Such a great video.
How to plan a great conference: mimic #snowcial
I have been to my share of conferences. And the #snowcial event I just returned from was the highlight of them all. The concerts, the snowboarding, the people, the good times, the content.. all top notch. But the planning and execution also got my attention.
- When we arrived at the hotel, conference check in took all of 30 seconds after good conversation and introductions with the folks working the table.
- We were given a schedule of events for the 3 days and headed up to our rooms to drop off our bags and awaiting Jeremy (a speaker) was a hand written thank you note next to a bottle of wine and a plate of cheese and grapes.
- Before we went to dinner (that was catered) I went back up to my room and awaiting me (a hour or so after checkin) was a Heavenly branded scchwag bag with my name on it that included my ski pass, my conference pass, concert tickets and wristbands for the dance club, and a nice quality fleece jacket and tons of other good stuff.
- Dinner had blackjack and poker tables with free stuff given away for blackjack and just because.
- Navigating from one casino to the next for concerts was easy even in an very intoxicated state thanks to personnel in bright green jackets guiding the way.
- Skiing/Snowboarding was guided by Heavenly staff.. no waiting in line, and groups were formed based on skill level so no waiting for rookies.
- Lunch and dinner was provided every day.
- At every turn the event was executed on time and in style…
@Strebel and @Penguin
This level of personal attention may be hard to keep up as this event blows up, which it will surely do. But in the meantime.. If you are are putting together any type of event anytime soon, remember the little things and personal details. The superb organization of the event made for a perfect weekend where I could shift my brain into pure fun mode and not have to worry about getting places, feeding myself, or standing in line for anything. Huge props to the organizing staff.
Some links to other write-ups and pics of #snowcial
- snow.com wrapup
- transworld business coverage
- skichannel.com coverage
- reno metromix pics
- some pics I took
Profit by confusion and an economy based on intangible goods
When you start driving any sort of volume with a company they are generally agreeable to discounting your price a bit. As an example last month I asked for a price review from our credit card processor whom complied and shaved a few 10ths off our transaction fees since we are driving higher and higher volume each month.
Today I reached out to another service provider of ours to ask for a review of our account to see if we can get better pricing. Sadly this companies sales guy countered with a pitch on how a new “technique” could boost our margins. I replied I was not interested in any “techniques” and just wanted to know if we qualified for better wholesale pricing. Again he dodges the question and says this technique is “guaranteed” to make us more money than a discount in pricing would.
I relented and agreed to at least hear the guy out so he could at least tell his boss he “tried” before relenting and giving me what I asked for. Load the gun, spin the barrel… and kill me please. His “strategy” was essentially forcing our customer to opt-out on a upgrade. He would gladly give me preferred pricing on this upgrade.. and boasted about 40-50% uptake on this opt-out.. in other words 40-50% of the people declined the annoying upsell, but the rest were too gullible to know better = higher margins for me.
WHAT THE FUCK!? Who the hell would run a business like this? Confusing your customers and forcing them to opt-out of your high margin product is a recipe for higher margins for you.. but also a whole bunch of�annoyed customers. Ask GoDaddy how that strategy is working for their brand equity. Sure they are printing money.. but come on. Have you no soul, no integrity, no sense of common decency? PROFIT BY CONFUSION is a long term lose for your brand and your customers in favor of short term financial gain.
I’ll give the service provider and the sales guy a break and not call them out. But I will send this note to their COO as food for thought.
Disclaimer: Yes we have a few addons at page.ly. However they are very minimal, and very secondary. They are also directly inline with our core product. Premium themes go hand in hand with premium WordPress hosting, but we don’t push it in your face buy it.
This brings me to my second point. We are moving into an economy based on intangible goods. Like the term Vapor-ware from the boxed software days many companies cannot point a tangible asset they sell. Banks sell this thing called credit, SSL providers sell an emotion called “trust”, marketing people sell whatever it is their customer is buying.. currently “likes” and “followers”.
When a business cant point to a tangible good like say a dishwasher or a car they seem to be more likely to fall into this profit by confusion model. Cable companies sell you service contracts and free installation: Sorry Cox it’s your job to put a guy in the truck and send him to my house to connect the cable as by law I am not allowed to tamper with your wires outside my house. If the box breaks you gave me.. why should I pay for you to replace it?
It’s a fine line out there. Page.ly sells security and automation of technical tasks dealing with server configuration and software installation. And we do so with a sense of responsibility that it is our civic duty not to bend our customers over and sell them useless stuff because they do not know any better. This is industry is some of the worst offenders as we deal in the black arts of technology that 98% of those over 30 are still scared of. You tell them they need to buy ID protect so that big bad spammers don’t get them they will. You tell them they need to buy credit monitoring services because people are going through their mail, they will.
If you cant point to a physical good that you sell, your customer has to buy based on faith you are not misleading them. STOP MISLEADING them people. Happy customers that can genuinely trust you are worth far more than those you duped. Sooner or later the gullible will figure it out and the backlash wont be pretty.
Thanks Lee, for the conversation today about “trust” from SSL providers. Thanks Ward for the thoughts on Profit by confusion.
America: you are smarter than this
The american people get played like a fiddle, fear is the musician.
History has shown that people threatened by losses of jobs, wages, homes, and savings are easy prey for demagogues who turn those fears into anger directed at major institutions of a society, as well as individuals and minorities who become easy scapegoats – immigrants, foreign traders, particular religious groups.
From an article on small business and the tea party.
Community
There is so much hulla balloo espoused about “community” online. Build a community. Participate in a community. I myself am a huge advocate of community. I blog about it, I speak at conferences regarding collaboration within them. I even sit on the boards of local organizations that are communities of marketing professionals (AZIMA) and entrepreneurs/hackers (gangplank).
But what does it really mean to be part of or participate in a community? Well first there is the agenda. Every community has one and if you don’t see it you have your blinders on. Every community also has it’s “leaders” or those that guide the ship along it’s path. Every community has it’s rabble rousers and vocal members. And don’t forget each community also has it’s ego’s. Every community also has it’s rules.
I am an ask forgiveness later type of person in that I take stock of the community mission/goals and then on my own accord do what I feel like being careful to stay within the apparent rules, but by no means do I wait for someone to tell me it is okay before acting. However by not following the unwritten “rules” or cow-towing to the “leaders” most of the time I tend to piss a few people off.
Some rants and observations:
A few months ago I took it upon myself to give a “voice” to a growing insurrection within Gangplank. A few members including myself were not terribly keen on the (perceived) direction the organization was heading. In general terms some thought the “be dangerous” mantra of Gangplank was under siege as the organization was growing up and becoming a bit more gentrified or “soft” as some said. The transformation was a necessary evolution of a grass roots organization to participate in a larger dialog but a few of us were not ready to give up our “fuck the man” attitude. Gangplank became what it is because it charted it’s own course and it (seemed) to have lost it’s way when (by appearances) more concern was placed on public perception than on core values. So long story short I took it upon myself to make a statement, well a few statements… and they were not received very well. Water under the bridge now, and I think my actions while impulsive at least brought some light onto the situation at hand and created some dialog internally to address the issues.
Take-Away: As a community member, even in a pseudo-leadership position that I am in it’s kinda up to you/us to at least try to steer the ship in the direction we want it go. Your efforts will not always be warmly welcomed but as long as you have the greater good in mind it should all work out.
This next example is a little bit more abstract.
My company is heavily involved in the WordPress community. When I say community in this example there are really two that I am talking about; the greater 30+ million WordPress user community and the very small, very political community that consists of WordCamp organizers, “Official” WP people, and business owners (plugins, themes) in the space.
On the greater community side we do what we can to disseminate information, educate users, convey and reinfornce the values of the community to new comers, and be a good citizen. The greater community uses the software in some form, and for the most part goes on their merry way publishing online.
But the inner, smaller, community… not sure I have ever been involved in anything quite so politicized before. You got person A talking trash about person B privately then praise them 2 seconds later publicly. You got an unwritten set of rules of what you can and cannot do that seem to morph on a daily basis. You have plugin and theme developers actually scared to speak up and voice dissent for fear of a public lashing. Months after the fact the wordpress.tv site is still featuring the very public, and very nasty spat between two members. The issue has been resolved and by all accounts everyone has certainly moved on, yet it remains broadcast for all to see. Reminds me of a severed head on a stake planted in the town square to remind others what happens if you don’t toe the line. We have done things which in our eyes would expand, coalesce, and strengthen the community, yet ruffled feathers of the command and control structure.
And just when you think you had enough some really awesome and amazing people step up to reassure you that you are in the right place. The good far out weighs the bad – by a good measure. Of course not everyone is going to see eye to eye and they shouldn’t. There would not be any evolution if everyone walked lock step to the same tune. I have met some amazing people and have been fortunate to work with some amazing and talented professionals in the space. To that end I have actually made it a core part of our business to work closely with others in the community. I dont want to be in the plugin, theme, or services space so we partner with those doing it instead. This kind of intermingled ecosystem is a good thing for the community at large and certainly a good thing for us.
Take-Away: You are going to hit political road-blocks no matter where you choose to participate. Step around them or break thru them if your care enough to do so. People are people and are going to act like people. You can let the system beat you down.. or get creative and work thru it to at the very least accomplish your goals without causing too much ruckus or at the highest order fight the fight to push your version of the agenda.
Final point:
Why the fuck does everyone have the need to “own” it? If there is more than 1 person involved the word “my” should not be in your lexicon. If there is already something like foo going on, why be so keen on owning your own fooey? Just jump on board of foo and make it better. Add your energy to propel the train faster and farther rather than starting in the coach house fabricating your own version of the train? You are not important, and either is your ego. I have witnessed first hand people try to take ownership of an energy, a movement, or a community that they have no business trying to claim.
The flip-side: If this does happen.. and someone else decides to do your “thing” across town or across the interwebz for valid reasons and is decent about it, you have an obligation to help and support them.
Take-Away: If you care at all about community, support that which is already there rather than attempt to fracture off your own plot to play king.
There is a broad line between whining and constructive criticism. Don’t be the guy the throws stones from left field, be the guy that shows up and participates and offers critical feedback. Derek calls Gangplank a “showupacracy”, decisions are made by the people that show up and participate. You have no say in setting the agenda sitting on your couch.
Community, community, community.. for all it’s political games and its awesome energy it is not going away as our world becomes more digitally interconnected. I guess it comes down to how you choose to participate.
Feigned outrage – .ly domains are fine, just respect the TOS
The only reason I am writing this post is because I disagree with the sensationalist nature of the reporting going on and I own a few .ly domains. Perhaps you read Engadget or Techcrunch’s scarebait reporting of Ben Metcalfe’s post getting his .ly domain yanked.
My 2 cents:
When you register a .ly domain the rules in the TOS explicitly make some things off limits:
Any .LY domain name may be registered, except domains containing obscene and indecent names/phrases, including words of a sexual nature; furthermore domain names may not contain words/phrases or abbreviations insulting religion or politics, or be related to gambling and lottery industry or be contrary to Libyan law or Islamic morality, the same applies to the site content.
I read this before I registered the domain and agreed to it, as did everyone else that owns .ly domain must agree to it. It was reported that Ben’s vb.ly url shortener was openly promoting itself as “adult friendly” url shortener (the marketing on the site bragged about being ‘sex-positive’) or something similar. If that is true it seems like a clear TOS violation to me. Case closed.
Whether you disagree (and I do) with their interpretations of what may be decent and women’s status in society is irrelevant if you agree to their TOS when purchasing from them. Their sandbox, their toys, their rules.
My experiance with .ly
The first .ly I bought was pix.ly which I used as a personal project for a site I created that allowed users to vote on 2 flickr photos side by side. (twitter avatars battle at twit.pix.ly). The flickr photos were brought in with a search API, this being the internet it took exactly 5 minutes for someone to start searching for “porn, nude, breasts, etc”. A couple weeks later I got a very polite email from the .ly folks that:
- Complimenting me on the site and how they thought it was a novel idea and a great showcase of thier .ly domains
- They were sorry to have to remind me that adult subject matter is in violation of the TOS
- They requested I alter the app to prohibit the adult content
- If I cant alter it, they requested I use the domain for another purpose (within TOS)
- They would revoke the registration if I failed to comply
That is far from a case of big ol’ scary mideast government agencies stealing domains back from us yankees.
I elected to ditch the flickr idea and just do twitter avatars with the app at twit.pix.ly and I have not heard anything since.
I also of course own page.ly and sal.ly which I bought for my wife. In regards to sal.ly the domain registrar libyanspider.com was also very helpful in settling a disagreement with a 3rd party that thought they had rights to the domain when they did not. My experience with libyanspider has always been great and their customer service has even exceeded that which I have gotten at some other registrars.
As far as page.ly.
- Of course we own pagely.com
- Of course we considered the possible repercussions of building an app on a domain we have less control over, so therefore have fully abstracted our service onto other .com domains we do control. .ly could be gone tomorrow and our service wouldn’t blink.
- Nothing we are doing is in violation of their TOS, so we are not overly concerned about it.
Finally it would be financial suicide for the .ly folks to overly enforce their TOS (like some of the Sharia law stuff). When $$ is involved on a international stage.. people tend to be more flexible on what is permissible. But when a site like vb.ly open flaunts it’s violation.. what do you expect them to do?
The reporting around this smacks of the”Keep em Scared” tone that sadly seems prevalent when it involves anything with Islam or the Mideast.
Prove the model and others will follow #wordpress
Last April when we announced we were rebranding and relaunching the Managed WordPress hosting system we developed in 2006 as Page.ly we did a survey of the market and found that while there were traditional hosting companies offering plans for WordPress users, no one else was offering the unique set of tools and security benefits we had developed specifically for WordPress.
The market was wide open for our unique and specialized WordPress hosting solution.
Traditional hosts at the time were advertising a “1 click WordPress install” was using a piece of software called Fantastico that is essentially a library of web applications a cpanel user could install into their hosting account. While the concept was cool, Fantastico was notorious for lagging behind in updates and tying the hands of the user to some degree as the WP instance was managed by Fantastico and they had little control over updates and security. Even today this is the system that powers the vast majority of “1 click” installers you see advertised.
This summer has proven to be the Summer of Security meltdowns (Sucuri has been tracking it) at the big traditional hosting outfits. Everyone from NetSol, GoDaddy, and MT where hammered with security breaches affecting hundreds of thousands of customers. The big hosts tried to blame the malware outbreak on outdated versions of WordPress running on their systems. Question: Why were they outdated? Because again many hosts were using Fantastico which was lagging behind current releases. Ultimately most of the big hosts admitted faulty server configuration as the reason for the outbreak after trying to blame it on WordPress when called out by Ma.tt himself.
While the term “1-click WordPress Hosting” that referred to Fantasico powered installs by the economy hosting companies has been around for many years, the term we use and coined “Managed WordPress Hosting” is how we refer to our unique system of fast setup, automated backups and upgrades, and uber secure environment.
Our Managed WordPress Hosting system has been custom built from the ground up to specifically focus on 1 single application, WordPress. We understood the common frustrations users had installing the application, and the common problems users face keeping their sites updated and secure. Page.ly was designed to address these pain points, yet allow near total freedom of the user to customize their site. We took a very holistic and unique approach to manage the technical details for the user without interfering with their ability to customize, and it has paid off with the success we have seen with our product.
Prove the model, and others will follow
When we opened for business and began accepting customers in August of 2009 we had more than our fair share of people thinking we were crazy. Why specialize in one platform they said; You are too expensive they said; Along with all the other bits naysayers like to say. Over a year later we have an ample and growing customer base, strategic partnerships with others vendors in the WordPress space, plans to fit all types of sites, and recently booked our best month to date with 55% growth for September over August. (A sweet 3x since May)
So it did not take long after we started gaining some traction and success to see the wake behind our boat beginning to fill with other companies trying to make a go at their own take of WordPress hosting service. Some have put their own novel spin on the idea, others have sadly thought a bad attempt at cloning was the way to go. Even worse many have chosen to use Security as a positioning point with little or no track record of security or explanation of how their leased servers are any more secure than the other servers by that hosting outfit that was just in the news for massive security exploits. For Page.ly we have chosen to hire the most secure datacenter around to manage our server infrastructure and have a perfect record of zero successful malware or hacking attempts; ever.
The moral of the story is though that as any company proves the existence of a viable market, others are going to follow. Ask Groupon about the 500 or more clones of their very successful product. People are going to like the idea, think they can do it better than you, and it is inevitable that your new company will soon have a plethora of eager competitors.
Competition is healthy for business. Personally I stress cooperation over competition even speaking on the topic often about reducing duplication of efforts within communities. But good old competitive capitalism is vital and essential for your company. It helps you position you product in space and helps educate the market as a whole to the available options they have. The arrival of competitors in our space did more to validate our business model than we could have done with a year of marketing and education. We no longer look crazy when someone else is crazy enough to agree with us.
Those companies that enter your space may choose from a variety of means to distinguish or call attention to themselves. Some may offer a legitimate unique spin or improvement over your service, some play Walmart and undercut you on price, some go negative and trash you, while others consolidate offerings going for the super store approach.
One such newcomer to the WordPress hosting space has taken the “go negative” approach vocally trashing us as a company and as persons at community events. We have not even met this person yet they somehow feel compelled to impugn our character. Unfortunately par for the course for many in business that think that is the way to get ahead. Maybe if they had a novel idea they did not get from us, they could compete on their own track record instead of this tired approach.
The recent announcement of the StudioPress-Copyblogger merger is a good example of the super-store approach. The new mega company is pooling their WordPress resources and expertise together to make a play at the “everything you need under 1 roof” type business. What they have also eluded to is a distribution channel to get this bundle into the hands of their customers. StudioPress is a theme vendor of ours and we have spoken to them and with Clark (when he was with Thesis; but shelved due to the Thesis GPL issues) about a hosting vertical in the past. However we are not involved in their future plans, so in essence they will join the ranks of those coming into our space in the near future.
Page.ly specializes in and will continue to focus on the Managed Hosting aspect of WordPress. We have no plans to move into the plugin or theme space as there are so many solid offerings there already that our model is much better suited to partner with and promote these companies then to attempt to duplicate their efforts.
The first to market moniker is a coveted one and also one that paints a large target on your back. This article explains nicely some of the pitfalls of being the first mover. How you use the opportunity, timing, and luck all play into the success or failure of your business if you are the first to define and enter a space. We have had our share of luck, and the timing this go around has been been near ideal, and thankfully we have been able to innovate and push the momentum at such a pace that being first to market has been a blessing for us. It’s up to us to keep it. 
Image courtesy: http://jfcbookstore.org/
