Cyrus' World

"The Batman quote “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:07:00 -0400

“The Batman quote “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain” is an apt description of how Silicon Valley turns its back on its most successful creations. Yahoo! and Google are feeling it now and it wouldn’t be crazy to think Facebook will soon lose its luster and feel the burn of being the next “evil empire.””

"Watch you thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions;..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:07:35 -0400

“Watch you thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

"Choose your own adventure" Music Network

Tue, 01 May 2012 13:59:32 -0400

I’ve wanted a new way to consume music that was both personalized and didn’t require much action if I wanted to basically listen to the radio.

An interesting dynamic would be starting users in the same room based on the song they are listening to. When you get in a room, you can “chat” with everyone in there as long as the song is playing. You can control your own playlist or jump on another user’s by basically following them so you’ll attach to their playlist.

Users could have some metrics, e.g. biggest tribe (following), longest party (session), ect. that would help power users re-engage and show some clout when restarting for the day.

The game play would basically push some folks to try to dynamically build a following as they go from room to room and basically take the party with them. Celebrities and musicians could be an early user engagement/acquisition strategy, e.g. chill and listen to music with Skrilex or Paul Oakenfold.

Eventually you’d get to know folks, “tribes” would dynamically form based on common musical taste and you could begin to deepen relationships with them.

Thoughts, any existing products that are doing this?

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:16:45 -0400

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

- Dr. Albert Einstein

2012 Predictions That Matter (to me)

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:18:38 -0500

As the experts battle to predict the future of their respective worlds; I find myself in awe of how little the predictions actually matter to me.

Here’s a list that concerns me.

Beliefs will continue to act as walls rather than bridges between us.
Technology will find novel ways of distracting us from our own insecurity and catering to egos that, inherently, separate us from one another.
Nations, like the people that govern them, will be ruled by self-interest rather than the interests of the populous.
Children, like their parents, will look to screens to define themselves.
People will fail to understand that love doesn’t require reciprocation, and that reciprocation heralds, but is not proof of, love.
A hug, a long glance and a sincere smile will not be replaced by the emoticon.
Life will go on.

This list isn’t meant to be pessimistic or optimistic — just relevant to me. I don’t have any resolutions but will continue to focus on the mission for my life: turn beliefs in to bridges; create transparent technologies that enable rather than hinder our ability to truly connect; bring power to the populous; remind children they are the authors of their reality; and ensure every person that has ever impacted me knows the role they played in my story.

Best wishes in 2012.

Thoughts on Character

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:46:00 -0500

“There are three forms of visual art: Painting is art to look at, sculpture is art you can walk around, and architecture is art you can walk through” - Dan Rice

The depth of the medium of art is analogous to how we learn about and judge the integrity of those around us.

At first, we get a view from a distance. We see the big picture, the painting, as that person’s brand. Today, we have a plethora of easily accessible information on people to create that portrait. As we get closer, we learn from them what they believe they are. Like a sculpture, they try to create a moral structure that fits together nicely. Many will never try to get past this point with other people and make their judgements based on this knowledge.

Eventually, if we spend time with the person we can see their behaviors and navigate the reality of who they are. They are no longer in control of the world we see. We control the angles and can compare the artful structure of thought and the shambles that are their actions.

Character comes from symmetry of action and thought.

F8, Timeline and Lasting Relationships

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:51:00 -0400

Facebook recently announced the release of “timeline.” You can find more than your fill of tech analysis elsewhere, but I’m questioning whether or not it’s good or bad for creating lasting relationships.

For example, I understand people may post an update about losing a loved one for support, etc. Heck, you may actually use Facebook for your friends but now it’s easy and attached to your life timeline?

When I meet someone at an event and we become friends you can learn about my losses, broken bones, and failed relationships. If I choose to be diligent, I can curate my timeline to tell a slanted story. Then, is that timeline really me, or is it who I want you to think I am? Friendships and relationships in general have a pace and cadence to them and that makes them amazing. Learning too much upfront is not interesting. Moreover, it’s actually more likely to hurt you. This is why the “intro” and first impression is so important and why the “chase” is what creates a bond. During that period of not knowing whether the other is invested, we reinforce the importance of this person to us. Having this distant means of “learning” about each other gives us many opportunities to rationalize why the person doesn’t make the cut.

My care isn’t about privacy, it’s just not how humans build lasting, caring, deep relationships. I’d be happy to hand someone a document that outlined my life but we don’t just download each other by hanging out. We get to know one another and part of that component is time. What’s the fun in knowing about things in advance prior to a person telling you. That’s the majesty of sitting side-by-side or face-to-face and hearing their story retold, re-digested and with hind-sight’s learnings, for the first time.

Personally, I disagree with the premise that we are defined by our past; rather, at every moment we exist as a greater sum than that of our experience.

Setting aside my awe for the amazing tech, beautiful design — does this bother, irk, worry anyone other than me?

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benwerd/

Social Media Created a Monster

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:17:00 -0400

There are five children in a mini-van. Four are contently watching the movie playing while the fifth sits in the front seat begging to put on music as he can’t see the movie.

This scenario pans out on a grand scale in consumer web products and specifically plagues social media products. The loudest voices are often also special cases in the systems as they are blessed with the largest, hardest to manage networks.

Social networks have created troves of monsters that on a quick turn can demolish there creators by influencing the masses to see problems that don’t impact them. They influence content users to move to products which favor some corner-case or, more likely, monetization scheme that favors them.

I find myself amazed that any platform that provides true democratic distribution payed for the noose that may eventually hang them.

Google Hangout Improvement Suggestions

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:26:27 -0400

As Google Hangouts received a major overhaul (9/20/11), I was reminded of some feedback I sent to Bradley Horowitz and Dave Girouard after Bradley posted the following on July 18th, 2011:

Does anyone have any ideas about how hangouts might be useful in a business setting? +Dave Girouard wants to hear them.

My private response to Dave and Bradley was:

The additional features needed for the hangout:

Fly on the wall - e.g. viewers of the live-stream that can watch the action real-time.

Questions & commentary from the viewers with some voting w/ curation

Ability to re-broadcast or save the content that’s created and post to YT.

Scheduling / calendaring hangouts. You can post a future hangout and easily add it to the google/outlook calendar w/ alerts.

Eventually, allow commercial interruptions to be controlled by the organizer

User story is: +Bradley Horowitz decides he wants to do an EdTech talk. He invites Mitch Kapor and two others to join on as contributors (offline action). Bradley sets up the event and it’s broadcast to the circles he chooses. Users can one-click for a reminder to watch and it’s added to the calendar. When the time comes for the interview, the four get online, do the panel and 100’s of viewers watch simultaneously and contribute questions and commentary that they curate real-time.

After the fact, Cyrus (me), stumbles upon the content and can watch a “locked-down” version with the top questions/commentary in-line w/ the footage.

Personally, I think it would be a big win for schools as you could have experts do lessons or lectures from a distance and collaborate w/ students.

Businesses could use these for webinars, presentations, internal Quarterly reviews, etc..

Always nice to know that I’m not crazy. Would love to know if it’s just a coincidence. Probably is, but, heck, nice to be able to claim I have product ESPN.

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the..."

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:45:42 -0400

“

Do not let your fire go out,
spark by irreplaceable spark,

in the hopeless swamps of the approximate,
the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish,
in lonely frustration for the life you deserved,
but have never been able to reach.

Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

”

- Ayn Rand

A Need for Carl Sagan and the Celebrity Scientist

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 17:51:22 -0400

Carl Sagan was a well-known scientist, futurist and influential evangelist. He inspired a generation to envision a future where the scientist was the driver of technological revolution. Sagan, the US GI Bill, and other celebrity scientists made science fashionable and accessible. Fast-forward to July 9th, 2011 and I contemplate, who will play the role to inspire and enable the next generation to pursue the sciences? The futuristic stories that I grew up to are, far fetched or quickly becoming a reality. The futures that we see in the media are often dystopic or favor mysticism over reality.

Here’s my call to the writers, technologists and policy pundits that the world is in need of inspiration. We need a new futurist narrative — beyond robots, past flying transport, where technology and humanity are so interwoven that they are indistinguishable. A futurist that reminds children that science is neither obscure nor alienating; rather, it’s the path to a better world that they can create. A narrative that reminds us that technological advancement is a heroic endeavor.

The media that defines a generation influences the next. It’s time to inject some fresh perspective into the collective consciousness.

What will our media tell our grand children about our values, our priorities and what influences us?

It's not a copy, it's evolution.

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:07:00 -0400

Streams, friends and friend grouping existed before Facebook, following existed before Twitter, and video conferencing before the founders of Skype were born.

It’s incredible that people like to point fingers and say that some company stole from another by implementing a successful or incredibly obvious feature. Feature level comparisons are ridiculous. There’s very little that’s completely novel out there — everything I’ve seen is a re-implementation or transference of a solution from one vertical or problem-set to another.

Should we expect every architect to re-invent the door knob or find a better “nail”? In product design, there are similar affordances which we should consider seminal building blocks; rather than discoveries by a single person or team.

This post was inspired by the ego-battle between Google+ and Facebook fans who are pointing fingers at the originality of the feature-set of each party. So to both sides I say, Google+ and Facebook copied Usenet. Both are bulletin boards where each person has a page. The novel concept is the “feed” which was stolen from the publish/subscribe model popularized by RSS, and prior to that, by this little thing called email lists. Real-time chat, groups, lists — ever heard of email lists, IRC, AOL chat rooms and buddy lists?

The fact that these products look alike in some ways is a function of limitations of technology and what would be obvious for users.

The idea is not to slight the teams or products, but rather a reminder to stop looking at nails and step back and look at the structure as a whole. Realize they’re quite different and spectacular in their own ways.

Products that follow others should be expected to take what works and evolve them.

Reinforcing the Primal Brain, Downside of Gamification

Sun, 22 May 2011 20:06:00 -0400

In the online product world, there’s a large thrust towards “gamification” and creating viral product loops. In reviewing several recommendations from teams that have been successful in implementing these features; I’ve been wrestling with the fact that, although it works, it may not necessarily be good for our society.

The human brain is a pattern matching machine. The more you reinforce synaptic paths, the more likely that path will be followed again and a resulting behavior will (re)occur. If children and adults continue to create and reinforce their perception of self from external stimuli it guides them to be controlled by the world rather than the other way around. This is the basis for the theory of “Locus of Control.”

Locus of control in social psychology refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an important aspect of personality studies.

As we build and design the products that children will use, we should be mindful of the results they will have on helping them shape reality. Does it reinforce the premise that “you are in control and create your own reality,” or that “reality is shared and must be accepted by your friends.”

Social works and has been embraced by marketers because it drives people to act; however, so does pornography.

Keep this in mind as you build the next social network for people watching.

Accelerating of Move

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:20:00 -0400

My initial plan was to move to San Francisco within a month of my initial scouting trip, i.e. June 1st. Right now, April 28th, I’m in SF and have signed a lease on an apartment for a May 3rd move-in. I’ll fly back to DC on the red-eye the 1st/2nd; spend the night in DC; drive back to PGH; pack and fly back to SF on the morning of Friday the 6th of May. The time will be a force function to pack-light, prioritize and only lose three days of product work/momentum.

I just finished my change of address with USPS, banks, etc and it sunk in that I don’t know my ZIP code just yet.

After three days, I’ve met dozens of San Francisco natives and transplants. Thankfully, they’ve ameliorated any latent concerns on making good friends out here. I am quickly finding my personal “pipeline” filling up. Not like I have much time anyway! Nevertheless, I’ve had a handful who can’t handle my loudness and boisterous energy. Extrapolating my findings, probably 20% of people will be completely freaked out by me and have some sort of cognitive dissonance with a core belief that I will state. As my brother recently said, “You’re a polarizing person.” Sadly, I am not changing anytime soon as I like me, and that’s really all that counts (#stuffmymommysays). Meanwhile, I am working on turning in to pure energy and demonstrating what a single passionate person is capable of when they do what they love.

Back to hiding from Royal Wedding coverage.

On Failure: Castles Made of Sand

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:28:00 -0400

Spoiler alert: strolling down metaphor lane.

Two men are on the beach. Both start with buckets and a shovel.

They begin to create castles adjacent to one another and find themselves in awe of the others creation. They begin to compete to build the most glorious castle and find others to help them. As the castles grow larger, they begin to add the accouterments one would expect in a castle: a moat, drapery, carpeting, plasma screens, and a throne.

One day, a storm comes in and washes away the first man’s castle. All his work gone in a few short moments. The second man watches in disbelief realizing his creation may be next. He guards his castle, musters all his help and begins to build a large wall to protect it. His castle is no longer spectacular, he can no longer approach, the moat has collapsed, but his defenses do hold off the attack of the water. Passers by are no longer in awe of his castle, as it’s not visible over the wall and the large trenches that surround it. The castle stands, but that was not its purpose.

The man whose castle was washed away was seen smiling shortly thereafter atop a pristine hill building a new castle looking over his prior success.

Our builder confused time and effort for irreplaceable value and progress.

Failure defines the moment vision is confused with the vehicle that was built to drive them there. Great vision is infallible; however, executions must fail eventually. Failure finds those who forget that every castle, no matter how spectacular will fall and will make way for a more perfect creation.

The Next Month

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:46:00 -0400

The next month will be pretty crazy for me. Just in September, I sold everything I owned and left DC to move to Pittsburgh. A few short months later, I have a working prototype and am going on my pitch-fest. I’ll be traveling from April 18th through June 7th hitting cities including DC and San Fran.

I’ve decided to move to San Francisco to build my team and go to market. I’m looking forward to my second cross-country drive and second move in the last year. When I start paying SF rent, I’m predicting, I’ll be missing a pay check!

Let’s do this!

Reality Beyond the Boat

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:56:00 -0400

Summit at Sea was an event where 1,200+ passionate people united to share and evolve their understanding of themselves and the world at large. Some may call it “Davos for Gen-Y.”

Now, those who’ve attended recently returned home to “reality.” The truth is the positive energy on the boat was no more a reality than any dull or negative that’s felt off of it. I’m compelled to remind every summiteer that stumbles upon this to keep the ethos of Summit alive every day.

Summit was about bringing a group of people together to share an experience, become friends and learn from one another. Most importantly, if you really thought deep, it was about learning that when you open up yourself to others amazing things happen. The part which we should all remember is it’s possible to live every day like that. You don’t require a curated group to say hello to everyone you meet. I promise you, I wrangle conversations with countless strangers wherever I may go and it’s been invaluable in my life.

So I challenge you to make sure to stay open, kill your filters, and view every person you meet as a person that YOU can help. Start by adding value with no expectation of reciprocation. Why should everyone prove themselves to you — seriously, you’re not special and no, nobody owes you anything because you’re the CEO/CTO/Founder/Billionaire/Genius whatever. You are who you can help, so get started.

I enjoyed the experience but fear a few things:

Elitism - Bring more people in. The more people we bring in, the more we can all be helped. Yes, they aren’t “official”, but does that really matter. No meetups, groups we start going forward should be exclusive to Summit folk. Help grow the movement. Close-mindedness is not productive.
Pretentiousness - We get it, you went, but it’s not necessary for you to re-validate yourself by broadcasting how great it was to every person who wasn’t invited. If you’re really such a big deal, nothing is needed. If your a rising star, people enjoy a healthy dose of modesty. If you need validation, email/call me and I’ll tell you I love you. By the way, I understand the irony in writing this post, but I just posted it on Collective, not Twitter or elsewhere.
Reciprocity - There are a lot of people who will help you and who you may reach out to for help; remember to make them successful as well. Ask them what they need before ending any communications so you can be ready to pass them someone/something that can relieve their pain-point.

In the end, if you’ve made it this far, I’m speaking to the choir :) Contact me, I’m always open to help people.

Keep Running.

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:31:49 -0400

Been a while since I’ve updated the interested world on where I am. Spoiler alert, I’m in an incredibly thoughtful aka cheesy mood. I’ll probably be embarrassed by this note a few days from now.

I’ve been heads-down the three months building a prototype of my product. By heads down, I’ve lived at the office. I’ve been home in my bed twice in 20 days. Last night was one of them. It’s important to note, although at times, I’ve been tired; but I’ve never been more happy. If someday down the road I say otherwise, hindsight bias has taken its toll. I’ll dedicate a few posts to describing some of the cool technology and engineering that went in to the design. Suffice to say, I’ve never been prouder. This is my Mona Lisa; thankfully, there’s no failure scenario that can take that from me.

Today I remind myself (and you) one simple thing: life is simply about finding the challenges worth tackling and making it happen. The moment you stop chasing something, you wither and die. It can be love, it can be a dream, but chase something and I promise; you’ll thank yourself for it.

Facebook “Research Poll” results after I responded...

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:04:23 -0500

Facebook “Research Poll” results after I responded “approved.” Don’t know the sample yet, but hope they publish the final results.

I’m in a feel-good video sorta mood recently.

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:49:56 -0500

I’m in a feel-good video sorta mood recently.