Deliberate Ambiguity

A speech to the Quality Students of the Tonawandas

Note: I was asked to give a short speech to the Quality Students of the Tonawandas on March 22, 2012.  I decided to ask them to call the notion of "Quality Student" into question and come up with their own definition.

Congratulations on being named a Quality Student of the Tonawandas.  Many years ago, I was a Quality Student, so I am honored to speak tonight to this illustrious group: surely many of you will go out into the world and make a significant impact.

I worried my parents by studying philosophy in college.  As a consequence, I often ask undermining questions, not because I’m a contrarian, but I find that skepticism often engenders a better understanding of the concept in question.

 

The question that was on my mind in preparing for this speech was: what exactly is a “quality student”?

 

When I was a quality student, I was surprised to see some people in the room – they didn’t fit my notion of quality.  But even worse, I was sad that some of my friends, whom I considered to be of supreme quality, were not in the room.  Take a look around you right now – not to judge – but to ask yourself the question: who isn’t here that should be?

 

Since I was coming back to my hometown, I also tried to channel a younger Mark Johnson from high school.

 

Back then, numbers and awards were disproportionately important to me. I knew my rank in my class.   I knew the rank of my university stood in US News & World Report.  I knew my IQ, my SAT scores, how many AP classes I took… heck, I even knew my GPA to 7 significant digits.

 

Numbers gave me a sense of comfort, as if the world were patting me on my back and telling me, “You’ve done a great job, Mark,” or, in my more arrogant moments, “You’re better than other people.”

 

Luckily, life has disabused me of my unhealthy focus on numbers.  I’m a math and science nerd, so I can’t escape the notion that numbers do shed light on the world, but they don’t tell the whole story.

 

If you’re sitting in this room, you probably know a lot of the numbers that relate to you.  I’d like to question how accurately those numbers reflect reality.  For example, class ranks were announced today at NTHS, so think about that number: do you consider everyone above you in your class rank to be smarter than you?  Everyone below you to be dumber?

 

Being smart isn’t about IQ or grades.  It’s about what you do with the intelligence in your head.  One of the reasons I was so excited to get out of high school and into college was that I wanted to be in a classroom of people who wanted to learn, not a classroom of people who wanted a grade.  In the working world, intelligence is prized, but only insofar as it allows you to make an impact on your coworkers and product.

 

Tonight I’d like to suggest to you that quality – whether to a student, a parent, a teacher, or a CEO – is something that is subjective, personal, and difficult to quantify.  Though you’ll often find yourself going back to numbers as a guide to quality, when you look into the mirror and judge yourself, no numbers well help you feel better.

 

The world is full of extrinsic judgment: people telling you that something is bad or good, or that you should do this or that, or that some people are “better” than others.  The easy way out is to use society’s view of quality to guide your life.

 

It’s not easy to define success in life using your own internal system of judgment – just as it’s difficult to define happiness or love – but the rewards are great.  You’ll feel a sense of satisfaction with your own life that you’ll never get by using external factors.  Let’s face it, there’s always going to be someone richer, smarter, or more successful, but perhaps you can still be happy and feel successful, even if you aren’t “the best.” You can only do this by justifying to yourself, by your own high standards, that you are successful. 

 

Tonight is a time where you can feel excited that a community has come together and given you collective pat on the back.  I join them in saying, “Great job!”  But, it’s important not to spend your life looking in the rear view mirror.  The real challenge for you is not only to enjoy being a Quality Student tonight, but also to wake up tomorrow, figure out what “Quality” means to you, and tireless spend every day working to become a Quality Person.

 

Becoming the CEO of Zite

Today, Zite announced that I will be joining the company as CEO. I wanted to write down my personal thoughts about this transition: how I came upon the opportunity and my vision for the company.

How I became Zite's CEO

I've been an advisor at Zite for almost two years.  When I started, the company was still called Worio.  Though the product needed a lot of work, I saw some great technology and an incredible vision.  Being an advisor was a fun diversion from my day job at Microsoft and I didn't expect to join Zite full-time.

A little over a year ago, I helped to pivot the company from Worio to Zite, shifting focus from contextual discovery to a personalized magazine.  The first version of Zite was a web application with lots of rough edges.  With the rise of the iPad, we realized that the way people consume information was changing, but that information was still trapped in silos and search hadn't addressed the discovery problem.  Conveniently, the 6-year history of Worio gave us a strong technology underpinning for a new type of product.  Thus, Zite was born on the iPad.

About four months ago, Ali (the Founder of Zite) asked me if I wanted to take the reins form him and lead Zite into its next phase.  I know this must have been a very difficult decision for him, since his leadership kept the company alive for over 6 years and his vision made Zite possible.  I feel humbled by the trust he's placed in me.

For me, being a CEO will be a new challenge, but not unfamiliar. I was told by a mentor many years ago that being a product manager was the best training for becoming a CEO.  Though I'll have a slew of new responsibilities, the core skillset of a product manager -- influence, prioritization, getting things done -- will serve me well in this next phase.

I'd like to give a brief shout-out to Microsoft and not just because Softies are more likely than Googlers to become CEOs.  I've been able to work for an awesome product, I've been challenged by brilliant colleagues and I was given the opportunity to lead a team.  Three years ago, I'd have called Microsoft a "dinosaur" with the rest of the technorati. After spending a few years in the Borg, I am confident in placing a large portion of my IRA in MSFT.

Where does Zite go from here?

What excites me the most about working on Zite is that, for years, I've wanted something to solve my own personal information overload (and, as ERS wisely noted: the greatest products come from scratching a personal itch).

RSS doesn't solve it: I don't have time to sort through the hundreds of stories that come through my feed.  Social curation doesn't solve it: even following a smaller group of friends can prove incredibly noisy.  Search doesn't solve it: I only search for things when I know what I'm looking for.

The only way to solve information overload is to turn browsing on its head and to learn what you want and deliver more of it to you, without losing an element of serendipity.

I liken where Zite is to the early days of search: everyone loved search engines because they allowed us to sift through the rapidly growing web, even though most searches ended up in failure.  Similarly, Zite's personalization isn't perfect, but we've made a breakthrough advance.  Our challenge over the next few years will be to:

• Improve significantly the quality of our recommendations
• Maintaining a sleek, user-friendly interface
• Give publishers new opportunities for revenue so that they continue to create amazing content. 

A tall order, to be sure, but a challenge that must be taken on.  I can't wait.

My Wellsphere saga and Ron Gutman

I was horrified to learn this week that Wellsphere was bought by HealthCentral.  My only consolation is the possibility that it was a fire sale and the founders made no money.  Rumor has it that Wellsphere was shopping around for funding and couldn't raise capital, so maybe Wellsphere had to sell for cost.  Why am I so interested in a little podunk company?  Read on. . .

My history with Wellsphere goes way back.  I did consulting for them back in the Summer of '06, before they had a Web site.  At the time, they seemed like a good company with a good mission and their CEO/co-founder, Ron Gutman, convinced me to leave my job and join Wellsphere full-time.  That guy is a real charmer, at least up front.

Upon arriving at Wellsphere, I realized that there were problems much larger than I had gathered from my position as a consultant.  Work hours were ridiculous for everyone in the company: 7 days a week and often greater than 12 hours a day.  I don't mind working hard, but it seemed like we were working without a clear goal, always brainstorming and changing directions.  Then, I realized that we had a pending product launch (with a constantly moving launch date), without any solid requirements, and a small consulting team working half time.  I picked up the pieces, started to write requirements, hired more consultants, made a plan, and got things on track.  However, Ron kept pushing ridiculous, unreasonable schedules and requirements, and I got more and more frustrated.  Even though I was working for a company that touted "wellness" as its foundation, I was overworked, not getting enough sleep, highly stressed, and losing confidence that we'd release a product that I'd be proud of.

I knew that there were some former employees of Wellsphere that had been around while I was consulting.  Shortly before I joined, Ron told me that they were fired because they weren't team players.  At the end of my first month, I emailed one of the former employees out of desperation to figure out what was really going on.  What I learned was quite the opposite story from what I had been told by Wellsphere.

The entire engineering team, consisting of 4 employees, quit about 3 weeks before I joined.  In addition to the engineers, there were another dozen employees that had formerly worked for the company and quit.  Keep in mind that, when I worked at Wellsphere, there were only 6 full-time employees!  This place went through employees like Kleenex during flu season.

After meeting with the group of former employees and hearing their poor treatment, long hours, unrealistic deadlines, blah blah blah, I realized that my experience was not isolated, but rather systematic, unscrupulous behavior by the management team.  I've personally met over two dozen former employees and consultants of Wellsphere who want nothing to do with the company or Ron Gutman.  It's ironic that a company founded on health and wellness treats its employees so poorly. 

So, I made the difficult decision to quit Wellsphere, even though I didn't have another job and I was leaving a company just a few weeks before the Web site launched.

The first iteration of Wellsphere.com launched in January '07 and pretty much flopped. For some classic articles from that period, check out the series at Uncov, the comments in the TechCrunch article, and the creepy video of Ron in the GigaOm article.

Not surprisingly, the acquisition of Wellsphere is turning out people in droves who felt like they they were bamboozled.  Basically, Wellsphere has a "network" of bloggers, which they seem to have created by flattering bloggers with long letters, appropriating their content, and not giving the bloggers anything in return (sounds much like my employment experience).  To be fair to Wellsphere, it's all documented in their ToS, but the process sounded shady.  Given my experience with them, it's par for the course.

I'm going to keep a list of some of the better posts about the situation, and will update this regularly.  If you have a gripe, leave it in the comments, Twitter with #wellsphere, or drop me an e-mail.

• Health bloggers bite back as Wellsphere sells on posts provided for free - a good summary post with links to other important blog posts
• How the health blogosphere was scammed - a great post with e-mails from Wellsphere and snippets from their ToS
• All is not Well(sphere) - a personal commentary from a blogger who feels they were scammed
• The Wellsphere blogging controversy - a great explanation of the psychology behind Wellsphere
• My email to Wellsphere and HealthCentral - an open letter to the companies expressing her concern with Wellsphere's program
• Will Health Bloggers Foil the Acquisition of Wellsphere by HealthCentral - an incisive post that suggests that bloggers may scuttle the deal (the comments for this one are very interesting)
• Wellsphere scandal and blog network scam - suggests that people should request a Google penalty at Wellsphere for shady business practices
• New Wellsphere badges - a blogger made some new badges for Wellsphere.  I included one in this post.
• Liars go to Hell.  I'm talking to you Wellsphere - accuses Wellsphere of stealing her blog's content and demands a public apology
• #wellsphere on Twitter - to follow the latest conversations.  It tends to light up like a Christmas Tree. Haha.

Can't wait to hear from people!  I'm sure that this company has left a trail of debris in their few years of existence.  I can only hope that HealthCentral will realize that they've bought a house of cards built by a few charlatans and will renege on their offer to buy.

Twittering for the Week

I was inspired by Tara Hunt's post about getting support from her Internet Friendwork.  I've been loathe to use Twitter and Facebook status updates because of losing control over self-marketing and having professional/personal/casual relationships all be blended into one big information stream.  Or whatever.  Life has been getting more transparent for years.  Maybe it's more about laziness and the value I can derive out of Tweets like, "Having trouble finding good documents on product messaging" or "Socrates spends 9 books answering Thrasymachus and doesn't seem to get anywhere.  What the Hell?" or "Still a crappy healer in WoW.  What made me think I could be Pope, let alone a good priest?"

I'm going Twitter all week and update my Facebook status regularly and see what happens.

To find out what I'm up to, just check my Twitter page!

How to choose a blog name

Naming my blog was not easy.  My old blog, iPioneer, was conceived of at the gym with my good friend Scott.  When I finally realized that people identified me more with my blog name than my God-given name, I decided it was time to can the mediocre, sweat-inspired. Really, what the Hell is an iPioneer?  Sounds like some awful Web 1.0 fizzle.  After iPioneer, this blog survived briefly as "philosophygeek," since it's been my handle on Yahoo for years.  But, alas!  I discovered that this goofy remnant from college just seemed even goofier when put up in big letters.

In conversation the other day, I accused my friend Josh of "deliberate ambiguity."  He asked me whether I was commanding him or describing his behavior.  The light bulb went on: what a perfect name for a blog!  The name (itself) is ambiguous.  It could be a command: "Deliberate ambiguity!"  It could be referring to the nature of the posts themselves.  And, as Josh further pointed out, I could be arguing for the de-liberation of ambiguity.  And ain't that what search is trying to do?  I hope I don't get sick of this name after 2 weeks this time =)

As an effort to prevent iPioneers of the future, here are a few simple things to think about when you're naming your blog:

1. Your blog name is forever (think Google cache)
2. Your blog name will be associated with you (whether you like it or not)
3. What's funny now may not be in a couple of months (choose for longevity)
4. You can always start a new blog (but there are switching costs)
5. Make it yours (own whatever you choose)
6. It's not the name, it's what you write (most important)

With those in mind, here are some simple naming schemas to help you generate a list of possible names:

• Claim your god-given name -- You may not be famous now, but you might be someday. If you already got it goin' on, why not seize your slice of cyberspace, a la Seth Godin. If you're gonna get it goin' on in the future, go for it, like my friend Jason Bentley.
• Enhance your god-given name -- Your name probably isn't available, especially if you're a boring guy like "Mark Johnson."  Thus, your name is calling for enhancement.  A good example of this is PhotoMatt, who remains the number one Matt in Google.  See also Scobleizer or GigaOM.
• Use self-deprecating humor -- if you're semi-famous (or even not famous at all) why not poke fun at yourself?  Some good examples in this category are Henry Blodget's Internet Outsider (poking fun at his Bubble predictions at Merrill Lynch) and The Assimilated Negro (no comment necessary)
• Choose a witty phrase -- it's sort of like naming a band.  The blogsphere is seething with names like Rough Type, Signal vs. Noise, and, dare I say, Deliberate Ambiguity.
• Go geek -- I'm sure there are many others like this.  Check out coworker Josh's blog: Has Many: Through, which is some kind of Ruby joke.  Uh huh.
• Just tell us what you do -- advertising should be clear and direct, right?  Try out something like Just WriteComparisonEngines.com
• Go crazy -- when all else fails, just pull out all the stops and pick something memorable and whacked.  Tara Hunt's HorsePigCow truly is Marketing Uncommon.

If you have canonical examples of the above, please leave them in the comments below.  Or, if you know of an archetype that I've missed, let me know and I'll add it.

tags technorati : naming blog