded in disgust after a week. It's not International, or version 2, which is easier to turn pages on. I got it the way I get everything, in a fit of curiosity, and I didn't use it for a long time, especially after the Kindle app came out for the iPhone. I was beginning to think I didn't need it.

And then I took a long trip this weekend, the first this year across the country with layovers. And the Kindle was awesome. First of all, I have just realized that over the past year I have bought more books than I probably bought in the five previous years.  There are books about quantum physics, books about the collapse of the financial system, and books about health and healing. There are also several novels. Have I read them all? No, because as one of Leo laPorte's girl geeks said on the air recently, the Kindle is a book-buying machine.  It's way too easy to buy books on the Kindle, like it's way too easy to buy music from iTunes (I have a lot of that, too).

But at home, it takes me weeks to finish a book. I ordered Ted Kennedy's memoir, True Compass, and it took me forever to read, which is why I never buy books. It was heavy even to cart from room to room.  I made an exception because it wasn't available for Kindle.

In the air, I can read an entire book each way on the flight. And more, I'm sure, if I'm going to Asia.  Long after the iPhone and the MacBook Air are dead, the Kindle is still my stalwart. Showing 85% battery life. And I am carrying all my books in my purse. My purse, unlike most women's, is a receptacle for portable devices–laptop, smartphone, Kindle, power cords, backup batteries, etc. I can never even find a lipstick in there, and the bottom is full of loose change. The guy next to me is always stunned to see a woman-of-a-certain age unpack all those devices.

But I would never have read Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked without the Kindle, and I never would have laughed out loud from my aisle seat. Despite the fact that back in the day I wrote dissertations on contemporary literature, the path of life has led me away from it, from books, and from knowing much about contemporary literature at all. I defiantly don't read "junk," a throwback to my arrogant lit-major days, but I don't read anything else either, except business books, contemporary history (mediocre writers like William Cohen and David Faber, rushing books about the stock market into print) and a gazillion RSS feeds a day.

So I'm taking a moment to express my gratitude for the Kindle, and for the occasional opportunity to enjoy a good, old-fashioned reading experience. It may not be a "book," but intellectually it sure feels like one.

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode