Archive for the 'People' Category

I recently had the chance to interview Twitter CEO and co-founder, Evan Williams, a nice lad who grew up on a farm in rural Nebraska. In this exclusive interview Evan talks about how Twitter came about, how it has evolved and, and his approach to innovation. Read on…

Twitter wasn’t Evan’s first breakthrough product. In 1999 he had started a company called Pyra and, while working on a project management web application as a way to keep track of the project, the team wrote script to turn a personal website into a blog, which eventually turned into Blogger. “It wasn’t at all what our company was planning go do, it was very much just an idea on the side which seemed like a very small idea compared to what we were working on.” They basically just stumbled on the idea behind Blogger.

Evan says that his co-developers had more discipline than he did so wanted to focus on the original product, but he couldn’t bring himself to drop it. “I just couldn’t get rid of the Blogger idea, it kept nagging me,” he says. And he eventually convinced his co-developers to build it on the side. But, “it turned out to be more interesting than then original plan” and Blogger started getting some traction, so eventually they shut down the original project to focus on it. Blogger became very successful and Evan and his partners sold their company, Pyra, together with Blogger for an ‘undisclosed sum’ to Google in February 2003.

With Twitter, Evan says it was similar in some ways, but different in many others. By that time he’d left Google and started a new company, called Obvious, to develop ideas. He called it ‘obvious’ because, he says, often after an idea has been developed other people will say, that it was “obvious” from the start. Compared to Pura, “we were further along with the company,” he says. “We had raised venture capital and were about a year into the company. We were more like 14 people instead of 3. We were focusing on a podcasting product that wasn’t really taking off and so were actively looking for new ideas.” And Twitter was one of the ideas they came up with.

But, why did he think it was a good idea?

It’s not as if there weren’t enough ways to communicate with friends when Twitter was conceived (it was launched in March 2006) - blogs, email, IM, phone…even F2F (’face-to-face’ in Internet jargon). “I don’t know,” says Evan. “A lot of it, for me anyway was gut.” He’d seen how people had used Blogger and saw the similarities with Twitter, and he saw its potential. “Once we had the prototype and were using it ourselves, then it was very clear it was interesting. It was immediately compelling to the small group of us using it.”

But, Twitter didn’t take off overnight. In fact, despite the success of Blogger, he knew Twitter would difficult to explain to the finance folks. He didn’t try to convince the the original investors in his new company of the value of Twitter and eventually he bought the company back from them. “It would have been a tough sell,” admits Evan.

Since its launch three years ago, how people use Twitter has evolved. “It’s changed quite a bit in the ways people use from what we originally imagined,” he says. “It’s continually surprising. Even though we have had the notion for a while that Twitter has the potential to be very big, it’s the way it’s grown and the different uses and the reality of it becoming big in so many different ways is always surprising.” When he first used it he took it much literally, ‘what are you doing?’ to update friends. It’s now become much broader than that. People have learned “It’s just a way to communicate something to a bunch of people at once.” It’s now become a way to find out what’s happening with the things people care about - whether friends, news, events, a band, a sports team.

(Of course Facebook has it’s own ‘what are you doing now?’ feature, but Evan thinks that people use it very differently to how people use Twitter because Facebook is for people in their social circle, wheras Twitter doesn’t have to be.)

He thinks media usage will continue to evolve and before long other things will come along that’ll make Twitter look pretty primitive. But, certain new patterns in media have now started to stabilize. For instance, the reverse chronology time-line (most recent stuff first) seen on blog posts (like this one) is now how people consume media, whereas not too long ago it was a novelty. And, “one that will be obvious to everyone soon is that all media is social media. There will be very few examples of media that stands alone and don’t have commentary from other people.” A positive thing about media, he believes, is that people question its credibility a lot more now than they used to, and media sources - bloggers, twitterers - will get a reputation for being credible when, and if, other people say they are credible.

Obvious doesn’t exist as a company any more, it’s all about Twitter. The plan had originally been to develop more products like Twitter and spin them off into their own companies. “In the case of Blogger and Twitter the ideas that became interesting were not the ideas the companies were founded for,” he says. The most interesting ideas are often hard to fund at first because they are so new. Most times, he says, it’s almost impossible to start something on the side (like he did, twice), you just say, “I can’t do that.” So, he “wanted to create environment to pursue those sort of ideas and where it would also be okay if they didn’t work” - the ideas that exist somewhere between hobbies and ones needing venture capital money.

While the theory behind Obvious is sound, “in practice it didn’t really get off the ground,” he says. “Twitter was getting to the point where it deserved to be its own company. I found myself gravitating towards Twitter and I didn’t know if I wanted to be in a mode where I was switching my focus so much. Multiple times a day I was switching projects and I found, for myself, that way of working didn’t work at all. I came to the conclusion it was better to do one really big thing than lots of small or medium things, and there was nothing that I could think of that was potentially as big as Twitter.” So, Evan is not even thinking beyond Twitter now.” Twitter’s the biggest possible thing I could do,” he says.

I asked him about his creativity. “I’ve always thought of myself as very creative. I’m not a ‘wacky’ creative, I’m more of an innovator and I see potential in things and I see opportunities and I’m good at synthesizing ideas.” He’s very clear that he didn’t invent Twitter, but he did see what it could become. “I’m good at recognizing new ideas when often the people who came up with them don’t recognize them themselves that they’re good ideas.” His skill is partly in “questioning assumptions, which I think is a core thing in creativity. I’m continually asking ‘are we thinking big enough?’ and pushing the team towards not just solving the problem we have today, but thinking much bigger, thinking ‘well, why are we stopping there?’”

And, when it comes to innovation, he is more of a doer than a talker. “I’m a big believer in just trying stuff,” he says. “I don’t want to debate too much whether or not something’s a good idea until we see it in action.” This is possible with web applications in particular where it’s often just as easy to try it out as talk about it. “The Achilles heal of successful products and even companies is that success locks you into a certain mode and it allows the upstarts to come in and try something completely different, or just different enough to be superior.”

During his time working for Google Inc., despite its reputation as one of the most innovative companies around, he saw a lot of projects not able to get off the ground because Google were focused on much more important incremental improvements. “You have to accept a certain amount of discomfort if you think there’s a better way to go.” At Google they use endless amounts of data to make the decisions and are constantly testing new things on a very small percentage of users and seeing their reaction. But, there are many innovations for which that process doesn’t really work, where numbers don’t necessarily tell you the story. “Sometimes you just have to go with your gut,” says Evan.

Talking of his own background, he says, “I definitely think people can learn how to ‘do’ creativity, but I think for the most part people ‘unlearn’ how to do it. At grade school my parents were told by my teachers I would come up with the right answers, but the wrong way. Even if I knew the answer I didn’t want to get to it the way they wanted me to get to it.” He strongly believes that creativity is often beaten out of kids at school, it’s about coming to the same conclusions as everybody else.

He rejected that philosophy, but rebelled in a quite way by throwing his energy into changing the status quo through technology. “It was a nerdy form of rebellion,” he says.

New Yorkers have always had an interesting relationship with Senator Hillary Clinton. We weren’t quite sure what to make of it when she moved into our state apparently for the sole purpose of running for one of our senate seats, and we really didn’t know what to do with her during the now famous race against Rick Lazio. We do know now - on the eve of 2009 - that for the mostpart, we like Senator Clinton, and that she has done an admirable job in her role. She is battle-hardened enough to satisfy even the gruffest of City dwellers, yet thoughtful enough to be genuine. We wish her well as a member of President Obama’s cabinet.

With Senator Clinton soon to leave the legislative branch, Gov. Patterson has to perform a Constitutionally-mandated duty of choosing the much-discussed newbie. This is an awe-inspiring and worthy task, uh isn’t that right, “Governor F-Word”? One prospective name that seems to be circulating is that of a certain Ms. Kennedy - daughter of the last Obama. While Kennedy certainly meets the legal requirements to become a U.S. Senator, I have to wonder if she is up to the task of being one of New York’s crucial legislators.

New Yorkers (like me since birth) strongly dislike non-authentic types. We don’t do bullshit. If you aren’t going to talk straight, we wish you’d get out of our way. There are millions of people in our state and surely someone will give us what we need. That said, when Ms. Kennedy gave an interview to the New York Times, she repeated the phrase “you know” an astounding 142 times. One hundred and forty two! I mean… Palin may have been a public catastrophe, but she has to be cackling now.

Ms. Kennedy, we don’t know. We want to know what qualifies you to be in the Senate as opposed to, say, a public servant at a lower level. We want to know why the interest to become a political figure? All of the sudden? Why after 50 years of “leave me alone and let me raise my children in peace”-iness. Mostly though, we want to know why you don’t deserve comparisons to our dear friend from Alaska, who was ridiculed even by those who did not doubt her.

Objectively speaking, Mrs. Palin has infinitely more political experience than La Kennedy. Palin has been elected to municipal office and statewide office, no small feats, and was (still is) widely lampooned as “not experienced enough” for a shot at Washington. If she lacks experience, what does Ms. Kennedy have besides the President-Elect’s vote to escape this double-standardized criticism?

Look, Caroline (can we call you Caroline?)-we like Teddy. He’s a good man We loved your Uncle Robert. We adored your dad, and because we, like she, epitomized New York, we were beyond infatuated with your mother. We want to like you. But we’re smart and see through the noise.

Please give us something of substance. And add a decent public speaking course to your resume. Or your argument stops at “Gee, my name is Kennedy… you know?”

TV networks used to carefully build and cultivate shows and they branded the shows as important products; this ensured deep viewer engagement and therefore, ka-$$. We call that long-term viability. But today’s fascination with celebrity reality is a get rich quick pyramid scheme leaving the nets with no shows, no identity, and a hell of a lot of problems. (VH1, we’re talking about you and Flava; listen up).

I was flipping through the cable-waves and couldn’t help but notice a pattern: Dancing With The Stars, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab, Celebrity Apprentice, and I think one on celebrity dieting! Yet the writer’s strike was over! Did the writers stay on vacation?

Out of some weird curiously, I watched the first episode of “Celebrity Rehab” – the term train wreck is a generous review. Seeing Jeff Conaway barely mobile or coherent isn’t entertaining in the least but crept into my soul in a dark way. What happened to privacy for someone’s horrible downfall? To a shred of dignity? Celebrities used to represent some kind of intangible ideal. From Bonaduce to Britney it’s clear that the Hollywood landscape has changed, maybe inalterably.

Flimsy reality TV is in its heyday. Gosh, Hilton’s celeb reality show lasted five seasons! (Gees, yet straight-to-DVD “One Night in Paris” lasted but one horrible night!) And just when we thought it was safe to turn on the tube without her, now we hear she’s coming back with a guest spot on “Earl” and a new show hilariously called “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF”!

Wasn’t realty TV a “Real World” concept born from the desire to watch normal people go through their days with human drama the star? Remember our ole friend Puck! He was never a celebrated guy, didn’t pose for mag covers, but we watched him because he was consistently Puck. And Pedro? He inspired us with his transparency.

So the nets are giving us what we want, yeah. Just look at the ratings over these past years. While the broadcast/cable homes rely on more and more reality, and more and more celebrity crap, viewership for everyone (even Bravo) slides fast into let’s-remake-this-channel territory. They can blame the Internet or games or even, like they did last year, Daylight Savings Time!

But it used to be you watched to “go where everyone knows your name” and where friends were “there for you.” Now we have Hugh Hefner chasing – let’s face it – ho’s. Other than Eliot Spitzer, does anyone REALLY want to know who he’s with when the guy is that gross?

Could be that ratings built on lame reality and tawdry fame isn’t what the public wants and they’re merely watching between laundry runs. Maybe instead of slapping the word celeb on every hair-brained concept, networks should invest in content with a shelf life longer than the latest Us Weekly cover story.

Everything on TV seems to be what works now–this second. Look at Fox. If something doesn’t click with us with super-hype before it airs, it’s history. That is not historically how it’s been with huge hits. So why, then, would it work today?

Building a business with a brand band-aid isn’t a Punk strategy. Being Punk is about listening to your consumer/user/viewer, taking that knowledge to heart so it intelligently works today and keeps people into you tomorrow.

To those short attention span thinkers at E!: maybe Paris doesn’t want us to be our BFF. And you know what? I think the folks at home are happy enough with Miley.

We all know the saying “Do as I say, not as I do.” But what happens when instead you preach “Do as I say, because if not I’ll climb down my insanely high horse and nail you to the courthouse door”? Well, you get the Elliot Spitzer story. Scratch that, the Spitzer Catastrophe.

While some are using this as an excuse to reargue the Clinton impeachment – “See? Slick Willy deserved to hang!” (which a lot of us know as “a vast rightwing conspiracy turned a BJ into a national catastrophe, yet it’s OK to lie about WMDs?”) – all that does is miss the evident point.

Facing a blood-seeking Republican Congress, Clinton lived to see the end of his presidency; Spitzie on the other hand was forced to resign within days of being found otu. Is it because one committed adultery while the other spent an estimated 80 Gs on prostitutes? Maybe. Or the real difference is, we think, Branding.

Sidebar: $80,000, wow, what were those women doing that made it worth $4500 a pop? I really can’t figure it out! If they haven’t started a how-to book, they’re need an agent. “Thousand Dollar Sex for Dummies,” there’s the title.

I’m back…. Politicians, like all public figures, consumer products, or corporations, are brands. They each use publicity and marketing to craft an image in the public consciousness. Clinton felt our pain cause he was one of us. He scarfed Big Macs, took an occasional toke, chased a little skirt. Was a dude!

But Spitzer, he was so much better than all of us, or at least that’s what he portended. The man used a shield of incorruptibility and a sword of integrity to smote those too morally weak to obey the law. He went after pillars or conmen of Wall Street (not to mention a few prostitution rings…I tell you undercover research must be mad fun) while glaring with open contempt down at those who failed to meet his standards. If your image is holier-than-thou Mr. Clean, you better make sure there’s truth in advertising.

When building a brand, you’ve got to leave room for human error, which is always inevitable as the absolute law of the universe. People make mistakes. PR and marketing strategies need to be flexible enough to allow for gaffes, lapses, peccadilloes, and, what the hay, even the occasional scandal.

It’s not what he did, right, but the hypocrisy that was immediately associated with the actions he pulled. Those nighttime activities conflicted with his brand and messaging. Were his actions that horrible? I don’t think so. But he was so buried in his own rhetoric that he had no choice but to step down before he was laughed down!

Want proof? Take Louisiana Senator and prostitute-lover David Vitter. After his recreational habits were outed by Larry Flynt, Vitter plum apologized. The verdict is not in on Vitter’s Hoegate, but it’s worth noting how, yep, he’s still there. While Vitter might have disappointed his constituents, nothing close to outrage followed.

So the lesson: Don’t let the messaging outstrip reality. And if you see a copy of “Thousand Dollar Sex for Dummies,” get it before the prurients protest it off the shelves. Cause according to a former high-ranking public official it’s worth the price.

You probably saw today that Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, is to become CEO once more after 7 years away from the post, a job he’d held for 13 years up until 2000. The reason for his return is to revive the performance of the flagging brand, which has seen its share price fall 48% in the last 12 months. This follows a leaked memo last year that Schultz had sent to Jim Donald, the dude he’s replacing as CEO, warning of “the commoditization of the Starbucks experience.”

Schultz is right about the need for Starbucks to be seen as something special if it hopes to carry on charging $3 or more for a cup of frothy coffee with so much competition from McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts, and he recognized how important it was in the book he wrote 10 years ago, “Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time.”

One problem is that there are so many Starbucks cafes (1,065 were opened last year to give a grand total of 6,700), making it difficult to support a position of specialness or distinctiveness. Schultz is convinced, however, that there’s still a lot of room for growth in the US - although it’s not yet clear whether he’ll stick to target of 20,000 cafes in the US (40,000 worldwide) that Jim Donald announced last October - and says that the drive for efficiency is to blame for depleted romance and theater of a visit to the stores.

I think that he needs to do a more serious overhaul than simply getting the barristas to put on a show when frothing the lattes. To stop the chain seeming like a chain, he needs to break the uniformity between stores, so that each one provides a unique and distinctive experience that reflects the neighborhood it’s in, the customers and the people who work there. Individual stores need to introduce special blends that you won’t find in the others (at least, not at the same time), chalkboards, community noticeboards and initiatives to help the local environment.

Customers used to talk about “my Starbucks,” but that sense of owneship has since gone. It’s become another faceless corporation selling undiferentiated products and, what with recession just around the corner, it’s going to become much more difficult to justify the price premium. The values people will seek in their purchases will be about discernment and frugality and Starbucks doesn’t not easily with either of those.