Todd Pinkerton

Next week (Nov 13) my good friend Alan Blount will be demonstrating what the press has been calling "the gPhone", or "Google Phone". In reality, what Google has been working on is the Android mobile phone platform and SDK, not a specific phone. Also in the discussion is the Open Handset Alliance, the industry organization (including tech and mobile companies) to bring about a better user experience by leveraging the Android platform. The event is being held in conjunction with the Mobile Internet World conference in Boston -- free passes are available, details on the MoMoBoston site. This may very well be the first time the public gets a glimpse at the Android platform, so it should be a fun evening.

I feel like it does little good to blog about events after they happen. But better late than never, right? This weekend was Harvard Business School Cyberposium 13, a conference of technology and business leaders. It's interesting in that the entire conference is organized by students, and draws a pretty diverse crowd of MBA-types, tech-types, and startup entrepreneurs. The Philip Rosedale (founder of Linden Labs, makers of Second Life) talk was more interesting than I expected. His talk walked us through the virtual world of Second Life, as he described how the simple rules of the world led to some very interesting emergent behavior when the user population began to grow. For example, SL users can earn real money by creating and selling virtual goods within the SL world, to a truly global marketplace of buyers. Unlike the web there are no currency or language barriers, since SL has its own currency and a visual mode of interaction. I didn't stay for the whole conference, instead I wanted to see John Palfrey speak at the Leadership Institute on the other side of campus. Palfrey heads the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law school. ...

I'm not a designer by training -- in fact, I can barely draw stick figures. But often on a project I need to start laying elements out on a page and seeing what works, and what doesn't belong. I used to do this on paper, which is quick and easy to iterate. Then, start mocking up the layout in HTML. All this is just to get the features and placement right, and leaving the visual design for a professional. The problem with this approach is, there's a huge gap between paper-prototype and HTML mockup. Paper is quick and easy, but not very compelling to look at. HTML looks better, but it's not very malleable -- once you place something, it's often a pain to move it around and get it right again. So I've started using a drawing tool to do these wireframes. I may sketch something out on paper first (because that is still the fastest), but before I share it with anyone, I'll open up my drawing program and draw boxes and text on the screen. I'm on a Mac, and so far the best tool I've found for this is OmniGraffle ...

BetaHouse, the co-working space I am involved in, was featured in this NetworkWorld article on the rise of co-working. BetaHouse co-founders Jon Pierce and Greg Gibson were interviewed and talk about the benefits and challenges of working in such an environment.

I've been following Larry Lessig for several years now, and much like many of you I was... entranced by his writing and presentations. He has a speaking style that reminds me of an impassioned minister from my childhood, that of someone who cares deeply about what he is saying and can make his audience care too. After an unsettling outcome in Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lessig is now turning his attention to the problem of corruption -- of our political process, of policymakers, of drug salesmen and doctors -- and has dedicated the next ten years of his life to this problem. To Lessig, the other problems (like copyright extension in Eldred v. Ashcroft) won't be addressible until we remove the underlying corruption which plague our lives. So that's a bit of background to what I'm about to ask you to do -- go now and watch the 1 hr Google video presentation of his latest creation, "The Corruption Lecture". He claims its in alpha version, as I imagine it will be tweaked and modified extensively as he gets practice giving it again and again -- but it deserves a look now, as it is. Watch "Lessig on Corruption" on Google ...

Now that I've been baptized in the 4HWW, I've been following the author Tim Ferriss's blog. One post I found very practical was "5 World-Class Vices for less than $5". In it, Tim describes a few items that are the best in the world of their types -- wines, chocolate, etc -- but are very low cost. I've been trying to find all of the items mentioned in the article and many more in the comments. But more abstractly, this got me thinking about value. I define value as 'high quality for a relatively low cost, relative to other options'. For example, the Bugatti Veyron is an amazing car. It has some of the best engineering ever devised by man, it is incredibly fast, and at $1.4M pretty expensive. However you measure it, it is of very high quality. But it is probably not a very good value. If you use your car to go to work and the grocery store, a $10k used Nissan is probably a much better value to you. The Nissan has less quality than the Bugatti, to be sure, but the utility, performance, and maintainability make it ...

last week MIT announced a $50M gift to form a new entrepreneurship and development center. The donation was made by investment firm Legatum. The center will focus its efforts on products and technologies to solve problems in developing nations. Joost Bonsen, who has long been involved in fostering entrepreneurial activities at MIT (including the Developmental Entrepreneurship seminar, the Nuts-and-Bolts of Business Plans IAP seminar, and the 50K / 100K competitions) is on the exec team for the new center. I'm very excited for Joost, his hard work in this area deserves this kind of support. I ran into Joost Monday night at the Muddy Charles pub, where he was hosting an event for MIT entrepreneurs and friends. Also present were Cory and Erica of IntutiveAutomata, makers of Autom, the weight-loss coach robot. It's an interesting idea, that a human-like device pushes our social and behavioral buttons in a way that keeps us motivated -- more so than a website or other low-touch support system could. I'm curious to see what the results of their clinical trials are.

Ok, so I'm a little late to the 4 Hour Work Week phenomenon. Tim Ferriss's book describes how to eliminate the distractions in our day, focus on the most important tasks, and outsource the mundane -- all in the name of freeing up more of your time to do the things you care about. I'm not sure just how accessible all his techniques are -- while I want to believe the 'muse' section, some of it reads like a get-rich-quick scheme -- I do believe that he's onto something. I find myself working more and more hours, harder and harder, in the hope of accomplishing more or meeting arbitrary deadlines and expectations. When the desirable thing to do is to create the most value from the least effort. Selling your time (as most jobs are) is not the way to personal freedom - whether you're making $7/hr flipping burgers or $300/hr writing legal documents. 4 Hour Work Week is one of those books in the vein of Getting Things Done and Never Eat Alone -- but 4HWW is uniquely compelling. While it's not a panacea, I bet you'll find something in it that applies to you. I plan ...

some miscellaneous stuff happening lately in the Boston/Cambridge area: DevHouse Boston was last Sunday at BetaHouse. The Devhouse site has details on the projects. Boston Ruby Group meeting was last Tuesday, with a jQuery talk by Jeremy Durham. I came in late and missed the previous talk, but Jeremy is great and his timing couldn’t be better, since a new release of Jquery was just announced. TechCocktail had quite a turnout, with BetaHouse’s very own Brian Balfour. Goloco demoed at Webinno, although I couldn’t make it. Mobile Monday (momoboston) was September 17th. My former colleague from Orange, Jason Karas was moderating a panel about mobile social networks. Of course, with my infrequent postings, I’m a terrible source of current events. Check Mark’s Guide for the latest events and activities. latest mindless entertainment: UK tv shows Nathan Barley and The IT Crowd, also Flight of the Conchords.

It's no excuse, but I've been too busy to blog lately, as you can tell from the date on my last post. However, some exciting new developments have spured me to pick it up again. First, another Boston Globe article about one of my new adventures, BetaHouse appeared in the Saturday August 11 paper and online here. BetaHouse is a co-working arrangement I am involved in. The idea behind BetaHouse (and co-working in general) is that several startups and entrepreneurs share an office space, splitting the costs of rent and such while collaborating and enjoying the company of like-minded people. Co-working is a popular concept on the west coast, especially San Francisco, and we hope BetaHouse is the start of the east-coast trend. For me, it certainly beats the solitude of working out of my home. The Globe article also mentions Virosity, my new consulting company that has kept me busy these past few months. We're a 'boutique' web and mobile consultancy, specializing in social applications and the like. We're a small shop (3 people) at the moment, but we're hoping to expand as we have more opportunities than we can handle right now. ...