Hieronymous the Anonymous

Skinning cats

I attended another entrepreneurs night on Tuesday in the city. It was cold and I turned up in my long overcoat and entered the room jammed full of entrepreneurs and those wanting to be. I stood with a beer in my hand as the various speakers related their diverse experiences feeling intrigued and invigorated by it all. I wondered why it had taken so long for me to cotton onto this.

As the crowd asked questions and related their own stories I realised that taking on an entrepreneurial enterprise does not an entrepreneur make. That's probably incorrect in the literal meaning of the term, but true for the spirit of it. Being an entrepreneur I think is a way of thinking and approaching things, it's a mindset bold and somehow defiant, creative, innovative, independent and outside of  - or beyond - the common expectations of society.

There were people there who had happened across good business ideas and where enterprising enough to make it happen. Yet listening to them it seemed obvious they did not have the imagination to properly exploit them. Imagination is important to understand what is possible, to identify opportunities and to find different ways of making them happen.

Afterwards in our small groups we swapped stories and business cards over a beer. On one occasion a few of us spoke of the distinction in peripheral terms, each of us riffing in entrepreneurial manner about one of the stories brought up earlier. They could do this, or that. To each of us attuned to the same entrepreneurial spirit the context seemed obvious if not the solution. There are a hundred ways to skin a cat, but at least we knew it.

For me personally it was a productive night. I met some nice and some very interesting people. I got some decent suggestions, and one woman who said she'd look out for a mother for my children. And I got some connections I'm following up on next week. I left after nine, a few beers in my belly and the idea refreshed that the world is full of infinite possibilities.

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30 hours a day

Image by Emilie Ogez via Flickr

I'm an advocate for metric time, which is long overdue. As it stands I don't have enough hours in the day. I reckon if we went to 30 hours a day I might be right.

What I need at some point is a PA. God knows it would help greatly if there was someone who could manage just half of the 101 things I have to do every day. I'm open to the concept in theory, but I'm such a control freak I'm not sure how well it would work in reality. You have to let go, but I'm so precious about what I do and the brand I put to the world that, right now, it's just too big a mental leap. That's something I must overcome unless the metric week comes, or I clone myself.

Tonight I'm off to an entreprenuers night out - a few drinks in a groovy bar, some very interesting speakers and, I expect, some pretty dynamic people.

Right now I'm off for a cup of tea - then some tinkering with the website, a blog post for it, a webinar on writing online content, fill in a couple of forms, then...mmm, what? Perhaps I should get myself ready for the tram ride into the city.

Words for dollars

Image via Wikipedia

Been a busy week, which is my general excuse for not writing. In actual fact I've been writing a shitload, but most of it for business purposes. Most of the week I've been slaving over a bunch of hot white papers. After some tweaking of my website I've now also started writing a business blog. That's not as serious as it sounds - last thing I want to be is some staid and sober commentator on the business world. I'll write as I do here, I'll be opinionated and I'll venture out on tangents as the whim takes me. It's an extra burden, particularly when combined with my business twitter and facebook accounts, but it's a fact of life. Might struggle to contribute here as regularly, but will try. I need an outlet.

The other thing, I've finally got back to some creative writing. I lay in bed the other night and my head teemed with ideas and words. One thing I intend over this Easter break is to do some writing.

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Going for broke

Image via Wikipedia

Sitting in the crowd last night listening to a bunch of enterprising people describe their start-up experiences I realised something I probably should have known long ago: I'm an entrepreneur. Whether I am engaging in entrepreneurial activities or not my nature makes me one. I'm always on the mental move. I get restless doing the same things too long and take great delight in developing, building, creating things. I'm fortunate to be naturally creative. Ideas, good and bad, spring from me all the time. It's hard to settle to one thing when so many different things are happening.

It was almost a relief acknowledging it. Much of what was presented last night resonated with me on a general level. Entrepreneurship is a state of mind. Somewhere in it there is the fuck it attitude, the go for broke mentality fully aware of the risks but willing to take them on with eyes on the end goal. For me I get supreme satisfaction at striving for something, in simply achieving. The rewards are nice when they come off, and a powerful motivator, but I think in a lot of ways the dollars are just a nice way of keeping score. To do is like a fever you can't shake.

Earlier in the night I'd had a chat with a guy who had been involved in 44 start-ups - a serial entrepreneur. He epitomises much of what I mean: the thrill is in the chase. My father is like that, and I take after him. And in the room last night there were another two dozen or so of like mind. I had a drink and a chat with many of them, swapping stories as well as business cards. We all knew the score, the hazards and challenges of the business, and all were sympathetic and understanding.

It was a stimulating, invigorating environment. I felt very much at home. As I always say, you have to be true to yourself.

Unfortunately I seem, as my sister tells me, to have an entrepreneurial attitude to relationships also. That's one thing I'm looking to end.

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A days work

I love working from home. I feel so much more productive and engaged. The simple fact is that I probably get 50% more done working at home than I do in the office because I'm working in my own environment and am free from the distractions of phone calls, idle conversation, pointless meetings and the general office hubbub. For me it works big time.

Because I am engaged in so many diverse activities it's doubly worthwhile for me. I've spent days at home working on a single proposal, or putting together a requirements document, and so on. That works, but typically I have a finger in more than one pie. At home it's simple to move from one to the other, and I find for me at least that changing gears like that produces a creative dissonance that works for me.

Let's look at today for example. What have I done:

• Read about web content standards.
• Wrote a pitch for some potential business.
• Did some homework and made notes for a comprehensive white paper on Collective Intelligence I hope to write.
• Brainstormed different business model options for bedroom voice.
• Quickly reviewed some of the existing BV stories.
• Reviewed voicing options for the stories.
• Created a profile on the Microsoft Pinpoint site to drive business to me.
• Discussed options with my Facebook consultant and reviewed her work.
• Made notes for an additional service offering to be added to my website.
• Spoke to my web designer about a new directory I wanted created.
• Checked out some further networking opportunities.
• Thought about how the things I have recently learned might be utilised.
• Made phone calls, responded to emails.
• Made a coffee and sat down for 20 minutes for some recreational reading.

It's now only a little after 4 and it's a lovely day and so I'm about to take Rigby for a walk. I'll come home, crack a bottle of read for a treat, make myself dinner and have a rare domestic night home. All the while though my mind will be ticking over, as will when I sleep, so that tomorrow when I wake I'll be ready to go with a lot more to do.

It's satisfying this, rewarding - just a pity it doesn't pay. Not yet anyway.

Bedroom voice

I woke up this morning thinking the time is now right to get my women's erotica business finally up and running.

That may seem an unusual statement, and one might wonder what dreams I had last night that led me to this decision. As I do every night these days I dreamt much overnight, but none of it related to this. Rather I woke feeling restless and impatient, tired of waiting for things to shift in my favour and wanting to do something for myself. The erotica business sprung to mind immediately, fortuitously in some ways. In the years since I first came up with the idea the technology to make it so has become simpler and more common, and the world itself I think moved in a direction more favourable to such a notion.

The original idea was this: erotic stories written for and addressed directly to women. The stories were told in the first person by the male protagonist, but spoken to the recipient - their lover - as if in a letter, or a remembrance, or a long monologue, X rated in parts like a Mills and Boon with the naughty bits left in. The hook was that these stories were to be recorded and personalised to the customer - say someone called Emma ordered a story then she would be delivered a recording in which her name was spoken and her blonde hair and blue eyes would feature. The idea was to create an intimate bond, and the market lonely or bored housewives looking for adventure and the touch of the exotic.

It was a winning concept. I wrote half a dozen stories without too much difficulty, all well received by my focus group. I created a website and did some pre-advertising, which returned very promising results. The problem I found was finding someone to record the stories. Some of it was my embarrassment - I felt pretty awkward asking these characters to recite these stories. The few guys who actually agreed to it were all wrong for it.

The stories had to be intimate and conversational. Not a story really, and not told as a conventional story would be. It was more a reminiscence, the free flowing thoughts of someone recalling a moment or a relationship, spontaneous and real in the way that people are. I didn't want a pristine performance of it - as some tried to give me - but rather the sort of naturalistic flow you get recalling something over a bottle of wine, or murmuring into your loved one's ear.

To that end I also knew the type of voice I wanted - educated, but colloquial Australian. That's how the stories were written, that's how they had to be recited. Of course I had much grander ambitions than that. Most of the respondents to my advertising were American, and clearly that would be my biggest market should it take off. While many would likely swoon imagining some handsome Hugh Jackman or Eric Bana whispering in their ear, the reality was that I would need American voices too.

That was the idea, but none of it came off. I couldn't get the voices and I struggled to find the technology to manage what I promised. The project was regretfully shelved.

Seven years later and times have changed. I doubt the personalisation - such a great idea - is viable even still, but much else has changed. I still need to get voices, but I can outsource much of that. The website is simple, the stories are written - though I'll probably need to write another half dozen for variety.

Bedroom voice is making a comeback. Maybe.

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Much ado

My head is sort of spinning at the moment. I've been immersing myself in a variety of different learnings, some within my area of expertise, some way outside of it. I think I have to do this, but the bonus is that no matter how clogged my head feels or how much it spins I sort of enjoy it. Being curious is the baseline for me, and so satisfying that curiosity is always going to be fun.

Not surprisingly maybe I've never felt more competent than I do now. My head buzzes with new information and in its way quickly begins joining the dots between the separate pieces, imagining and extrapolating before synthesising into a neat set of bullet points. Out of all this come opportunities which I'm itching to exploit.

In the last couple of days I've written a short piece on Collective Intelligence for my soon to be released website, and updated another piece I've called the Human Element. I've been in contact with professionals in Asia and the states looking to outsource expertise I don't have to finalise my business Facebook and twitter presence, to manage lead generation and possibly content management. I've learned a lot about these things recently, but I'm not expert enough to do it myself, nor do I have a time - and at $15/hour why not get someone else to do it for me?

While a lot of this is related to my career and business I am also putting time into other areas of my life. For the last couple of months I've been seeing a personal trainer 2-3 times a week. I'm getting pretty fit, and beginning to look both trim and pretty cut. All good. I'm motivated to continue on this path though I hate the exercise - the 'high' people speak of is a myth to me. No pain no gain as they say. I know that I have to work - and to suffer to some degree - if I'm to achieve my end goal. That's the cost, I'm prepared to pay it.

I get competitive with these things. It grows as a challenge in my head to the point I feel as if I have been dared to go harder, longer, further. My commitment grows out of a belligerent defiance. And because of the way I think I find myself wanting to know more. To that end I have been reading up on human physiology in reference to the effects of diet and exercise on the human body. I find the cause and effect fascinating from a scientific viewpoint. From a personal viewpoint I have adopted some of the findings into my life. I've modified my diet and am exercising regularly with or without my PT. This is not forever - I value the good things in life too much - but I'll give it a month. If it goes to plan I should be pretty sweet by then.

Last night I went out with a girl I met speed dating last week. She's cute and interesting. She's the project manager for a new Australian retail website. We found much to talk about in her work, which interests me and which overlaps some of my expertise. I grilled her about certain aspects wanting to know more. Outside of that we shared a few glasses of good pinot, a good meal, and a bit of each other.

I'm seeing the Irish girl Thursday and catching up for drinks with a Kiwi next week. In a moment I'll set off to the myotherapist so he can work on my back, which is much improved. Then it's lunch with a friend who also happens to be a job opportunity.

How do I feel? Fit and healthy, strong and smart. But also frustrated. I need to apply these things to make them worthwhile. I need it financially, but I also need it spiritually. I've got into this business for the good of my soul as much as the health of my bank balance. I want to make a difference, I want to show why I can do and run with it as far as I can go. Just have to make that happen now.

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The pay-off

I was up bright and uncustomarily early this morning. When I left the house the sun was a bright orange orb just over the horizon.

I was on my way to a suummit on Collective Intelligence hosted by IBM at the Hyatt Hotel. It was a subject that interested me personally and professionally. That professional interest is piqued by the need to network and market my services on an ongoing basis to professionals across industries and a variety of roles. This was another opportunity to do just that.

As hoped the summit was largely fascinating. I love learning things, I love coming to some kind of understanding. I'm motivated by a lot of things, and amongst those curiosity should not be discounted. I sat there and as usual found my mind putting the little bits of information fed to it into different constructs. As is my thing I looked at the potential of what was being presented into an integrated perspective. It excites me when that happens - I guess I'm a geek - because I yearn for the opportunity to actually put it into action.

The bonus out of the day was that I connected with a guy who might become a potential client. We'll see on that.

This is pretty much my world today. If I had not been with IBM today I'd have been over the river connecting at the Microsoft event. Yesterday I attended a lunch at the Australia Club for the Financial Executives. We sat at a long table with CFO's at some of Australia's biggest companies interacting over a glass of wine and a chicken involtini while someone - in this case Craig Drummond, CEO of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia - presented a topic.

It was not really my crowd - my target market is logically SME's - but it was interesting and enlightening to be there. I always think I'm a poor networker. I cringe at the thought of blatantly selling myself, a skill some of my friends have in spades. I engage well though. I can march up to strangers and begin talking and within a minute or two have the run of the conversation. There were many there with same skill in great abundance - more so than me - but also many more deficient.

The venue was a bonus. Very old world la de da, high ceilings, polished wood furniture, gilt edged artworks as well as a few painted directly on the wall, a grand staircase and apparently a big poolroom where no doubt a few leather chesterfields are in evidence.

Last week I attended another function of slightly more casual nature. Upstairs at the Leveson hotel in North Melbourne was a panel discussion on Outsourcing Offshore. It's an interesting topic and once more something that is trending upwards. I took a lot out of the discussion, but the bonus was intereacting with the rest of the audience over a beer or wine before and after the event.

Almost aeveryone there was either an entrepeneur, a small business owner or a software developer. Everyone one of us have pretty much the samne challenges and so amongst us there was a common understanding. We exchanged information about this and that, what we do, how we do it, how we market, and tips we might have. Details are exchanged and agreement is made to keep in contact. There is the sense of the community because we know we can't do it by ourselves. Pay it forward works because if we do it for someone else, someone else will do it for us.

It was an enjoyable experience because I found myself sympatico to so many there. It makes you realise that generally it is a particular type of character who sets out on this independent road.

I've sort of enjoyed much of this, though I also see it as a necessary evil. It might take a while, but I see a lot of opportunity in this: I believe it will pay-off.

The week that was

Haven't written much lately, but there's been a lot happening.

I wrote last week how I had bad vibes.Well, they turned out to be perfectly justified.As I write this I'm now one of the unemployed again, though hopefully only temporarily. Anyway, let's start from the start.

It's been a full-on week, and pretty tough in parts of it. I had a lot of concerns last week that things were turning sour at work. I expected something to happen, I just didn't know when. I survived last Friday, but thought it was far from the end of it. That night went for drinks as usual as the rain tumbled down outside. It was an okay but pretty standard evening but for the weather, and then my phone rang.

It was my step-sister Kylie calling from Coolum. She had just got off the phone from mum and was concerned. Mum had taken a small tumble apparently, and top of that sounded groggy, leaving Kylie to fear that she had had a stroke. She was busy trying to get someone to look in on mum.

I called mum and reassured myself to the situation. I'm not as panicky as Kylie and clearly I know mum pretty well by now. Mum's on sleeping pills and I figured that was likely cause for her groggy speech. In any case nothing was to be served by making a big deal of it then - better for mum to get her sleep undisturbed. Still, it was back in me.

On Saturday I felt concerned about everything, about mum, and about work. I was doing my sums in my head trying to figure out the best way going forward but things weren't adding up the way I wanted them to.

In the evening I set out. I was due to meet with friends, but they were running so late I had to kill time in the city. I caught up with a Korean girl for a while, and then had coffee with an Irish girl in the city square. About 8.30 I wandered down towards Crown. There I found a stalls set-up for the Chinese new year selling satays and other goods around which a thick crowd had congregated. At about 9 my friends arrived.

I met with JV, and he brought with him his cousins from Portugal. When we had travelled together in 2004 they had hosted us in Portugal, taking us out for dinner, out on their boat, home for a barbecue, and had driven us to Lisbon. They were lovely, gracious, good people, more Australian than Portuguese really, but making a killing there with property development. I had not seen them since that time and grateful to them looked to seeing them again.

We ended up going to the new Neil Perry restaurant at Crown, Spice Temple. We had cocktails in the bar first before adjourning upstairs for dinner. JV is a lovely guy, a really fine person, but he's more audience than act, his personality pleasant without strong and that's how he's happy to be.

My personality is stronger and even when I don't feel 100% I find myself rising to the moment when required. I sat there and asked questions and engaged in conversation. I teased a little and joked as if it had only been a few weeks since I'd met them. This was a lot easier by the receptive, easy nature of JV's cousins. I particularly enjoyed chatting to their daughter, a bombshell in a bikini when I last saw her, now just graduated as an architect, pretty and lively and entirely unaffected, with a lovely husky voice. We parted sometime after midnight after a really good night.

The next morning I woke feeling flat again. I spokje to mum as I do every day and she was not well and said she thought it would not be too long before the time came. Of recent times her treatment has gone badly. Her blood count is so low that she is tired and they cannot continue with chemo. Without it the doctor gives her 2-3 months. It's all becoming a reality.

Off the phone I lay there feeling wrung out. The previous week mum had a party to celebrate her life at a golf club in Kew. It had been a good night. I was the virtual host for the night greeting people and mingling through the crowd for all but the last hour of the evening.

I expected no less of myself, and I think everyone expected it of me. It was exhausting though. I had wokn from that the day after wishing I could take a break from reality. I wanted life to be normal again, to have a conversation with mum where there was no reference to her illness or her funeral or her will or any of that. I wanted to be innocent again just for a little while, but I knew that couldn't be.

Last Sunday that feeling was joined by something else. In my heart I thought mum was probably right: the time is approaching. Knowing that I realised that soon we had to think about some serious subjects, namely her death.

Mum does not want to die the ruin so cancer sufferers become. She wants to be in control, still capable and in full command of her faculties. We support that; unfortunately the law doesn't. Laying there I knew that if that time was coming we had to prepare for it. The very thought made me miserable. There are people who want to be there when it happens. Not me. I don't want to even know it's happening. It's so terrible, and writing this so unbelievably unreal. If it is to happen, which it probably will, then it has to happen right. That was what we had to discuss.

I carried that with me through the day and into Monday, back at work. At work it was worse because all my other fears were joined, and the uncertainty plaguing me reached a pitch. It was a very dark day.

Something happened Monday night. This seems always the way. Things are bad, but in the background you are slowly processing those things, adjusting and realigning yourself to what they mean. I hated feeling the way I did, hated feeling so helpless and futile in the face of these two things.

I woke on Tuesday morning with a different frame of mind. I had dreamt things that on waking seemed reflective of a different attitude. I could do nothing about mum, and little about my job, but I refused to be a victim of circumstance. That's not my way. Waiting, watching, hoping are too passive, too pathetic really. I was not going to do that; I was going to take the initiative.

I caught the train to the city that morning and rather than turning off for work I turned towards the RACV club where a departmental meeting and presentation was due. I picked up a coffee and muffin along the way, my heels clacking on the pavement, my reflection impressive in the windows I passed, I felt much more myself.

None of that changed in what came next, though other things did, very much. Sitting there in the room with 70-80 others I listened and watched as various things were presented or discussed. Then came the critical moment. Up went a powerpoint slide that revealed the priorities for the coming year. revealed on it was the surprising news that my project has been pushed out to Q1 next year, as have some other, lesser projects. effectively I was out of a job.

I returned to the office wondering what I was doing there. I was peeved that I had to find out from a slide and disdainful of the softcocks who had not the balls to tell me first. I tried to talk to the CIO, but he was caught in meetings. When the guy who presented finally returned I fronted him: do I come in tomorrow?

He couldn't tell me. He didn't know what was going on. He had put a plan to the executive that had things continuing as they were; at 6pm the night before the executive had changed it, arbitrarily shifting the projects around like they were pieces of lego. It was all spin, but I, and others, were the victims of it.

Cut a long story short I sent an email to the CIO. It was an excellent and gracious email - I don't want to burn my bridges - looking for confirmation of my future. He caught up with me on Thursday morning and taking me aside expressed his gratitude for all I had contributed and hoping that we could maintain a relationship going forward, however...

There was no point me hanging around. I was pretty cool. That's the lot of the consultant. It could have been done better, but end of day they pay the bills. There were - are - a lot of people remaining pretty steamed up, but I moved on very quickly.

I don't know what's to come, but I feel reasonably confident. I wanted to change the way I worked there - though not as radically as this - but now maybe I have the opportunity to set things up as I want them to be. I've sent out emails, I've made calls, made a few tentative steps networking, and had lunch with another guy who promised to look out for me.

As for mum. Well there's not anuything we can do except be there for her. We support whatever way we can and make the most of the time we have remaining. I'll be very sad - I am now - but there's no point being crippled by it. Nows the time to be there - unfortunately there will be ample time to grieve later.

Pravda

Have an appointment mid-morning so working from home today. Not sure if it the best timing to be doing so. Though I've now got air-con installed and am cranking it up it's another stinker today, the sort of day you don't notice that much in the artificial coolness of an office environment. I'll be cool enough here, but the hot breath of summer wont be far away.

It is interesting times in relation to work. I think I have previously mentioned what a ruthless environment I work in. Most people are very nivce and by and large I enjoy my time in the office, yet there is something distinctly Soviet about how management operates. Just in the last two weeks three people have been told to pack up their desks and leave. That follows on from several more before Christmas, all removed in much the same clinical way. I've joked that it's like trapdoor opening up beneath them and whoosh, off they go, never to be seen again. It's more sinister than that though, much more Soviet - the knock on the door in the wee hours of the night and removal leaving only an empty chair.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I can understand why some people where let go, but the method leaves me scratching. It's a bad vibe to start with, and much like in totalitarian stakes leaves the survivors looking over their shoulder and wondering who's next. It doesn't make for a productive or happy workplace, though I can only laugh at the ridiculous theatre of it. I don't understand either how all that IP can be walked out of the office without any handover at all. It's a waste of effort and money.

As I say, some of the sackings make sense. From a lean operation it became bloated as new appointments brought in their own people to support them. It became cluttered and confusing, operations overly process driven, progress frustratingly ponderous. It's been itching at me since before Christmas, but in general I've kept to myself and done my own thing. I've kept it lean and disregarded what I thought was superfluous, to the the point they no longer bother to manage me. The result is that I'm well ahead of the crowd, organised and waiting for everyone to catch-up.

There have been times I've been less diplomatic, particularly at meetings when I'm exposed to things I find hard to abide, and even harder to ignore. Last Thursday was case in point at one of our weekly meetings when discussion turned to some of the tangential projects on the go. In the first place I think they have the wrong end of the stick, making things over-complicated whilst refusing to do what is most necessary - engage with the business. Even harder is the fact that some of these projects relate to issues I have dealt with in the past and have experience with like nobody else their - yet they refuse to engage with me either. And so I let my feelings be known, my tone moderate and insistent as the discussion turned into a debate. One end of the table supported me, largely silently, but it was the other end of the table that held sway. And so I return to my hole.

Before much of this raised it's head - two people have been marched out on successive days - I had already organised for a meeting with the CFO. I have a good nose I think and was sniffing trouble. I wanted to get clarity on my position and perhaps make some recommendations, largely that I should go casual in the manner of a true consultant. I was thinking also that I might give voice to some of my frustration to the manner we've been working, at odds with the stated outcomes and timeline.

I was wary too knowing that I was effectively unaligned. I was a consultant engaged directly by the CFO himself. The others had arrived in clumps - a new manager brought in four of his people. Another brought in his right hand man. Though it was all civil the divisions were ideological as much as anything else. I alone stood between them with no-one to support or back me up, a potential pawn, or fall-guy. I needed to shore up my position.

I've not met with the CFO yet, but things have changed. One side has weakened with the abrupt dismissal of people on their side. It exposes the manager I think and puts him under pressure. The other side is safer, more can-do, the side I am more instinctively sympathetic to. In the end being unaligned may work in my favour because there is no-one to drag me under.

I understand his perspective to a degree. He is a very ambitious and focused man, and generally a good operator. This is a big project though, and it's his balls on the line. If it fails he's out, and given the general drift of events it's not surprising he has acted.

If I were to be similarly ruthless I might see opportunities in the situation for myself, though it could just as easily go the other way. I believe in karma though - what goes around comes around. Though it's not always clear I try to act with some dignity. Should everyone else fall over I'll be ready to step forward, till then I'll do my thing.

It may matter little. I want to see this thing through and have an emotional investment in the outcome, but other wheels are turning now.