Instigator Blog

Leah Maclean at Working Solo has tagged me with a meme that’s been rolling through the blogosphere. It asks people to post about 5 things our blog communities don’t know about us.

I was happy to get tagged, cause it’s fun, and I like doing similar things with group writing projects I’ve created, but the more I thought about it, the harder time I had finding 5 things to tell people. I’m not inclined to tell you about my 3rd nipple for example (oops!) but I do want my 5 things to be entertaining and interesting.

So here’s my list of 5 things you didn’t know about me:

1. I’m left-handed. A southpaw. Always have been. And you know what they say about people who are left-handed right?
2. I can’t skate. This is rather embarrassing for me as a big hockey fan and a good ole Canadian boy. I tried to learn as a kid, but I’ve got flat feet and complained a lot. Eventually my parents gave up.
3. I love collecting things. I don’t do it much anymore (no time really) but I’ve collected lots of stuff: comics, hockey cards, stamps, toy soldiers and more. Mostly when I was a kid but the urge to collect is still there.
4. I used to be a complainer. Complaining is easy. I used to do a lot of it. This may surprise some people because much of what I write here is fairly positive and optimistic. I’m over the complaining now (for the most part!)
5. I took a few years off. I didn’t quit work to travel the world or anything like that, but mentally and emotionally I was checked out for quite some time. I lost my mojo. I’ve got it back though, but those years (and they weren’t that long ago) were pretty bland and unproductive.

So there you have it. Ben Yoskovitz in a nutshell (wow, now I’m talking in the 3rd person!)

Thank you to Leah for tagging me with this. It’s my turn to spread the meme further and hopefully be entertained by what others tell us about themselves. I’d like to know 5 more things about:

• Bill Baren
• Shawn Hessinger
• Becky McCray
• Jordan Behan
• Noah Kagan

[tags]5 things, bill baren, shawn hessinger, becky mccray, jordan behan, noah kagan, meme, online community, viral[/tags]

The lessons we learn as entrepreneurs and small business owners don’t just apply to our businesses. That tells me that being an entrepreneur is more than just starting a company, growing that company and trying to earn a buck; there’s something more profound going on. Or at least more interesting!

This morning my wife went into my son’s room (he’s 2 and recently switched to a “big boy bed”) to find a rather unpleasant surprise. He had taken off his diaper during the night and there was…how shall I put this…poo…everywhere.

His legs were covered in…you guessed it…poo.

• The duvet? Oh ya.
• Sheets? Check.
• Pillow? Check.
• Bed frame? Uh huh.

My wife was thrilled. I was equally excited about washing poo off my son for 20 minutes and then scrubbing the floor (there was poo in the carpet too.)

So what did this experience reflect back to me as an entrepreneur?

Business is a messy thing? It certainly can be, but I was thinking about other things…

1. Cutting corners will eventually bite you in the ass. This wasn’t the first time my son had taken off his diaper. It’s somewhat habitual actually; and my wife and I have been duct taping it in place for the last few weeks. Last night I didn’t; my son was grumpy and it was frustrating enough just putting the diaper on. I was rushing to get him into bed without having an international incident and so I skipped the tape. I’m not likely to make that mistake again.
2. Business can be extremely frustrating, but don’t sweat the small stuff. In the grand scheme of things, while it’s pretty darn annoying to wake up to a poo catastrophe, it’s not the end of the world. You clean up and move on. No one is sick. No one died. Sure I feel like I’m covered in poo, but so what? My son is healthy, happy and a genius (don’t ya know!) so I can’t really complain.
3. There’s more to life than business. You’d think something like this would make me want to work more not less, so I could avoid being at home when the poo starts flying. But in fact, it’s incidents like this that let you step out for a bit and reflect. Toss a bit of humor in there too because if you can’t laugh at yourself or your situation, you’re going to be one boring and grumpy person.

The lessons we learn as entrepreneurs and small business owners can be taken outside of their business context and applied to everything else we do. Even with the silliness of this example, it’s true.

Better entrepreneurs can make better people, if they bring the lessons learned in business outside of work.

On a side note — if anyone has a better solution than duct tape for keeping a diaper on (and don’t worry, we’re not taping it to his skin, just around the diaper itself!), I’m all ears. I wonder if Barb at Great Family Gadgets might have some ideas…

Image by Kevin & Kathy.

Recently I was rushing home to pick up my son from daycare. I was a touch late but luckily I’m only 15 minutes away by car, assuming there’s no traffic. Hopping into my car I realized that I was nearly out of gas. I was running on fumes.

Five blocks from my office there’s a gas station. As I approached it these thoughts ran through my head (although I don’t recall actual bullet points!):

• “I’m really low on gas.”
• “There’s a gas station right there.”
• “Hhhm…doesn’t look like there’s an open pump.”
• “I’m already late.”
• “If I stop I’ll be even later. That’s not good.”
• “I can make it.”
• “As long as the traffic’s not too bad.”

Guess who got stuck in snarly traffic?

So there I was, sitting bumper to bumper, praying that I wouldn’t run out of gas and that I’d make it home before the daycare provider locked my son out on the front stoop to wait for his idiotic father. And a thought came to me, “I should have just gotten some stupid gas.”

The gas would have provided me with some security, even if I would have been 10 minutes late. Now I was willing the car home. Getting gas was the less risky path; even if it meant missing my absolute objective.

I realized by not getting the gas I was basically cutting corners. I didn’t want to miss my deadline, but I also couldn’t be bothered to wait for a pump, get out, fill up the car, pay and move on. So I cut a corner and moved on, hoping it would work out…actually, believing it would work out, not just hoping. There’s some hubris for you!

Entrepreneurs take risks all the time. It’s just part of running a business. There’s almost no such thing as a business that runs with no risk. So entrepreneurs are aware of, and often comfortable with taking risks.

But cutting corners is a different story.

Cutting corners is doing things less than your best to achieve some end goal. It’s usually not a good idea. It may feel like you’re making progress by cutting corners, but at the end of the day you’re not. You’re not building up enough value in your business, for the long haul, when you start to cut corners.

It’s important to recognize the differences between legitimate risks and cutting corners. Risks need to be assessed on a number of factors: probability, impact, reward. Risks need to be clearly identified so that they can be managed and treated. Cutting a corner is a form of risk, but it’s a silly one to take. More often than not if you really assess the significance of the risk and reward of cutting a corner, you’d realize it’s not worth it.

Incidentally, I did manage to pick up my son. The traffic delayed me less than I thought it would and visions of being stuck on the highway shrugging endlessly at angry motorists drifted out of my head. Let’s hope I’ve learned my lesson…(which is: “I can get home on almost no gas!” Right? Um, no…how about, “Don’t be a putz.” Right. Got it. Let me work on that…)

[tags]cutting corners, risks, taking risks, risk management, running out of gas, entrepreneurship[/tags]

Did you know that there are many secret sex messages in domain names? It’s true! Who planted them there? Why? What nefarious plan do these sex-crazed domain registrants have for us?

Maybe we’ll never know…

Bill Sweetman at Sweetmantra (great blog name; no secret sex message there that I can see) writes about Delightfully Dumb Domains — but I think he’s failed to see the hidden signs.

Luckily I’m a code-breaking genius. And I see the trickery being put in place by those that register sneaky-sex domain names. Here are some of those domains:

* http://www.whorepresents.com/
* http://www.penisland.net/
* http://www.powergenitalia.com/
* http://www.cummingfirst.com/

Anyway feel as dirty as I do?

From a business level, one has to wonder three things:

1. Is there a business in registering absurd domain names like this and selling them to people who run regular sites but want some added, sexy buzz?

2. How much added traffic are these sites getting because of their domain names?

3. Do the people that registered these domain names still work at these places?

[tags]funny domain names, humor, insane domain names[/tags]

One of the things I’d like to do with IGotNewsForYou is add many more tech-related stories. I think there would be a certain appeal to having technology, blogging and social media-related stories in the mock news pages. So, about a month ago I started trying to write tech stories and came up with one related to using your iPod in the bathroom; where the toilet would have an iPod docking station (envision your name in the story, since IGotNewsForYou personalizes the mock news pages for you):

Trying to catch the growing wave of business surrounding Apple’s iPod, a new company, PoopTech has released the iPot, a specially-designed toilet with an iPod docking station. The toilet was recently made available to a test market in Montreal, where Ben Yoskovitz was one of the first customers.

“I’m in love with my iPod. I can’t live without it,” said Yoskovitz as he fondled the device amicably. “And, if I can, I take it wherever I go. And now, I can take it whenever I go!”

According to PoopTech, the iPot has a number of unique features. Spokesperson Steve Rubel noted, “The iPot detects when a loud noise is about to emanate from the person sitting on it, and alerts the docked iPod to increase the volume.” The company also claims the iPot will vibrate according to the mood of the music, although several early adopters, including Yoskovitz, have experienced problems with the feature. Yoskovitz said, “I was listening to some ripping techno beats and the iPot nearly shook me off the seat.”

Well, as is often the case, life imitates art (if you consider what’s written above to be “art”) and lo and behold I’m sitting on the toilet reading Maclean’s magazine (a must read for Canadians if you ask me) and I come across a short blurb about an iPod toilet roll holder!

It’s called the iCarta and it’s available at Atech Flash Technology. Looks like it’ll be available for purchase tomorrow in fact.

I don’t even own an iPod but I think I’ll have to buy the iCarta anyway. Dang.

So poop away my friends! And jive to the wicked tunes on your iPod at the same time (just don’t jive too much…)