I’ve been on vacation this week from everything remotely work related – including all electronic forms such as email, phone, blog reading, and blogging. Amy and I take a week once every quarter where I “go dark.” A few people know how to find me if there’s an emergency, but they do their best to protect me from myself.
We were originally planning to go to the Bahamas for a week but I came down with a cold last Thursday. We punted our trip for a few days and then – after realizing how much we love being in Boulder – decided to stay home for the week, but not tell anyone. We’ve had an awesome week hanging out, being completely anonymous, enjoying downtown Boulder (we’ve gone into Amy’s office every day to write and think), being together, and reading.
I wasn’t going to surface until tomorrow, but yesterday I read what I believe will easily qualify (at least in my book ranking system) as one of the best books of the year, if not the decade. I’m not sure what category to put it in – it fits equally nicely in memoir, business, philosophy, and self-help. The book is Chasing Daylight by Eugene O’Kelly.
Last year, O’Kelly was CEO of KPMG, and going 100 miles an hour when he was suddenly diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. He quickly comes to terms with the idea that he has less than 100 days left to live and takes immediate action. He determines to have the greatest possible existence during those last 100 days, systematically saying goodbye to all the people that have touched his life, trying to have as many “perfect moments” as possible, to live always in the present, and to chronicle the experience of dying as one of his last acts on this planet.
While the quality of the writing deteriorates as O’Kelly does, the power of the book steadily increases. I finished it in the waning light of day yesterday, O’Kelly’s favorite time on the golf course and the source of the key metaphor (“chasing daylight”) for the book. I read it in a room by myself, in total quiet, and found myself completely absorbed for the entirety of the book, which always signals that I’ve found something special.
O’Kelly isn’t perfect, nor does he try to be. But – he’s intensely real. The boundedness of this experience comes through in his writing and helps calibrate the experience of life. The answers (including mine) to the cliched question “what would you do differently if you knew you had 100 days” are usually trite. O’Kelly addresses it head on and really gives the reader something to think about.
Mortality – which we face every second of every day – is on naked display in this book. I learned a lot, even though I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life and what I want to get out of each moment. When I read the Amazon reviews after I read the book, I was surprised by the bimodal nature of the reviews – they were either 5’s or 1’s. This was a 5 for me and a book that I recommend every “hard working, accomplishment driven person” read and ponder.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers just released their quarterly issue of Nextwave. The headline article is Web 2.0: The Internet subset formerly known as the Web and features comments from a number of people, including me, Bill Gurley (Benchmark), Andreas Stavropoulous (DFJ), Tim O’Brien (Microsoft), Chris Sacca (Google), Dick Costolo (FeedBurner), JB Holston (NewsGator), and Dave Sifry (Technorati). If you are a VC stats junkie, this issue also includes PWC’s Q4 and full-year 2005 MoneyTree Report.
I also showed up on a podcast last week via an interview done on The Podcast Roundtable by Martin McKeay and Jeremiah Owyang. The week before Martin had done a podcast interview with my long time friend Alan Shimel, currently the Chief Strategy Officer of StillSecure.
I woke up with a brutal cold yesterday so I spent the day today sleeping, drinking lots of fluids, being pampered by Amy, and reading mental floss. Fortunately, my good friend Jenny_the_bookstore_owner had sent me the publisher proof for Harlan Coben’s latest book Promise Me.
I love Coben’s books – he’s one of my top five mental floss writers (up there with Stephen Frey and Barry Eisler). As a special bonus, Coben revived an old character – Myron Bolitar – and his gang of cohorts including Win, Esperanza, and Big Cindy. Myron is a complex man (and Yoo-hoo lover) – made even more interesting by the six years that have passed since Coben last wrote a book that featured him. While everyone is a little older, their killer instincts – especially Win’s – are as sharp as always. Coben’s promise is a page turner – and he delivers.
Dad – Promise Me is in the mail – you’ll have it in a few days.
I love numbers. I also love data visualization – Edward Tufte has long been one of my intellectual heros and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information remains one of my all time favorite books. My friends at FeedBurner delighted me today with Feedstorm – the visual (and audible) display of the growth of the feeds on their service. Their viewer’s guide is as follows:
It’s worth a look and a listen if you like data and creative ways to visualize it.
The 100 HiveLive invitations that I wrote about yesterday are gone. Hopefully some of you will post some comments about what you like and don’t like.
No – I’m not talking about being excellent at rugby; I’m referring to one of the Agile software development approaches. Scrum is becoming extremely popular among developers that are adopting Agile approaches. One of my portfolio companies – Rally Software – has started teaching Certified ScrumMaster classes and recently had a glowing review in Software Development Magazine. The article summarizes things well.
Although the ScrumMaster training class is put on by an agile software tools vendor, it is definitely not a thinly disguised sales pitch. The Rally tools weren’t mentioned until a class member asked about them. All in all, if you’re looking to quickly become a Certified ScrumMaster (a resume enhancer for sure), this hands-on class will get you going from 0 to 60 in two days flat.
We fund plenty of things that are ahead of their time. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. DoDots – a company started by John and George Kembal – was one of these that – unfortunately – turned into dust. But – a fun Internet bubble quote came out of it that even Timothy Leary would like – “Anything you can do on the Web, you can do on a Dot.” Plus, it was a hell of a lot easier to spell than Konfabulator. Oh well.
John got married, went to grad school, moved to Boulder, and now has started a new companies called HiveLive. I’ve been playing around with it a little – like DoDots – it has some beautiful UI stuff and is – in this case – is taking a new approach to information management (not surprisingly, all web based.) It’s early, but John is now looking to expand the number of lead users to play around with it.
He gave me 100 invites to pass around – if you like to play with things and give feedback – go for it. Feel free to email John feedback or leave comments on this post.
I apparently wasn’t clear enough how to sign up for HiveLive as I’ve had several requests for invites. Simply click here to create an account. If it won’t let you, it means the 100 invites are used up.
We did a brainjam at our office today with about 30 people. Five minute overviews of what you are up to (plenty of real time demos) and then active discussion. It was a fun and intellectually vigorous day – plenty of stuff you’d expect along with a couple of bizarrely intriguing things. Near then end of the brainjam, Jim Turner tossed up the site for his “business blogging conference cruise.” I hate boats so I won’t be joining him, but if you like cruising and blogging take a look.
Matt McCall – a partner at Portage Venture Partners in Chicago – has started a blog called VC Confidential. I’ve gotten to know Matt through my investment in FeedBurner – we both sit on the board and Matt and his partner Ed Chandler were the first investors in FeedBurner. If you are interested in VC bloggers, subscribe to Matt’s blog.