I have a long set of rants about how most PowerPoint presentations suck.  Every now and then, I see a great one, but most of the time I’m just tortured by them.  Today, I got an email from Ted Dolotta (one of the first Softbank-related people I ever met) that was priceless.  It linked to the The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.  In addition to being a classically miserable presentation, Lincoln’s intro was perfect.

Announcer: And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln.

President Lincoln: Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that’s not right. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I’m your president. While we’re waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It’s great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn’t live without it, could we? Oh – is it ready? OK, here we go:

Take a look at the Gettysburg address via PowerPoint (or via ppt in HTML).  Now, read the real thing.  Which is more effective?

In the “I’m going to go hide under my bed now” category, Ben Casnocha pointed me to the British Royal Black Squadron’s rendition of “Is This The Way To Armadillo (sic)”.

I’ve been working with Ryan McIntyre at Mobius for five years.  Ryan was one of the founders of Excite and sits on the boards of companies such as Technorati, Postini, Sling Media, and Akustica.  In addition to Ryan’s wicked sense of humor (he taught his son how to say the word for “izmel-wielder at a Mexican Bris”) and great musical talent, he’s recently taken up being interviewed.

John Furrier – who’s been making the rounds with a bunch of great VC and entrepreneur interviews on his infoTalk Podcast – did Ryan last week.  And – a few weeks ago – he showed up on Microsoft’s The ISV Show with Blake Krikorian talking about “the convergence of broadband and media in the home” (and Sling Media).

Party on dude.

It’s Friday and our new movie choices appeared this morning at our little theater down the block.  Tonight we went to the 8:30 showing of Wedding Crashers – remarkably the theater was completely full for the first time this summer (we were the oldest people there – I think all the teenagers in town showed up.)

Now – I’ll basically do anything I can to avoid going to a wedding (Amy and I eloped), even ones I’m invited to – so it was with some trepidation that I agreed to go to a movie with the word wedding in the title.  Amy tricked me into seeing it by saying that there were venture capitalists in the movie so I had to go see it (yes – Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn pose as VCs in one scene – very very scary.)

Wilson was – as usual – cute, cuddly, warm, funny, and confused.  Vaughn was hilarious.  I’ve always loved this 6’5” dude, but he was absolutely at the top of his game in this movie.  Maple syrup has several good moments, as do eye drops, sappy pickup lines, a very twisted virgin / first time / psycho girl theme that sucks in Vaughn, stage 5 clingers, “a little place on the shore,” plaid pants, the “touch” football game, a quail hunt (and other assorted WASP icons), and the uncontested scariest man in film – Christopher Walken – as dad.  Will Ferrell – who nauseates me – had a few funny moments with his mother (and – if I treated my mom that way – she’d simply kill me.)

Well worth two hours of your life.

I hate the notion of “spin” when applied to articulating what’s going on.  I especially hate spin when it gets in the way (in the middle of, in front of) a decision.  (Picture of me calmly, but forcefully, saying “just tell me what the fuck is going on and we’ll deal with it.”)

Tom Evslin has an awesome post up today titled Decide First, Spin Second.  He recounts the story of a small nuclear crisis that was occurring in Vermont when Richard Snelling was governor and Tom was Secretary of Transportation.  Snelling started the cabinet meeting off with the following statement:

“First we have to decide what the right thing to do is; then we’ll think about the politics.  Otherwise we’ll just confuse ourselves.”

Absolutely correct.

Hysterical – John Travolta looks damn good as a bunny.  Uma Thurman – not so good.  Hat tip to David Beisel.

I just wasted two hours of my life.  At least I got to sit next to Amy and eat popcorn. 

As I’ve said in the past, we get two movies a week in Homer.  Friday morning comes with great anticipation as we drive past the theater marque (on the corner of Main Street and Pioneer – how fitting) to see what we get to enjoy next.  This week is War of the Worlds and Bewitched and I had low hopes for both of them.  Since we don’t have a TV here, this is all we are going to get this week (no – I haven’t broken down to watching movies on my laptop yet.) 

We gave War of the Worlds a shot tonight.  It was tragically awful.  Yeah – the special effects were good.  But H.G. Wells is screaming his head off wherever he is (or would be if you believe in an afterlife.)  The acting was marginal.  The plot was completely predictable. The Spielberg cute-heroic-screaming child did exactly what you’d expect.  The sullen teenager did exactly what you’d expect.  All the humans behaved poorly under pressure and the military was completely ineffective against the aliens. After 115 minutes of stupidity, the aliens and their machines fell over dead, humanity was saved, and the Morgan Freedman / God character got to make a stultifying speech. 

And – I’m still not entirely sure what actually happened.  Ugh – that was terrible.  Sadly, Bewitched may be the better movie of this week.

I was recently asked to write an article on “Work Life Balance” for the MIT Sloan School Alumni Magazine.  I’m an MIT alum (‘87 and ‘88) and – when I asked what they were looking for – they told me “something personal that talks about how you’ve achieved it.”  So – I sat down and cranked out the following.  I hope it’s useful / inspiring / thought provoking for others out there in the world searching for the elusive “work life balance thing.”

The challenge of “work life balance” is a central theme for many people, especially entrepreneurs.  It took me 15 years, a failed first marriage, and my current wife (Amy Batchelor, Wellesley Graduate) almost calling it quits for me to realize that I had to figure out what “work life balance” meant to me.  Today, I can comfortably say that I have a major clue and my life is dramatically better for it.

I started my first company when I was 19 and in college at MIT.  I was obsessive, worked incredibly hard, and – while I generally had a lot of fun – was almost always maxed out.  This manifested itself in many ways, including always being overcommitted, regularly being exhausted, having a failed marriage when I was 24, and physically changing – according to one of my best friends – from “skinny Brad” to FOB (“fat older Brad”).

During this time, I was very successful at the work I did.  I created a company – Feld Technologies – which was acquired by a public company.  I helped start and/or finance a number of other companies which went on to be acquired or go public. I helped create a venture capital firm.  I was well known and respected within the entrepreneurial community – both for what I had accomplished and what I was working on.

However, until about five years ago, I had absolutely no balance in my life.  I was on the road from Monday to Friday, arriving home exhausted at the end of the day Friday.  Amy got “the dregs” over the weekend – I’d sleep a lot, spend time in front of my computer getting caught up on all the crap I didn’t get to during the week, and when we went out, I’d always be tired and withdrawn.  The burnout cycle continued; every six months I’d completely crash from the effort (I graphically remember a vacation to Hawaii with friends where I slept 20 hours a day for the first four days – so much that Amy thought something was physically wrong with me.)  I drank too much, I struggled with my weight, and I felt physically crappy.  I loved my work, but I couldn’t see past it.

At age 34 when – on a long weekend with friends where I was completely absent and struggling to get through a difficult deal (for a company that eventually failed) – Amy turned to me and said “I’m done.  I’m not mad – I just can’t do this anymore.  You either have to change, or it’s over.”

That woke me up!  We spent the rest of the weekend talking about what change meant.  I knew that this wasn’t a warning.  After that weekend, we created a set of well defined rules which have evolved over time.  As I discovered what balance meant to me, the rules evolved into a set of habits which – among others – include (1) Spend Time Away, (2) Life Dinner, (3) Segment Space, (4) Be Present, and (5) Meditate.  Following are examples of each:

• Spend Time Away: Amy and I take a week long vacation each quarter (which we fondly refer to as “Qx Vacation” depending on which quarter of the year it is) where we completely disappear.  No cell phone, no email, no computer, no conference calls – my assistant knows how to find me in case of an emergency; otherwise I’m completely unavailable for the week.
• Life Dinner:  We have a standing date on the first day of every month that we call life dinner.  Occasionally we’ll invite friends; often we have dinner alone.  We have a ritual where we give each other a gift ranging in value from nominal / silly (a fart machine) to expensive / romantic (jewelry).  We spend the evening talking about the previous month and about the month to come, grounding ourselves in our current reality.
• Segment Space: We have two homes – one in the mountains of Boulder, Colorado and one in the small town of Homer, Alaska.  Both have nice office areas which are clearly separated from the rest of the house.  We only have telephones in the offices and, by some delightful fluke of nature, our cell phones don’t work in our Boulder house.  We treat our houses as a retreat from the world and, while we do plenty of working at home, where we do this is separate and distinct from the rest of the house.
• Be Present: One of Amy’s lines to me is “Brad – be a person.”  This is a signal to me that I’m not present in the moment, that something is troubling me, or simply that I’m tired.  Whenever I’m not present, it only takes a short phrase to pull me back from wherever I’ve drifted off to.
• Meditate: I use the word meditate metaphorically – everyone should meditate their own way.  Four years ago I became a marathoner – the 6 to 10 hours a week I run is my current form of meditation.  I’m also a voracious reader and the 10 hours a week I read extends my meditation time.  Do whatever you want, but spend some of your time on yourself.

The habits have created a structure for my life that not only encourages but reinforces a healthy work life balance.  My work – which used to overwhelm everything else I did – is still a central part of my life.  However, it is no longer my singular focus, nor is it the most important thing to me anymore.  The balance that I’ve discovered has helped me understand the value of other things, which has made my work and – more importantly – my life – much more rewarding.

David Cowan – a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners – has started a blog called Who Has Time For This?

Frighteningly, David and I have known each other for almost 20 years.  We met in college when David was at Harvard and I was at MIT.  He had written a piece of software called DataRoute for his dad’s law firm and I had started a software consulting company called Feld Technologies (first client – a fraternity brother step-father’s dental practice in California; another early client – my dad’s medical practice – see a trend – thanks Dads!)  I think I placed a stupid advertisement for our consulting services in some magazine (an early “Boston Tech Journal” type of thing) and got one phone call – David.  We got together and eventually cut a deal (which included a legal document – I think drafted by David’s dad – which I think I read carefully about 30 times) for Feld Technologies to resell and support the DataRoute product and pay David a royalty.  I think we sold about 10 copies at $500 apiece (although I fondly remember trying hard – it even found its way into an article in Legal Information Alert).  Our motto for the product was “Today is the day to route with DataRoute!”  Eek.

David’s had way more success as a VC than we had with DataRoute, having made a long series of successful investments since he joined Bessemer in 1992 including Verisign, Ciena, Flycast, Keynote, NetGenesis, ON Technology, PSINet, Register.com, and Trigo.  We’ve currently got one active deal with Bessemer (Postini) and hope to have another one soon.

David’s extremely smart (even though he went to Harvard), an excellent writer (ok, he went to Harvard), and never shy about speaking his mind – his blog promises to be a good one.  Welcome David!