Uncategorized – Page 21 – onvural.net – melih

When ending is critical for beginning

I wrote this as a note to someone special earlier this week, and I really like the message. I’ve decided to share it in an edited format here.

Folks leave.

It’s sad because it feels like somehow the system failed. But we don’t think that about death. When someone dies, we create room for someone new to be born who brings a newer, and hopefully better, perspective to who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

Death’s inevitability gives us a reprieve. And yet even without death everything comes to an end – inevitably. Hitting streaks, consecutive quarters of profitability, periods of peace – none can last forever.

In a static system, there is neither death nor birth. Culture can become static. Endings act as a wake up call that we cannot be static. The lesson is to not hang on to being what we were, but, instead, create an energy to become.

Part of the journey is starting to let go, and letting the culture be carried by others. The others will do a great job because we choose them, and make sure they do. The actors who see that transition, and decide it’s not for them make the best choice for all in leaving.

The end game doesn’t change. But we do.

TV2.0 – The lines become more clear

Yesterday, Comcast announced that it was acquiring Time Warner Cable. #1 and #2 are merging (minus 3 million subscribers to keep the FTC happy) in a move that in any other industry would have consumer advocates screaming anti-competitive. None of the analysis that I’ve read however is worried about it…

On a personal note, we cut the cord in 2010 when I finally got fed up with how expensive our cable bill was. We’ve gone from paying $200 per month with a million channels I never watched to paying $75 per month for phone, internet, and TV that I watch fully on-demand. I am not a cable subscriber, and the only thing that I miss is the occasional sporting event that can’t be picked up over-the-air (damn you NBC Bay Area!!).

There is clearly a move happening in this direction at some level that is scaring the traditional TV providers. Whether it’s cutting the cord, content from NetFlix winning Emmy’s, or the recent appellate ruling on net neutrality the rules of the game are changing. The game is going to be more and more about accessing content anywhere, and simply having a key to access the content. The key will be more and more expensive as the channels that once upon a time subsidized our cable bills become more and more irrelevant (and probably end up moving online anyway – think QVC for each niche with its own online model).

The channels that draw the crowd – sports & premium content like HBO – hold the power today. It’s all about the rights. The rights to the NFL. The rights to True Blood. And yet, MLB has a fantastic online presence, and is building an empire of its own content that it sells on its own channel. NBA.tv is there too. And the MLS presence on the Roku is fantastic.

I don’t know if ultimately HBO will sell itself a la carte (even though it’s owned by Comcast now), or continue to be the hook to get people to pay top dollar, but I do know that the game is changing for them too.

All in, we’ve got two epic players becoming one, and the reaction is just as excited as it is angry.

just thinking out loud, Uncategorized 0

Welcome James to blogging!

My good buddy James (one of the two (or three) James’ after which Luka’s middle name is derived) has started a blog:

365to30

Documenting the goals he has for this last year of his 3rd decade of life. Everyone should follow, and hold him to it. Some of the ones I think are wacky include:

#7… getting a tattoo? Come on man :-p
#16… where was my love when I had kids in diapers? What the heck’s going on there?

but most of them I love. I especially love:

#15… which made me tear up when I read it
#17 & #18… which I’m lumping together because if you can do them together, then you’re really killing it

Every year for a while now James and the family have come together to see the world. Portugal, UK, Grand Canyon, CA redwoods… and this year Sonoma International Raceway! He’s a great guy, and it’s going to be a good year to follow.

But seriously man, no tattoo.

Entrepreneurism, Uncategorized 0

Applied learning

As I’m in the car a bit more than I was in the past, I’ve been getting back into the swing of listening to podcasts. One of my favorites is Startups for the rest of us.

I went to their conference in Las Vegas back in 2012, and I’ve worked my way through a fat chunk of their back log as well. I’ve shared it with a ton of folks, and all of a sudden one of the folks I shared it with is making a go of it.

I’m not going to say who or what yet, but I’m really quite excited to see what happens as he tries to bootstrap his way towards a SaaS business. The customer is already there. The LTV is already vetted. It’s really just about execution.

As soon as I can, I’m going to update how well it worked, but getting to apply the learning of all of the listening is going to be a fun experiment.

Good luck <name redacted>!

New Year Resolutions, Uncategorized 0

Book(s) of the month

Having finished two books in January, I’m feeling pretty good about my quest to read one book per month this year. For February, I’ve chosen two books (and I think it’s going to take me until March to finish). They are:

Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business

and

Founders at Work

I’m really focusing on business books as both a form of inspiration, and hopefully as a way to bring some more efficiency to the team. We’re doing really well, and now I think we need to get to the next level.

Happy reading to me!

Life Updates, Uncategorized 0

This week in review

Holy shit, another week has passed. The big life event was, obviously, moving. It’s been awesome. Today we finally got people to pick up the last of the boxes, and the room just opened up. I’m going to let the photos do the talking, because honestly I’m too tired to do it 🙂

Home ownership, Uncategorized 0

It’s all about firsts

Everything so far this weekend has been a first.

First time homebuyer

First family dinner at the house

First night sleeping at the house

First shower at the house

and on and on the list goes. It’s really overwhelming, and it’s really exciting. It’s a very different kind of roller coaster than before, but a roller coaster nonetheless. I think the crazy bit is that at the end of the day it’s all mine. It’s just such an awesome feeling. These firsts are just milestones that make that more and more obvious… and fun to celebrate.

First rainy weekend spent watching the birds.

First time playing in the toy room.

First take out ordered (from a Thai place down the street. Delicious!)

I really love it. I hope this feeling never goes away 🙂

Home ownership, Uncategorized 0

We’re in!

Today we moved into the house… finally 🙂

The day started whisking the kids off to school, and fitting in a call with <redacted> on my way over to the house (we are that big of a deal at TokBox).

I was getting to the house for the Sonic.net guy who was to show up at 10am. Let me do a quick interlude, and say that Sonic.net internet service is awesome. I’ll get back to that in a second.

The chores on the list included hanging two lights, and doing a final coat of paint in the toy room. The coat of paint was easy (and the Dixie Chicks Pandora station made it fun). The lights were a complete pain 🙁

For lunch, I had some awesome guests swing by, help out a little, and then go on their merry way. Their identification is protected to preserve their innocence.

Then the movers arrived.

When the movers show up it’s total chaos. Boxes; beds; cribs; couches. Everything is stashed somewhere, and then rebuilt. Micky and I were maniacs in the kitchen first, then the kids room, our room, and then the toy room.

By the time the kids came home, their corner of the world was in great shape, and we were officially moved in 🙂

Becoming a PM, Uncategorized 0

A month’s worth of small steps

We had a really great demo day today.

It’s the beginning of celebrating lots of small steps. At the end of the road, I think we’ll all find it was a journey worth taking. And through it, we’ll have lots of stories to tell 🙂

The tradition of celebrating small success isn’t new at TokBox, but I do think it’s a bit forgotten. One of the first things that Yang did when he joined back in ’09 was bring in an agile methodology. We become three small teams, and we did a lot of really good work in our units. Each unit then showed off its work in a demo day. This is par for the course for an agile team, but something we’d never done before at TokBox. The genius of demo days is that a scrum master can make his team look great for even the smallest things because the whole point is to accomplish all of those little things that led to the train leaving the station and going into the world.

I remember that feeling very vividly of having an awesome demo, and sharing with pride the work we’d accomplished. We did bi-weekly releases, and so it was never a huge amount of work. It wasn’t a platform company, and so there wasn’t a big partner acquisition to celebrate. There was just our hard work to point to, and take pride in.

Small victories bundled together become big wins for the world to see. I can’t wait to share those too!

just thinking out loud, Uncategorized 0

Mother/son bonding… via text

I got my mom a calendar of daily inspirational quotes (BTW, those daily calendars are a lie. They do one sheet for the weekend, and so you end up with less than 356 pieces of inspiration) for Christmas. We decided that we’d share the quotes, and talk about them.

Every day, given my mom is on the East Coast, I wake up to a quote. I spend a half a day thinking about it, and then I respond. Then we banter back and forth.

Sometimes it’s really lighthearted. Sometimes it’s deep. But every day I really look forward to it. It’s quickly become one of my favorite daily traditions. Some top ones so far (for either quote or because of the discussion) in my opinion have been:

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it (good quote to remember)

If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more. (good conversation)

What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it (good quote to remember)
Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened (really great conversation)

And there’s actually a bunch more (and it’s only February).