Yesterday morning, I got home from Gnomedex 8.0 and after 24 hours, I have finally been able to distill the conference. It was my first time attending Gnomedex, but not the first time hearing about it.

In 2000, I worked at a startup in San Francisco Bay Area. One of the developers suggested I check out a website called Lockergnome (really an email list), run by some dude named Chris Pirillo, because they had a lot of interesting Windows 95/98 stuff. He was really excited for Chris’ conference called Gnomedex.

“What’s with the gnomes?” I thought to myself. “Must be some developer thing.”

Fast forward to 2008. Im working at Lijit. My friend Jeremy Wright of b5media asks if I am going to Gnomedex. Aaron Brazell laments that he wont be able to make Gnomedex this year. Tara Anderson tells me about how Gnomedex last year was so successful for the company.

So I went.

Thank God I did.

Of the three, Gnomedex was the smallest. Which, of course, made it easier to talk to folks. But, where the difference was most evident was in the sessions themselves. Here is the main reason why Gnomedex was amazing:

There was, literally, no hallway conversation. Everyone was in the sessions.

So, my three rules of Gnomedex:

1) Prepare to feel dumb.

The dude who drives the Mars Rover spoke. Some guy spoke on Cyborgs. Someone else spoke on voice controlled joysticks.

Right.

But, none of the attendees made me feel stupid. Some would even sit with me and explain what was said on stage, and to be clear it wasnt all that heady. Ben Huh, presentation about the growth of Pet Holdings, Inc was amazing and funny. It was great to see someone apply real science to the concept of memes.

2) Prepare to be real.

The attendees’ bullshit meter is uncanny. Attendees walked out of sessions, confronted speakers, questioned presentation points. The rule of being real was in serious effect.

3) Prepare to be amazed.

Amazed by the speakers? sure. The attendees? sure. But mostly, the calmness of the proceedings. Everyone was there to enjoy themselves, interact and learn. Some learned more than others. Some interacted more. But, everyone was almost…well, as cliche as it is, familial. Chris’ wife and parents helped with the conference. There is a real respect and love for Chris that was evident in the room. And, more than any other conference I have attended, a real respect for each other.

Nice work Chris and Ponzi. But more so, nice work Gnomedex community. See you in ‘09!

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, from Star Trek, when faced with an apparent impossible task, would exclaim, “Dammit Jim, Im a doctor not a miracle worker!”

Success often breeds difficulties that young entreprenuers never foresee.

At Current Wisdom, our success was greatly accelerated. With yearly growth in the hundreds of percent, we found that success created logistical realities that we were ill equipped to deal with.

Hire a CPA? Whats that? I have QuickBooks, isnt that enough?

A Lawyer? For what? We wrote our own contracts?

HR? Are you kidding? We can hire and fire how ever we want.

Early success creates heightened expectations.

When you begin, as a company or a person, to really make hay, you begin to create a promise to your boss, your board, your colleagues, that you arent a one hit wonder.

So how do you avoid it?

You cant. Early success is always an indication that you have the ability to create long term success.

Read that again. If you can do it once, you can do it twice.

Its just harder the second time around.

So, here are my three rules for sustained success:

1) Realize that success doesnt fall out of the sky because you have a cool app or you are the best marketer ever. Success exists because multiple people do stuff in concert. You cant brute force or use your force of will to create success. You much create a foundation that success can build on.

2) For success to be replicated, it must be replicable. My first boss out of college gave me two pieces of advice that I continue to believe in: “Decide if you want to work to live, or live to work.” and “You are not promotable if you are irreplaceable.” Its important that YOU arent the sole reason for success, but its the mechanics of your business or your process.

3) Fail. Failure is important to remind you of the importance of success. So fail quickly. Then move just as quickly to erase that failure and replace it with success.

There is a corollary to these rules.

Dont be a miracle worker. Just be a doctor. Just be the best doctor you possibly can be. Its probably more than enough given you have either gotten a business off the ground, or hired to do a job.

Finally, success isnt hard. Its just hard work. Dont buy into the hype or the naysayers — you are probably not as good as some think, and better than others think.

Just keep on keeping on.

The hot topic lately has been the concept of coworking. The idea being that if you are a freelancer, or a small startup who cant afford office space, you can rent a desk or access to a conference room, so you can appear to be a “real” company.

What crap.

Here is why I think coworking sucks:

1) There are a million places to work that offer free wifi and a quiet place to work. Coffee shops, YOUR HOUSE and other places are readily available. The truth behind why most freelancers freelance is because they cant work with people. So spending some time in close proximity to other people, but not having to interact with them is probably sufficient for most freelancers.

2 ) In four years of having office space, with a conference room, I think we had 4 client visits. The truth is that clients would so much rather you visit them than the other way around. Its a pure ego play on your part to have clients visit you. Plus, dont you think that a client will notice that your “office” is full of random desks and people doing random things?

Ok, so you think you need an address that sounds corporate. Here is a secret, instead of having your address be 123 Easy Street, APT 1 - make it 123 East Street, SUITE 1. There you go, problem solved.

3) Its about the work you produce, not where you produce the work. The truth of the matter is that you should find a place that you can do the best work possible. If thats in a coffee shop, cool. If its in a library, great. If its on the toilet, have at it. Just focus on producing a top quality product, and you will find that most clients dont really care where you created it.

Of course, if I havent convinced you, find a local coworking spot. If in the Denver/Boulder metro, the nicest place I have seen, with all the appropriate bling is my friend Danny Newman’s id345 coworking space.

Have fun there, but you will never see me, as I cowork in my backyard. Let me know if you are in town, I will hook you up.