Instigator Blog

We all know how vigorous and serious Apple is about their brand. Even when there’s a hiccup. Apple’s mastered the product launch, and gets everyone talking about them constantly.

The biggest lesson from Apple is really how far they’ll go to create a specific image to maintain and enhance their brand.

Apple’s currently planning to open a superstore in Montreal.

Great news for Mac fans.

And now we have news that Apple asked the city to remove 3 parking meters from in front of where the store will be to “simplify the look.” Parking meters are ugly after all - hardly representative of the Apple brand.

Apple was willing to compensate the city for lost revenues over 5 years. And guess what the city said? No.

It could have been a very interesting PR move for the city. They’d be promoting a reduction in traffic downtown (one of their goals), promoting the economy, and be able to climb on the back of Apple even further to promote Montreal as a cosmopolitan, techno-savvy place.

As the article says, “But bureaucrats say no; that’s what they do. ‘We’ve never done it before, so we can’t.’”

It makes me wonder what a city would look like if Apple managed it? What would Apple City look like?

The weather is beautiful

The people there complain about the fog, but that’s just silliness. Come visit Montreal in February. Then talk to me about fog.

The city is nice

They’ve got the ocean, mountains and a vibrant city. The earthquake thing isn’t great, but get a sturdy a desk to hide under and you should be fine, right?

The startup community is unbeatable

I love the YCombinator system and got a chance to learn a lot about how it all works while I was there. Of course there are a ton of non-YCombinator startups doing incredible work as well…

So are you really moving to the Valley?

Click to continue →

Starting a company is tough. Expect plenty of mistakes, and lots of lessons learned. You’ll have moments of sheer panic and other moments of absolute euphoria. It’s a roller coaster ride.

But don’t take things too seriously. Some things are more important than work. It might not feel that way from time to time, and in some instances work will be the one and only priority, but the minute you take things too seriously you’re digging yourself a hole.

Standout Jobs is a crazy startup. Tons of moving pieces, crazy deadlines, high expectations and plenty of stress. But I try to avoid getting overwhelmed…my older son Sam, helps.

I brought him to the office recently (forgot his daycare was closed and couldn’t miss an important meeting) and we had some fun. I introduced him to the team, played some golf and ran around the huge, empty space. We’re squatting at the moment in a 6,600 square foot downtown office, taking up one tiny corner. Lots of room for Sam (and me!) to have some fun.

But everything isn’t fun and games! We’re still looking for great Ruby on Rails developers, so I thought it was time to get Sam on the computer. He’s a fast typist, just not terribly accurate:

SOBCon 07 is fast approaching, with a great number of outstanding bloggers descending on Chicago for the 2-day event: May 11-12th.

You can still sign-up. It’s only $350. Compared to some of the prices I’ve seen for similar events, it’s a good deal.

Lots of great speakers will be presenting. Andy Sernovitz. Liz Strauss. David Armano. And lots more…

Feel free to check out the full schedule.

Everyone’s giving you lots of reasons to attend. All of them valid. But I thought I’d flip the message around, and ask, Why shouldn’t you attend?

1. You Don’t Like Blogging. It’s true after all: blogging is a fad. Kind of like email. And no good comes out of it either…Bloody waste of time connecting with people, earning a living, having fun. Who wants all of that?
2. You Don’t Like People. I’m with you on this one. Who wants to meet smart, amazing, engaging people who will openly help and guide you? Meeting people sucks. They’re always breathing too close, or shaking your hand, or listening to your stories, or connecting you with others, or becoming clients, mentors and friends. Who needs all of that?
3. Your Blog Is Already Perfect. You have enough traffic. You have enough links back. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of RSS feed subscribers. Six book deals. A movie about your life is in the works. You hit the front page of digg every day and other bloggers worship at your feet. If that’s the case, please don’t come, you’ll only embarrass the rest of us!
4. You Smell. I can’t help you much here. Take a bath and get your butt to Chicago.
5. You Hate Me. For starters, I’m speaking. So if you hate me, you’ll be stuck listening to me ramble about some nonsense, all the time wishing you could throw stuff at me (please don’t!) And secondly, I really don’t want to see you. I mean, you hate me. That’s not very nice.

   Luckily, there’s only a handful of people that hate me, and a few more that find me mildly distasteful…right?

So there you have it. Five reasons not to attend SOBCon 07. Pretty compelling stuff if I do say so myself. And I do, cause I wrote it.

SOBCon 07 is going to be a lot of fun. And I suspect a mind-blowing learning experience.

I can’t wait to meet so many of the people I’m already interacting with online on a regular basis; people that have quickly grown into friends. And so many of the attendees I don’t know at all, which gives me an even bigger opportunity to connect, network and have fun.

We’ll see you in Chicago…

The folks at Pronet Advertising have just released a Flash-based online game called Search Engine Smackdown.

The game is simple - pick a fighter - Larry or Sergey from Google, Bill or Paul from Microsoft, Jerry or David from Yahoo, and duke it out by answering a number of search engine related questions.

How many people will really pick Bill Gates as their fighter of choice? Come on!

Some of the questions are easy, but others are definitely a bit more challenging. And, most of the questions are quite interesting too. You’ll have some fun and you might just learn something too!

I’ve already asked them to add a Pause button, and I’m sure they’ll make a handful of improvements over time.

Go play Search Engine Smackdown!

This is a great example of buzz marketing at its finest. It’s fun, catchy, and helps Pronet extend and develop its brand and reputation in the markets where it does business. Nice job.