Earlier this month Entrepreneur.com did an article called, “The Future Is…Later – A backlog of applications at the U.S. Patent Office has innovation in a stranglehold.” In it, David Port discussed the backlog and length of time it takes for a patent to go through the USPTO. Here are some of the numbers David threw out:
- On average, it takes more than 25 months to get first action on a patent application and 32 months to get one approved.
- The number of applications filed with the USPTO totaled almost 497,000 in fiscal 2008, up 31% from fiscal 2004
- During that five-year span, the total number of applications pending at the agency has increased 60 percent, from around 756,000 to more than 1.2 million
- It all adds up to increased application pendency: from 27.6 months in 2004 to 32.2 months in 2008
Please note that this is the average. The patent for one of my software applications took over seven years to go through.
The government and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke would like to reduce the average period for first action to be 10 months with the goal of helping small businesses in America grow. While I applaud the goal, I’m not a fan of the plan.
I know I’m not alone when I say the patent process is broken and it needs to be fixed before it’s expedited if we really want to see any benefit to business. Speaking for software patents alone, too many patents for non-unique or far too general ideas/processes are granted by the USPTO. In addition, patent trolls and the Eastern District of Texas take a harder toll on startups then the patent process. Many small businesses end up impeaded at best or out of business at worse due to this. For more on that I suggest reading Jason Mendelson’s 2007 “Patent Rant” post (oldy but goody) and Fred Wilson’s “How Patent Trolls Are A Tax On Innovation” post from earlier this year.
In the patent I mentioned above, I was not a fan at all of applying for it. Originally, my employer knew the product was a hit and wanted to get a patent for it because they felt everyone else was getting patents and we could license it out for additional revenue. Myself and the company lawyer tried to explain that at best, it would serve as a defensive mechanism to fight off patent trolls and others being that we were a bank and viewed to have deep pockets. (BTW- Anyone licensing software or a patent from a bank truly needs help.)
I am a huge fan of the “Use it or lose it.” method proposed for patents which makes it similar to trademarks and easier to draw a line. While I don’t think it will solve all problems, it will definitely cut down on abuse by patent trolls and others that have no intentions of ever using the patent they own to build a business, hire employees, make a difference in the market, or anything other then sue others for a cut of profits.
I also believe employing more “obvious or open” standards would drastically decrease the amount of patents in the process. Those that try to patent “clicking a button that then takes an action and can be used on any and all media” and other BS applications on actions that are already in the market or are considered obvious actions should not only be immediately declined but they should be fined the amount of money it took the USPTO to process them.
While I don’t have all of the answers and I know that there will be debate, expediting the current patent process will not only NOT help small business in the US but it will result in more BS patents being approved and abused as the USPTO tries to meet the new timelines instead of improving the quality. That will end up hurting the country’s entrepreneurs more then ever.
(Photo of “Fix It!” Guy from Saturday Night Live)
Let me start off by saying that I absolutely hate Internet Explorer 6. It’s been out for years and is a nightmare to code for and deal with. We sometimes find ourselves spending 30% of our time coding a page or function that works great until you try in on IE 6 and the remaining 70% of the time trying to get it to work correctly for IE 6. Ben Parr at Mashable even did a great post in July titled, “IE 6 Must Die for the Web to Move On.” and I agree.
With that in mind, the sad but true fact is that as of August, 2009, IE 6 still comprises almost 14% of browser usage. My educated guess without having any solid information to back it up as that about 95% of IE 6 users are in businesses. I’m basing this on the following:
- Most users in companies don’t have admin access to their PCs to make any upgrades on their own
- Most companies won’t do a company wide upgrade until it’s too painful not to deal with due to costs and/or IT staff bandwidth
- Most consumers using IE and/or a Microsoft OS get the latest version of IE through the Microsoft Updates because they always choose the default “Express” option that throws the latest IE release in with it.
For those that deal primarily with consumers on their websites, it’s getting to the point where the percentage of IE 6 users is low enough that they can say “Screw it.” and choose to stop supporting IE 6. Their own site analytics will let them know. However, for those of us that focus on helping businesses, chances are it will be one more year before we can stop supporting IE 6 without impacting potential customers.
The only upside that keeps our team going while we continue to support IE 6 (and sometimes 7) is that a good enough portion of our active customers are still using them and making sure that they have a good experience and continue to use our site as well as tell others about it means more then pushing them all away. Does it increase the company bar tab? Yes. But the trend is decreasing and we see a light at the end of the tunnel.
In this respect, I relate us coding to IE 6 like paying taxes. You hate it and you don’t understand at all how or why they made it so complicated but if the reason you’re dealing with it is because you’re bringing in business, so be it. I can live with that.
Another service that could be considered one of our competitors has a huge banner on their home page for people with IE 6 or 7 that says something similar to “You’re on IE 6 or 7 and you’re going to have a minimal experience unless you upgrade to the IE 8, Google Chrome, the latest Safari or Firefox.” What it’s telling the customer is, “Hey, you’re on IE 6 or 7 and we decided not code for that and you’re business isn’t worth it. See ya.” I love it because for a site that’s supposed to cater to business, they don’t understand that for many of their potential customers, it’s not a choice. They don’t have admin rights to their computer. For those that do, they can’t even see the site to decide if it’s worth the hassle and restarts to upgrade just for the privilege of using their site. To them I say, Thank You! Keep pushing them away. They’ll appreciate our site even more.
Last week one of my buddies had a conundrum that he threw out to the crew over beers. His issue was that his boss sent him a friend invite on Facebook and wanted to know what he should do. He likes his boss but he was really concerned about personal life, which he primarily associates with Facebook, colliding with his professional world. Sometime you want to vent about work to friends and family. What if one of his friends posts a party picture or a picture from college that’s fun but not all that professional?
The suggestion we had was to create a separate group for business contacts with limited access to your posts and any pictures or videos of you by friends. Jeremiah Owyang wrote a post about this titled, “Help! My Boss Wants To Be My Friend On Facebook.”
The problem that I and others still have is that with all of the various privacy settings with Facebook, it’s hard to be sure exactly what the groups you set up can or can’t see without having a friend next to you and putting them in each group to see what they see through their profile.
There are two features that I think would be incredibly helpful to getting more professional and business relationships on Facebook as well as more interaction with people that may want to keep communication with different groups of friends separate.
- Allow users to send posts specifically to certain groups. I’m well aware that my friends and family do not want to hear my professional interactions. For that reason, I tend to do very little posts on Facebook regarding my business. I also don’t want a business contact that I don’t really know reading a joking comment I make to a friend out of context. Allowing me to send posts to a specific group would allow me to interact more with both my professional contacts and my friends and family and that means more time on Facebook.
- Allow users to “View my profile for this friend group”. Instead of me guessing or using a friend’s user login to test what each of my user groups have access to, it would make it much easier if Facebook offered a way for me to quickly and easily view what my profile looks like for each friend group I create. Knowing exactly what each group sees would also allow me to feel more comfortable interacting even more on Facebook.
These are the features that I believe will not only help build more business communication on Facebook but more user interaction and time spent on the platform overall.
This is actually a re-post of an article I did for our FYIndOut blog but I’ve had enough people ask me about it that I thought I should share it here as well.
Over the last few months I’ve attended the various, great professional networking events that Chicago has to offer; everything from Small Business Round Tables to Social Media Club to breakfast meetings with other entrepreneurs, etc. And outside of the social media events, the one topic I hear come up time and time again is “What the heck is the big deal about Twitter?” Now before any social media fanatics blow this off as “It’s them, not Twitter.”, these are very smart people of all ages who are open minded and have actually tried Twitter. They are not mindlessly writing off social media without trying it.
So this post is for all of those business professionals out there who have heard about and tried Twitter, and are wondering if you’re missing out on something or if Twitter is the best fad since Beanie Babies. I’ll discuss what I call the three phases of Twitter acclimation.
To start off, let’s answer the question “Does using Twitter add value for my business?” The answer is “It depends on what your business is and if you’ve got a plan in place on how to use it.” With that out of the way, I would say that for 80% of businesses out there (especially small to medium size businesses) there is value in having a planned and interactive presence on Twitter. If you have prospects, customers, competition, peers, business partners, media, or prospective business partners using Twitter, it’s worth it to try and get involved. We’ll save the hows and whys for another post. Right now, let’s talk about what the majority of business professionals go through before finding what works for them on Twitter.
Phase 1: The “This is stupid.” Phase
You’ve read article after article on how Twitter is taking off with millions of users. Dell has sold $2MM in revenue using it. Every PR firm tells you that you need to be on it. Oprah is on it!! You decide you need to see what this is about so you join. As you start to search for people to follow, you see a lot of “ OMG. Almost at front of line. Should I get ice coffee moca or latte?!” and you ask yourself who cares. The more you go through it, the more you get that uncomfortable feeling that you’ve just found every egotistical, slacker on the planet.
The next day you receive email that people are following you. Awesome! However, when you look, only three of them are people you followed and all of the rest are people that are telling you how you can make money using Twitter or that you’ll be really glad if you go to their site to take a look at their pictures.
At this point, you know that you’ve got better things to do and work to get done so this is the first time you stop using Twitter.
Phase 2: The “Maybe” Phase
So you quit using Twitter and told your peers and spouse how stupid it was. But then you keep seeing articles on how businesses are benefitting from using it. A few of your peers disagree with you and ask you if you would like their help to get started. These are smart people that you know and respect and if they say there’s something there, maybe there is. This time they tell you to use sites like Twitter Search and Twellow to find and follow people in areas and industries you care about. They also tell you that anyone that uses Twitter regularly does not use Twitter’s web interface because it’s like trying to hear what every NASCAR driver says as their car goes by your bleacher seat at 220+ MPH. They recommend applications like Tweetdeck, Twhirl, or others so you can filter out comments of those you really wish to pay attention to.
I was at this phase when I wrote this post back in October last year. People I respected were finding value and I was still trying to figure it out.
If you’re like most people that get on Twitter for business, one of the areas you’ll try to keep up and connect with others on is around Social Media. You start to follow a bunch of people in this area as you try to learn more. Welcome to the Twitter Echo Chamber. As you start to follow tweets over the next few weeks, you ask yourself who the heck are Chris Brogan and Gary V? You’re not following them but at least a thousand people are retweeting everything they say religiously. You start to realize who’s adding value, who’s always selling, and who’s mindlessly tweeting for the sake of numbers.
At the same time, you continue to slowly find people that you’re learning from and you’re trying to contribute some sort of knowledge, content, or help where you can to do your part. You’re also starting to hear the same messages or info over and over again from the same people and learning how to prune who you follow. You’re even finding great content, blogs, and sites you find helpful that you never would have found otherwise.
Maybe there’s something to be had in this Twitter thing.
Phase 3: The “Adding Value” Phase
Now that you’ve learned enough about Twitter, who’s using it, and what tools are out there to make the most of it, you’ve put a plan together and set expectations as to what you want your business to get out of it.
- You realize that you don’t have to follow everyone that follows you and that you’re getting more out of the quality of those you follow and not the quantity.
- You’re attending Tweetups to meet people face-to-face and build real relationships as well as using Twitter to set up meetings with peers that you’ve never met when you visit different cities or conventions.
- You participate in organized Twitter streams/conversations via hashtags like #b2b to keep up to date on your areas of interest and add value when you can.
- You limit the amount of time you or someone on your team actually spends on Twitter because you realize that without discipline, Twitter can suck up your whole day and there is no linear correlation between the benefits of using Twitter to the time spent on it.
- You’ve slowly built your quality connections over time to the point where you can ask a quick question from your peers and get a considerable amount of feedback in a very short amount of time.
- You’re able to meet and connect with someone 10X faster then any cold call or filling out a Contact Us form.
Those are the three phases that most people go through when acclimating to Twitter. Hopefully, if you’re in phases one, this will let you know that you’re not alone. If you’re in phase two, this should help get you over that hump.
I’d love to hear other people’s experiences and let us know if we’re missing anything. The more stories that we share, the better.
Photo: What a Face! by kidgrifter via flickr.
Here’s a great presentation that I thought presented ten good lessons learned in a way that gets your attention.
Enjoy.
Interesting post on Silicon Alley Insider today, titled “Users Love Microsoft, Yahoo Search — When It’s Branded With A Google Logo”. The post goes on to discuss how Google does internal tests where it put its logo and treatment on another engine’s search results. In the tests, “users still prefer the results with the Google logo, even if they’re not Google results.”
Talk about having a hold on the market financially and mentally. You have to wonder if it will matter how much Microsoft spends on marketing with their new search engine, Bing.
Building a brand, nurturing it, and protecting that brand matters. The more mindshare you can gain of the masses, more specifically your prospects, the easier it is to get a foot in the door.
And it works both ways. Remember Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment” where they showed people their “new” operating system Mojave and then told them at the end it was really Vista? I was never sure if that campaign was good or bad. I knew that the point was to give Vista a fair shake based on all the bad word-of-mouth it was getting and show that once you took away the Vista name, it was OK. But I always thought, “Wow, you’ve built a brand with such a bad rap that even if it cured world hunger, people will have a negative perspective on it.” It would have been better off to immediately come out with a new OS where with the performance issues resolved then stay with Vista and improve it because no matter how well their engineers did, it was still going to be Vista.
Mindshare matters. It can help make a good product “awesome” or an OK product “terrible”. Working hard to make sure it stays on the positive side can help make customers’ perceptions even better then it is due to the actual value you add.
As we all continue to read about Chrysler, GM, Citi, Bank of America and other large corporations receiving government funding while going bankrupt or continuing on their downward spirals, you have to wonder if any amount of money will matter when a company’s strategy is focused on survival and not adding value or changing the market they’re in.
If GM gets all the money they’ll ever need, will it really change anything or just drag out the inevitable? If I was a supplier, I wouldn’t be any more content knowing they’re still in business as is then if they went bankrupt. I’d still be praying that they start building automobiles people want in a profitable manner. If they get more money and buy my parts but continue to deliver so-so products unprofitably with the goal of merely existing, I’m just experiencing a slow and painful twisting of the knife that will continue to stress me out and sooner or later, result in a painful end.
From an entrepreneur’s point of view, I can’t imagine starting or building a company with the goal of just surviving. Who would go through all of the hard work, lack of pay, and pain, just to survive? As a matter of fact, no startup with that goal in mind would survive and nobody in their right mind would invest in them.
While one could argue that some people now are not buying GM cars because of their current financial situation, the vast majority are still not buying the cars because they’re not the best value out there and they haven’t been for years. If they were, they wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in. That won’t change with more money. The banks having issues are coming out with any additional fees and rate changes they can to improve their financial situation and as a result, educated, long term customers are leaving in droves. It’s not because we’re worried that we’ll lose our money if they go bankrupt. We know we’re protected under FDIC. It’s because theses banks obviously don’t have “adding value to the customer” in mind right now and probably won’t for some time to come. They’re constantly coming up with more fees and ways to charge people for keeping their money with them. What kind of strategy is that?
Regardless of our personal or emotional ties to any of these companies, we need to take a step back and recognize that if these companies are focused solely on surviving, they’re done anyway. Whether it’s sooner or later is yet to be determined.
And make a lot of green.
Being that today is Earth Day I thought I’d take going green, a personal passion of riding my Harley, and capitalism and throw them all into one idea. I firmly believe that Harley Davidson can make going green cool, build an even stronger brand, and make a boat load of money by coming out with a few electric motorcycles.
Say What?!!
Alright, I already know that many of you are upset by just reading that last paragraph and my father is briefly thinking of disowning me for saying such a thing but please hear me out. I am not what one would label a “tree hugger” but I do try to do my part where I can. I have been riding motorcycles for over five years now and I own a Harley Davidson Road King, which I love. I realize that many love the experience of the heavy touring bikes and the loud pipes. I’m not talking about any of Harley Davidson’s lines going away. I’m talking about Harley Davidson adding something new.
Suggestion
Harley Davidson add two new electric motorcycles to their product line, based on the Sportster Family and/or Dyna Family. I’m thinking specifically The Sportster 1200 Low or the Street Bob. With latest designs in lithium batteries and other battery power sources, bikes could charge off of standard 110V or 220V input and go for nine hours with less then four hours of recharge time. There are already companies out there like Zero Motorcycles starting to come out with electric bikes based off the passion of one or two people. See video of Zero Motorcycle founder, Neil Saiki, with the bike on Jay Leno’s Garage here.
Who Would Want It?
I would but I realize I am not enough for a product line to be profitable so here’s what I believe to be the market. A good chunk of people in rural and urban areas that are earth conscious, know gas is only going to continue to get more expensive, and like to go on their motorcycles for cruising around the area for a few hours or get around locally without struggling to find parking…and want to look cool doing it. Just because we’re earth friendly and financially savvy doesn’t mean that we want to ride a lime green scooter or some tiny little car that looks like a penny racer. People in California, most metro cities, and much of Europe would be all over this. Once again, I am not saying that any current Harley Davidson owners will be converted to let go of their cruisers. I truly believe this would be another market for them entirely.
Why Would People Buy It?
First and foremost, the Harley Davidson brand name. If Harley Davidson can come out with quality products that have at least 8 hours of riding time and can hit cruising speeds of up to 70 (Both of these have been achieved by others.) and puts the Harley Davidson brand on them,they will go…fast! In two minutes I can think of about ten celebrities that are known Harley riders AND earth friendly. People see them on these bikes and all of a sudden going green isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s finally cool to do it!
Why Should Harley Davidson Even Think Of Doing This?
There’s three answers to this. Here they are in order of priority.
The Money
Everyone’s thinking of how to make cars more fuel efficient but there are plenty of motorcycle riders out there. If Harley Davidson comes out with a line of one or two bikes that are quality built with a good shelf life and are earth friendly to dispose of, they will literally own a whole new market. There is a ridiculous amount of money to be made. As time goes by and they learn from the two new lines, should the electric trend continue to prevail, they’ll have the experience and know how to offer other lines at a profit and when the market wants them instead of playing catch up and rushing out a crappy product.
Pride and PR
At a time where the American automobile manufacturers are getting their asses handed to them for multiple reasons in every area that matters to their customers, stock holders, and employees, how great of a story is it that a Midwest legend not only didn’t fall by the wayside but sees the future coming and takes it to a whole new level?! An electric motorcycle that’s built with Harley Davidson quality and actually cool to drive while helping the planet! That’s a feel good story that will be in every blog, news cast, business review and podcast for a long time.
The Environment and Less Dependence on Foreign Oil
This will actually help the planet both in terms of carbon footprint and use of natural resources. If you’re answer to that is, “Whatever Tree Hugger.”, let me play to your proud American side. This will also help to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. Does that have your attention?
To close, Harley Davidson, please tell me you’re looking at this market. There’s too much money in it not to look at it. If you ever need a test driver, I’m here for you.
Whether it’s in our personal or professional lives, when someone asks you something; be it a favor or a project task timeline, you want to do your best to help them out. You want to do your part and make everyone happy. The issue is that everyone has multiple facets of our lives to juggle and prioritize and some do it better then others. When people drop the ball and don’t make their commitments, even though we have the best intentions, that task or favor still doesn’t get done and others pay for it. No matter how good our intentions are, it doesn’t magically make falling short on a commitment any better.
The Value of a Good Intention
Let’s break down the value of a good intention:
Pros:
- The person that had the good intentions has a way to rationalize not meeting their commitments
Cons:
- The task didn’t get done
- The rest of the team is disappointed
- Others on the team may need to take on additional work to keep things on track
- Hard discussion with team member that neither they or the manager want to have
Jerks Don’t Have Good Intentions
The real bummer about good intentions is that they almost always come from nice people. They genuinely want to help or do their part. It’s much harder to have a hard conversation with a nice person then with someone you don’t get along with. (That’s a whole other post.) Most people have something like a family or car issue that comes up occasionally and it’s no big deal. Life happens. Chances are that those people will work harder to catch up or meet their commitments. The issue is when you have a nice person on your team that continually falls short because something “came up”. As a manager, you need to talk to this person as soon as you identify the trend.
Prioritization and Proactive Communication
So what do you talk about? Every time I’ve dealt with this, it’s never been a trust or deceit issue. It’s always been a priority and communication issue. If it’s not dealt with by the person in a timely fashion, it becomes a trust issue even though that person isn’t intentionally lying because the rest of the team can’t believe them when they give estimates and deadlines. You need to let the person know that they need to prioritize their work in a manner that will allow them to meet their commitments. You’re not telling them to miss their kids’ games or give up their social life. They’re grown adults and they need to figure out how they’re going to hold their weight with the team and earn their pay. Your goal is to let them know it’s an issue now so they’re not surprised if you let them go later. I have yet to have an experience where the person doesn’t realize that it’s starting to become an issue. The hard part for them is realizing that others see it too and figuring out how to best manage their time.
The other thing you need to get across is that they need to proactively tell the team when they know they won’t make their commitments instead of waiting until something’s due to give a status. This allows the team to proactively manage and share the tasks in order to stay on track instead of reacting and scrambling after the fact. While this is still not ideal in that the rest of the team has to cover for the person, it’s making the most of a not-so-good situation.
Anti Up
Long story short, people that continually make commitments and miss them need to be addressed as soon as possible. Having a nice person with good intentions is no better then having a blatantly obvious deadbeat on the team except that the deadbeat is easier to identify and even easier to get rid of. Help your good people identify when this issue is starting to happen and make both of your lives easier.
Over the last several months since we launched our beta for FYIndOut, I’ve done my best to reach out and try various groups and networking events within the Chicago community with the focus on building our network and meeting other Chicago startups. I’m willing to try anything once and I’ve found that some groups and events are better then others for our needs.
I’m not saying that any of the groups or events is bad. I actually think that all are serving a great purpose and helping to build the Chicagoland community but when we go to these events we’re specifically there to learn and/or looking for other Chicago startups or peers in the hopes of being active members of the community and helping as well as receiving help from others. We’re also looking for service providers (lawyers, accountants) that work with startups with the goal of finding the ones that we like and can add value to our business.
Here are the ones that I’ve found beneficial as an entrepreneur:
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Marci Chapman’s Entrepreneur Networking Event: This event is by invite only and strictly for entrepreneurs/founders with the goal of connecting and sharing information, lessons learned, connections with one another. I was recently invited to my first one last week and I met some great people there.
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TECH cocktail (www.techcocktail.com): Most people in the Chicago tech community know of this one. It’s usually held on a quarterly basis in Chicago. Some complain that it’s gotten pretty crowded over the last year but I think that’s a result of the hard work that Eric and Frank have put into growing it in the hopes of building the community. We’ve demo’d at the event and normally use it to catch up with others we haven’t seen in awhile as well as meet new faces.
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Illinois Technology Association CEO, Marketing, & CFO Round Tables (www.illinoistech.org): As an early startup, we find these monthly roundtables very educational most of the time. The association posts the topics of the roundtables ahead of time so you can know if it’s of interest to you or not. Some more established entrepreneurs or employees of SMBs may not find it as valuable but may have a lot to contribute. These events are free to ITA members.
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Social Media Club Chicago: While this isn’t geared towards entrepreneurs, being that our business is involved in social media, we try to attend when the topics are of interest. The team has put together a lot of great topics and speakers over the last few months.
At all of these events, our goal is to not only catch up with those we know but meet at least five or so people that we don’t know. We usually exchange cards and try to set up a lunch, coffee or beers later on so we can get to know the people in a less crowded setting. We’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and startups this way and we plan on continuing the trend. The key is to identify what events and groups add value to you and your business and make the most of them while you’re there. Not attending any events, sitting in the corner, or attending events that don’t help you out professionally in any way results in a lot of missed opportunities for you and your business.
Earlier this month Entrepreneur.com did an article called, “The Future Is…Later – A backlog of applications at the U.S. Patent Office has innovation in a stranglehold.” In it, David Port discussed the backlog and length of time it takes for a patent to go through the USPTO. Here are some of the numbers David threw out:
