Tenley Project™ 2011 -- learning about giving again

Last year I was a proud father when my daughter took it upon herself to turn her hard-earned savings into the purchase of an American Girl doll for a child at the Children's Hospital in Denver.  I was so impressed by her decision, that I offered to match her donation so that she could get 2 dolls and I felt like I had to tell the story on this blog -- you can read the original post here.  Through the power of social media, traditional media, and the generosity of people around the country, the Tenley Project™ ultimately donated 42 American Girl dolls and several hundred dollars worth of additional toys to the Children's Hospital in Denver on Christmas morning last year.

This year my daughter saved up her allowance again to be able to start the process, and at the time of this writing, we have received enough donations from people around the country to purchase 9 dolls in addition to the one that Tenley funded from her savings.  What's amazing to me is that we really only started publicizing the project around this time last night, so the generosity in the span of 24 hours has been very incredible.

Over the course of telling lots of people about Tenley's story in the past year, we were lucky enough to come across a donor that wishes to remain anonymous, but has offered to match every dollar donated for toys as a direct cash donation to the Children's Hospital in Denver up to $5,000.00.  What this means to everyone generous to give is that every dollar donated means not only a toy for a child that is in the hospital, but a matching cash donation that goes directly to the Hospital itself.

As with last year, if you find yourself particularly inspired to participating in giving something to someone to improve their holiday season, I certainly hope that you do.  If you find yourself inspired to donate to my daughter's project, you can do so on the Tenley Project™ website -- any amount is appreciated and goes to a great cause (and don't forget about the fact that every single dollar is matched).  And even if you are not in a position to donate this holiday season, I would ask that you do me the great favor of posting about the Tenley Project™ on your blog, Tweeting about it, posting about it on Facebook, or using any other means at your disposal to spread the word.

PS -- This is one from me to you: giving resets your brain to realize that there is more than enough.  I have to admit to finding lots of excuses not to give in the past, but believe me, the feeling that you get from giving is incomparable and it is even more incomparable during the holiday season.  Times are tough and I know that not giving is the path of least resistance, but I encourage you to strongly consider giving even if it seems like a small sum that won't make a difference and even if it's tough to do.  This is my no-bullshit advice.  No strings attached and not a pitch to participate in my daughter's project.

IconSettings for iPhone

Want to enhance your iPhone without Jailbreaking?  Do you wish that you could change phone settings via an icon shortcut instead of having to go through the settings icon and traverse multiple menus?

Just visit the IconSettings site from your iPhone.

(give it a few seconds for the icon to show up on the screen once you create the shortcut)

If you think those autocorrect sites are funny ...

... then you'll love Shit That Siri Says.

This can only get funnier as the distribution of iPhone 4S phones gets broader.

SMS started to die today

iOS 5 went live to the general public today, which means iMessage went live to the public today.

Mark my words.

A great book that helps end disease

I've read a bunch of great business books, though very few of them in the past have been compilations from amazing people centered around common categories.  I find that I consume more business knowledge these days in reading blog posts, so, regardless of who or how many people are authoring a book, I find myself enjoying books that are organized like blog posts.

It was my pleasure to read End Malaria, the most strangely named business book that I've read in at least the past 12 months.  End Malaria represents a book that is used as a vector to help end malaria-related deaths by 2015 -- $20.00 of each sale goes directly to Malaria No More.

What's great about the book besides the amazing mission is the fact that all of the great authors have donated their insights and writings for free, and those writings and insights have been organized around common topics in blog post format (please see the first paragraph of this post if you are confused about why I think that's great).

Authors and contributors of note:

• Seth Godin
• Gina Trapani
• Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner
• Tom Peters
• Patrick Lencioni

The list goes on, but rest assured that there are over 60 people adding their genius to the book.

Buy the Kindle version like I did for $20 and the full amount goes direct to the charity.

How does gun regulation work when you can print parts?

Lots of controversy swirling around about:

1. This.
2. And this.

If you click the first link, you can have produced for you (read: printed for you) the lower receiver for an AR-15 rifle, which, technically, is the only part of the rifle that requires you to have a license in the United States.  Clicking on the second link will allow you to print an AR-15 magazine that is big enough to hold more than 5 rounds, but doesn't include the spring design, so it's a 5-round magazine; presumably a talented person could put that design into a modeling program, extend the clip length and make it to accommodate some number of rounds that pushes it into regulation territory, but as is, you can buy the same factory version of a 5-round magazine without any sort of license right now.

The fundamental problem or question or point of debate around all this is whether or not this is illegal or immoral or wrong.  Thing is that no one really can answer whether printing a regulated weapon component is the same as buying one.  Most of the places that could print things like this for you discourage you from uploading weapon designs and producing weapons, but draw short of regulating because the production of such items is not currently illegal.

Personally I am not sure that I'd want to fire a weapon that had a receiver made from a 3D plastic printing place.  I know that there are composite and carbon fiber receivers available on the market for the AR-15 that are designed for heavy use, but I'm not sure that's what you're getting out of a 3D plastic printhouse.  Doesn't mean that won't change in the future if you can specify the actual output material and performance specifications.

Bear in mind that the lower receiver alone is not enough to make a weapon -- you do still have to locate and assemble the other parts.

Please note that I'm not advocating you doing any of this -- I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a rifle built around this when a bullet wen through it.

What's your secret sauce?

Today you too can build a 135 terrabyte server for around $7,500.00 in parts.  The cost to you for the plans and equipment list?  Absolutely nothing.

Click right here and you can download the parts list and wiring diagrams at absolutely no cost from BackBlaze.

Why would BackBlaze do this?  They're in the business of selling cloud-based storage and they do it at extremely affordable prices (think $50 per year for unlimited cloud storage); their hardware is a big part of what allows them to keep their prices so low ... right?

Not really.  It turns out, as BackBlaze shows in their hardware plans, that outside of the custom enclosure, everything else inside one of their storage pods is commodity hardware.  Anyone with enough time could probably build one of their storage pods, so they have no problem giving away the hardware specifications and plans because that's not the special sauce at BackBlaze.

By giving away the hardware BackBlaze is very unlikely to lose any customers -- who is going to stop using their service to go build one of these themselves?  In fact, due to the considerable press that they are receiving from this move (and it's the second time they've done it), they are probably going to gain customers that may have never heard of them.  BackBlaze is also unlikely to make its competitors better or create new competitors -- again, the hardware is not the secret sauce.

What BackBlaze does, their secret sauce, is how they manage all of this hardware and put it together in a datacenter: the datacenter itself, the proprietary software that monitors all of the pods and distributes the inbound and stored data, the people that spend their time replacing failed drives.  How they create the software that works on your computer to efficiently transfer all of your date to their servers without bogging down your computer's operation.

What could you give away for free and not worry about your competitors having?  (I'm not saying you have to, but going through the exercise may lead you to what actually differentiates you)

My thoughts on BlackBerry

Since everyone seems to be asking me:

• They're going through tough times and they might not be able to recover.
• Their tablet is not that cool and they will likely pull the plug on it.
• They are rushing products and operating systems to market half-baked and not fully tested, which is making people abandon the platform.  Unfortunately, one of the biggest complaints on the other side is that they don't have enough cool features in new software fast enough, so it's a bit of catch 22 for them.
• They have a massive installed base in corporations, including corporations that have sunk serious dollars into their own BlackBerry enterprise servers.
• They have a pretty large installed base of casual users and the whole BBM thing is a big deal; it may become less of a big deal when Apple releases iMessage, but iMessage isn't going to work on the BlackBerry hardware that's already out there, so there would need to be an even larger platform defection.
• I am still much more productive sending e-mail on my BlackBerry device than I am on my iPhone -- I can type faster and with more accuracy.
• BlackBerrys still have user-replaceable batteries and iPhones do not.

Nothing that I said above hasn't been said by someone else.

Here's what I really think: RIM needs to turn their business model into that of a software provider.  If they can figure out how to get their software running on Android and make all the IT geeks that run BES servers happy about the remote control, they can likely save that business segment and, maybe, save their business.  Additionally, they should focus on improving the phones that they are very successful with: the high-end Bold and the Curve, which, in my opinion, are the most pervasive BlackBerry devices that I see people use; assuming that they can sort out the software side, let the Android device manufacturers win the touchscreen hardware war.  Instead of focusing on setting the hardware curve or playing catch-up, just jam cooler features (higher megapixel cameras, NFC chips, larger on-board storage, etc.) into similar form factors that get incremental changes (different surfaces, different finishes, smaller and lighter cases) with each revision.

(obviously it would be cool and huge for them if they could figure out iOS integration as well)

Just my $0.02, but I wouldn't be buying the stock until they figure out a viable strategy.

PS -- chances are better than they have ever been that RIM will get acquired, but even if that happens, you have to question the end strategy and justification and, in the case of an acquisition, I would still argue that it's an enterprise software play.

As true today as the day they were first spoken

“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today.  As of this second, quit doing less than excellent work.” (Thomas Watson, founder of IBM)

"If you're going to work . . . work hard.  That way you'll have something to show for it.  The biggest waste is to do that thing you call work, but to interrupt it, compromise it, cheat it and still call it work." (Seth Godin)

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." (Wayne Gretzky)

Knowing where the reset button is (the Oaklahoma Principle)

A friend of mine told me this story the other day:

A bunch of years ago I was working doing refrigeration repair with this guy that had been doing it for many years.  We got an emergency call from a dairy farmer who had 30,000 gallons of milk in a refrigeration tank and the refrigeration unit for the tank had gone out.

We tore out to the farm and the guy I was working with took a look at the refrigeration unit, cocked his head, reached in, and hit the reset button; the unit started right back up.  He did a couple of other things that didn't really matter and then turned to the farmer and told him that it would be $275.00.  It's important to note that the guy I worked with was a big Oklahoman and although the farmer wasn't a small guy, the Oklahoman was much bigger.

The farmer said, "All you did was hit the reset button, and that cost $275?!"  And the Oklahoman responded, "It's not about hitting the button, it's that I know where it is."

And that's the "Oklahoma Principle" of business: knowing where the reset button is.

What's interesting about this story, of course, is the fact that now you can simply go to Google and negate the Oklahoma principle for most everything: when people find solutions, they tend to post them online, which means they can be found. 

When my furnace went out a few years ago, I searched and found where the hidden reset button was and then wrote a blog post about it, which means if you have the same furnace and search by the model number, you'll find my post.  I'm guessing the service call would have been a few hundred bucks for an "Oklahoman" to come hit it for me.  Similarly, I posted several years ago about where to find parts for a Porcher toilet because it took me forever -- it's still one of the most frequented older posts on my blog.

When my washer went out, we did the research online and actually found the parts needed to repair it; we didn't want to repair it ourselves, but we knew what parts were needed and what the costs were, so there was no chance of us being charged for parts we didn't need or overcharged for the parts we needed.  Years ago I had a plumber tell me to invest $50.00 in a good toilet auger at Home Depot -- still have it and use it whenever there is a clog, which saves a $100.00 service call every time.

Knowing where the reset button is no longer the money-making advantage it used to be when information was limited . . . no matter where you're from.

Picture from Rigamorale, story from Chuck Grant (thanks, Chuck).