trendpreneur

Today’s mild disturbance in the sedated post-Christmas Force is a throwaway thought by Loic Le Meur on being able to search by authority on Twitter. Duly picked up by Techcrunch, the debate seems to be flitting back and forth. There are a couple of good points coming out of it: number of followers doesn’t necessarily confer authority, except perhaps to those with a lot themselves; being able to filter out which are the useful voices worth listening to amidst a sea of noise is useful; and basing search on social networking (prioritising friends, then friends of friends) is a possible alternative than to purely count followers.

Authority and influence are something I take an interest in and a magic one-size-fits-all solution isn’t necessarily the sort of thing you can hack up in a one-paragraph comment somewhere (indeed, due to the differing nature of individuals’ trust and respect, it might not exist at all). However, it’s good to see so many different minds at work on something I’ve been mulling over for a while. It’s also somewhat frightening; based on the leisure of the Christmas-New Year period, and the sudden profile of this concept, I would be very surprised if a couple of homebrew solutions didn’t pop up over the next week. I’m already thinking how you’d accomplish some of the solutions most talked about with the Twitter API.

Talking of New Year, traditionally a time where we often vow to change our ways, to break bad habits and to establish good ones — the helpful posts and newsletters about how to get one’s finances ship-shape ready for 2009 are already well underway. (Of course, mine aren’t helped by the fact a letter from the estate agent demanding money I don’t actually owe them greeted me as I got back home. I’ve never seen a company more incompetent.) The usual advice is being given: sort out credit cards (hello 0% balance transfers), make sure your savings are working for you, see if you can trim down different payments by switching supplier or threatening to, etc.

The most useful one I’ve seen is perhaps the simplest. Be on top of your money. Log into your internet banking regularly, be aware of exactly what you’re spending, and if there’s a problem, work through it logically rather than avoiding it. Much as I would love to have Mint or Wesabe grab all my personal financial data and present me with beautfiful pie charts, the faff of shuffling data from HSBC is possibly too much (though I’ll try!).

As a side note, connecting both money and 2009 (how apt!), my free trial of Basecamp expires on New Year’s Day. I have this marked in several places so I don’t fall into the clever trap of paying for a month’s subscription because I was one day late cancelling. However, I’m not really sure if I want to cancel. I like Basecamp, it looks great, and even for one-man-band project organisation it’s nice to find somewhere central to put stuff. But it’s not quite right, and neither’s Huddle. Perhaps a simple blog and linked calendar is more what I’m after, but I have a feeling that anything requiring too much effort will lose the battle for control of my project management.

At this time of year I always have horrible flashbacks to two ‘office party’-type affairs I attended in the dim and distant past, when I had what my mum would call a real job. Let’s just say I left both jobs before I had to endure a second (what do you mean, that can’t have been the only factor?).

One of the joys of working for oneself is the fact that you don’t have to put up with these types of parties (until your company becomes successful, and you become the sleazy boss who gets drunk and tries to flirt with the receptionists). Instead, you can pick and choose various Christmas events to go to.. as long as you get an invitation! It can also be fairly lonely, especially if you’re starting out and your name isn’t on all the VIP lists — sitting alone with a turkey dinner and a lopsided hat doesn’t really hold the same charm as doing so in company.

Fortunately for me, I’m just back from a delicious EPIS-provided Christmas lunch which more than makes up for the lack of an office full of coworkers I need to pretend to like for one night of the year. I suppose this is another plug for the EPIS scheme, or those like it — anything that brings one-man-bands and the like together for a free dinner and a sense of camaraderie is good in my book. Now to figure out what on earth I’m doing for New Year…

Due to the WiFi seriously dying on me today (though it was mostly fine yesterday – go figure) I tended to tweet today’s sessions in bursts — the bursts corresponding to me being online and actually in the session, rather than offline but in the session, online but not in the session, or offline talking to someone interesting. Anyway.

In a reverse kind of order, here are a few Day 2 goodies. The day ended on a Gillmor Gang live session which consisted mostly of overweight loud Americans shouting at each other — with a surprising detour into a quiet and all-too-brief discussion on news filtering algorithms. One of the things about this panel that appeared on the Twitterstream was the fact it lacked women. I’ve also seen a few comments here and there about the number of women at LeWeb. Plus, a brief exchange that sparked at least one tweet — when asked what the audience liked about Google’s presentation at LeWeb, it’s apparently perfectly fine to note that the (female) speaker was “hot”.
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A mixed bag from the afternoon’s sessions, most of which can be summed up in one tweet or less. Currently in a ’state of funding’ panel with a couple of strong, if well-trodden, themes — yes, people are still getting funded, and if you can run on your own cash through 2009 you’ll be fine — having a great idea is key, and plenty of startups have great ideas now — and revenue is key. You won’t get funded with no sign of revenue and funding yourself through sales is a solid plan in the current climate.

Quite an interesting contrast between US/European points of view – some speakers are American, others European. European attitudes are perhaps more helpful now, pointing towards incubators, government initiatives vs American “VC is everything” outlook, the very thing that’s failing in the downturn.

Couple of other points from the afternoon – Morten Lund was very candid about losing everything (about to lose his house) in an investment gone wrong, and then Martin Vasavsky also mentions being bankrupt for a month in 1998. Seems like finally some realism’s entering the fray rather than the happy “see no evil” approach. I’m not sure whether they can give any more advice than “have a solid idea and make money early” – but it would be interesting to see a focus on angels as well as VCs.

Susan Wu gave a really interesting talk about virtual goods (with a slightly… weird WoW example, but then I’m too nerdy by half about that game). Consumer focused products, especially those with social components, can make money from virtual goods — think about the verbs people use to interact with each other and your product and monetise them! Gifting is primary example – but there’s also stuff like getting a ‘premium’ name, and of course the (tired but still true) example of avatar customisation. Biggest Chinese internet platform makes 70% of revenue through virtual goods (basically an IM service). Quite cool to think about this from a web point of view rather than a gaming one.

There was also a panel on branding and a couple of the main things coming from that were – brands make mistakes and by trying to build a one-to-one conversation with customers but using the wrong platform, a lot of money can be lost (and even reputation/image). However when they work they’re great. But brands, especially middle management, need analytics and to see where the money is – something that helps a brand figure out how much money they’re making by having a presence on your service is great – ROI is key. Pretty interesting given one of the things I’m trying to do with my software…

Couple of really cool things from the pre-lunch session. Firstly, the conductor Itay Talgam spoke about.. conducting and stuff. I missed most of that but got there in time to be part of an audience singalong. A nice idea in theory – he ended up dividing the audience into four segments to sing Frere Jacques. Except.. the segments were ‘men under 30′, ‘men over 30′ and similarly women. Now, there are a fair few women here but I’d still only peg it at about 2 in 10, so the latter two sections of the choir were pretty quiet. Oh well, it was quite a fun experience to bond a little with the people sitting nearby and I ended up with a smile on my face from it.

After the singing was a chat with Linda Avey from 23andme. A really interesting company but one pretty much every entrepreneur in the audience would be jealous of (having a cofounder married to a Google founder makes some things a little easy, no?). The possibilities from having a bank of users and their DNA are huge, from research via questionnaires to helping people trace their ancestry and find out more about their own health. The possibility that you find out things you didn’t want to from your DNA is there, but obviously nobody’s forcing you to spit in a tube and pay $400 or whatever.

Finally was a detailed and really fascinating presentation by Helen Fisher. An academic expert on love, Helen talked about the brain chemistry behind love and attraction as well as the four basic personality types that everyone’s made up of. It might not seem to be that relevant to business at first, but if we go back to one of Loic’s very first comments of the day — that being an entrepreneur is very much like being in love — it all starts to fall into place.

Let’s take these traits that Helen outlined as symptomatic of romantic love (as opposed to lust and long-term affection). Focused attention; energy; euphoria and mood swings; emotional dependence (will do just about anything for the loved one); possessiveness; motivation; obsessive thinking; involuntary feelings. How many of these are just as applicable to the early-stage entrepreneur, throwing everything into a business, and desperately obsessing about it? Waking up in the middle of the night, making personal sacrifices, throwing everything else aside… Yes, love and entrepreneurship are more similar than one might think.

Taking this further, Helen outlined the symptoms of addiction and pointed out that love is, in many ways, as addictive as cocaine (but you can’t just stop taking love!). In the context of a rejected lover, traits such as focus, obsession, craving — plus tolerance (their faults are endearing) and withdrawal symptoms — are evident, and as with other addictions, despite months on the straight and narrow it’s very easy to relapse. The example given was hearing a song that reminded one of the target of one’s affections. How does this apply to business? Not quite so clear – but perhaps if we think of a failed business that we might pour everything into but ultimately has to be let go, the parallels start to emerge. Months after we buried it as a lost cause, perhaps something stirs off a spark of hope and we try again — only this time we’re determined to succeed. Is this why so many people are serial entrepreneurs? As opposed to staying in a long-term relationship with one business, and moving from obsession into the calm, relaxed state of affection, we move on and obsess about something new.

But why do some people start businesses and others don’t? This is where the four types of personality come into play. I initially started listening to this more keenly because of my familiarity with Bartle’s model of MMO gamer, but this is possibly more relatable to the Myers-Briggs scale and other such dividers. Only without the black-and-white “if you’re X, you can’t be Y”.

Each type is related to a particular chemical in the brain, so it’s all about biology and brain chemistry rather than socioeconomic factors (it’d be interesting to see a 3D scale with these involved too):

• Explorer (artisan) – dopamine, noreinephrine
• Builder (guardian) – serotonin
• Director (rational) – testosterone
• Negotiator (idealist) – oestrogen

The explorer type fits this bag of words: risk-taking, optimistic, impulsive, energetic, creative, autonomous, flexible, unconventional – but also manic, addictive, disorderly, opportunistic. Sarkozy and Obama are examples. Addressing the LeWeb audience Helen pointed out that many of us will have strong tendencies towards this type and higher amounts of dopamine.

In contrast, the builder type is far more orderly – they’re calm, social, managerial, fact-oriented, traditional, but also stubborn and close-minded. The word that came to mind when I thought of this was ‘middle management’, and examples given by Helen were Gordon Brown and Sarah Palin. Interestingly and perhaps predictably people in this type are more ‘red states’ sorts, who want to live in the suburbs or country – as opposed to the high dopamine types who get off on city buzz.

The director type is analytical, direct, focused, resourceful, understands rule-based systems, is emotionally contained and self-disciplined and exhibits heroic altruism (will jump into a burning building to rescue someone). They’re also less empathetic, impatient, rude, have poor verbal skills and a workaholic. Your typical geek falls quite solidly into this type, as do John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Check your hands – if your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you had plenty of testosterone in the womb and might exhibit many of these traits. (Mine’s significantly longer…)

Finally the negotiator type sees the big picture and is imaginative, with linguistic and people skills and can be nurturing, introspective, intuitive and idealistic. They might also be indecisive, unfocused and hypersensitive. Examples here were Bill Clinton and Jose Zapatero, though I think a lot of people reading the negotiator traits – a result of high oestrogen – would say ‘women’ are a good example. (Of course, tarring us all with the one brush is always a bad idea, but as generalisations go it’s not the worst I’ve seen).

What’s interesting is where these four types interact — for example someone with a high Explorer tendency but also a lot of Director is likely to be a tech entrepreneur, marrying the creativity and risk-taking of one with the analytical, geeky mindset of the other. A blogger is likely to lean more towards Explorer/Negotiator, being unconventional and energetic with a lot of linguistic and social skills. Helen’s also done research on how each type interacts when it comes to mating — explorers match up with builders, pairing stability with spontaneity, while negotiators and directors pair off. More on this will be in her book in January (plug alert!) but it’s interesting how this is all backed by looking at thousands of registered members on a dating site, observing and questioning people and their relationships.

Another interesting side effect of these chemically-grounded personality traits is what happens when you alter the brain’s chemistry. Looking at Helen’s latest blog post, there’s a sensible and important point made about SSRIs (selective serotonine reuptake inhibitors, a very common type of antidepressant). SSRIs raise levels of serotonin, helping with many of the symptoms of depression, but also suppress dopamine. Helen points this out as a bad thing because people who may only be suffering a short-term bout of depression might stay on SSRIs a lot longer than necessary, and dopamine is key to the way we experience romantic love — so what’s the effect of inhibiting this dopamine circuit over a long term, both on an individual and societal level?

I find this more fascinating when you go back to the love/entrepreneurship parallel, and also combine that with the fact that the swings associated with running a business mean that the lows can be vicious, leading an entrepreneur to perhaps seek medication. (In fact I read something recently linking manic depression with entrepreneurial tendencies, but the wifi’s down and I can’t find it right now.) So what happens when someone whose very core revolves around high-dopamine traits starts reducing this and becoming higher in serotonin? Does their basic personality change – do they stop taking risks and seek out safety? Would SSRIs, in fact, be enough to make a confirmed entrepreneur seek a day job? Scary stuff.