Michael Lehman's Independent Innovation

I've just started a new separate blog over at http://independentinnovation.posterous.com/ which purports to be a zero-friction blogging platform.

The appeal, for me, is that I can post blog entries via email instead of having to be connected either to this site or to my Windows Live Writer.

As this will let me post easily from my morning bus commute, I'm going to give this a try for a while and see how it works.

At least, for now, I'll cross-post to both blogs.

Over on The Positivity Blog, Henrik Edberg, a 27 year old student from Sweden, gives us 7 Tips for Living a Happier Life, derived from Aesop of the "Fables" fame.

Here are the 2500-year-old gems of wisdom (see Henrik's blog for more details):

1. Your wishes may not be all that they are cracked up to be.
2. Learn not only from your own life.
3. Beware of complacency.
4. Work on your own goals.
5. Kindness is always good.
6. What they say might not really be about you.
7. Help yourself.

Wisdom comes when you need it most and often times from unexpected sources!

Ok, this is just too fun to pass up: http://putthingsoff.com/

In Nick Cernis' own words: "Put Things Off (PTO) helps freelancers, entrepreneurs and busy people just like you work smarter, play harder and live the lives they love. PTO talks about productivity, freelancing, running your own business, making money online, setting goals, software, web applications and more"

And he just released his first book, Todoodlist, in which he recommends paper and pencil... something to think about.

Steve Rubel, with whom (and a few others) I once tried to form a Mastermind group (our schedules never could mesh), has a great new post about Three Ways To Mitigate the Attention Crash.

Summary:

• Inbox Zero -  www.inboxzero.com - A technique to use "email dashes" instead of on-demand reactiveness
• Invest in Search - Both Web and Desktop
• Make Unusable Time Usable - Use Audible to listen to business books (I highly recommend that also) and Instapaper.com (something I've got to check out).

Highly reccomended.

Clay Shirky's talk at Web 2.0 Expo this week, finally enabled me to figure out where to get the time to create podcasts, eBooks, etc.... STOP WATCHING TELEVISION (or at least sitcoms)...

Your thoughts/comments?  What do you to to make time to create new things?

At the Web 2.0 Expo this week.  Interesting conversations with people who are at the forefront of moving the world to (and from) the web.

Hanging in the blogger's lounge the energy is amazingly high (and this is during the keynotes!)

Good connectivity, Flip is selling mini video cameras for $60 and the blog/twit-o-sphere is burning!

DM on Twitter (Michael_Lehman) if you want to meet in-person.

The folks over at GET WISDOM! have a blog post today entitled How To Create Your Own E-book in 3 Days.

Day 1: Brainstorm about something you'd personally like to improve and go gather information about that and write/compile your content.

Day 2: Plan your product, joint ventures, and how you're going to build "social proof":

"With out social proof that your
product works, you will have a difficult time selling it.
A majority of people are a little bit skeptical when it
comes to buying info products online so you also might want
to invest in a quality copywriter who is experienced in
writing sales letters for info products."

Day 3: Write a sales letter and plan your "element of scarcity" that will encourage browsers to buy right now rather than waiting.

I'm not sure I can do it in 3 days but I like the challenge!

I'm in Las Vegas for the MIX08 conference.  Part of what I'm doing here is finally, and I promise that I really mean it this time :), blogging regularly again!

So here's the first of many posts this week!

To help out, I'm reading Chris Garrett's 41 Blog Success Tips from 10 Years of Blogging You Can Learn Today.

Marc Andreesen, the developer behind the original Netscape browser, and now Silicon Valley pundit, wrote a blog post that contains the essence of success in building a company:  Build something worthy!

His overall post is about the effect of the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo on Silicon Valley's startup "machine".  He believes, as do I, that it will have little effect since (a) the big guys aren't acquiring many startups these days and more importantly, (b) don't build a company to "sell it" build a company tha makes something people want to buy!

If you are a Independent Innovator you've got to check out Big Cartel » Bringing the Art to the Cart whose motto is: "It’s your money - you keep it".

Costs max $20/month.

Working from "home" is one of the most common options for the independent innovator and now Inc (via Yahoo) has a article that points to a couple of interesting sites:

http://www.chiefhomeofficer.com and http://www.workingsolo.com

Hugh MacLeod, author of the gapingvoid blog/comics today posted an "Important Announcement" in which he comments on how his consulting business has been both the beneficiary of his microbranding/blogging efforts and has taken his focus away from microbranding/blogging.

I too have been having the same scenario play out regarding my blogging and podcasting efforts as I've recently gone "dark" for a few months working on  Microsoft Software-plus-Services Blueprints.  As Hugh opines, it's recently been on my mind that it was time to re-think the value of the seemingly "frivolous" blogging/podcasting hours I've been slacking up on.

There are many Michael Lehmans in the world.  For example, the CFO of Sun Microsystems, a famous film director (he directed Heathers, 40 Days and 40 Nights, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Hudson Hawk, Meet the Applegates and also Airheads.) as well as many other interesting Michael Lehmans who are doctors, and physicists. 

However, if you search for "Michael Lehman" on www.live.com, www.google.com or even on the meta search engines like www.metacrawler.com or www.dogpile.com my podcasting and blogging sites are always at the top.  Even my twitter site and my facebook site show up not too far down the list in some of the searches!

I even have the job I'm doing at Microsoft in significant part because I started blogging and podcasting 3 years ago.

So, it seems that it is a good idea to put more regular effort into bloging and podcasting that I've been doing given how the value of my "microbrand" has played out in real life.

So, having said all that, I decided I'd actually write a blog entry *before* I added a thank you comment to Hugh's blog and... this is it.

More soon!

Unlike the plan which I had in place, I've been silent for the past two months going heads-down on a new project.  It's been a major push and I'm happy to say it's nearing an end as it will be unveiled next Monday, November 5th, at the Microsoft TechEd : Developers conference in Barcelona, Spain. 

Before that happens, I'm at the 7th annual European Shareware Conference, being held in Cologne, Germany, where I'll be speaking on a panel discussion Saturday morning at 9:00 AM and giving an talk about independent innovation on Sunday morning at 10:00 AM.

If you are a MicroISV @ ESWC, I'd love to spend 5-10 minutes with you and highlight you and your products.  Ask any of the conference organizers or use the email link and we'll plan a time for an interview.

In addition, I will be ramping up my blogging and podcasting on this site in a major way over the next few months and if you are an independent innovator, software developer or otherwise, I want to help you share your story with the world.  Please use the email link to contact me and we'll setup an email, telephone or in-person interview.

I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Ok, September has officially started and life is back "in session".

After moving, a great vacation and recovering from the digital debt of being "off-the-grid" for 12 days in a row (a record in recent history!) I'm now ready to continue my exploration of the brave new world of the 21st century.

While I'll be writing more later, I got an email from an old coworker whose email was entitlled "Greetings from Kazakhstan!" in which he told me that he and his wife are setting out to live the Independent Innovator lifestyle.  He's always been a surfer on the leading edge and I look forward to hearing, and sharing what I can, of his adventures.

Nearly twenty years ago I started a small company which was, at first, called MetaTech and then, after the threat of a lawsuit, changed to MT MicroSYSTEMS to build Pascal compilers.  The company was what we now would call a MicroISV and, if the Internet had been available, certainly would have been an Independent Innovation company.  In those days floppy disks + Xerox'ed manuals in a ziploc bag were the only distribution method available for software... no one was even using boxes yet!  (Note:  This is not a I-had-to-walk-to-school-in-the-snow-uphill-both-ways story :) )

A few years later, just before IBM launched the PC, MT MicroSYSTEMS had become successful enough to become an acquisition target for what was then the 800 lb. gorilla in the software business, Digital Research, Inc.  The company was sold and I went on to become the Director of R&D for DRI until September 1984.

All this background is to provide some context about why I still care about the "Gary Kildall went flying" story and the discussion which is now going on over on Robert Scoble's blog entry about his interviews with Tom Rolander, early Digital Research employee and author of MP/M, eventual Vice President of Operating Systems at DRI and more.

I won't duplicate what I wrote in my comment on Scoble's blog entry but suffice it to say if you care about the history of the software business, the interviews with Tom are not only good stuff but first-hand straight information from someone who was there, in person!