Crashing the party

I crashed the DEMO cocktail party. Steve and I presented at DEMO last year and this year I have some friends officially attending the event. It’s in town; so I stopped by. I met some “famous” people who are bloggers. Turns out some “famous” bloggers don’t like technologists who upset their world view. Who knew? Specifically, it seems I’ve angered a prominent blogger, or two, whose day-jobs are as software entrepreneurs. As a result I’ve had a few in the “famous” A-list blogger crowd turned loose on me. Dag nabbit! Periodically I bump into these guys who relish telling me that I’ve insulted their close and personal friend. ?!? How? Because we kick ass? This competitor had a three year head start and we’re squashing them. Hell, if it weren’t for the <back-handed-compliment>prominence of the head of the company no one would even know of them..</back-handed-compliment>

I was introduced to this Shel Israel dude at the party. His name sounded familiar. I wasn’t real sure who he was, but he sounded familiar. I gather he’s well known, maybe even “famous”. He asked what I did. I told him MindTouch develops the world’s greatest wiki. He said something about a competitor. I said: yes, I really appreciate his hard work <sincerely I do>. However, we’re seeing over 600 installs a day to their 20. Shel Israel then made some snide comment about my tattoo. He took the time to point out that tattoos are in violation of Jewish law. I have a tattoo in Hebrew that is sometimes visible. ?!? LOL, You should see the one on my ass, it’s a beaut! 😉 (I thought to myself) He then informed me I insulted his close and personal friend <the competitor> and politely stomped off. I’m summarizing and I’m omitting the B-list blogger who presented me with a shockingly similar exchange and who referenced Shel. Funny stuff really. Anyway, I guess Shel didn’t like the cold hard facts of our 40 to 1 adoption rate differential. Facts suck. I wish everything could be spun. Later that night I approached Shel again and I sincerely tried to make nice. He’s “famous” man! He could make me! Ok, yes my intensity _can_ be misinterpreted. I believe it was. Again the dude was, at best, curt. Indeed the woman standing with us apologized to me. I assume on his behalf.

Graeme and Marc will be covering DEMO. Keep up with the event on their respective blogs. These guys may not act like royalty, but they are class acts and good solid journos. The only insight I have to offer about company’s at te event is that while at the party I met the dudes who are doing FeedHub. Cool concept. I’m testing it out now. We’ll see how well they do this.

Anyway, crashing the party was fun. DEMO is cool. Perhaps I’ll meet you while crashing a party near you. 😉

Photo credit: Brian Solis

Tech~Surf~Blog: MindTouch Is Kicking Wiki Butt

Cross post

Tech~Surf~Blog: MindTouch Is Kicking Wiki Butt
When I read an article recently in Information Week that compared various options for content management systems, including wikis, I thought it was strange Mindtouch wasnt included. So, I asked cofounder Aaron Fulkerson, who was equally perplexed. “Were seeing 500 too 600 installations of our software every single day, and yet many in the media dont seem to know us,” he said. Aaronfulkerson “Weve seen 2304% growth in adoption in the last year. And a 1666% growth in just the last three months.” Similar open-source companies, like SugarCRM and Zimbra, he told me, have had $20-30M in investment and drive similar adoption rates to what MindTouch has achieved with just a $3.5M investment to date. I say thats a pretty powerful entrepreneurial story. “Weve achieved the success we have so far by being open, honest, and authentic. We listen to our tribe,” said Fulkerson.

Yes, apparently MindTouch does know how to build community. I think we’ve proven this. Our company’s growth is directly attributable to our ability to build a community around our products. Personally, I’m amazed how quickly we’ve done this. We only just launched Deki Wiki July 25, 2006. We have managed to cultivate a vibrant community in one short year!

To be clear, our ability to build community is largely attributable to our product. However, all the cool community technologies in the world are useless if you’re not honest, authentic and attentive to the wishes of your tribe. We listen to our tribe. They know best.

When I say our product I want to be clear about something. Deki Wiki isn’t MindTouch’s product. It stopped being MindTouch’s product about four months ago when it “hit” big and we went from 50 downloads a day to a few hundred a day. When I say our product I’m including the extended community of users and developers in that ‘our’. In short Deki Wiki belongs to the tribe. MindTouch is only the primary implementer of the tribe’s desires and needs. This tribe has increasingly steered the development of Deki Wiki. Beyond the product road map the tribe has also dictated things like product messaging and pricing. MindTouch is only adapting to the input provided by the tribe.

What happened to 60 Minutes?

I was once fond of 60 Minutes. I just watched <time-shifted> the 60 Minutes interview with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad from last Sunday (September 22, 2007) in which Scott Pelley “interviews” Ahmadinejad. What a farce. That wasn’t an interview. This was an attempt to publicly ostracize the radical Ahmadinejad. The result was making this radical anti-semitic Islamic religious nut seem like the moderate and well-reasoned of the two. Pelley you’re a moron! My God. Way to go. You smug prick. Are you working for an Iranian PR firm? You may as well be. Here is the transcript. To fully appreciate it you have to see Pelley’s condescending grin as he proudly proclaims he is “quoting George W. Bush directly for the record” whom he declares to be “without question” a very pious and learned leader. So I inserted learned bit, but it’s certainly implied. It takes a special kind of prick to make Ahmadinejad look rational. When did 60 Minutes become a propaganda mouth piece for the United States? You’ve lost my viewership Pelley. You frickin’ dong.