BrianLash.com

2008-08-01T19:03:11-05:00

Hi friends:

This is my last post to this Typepad blog. I'm now using Tumblr (at the same address) so you can still follow me at BrianLash.com.

I've had a blast building relationships through this site. It was my first go at blogging, and by extention, my first encounter with all things "web tech." I've learned a load since starting February 2007, and I'll take a lot of lessons with me.

Thanks everyone (and especially Harini, Gannon, and Chris). You guys are great.

You can still follow me at BrianLash.com, but the posting will be shorter/more infrequent. The new RSS feed is http://www.brianlash.com/rss.

I hope you'll make the transition with me.

The Surprising Origin of "Business Casual"

2008-05-31T15:50:15-05:00

I'm heading to a restaurant called Common Plea to celebrate my cousin's graduation from law school. From what I gather from Citysearch it's a nice restaurant that serves a law-oriented clientele (thus the name). Pretty cool niche strategy, right?

I looked up the dress and found that it's business casual. Yeah, I know what that means, but I triple checked Wikipedia anyway. Being under-dressed sucks.

Here's what I found:

Business casual, also known as smart casual, is a popular dress code that emerged in white-collar workplaces in Western countries in the 1970s in response to the energy crisis of that decade. Government mandates to raise thermostat settings in office buildingsled managers to authorize employees to dispense with ties and jackets that had been part of expected business attire. Many information technology businesses in Silicon Valley were early adopters of this style of dress.

So the demise of the three piece suit and tie style that typified dress among turn of the century businessmen isn't so much an outcome of changes in workers' styles and attitudes... it's the result of government actions taken to mitigate so-called energy crises. Neat.

Follow-on question: Will Silicon Valley's current startup dress code (i.e. no dress code) permeate the Western world again? Probably not, but it's fun to think about.

When there way doubt, I ate it up and spit it out

2008-05-15T23:28:41-05:00

This may be my favorite interpretation of Sinatra's classic. So emotive. The Brit nails it :)

2008-04-25T01:06:06-05:00

Infield, originally uploaded by brianlash.

Til recently I hadn't seen a Pirates game in years. Tonight marks my second time in as many months. Fun stuff.

And if you're really ambitious

2008-04-22T23:14:08-05:00

...here's another idea. I know, two in one day. Maybe it's something I ate.

There should be a tool that can sweep blogs on popular platforms (WP, MT, TypePad, Blogger) for commenter URLs, and then shoot out OPML files you can import to your favorite feed reader.

I admit this process is easy enough for smaller guys -- bloggers like me -- to do manually. But this method would guarantee you're organized and up-to-date with all those blogs of those who've followed you. That's an important way to keep in touch.

Maybe it already exists. Where can I find it?

"Please print this page..." archiving

2008-04-22T21:12:14-05:00

You know what would be a simple but useful service? A website that lets you save screenshots of every site that says "please print a copy of this page for your records." Why can't I just hit Ctrl+Print Screen and drop it into an indexable folder at a website like AllThosePeskyProofs.com? It'd let me save some simple meta data for each like "1800flowers" and "Verizon Activation Info," and it'd be easily searchable so I never have to worry about misplacing my online proof-of-purchases for expensive buys.

Better than opening an image editor, making a picture file, saving it and sending it to myself to have the digital copy. And infinitely better than paper copies. Bleh, paper.

How Government Hurts Tech Innovators

2008-04-22T00:31:46-05:00

This write-up is born of a conversation I had over coffee with a friend. Still, all blame for unpopular thoughts and opinions here -- now and always -- is my own.

By design technology innovation is messy innovation. It's marked by long hours with little pay, trial and error (upon error after error) and disruptive effects to the market to which it's introduced.

It's a messy, uncertain process, but it's a free process. In theory.

In a truly capitalistic society there's no monopoly on opportunity; Any schmo of any origin with the right mix of desire, tenacity, and luck, can strike it rich if he fills the right opportunity gap. There's no right or wrong way to do it. At least any more than there's a right or a wrong way to code a program or prepare for the CFA Exam or play guitar...

But technology entrepreneurship is its own animal. Because it's sexy and because it's a money machine, cities have discovered ways to institutionalize the process of new product innovation. Profitably.

[To be clear, I'm not talking about private incubators like Y Combinator. Because they're privately held they're bound by economics determined in a fair market. I love YC.]

How the story goes (through the lens of my community)

To get seed money it's generally expected that you first work with a tech incubator funded with state money. That they're funded by the state is both relevant and critical in the scheme of things; it means they're able to assume a place in the private equity spectrum that other players in the capital markets (especially VCs but angels, too) are too risk-averse to occupy.

The incubator gets money to promote its interests. Angels and VCs get free due diligence. And lucky entrepreneurs get cheap money (albeit on taxpayers' dime). Everyone wins, right?

Wrong (government meddling in free markets always yields some negative outcome). The negative outcome here is a de facto monopoly on the technology innovation process held by the publicly-funded incubators.

It's a surprising outcome which is precisely why it's dangerous. Few see it, fewer understand it.

Its effect

The most efficient way for a risk-averse investing public to perform due diligence on investing opportunities is to let others do it for them. No one's more willing to do that than the incubators who can finance it with other people's money (remember, they're state-funded). So it becomes a sort of right-of-passage for technology startups that they should pass through these incubators before they see an opportunity for venture capital, and more and more, for angel money. And you can't blame the investors... it's an economically-sound decision on their parts.

This funnel approach places loads of power (and money) is in the hands of a few players. Those players are an old boys' club* of sorts that has its own philosophies, risk aversions, and investing predispositions. Some include:

excessive favoritism of alumni from local big-name universities
favoritism for those in (and on the perimeter of) the old boys' club
exclusionary policies for everyone else

Fine. We understand the situation, but what can you as a tech founder do about it?

What you can do about it

It's my belief this problem is worst in small tech centers where it's easiest for a single, state-funded player to sieze monopoly power of the technology process. If that typifies your community consider these options:

A pragmatic decision: The most obvious solution is the solution which maximizes variables among one's opportunity set; that is, to play by the establishment's rules of the game. It's safer, easier, and more straight-forward than the alternative. Alternatively, there's...

A principled decision: If you accept the argument here (most won't) you'll find yourself in a precarious catch 22. On the one hand you can acquiesce to your community's institutionalized system of tech entrepreneurship. Working capital will be easier to come by, and you'll rest easy at night knowing you can pay the bills in the morning. On the other hand you can bootstrap your company, or move it to a community whose investing philosophies are more consistent with those which prevail in a fair market.

I'm not in a position to say what's right for you. It's only my goal to highlight the stifling role government plays in the innovation process, and to inform your decisions as you fund your technology startup.

*A word about the guys who end up in these old boys' clubs: They're smart, and in most cases hard working. It's not my goal to discredit them... even they may not understand the economics of their work.

For a more technical conversation of government's role in the establishment and preservation of monopolies see Chapter 8 of Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom.

Outside

2008-04-19T02:04:38-05:00

I love the diva glasses
Originally uploaded by brianlash

Every now and again you have to put your work out of mind and spend some time outside.

It was a beautiful day in Pittsburgh so Harini and I seized the opportunity to picnic in Schenley Park (lots of green beside the pavement oasis that is PITT). We had a great time. It's hard not to on days like this.

If the weather holds up for you over the next few days spend some time in the sun. You'll be glad you took the time to clear your head. Anyway, you deserve a break :)

80/20 and Personal Promotion Online

2008-04-18T20:10:48-05:00

If promotion on the web has one immutable law it's this:

80% of your time should be spent listening.

That means reading blogs and writing thoughtful responses in the comments. Exploring Twittering and following people with like interests. Seeing photos and watching videos from folks around the web (and commenting all the while).

It's the other 20% of your time that should be spent working on your own blogs, tweets, photos, and videos.

That's surprising. Because we tend to describe people's work with nearest verbs that describe what they do. Consultants consult. Mechanics repair. Advisors advise. Bloggers blog, right?

Of course it's never the whole story. But now I know how much the "other stuff" matters online -- to the point that it matters as much or more than the time you spend developing your own online footprint.

The amount you listen to others -- the 80% here -- is directly proportional to the amount others are willing to listen to you. Comment on the right blogs and you have new online friends. Follow the right twitterers and you're nearly guaranteed they'll follow you as well. And I'm willing to bet the same story applies for photo and video sharing (although I'm a noob in those worlds).

To point, it's usually surprising to see guys like Scoble, Calacanis, and Arrington participating in memes in obscure corners of the web. But it's like the story of the frugal guy who struck it rich but stays frugal; it's the principles that get you there. You don't -- you shouldn't -- lose them when you find success.

So it is with the web's best promoters. I think we can take a lesson from them.

Hacker Envy

2008-04-16T21:19:59-05:00

Confession: I have a pernicious case of hacker envy.

Maybe you do, too; It begins with nostalgia for the founding of great tech companies. Some storied examples: Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Viaweb (viz a viz Paul Graham and co.). In every case history paints a picture of tireless founders working morning and night -- day after day -- to build something great that would change the world.

Small, cramped offices with beer in the refrigerators. Constant activity in a workspace where staying overnight is business as usual. A fierce loyalty to the project and to the team, and a sense of urgency around the product launch.

It's the technical guys that take center stage in these earliest days of a company's founding. After all, they're the ones with the most intimate understanding of the technology. So it follows that they're nearest to the action -- usually there for conception, but always around for the birth of a product.

And that's precisely why I envy them.

It's great fun to promote a product; Massaging markets and getting people jazzed for a new release is every bit as sexy as it sounds. But I can't shake the feeling that it's the ones with technical skill -- developing, releasing, iterating, and seeing a product made by their hands take a life of its own -- who have the most fun. Incidentally, it's my bet they learn most from the startup experience by virtue of their proximity to the company's product, and to the product's customers.

These technical guys have most recently taken the form of hackers by virtue of the important role computers in general, and computer programming in particular, has played in the process of tech innovation since the mid-1900s.

I'm not complaining (well, not really), and I'm not saying things ought to change (they can't). Just shedding some light on a topic that doesn't get much airtime around the community of tech bloggers.

For the record this business blogger salutes you, hackers.

Or just plain envies you.