Getting the 411 on the upcoming Dodgeball Contest for Big Brothers/Big Sisters in Oklahoma City. Make sure you email dodgeballokc@gmail.com before 1/23 to get your team information in ASAP.
Sidebar: Here are two copies of the video from two different hosting services. Which one plays better on your machine from your location.
http://www.vimeo.com/8623079Tuesday night I was lucky enough to hang out with a friend of mine Rex Barrett from RexBarret.us . If you are not familiar with the outstanding work he does with Project OKC check out our FIRST video with him. In this session we share some thoughts on what is coming up for Project OKC in 2010, my realistic attitude, and why in the end it (meaning Twitter) does not matter. We also get a guest appearance from James Harber of Studio FJ fame and the bling master himself Dan Gordon from Samuel Gordon Jewelers. Check us out in our tacky sweaters at the Iguana Lounge Tacky Sweater Taco Tuesday (Dan got left out in the final edit but I promise he was there) :
http://www.vimeo.com/8351641The Oklahoma Twitter Community is having a twitter meetup this Thursday morning in Downtown Oklahoma city. I’ll be there along with Derrick Parkhurst and other people in Oklahoma City trying to make the tech community grow and prosper. Every event that is put together is a great amount of fun, and really helps out in the networking department. Everybody is welcome and invited – not just the tech community (props out to all of the ad firms that are on twitter 
)
For more information and to sign up visit: http://okccoco.com/
You can also connect to me on twitter and get the latest updates: http://twitter.com/stopdoingnothin
And don’t forget to get Derrick’s twitter also for the latest info on the OKCCoCo project: http://twitter.com/ThirtySixthSpan
For those of you that know me you know that I never miss a chance to meet new people (For those of you that don’t know me – you can fix that by reading below). I believe that networking and the “social” part of social media and communication have amazing power. The more people you meet (and the more you meet people) the greater your chances of success are. Nothing… absolutely nothing improves your chances of doing what you want in life and being where you want to be that getting introduced to someone that will help you get you there. It is just one of those great secrets that they don’t teach you in school.
To that end you should plan to come out to see what is going on in the world of information technology in our great state of Oklahoma.
What: OpenBeta
When: 10/30/2008 7-10pm
Where: IAO Gallery downtown
Why: No more questions. Go here OpenBeta and register to get in the door. Must bring ID!
You can plan on meeting some great people there like the event sponsor Derrick Parkhurst over at 36th Span. I know for sure one of the speakers will be Chad Henderson from RefreshOKC and ElmoFromOK. Oh yeah… and I’ll be there too.
It sounds like a great evening where we will see some demos of what is up and coming for applications in our state. I,for one, cannot wait.
What should you do in preparation?
1. Bring business cards. Alot of them. More than you think you’ll ever need. Don’t have any? Get over to VistaPrint right now and order some. You have 14 days and if I meet you in person there is NO EXCUSE you can have that you cannot give me a card. I will probably have my cards in every pocket on me. And don’t be stingy with your cards. If you have cards sitting at your house or in your car you have wasted money. You should always be trying to give them out. If someone says “Hey I need to share your info with/put you touch with/tell them about your idea…” give them 3 cards. It also would not hurt to carry some pens and sticky notes on you.
2. Plan and work on your one minute elevator speech. You may get five minutes, but be ready if you only get one minute with somebody. You should be able to wow people fast. If you are excited about your project you should be able to get other people excited. Derrick has set this up to be a fast paced event so let’s not disappoint him. There will be people of influence there. I know because I have invited them and some have confirmed. I have also pinged the Daily Oklahoman about being there. But no promises. I am going to work on the television stations.
3. Assume that everybody you talk to might be able to help you in some way. The guy in the suit and tie might be flat broke, but the guy in the jeans and tshirt might be a multi-millionaire. Never ASSuME.
4. Help also. Don’t leech only. See how you can help the people you meet. What do they need that you have in terms of talent or time or contacts ? Who do you know that can help take them further in life ?
1. Dress like a slob. I know this is hip, web 2.0 and is supposed to be a fast paced event. But the first thing people see before you open your mouth is how you look. Your appearance screams at me – like this commercial . If you have no slacks and a decent collared shirt please find that one pair of jeans that you have that has no holes and wash them. Same goes with the shirt. Say it with me “The iron is my friend”. No good shoes? Go to Payless and spend $20 bucks. Extra points for a sports coat and being clean shaven.
2. Talk over peoples heads or talk down to people because they don’t get your idea right off the bat. Some of us are older and the gears in our head take awhile to turn.
3. Trash talk anybody – present or otherwise. It shows immaturity and speaks louder than your cool application. And PLEASE don’t do start anything remotely related to an OS war while you are showing your app on your hip MacBook or cool TabletPC. I’ve probably used more hardware platforms, operating systems, and programming languages than of most you have ever seen. At the end of the day the user of the application does not know what platform things are on and DOES NOT CARE.
That is all for now. I am going to try and get out some video entries in the next week about this event. Please forward this page to as many people as possible and let’s help make this a great night for some great applications.
Love ya!
A little smidgen of news about us showed up today in our state paper the Daily Oklahoman.\r\n\r\nhttp://newsok.com/article
A bit of good news we received this week. My company, Focus Information Technology Solutions Inc will be featured not once but twice in upcoming editions of the largest newspaper in our state the Daily Oklahoman. This came about after just being in the right place at the right time.
I attend a local venture forum group on regular basis. Last week I happen to sit next to a reporter that is respnsible for the business beat . He likes to local interest stories on businesses that live and prosper in Oklahoma. BAM! I am his man. He also wanted to do a story on local technology ventures that are run by African-Americans. BAM! I am his man again.
Once these stories are published I’ll share the links to the online version of the articles. If you are here as a result of those articles – welcome.
Saw this little gem of a post over at DLM and it reminded me of some of the great things I’ve learned about networking:
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/02/stop-networking-and-start-building.html
1. Do not seek out people to sell them something. Also known as – Make friends and then sell your friends something if they are interested. Friends last a lot longer that pipelines, quotas and sales. You need friends to make more friends. You need friends to grow and learn. Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village of friends and luck to raise a business. Focus Information Technology Consulting (http://allaboutfocus.com) continues to experience amazing growth every year because I take the time to learn intimate details about all of the people that I meet (and I meet ALOT of people). And then if the oppourtunity ever presents itself I might have a chance to do business with these friends that I am making. But work on the friendship first. It will last a lot longer than the sale ever will.
2. Network like crazy. I seek out every business event, social event, VC event, etc in Oklahoma City and make it to every one I can – Even if it means I need to sacrafice my hourly income. My goal is to meet as much of the Oklahoma City business community as possible. Not just know their names. But know their faces, their families, and their needs and desires. I track all of these details in various places, but mostly in my CRM system. These people are going to introduce me to other people that I don’t know, etc. ,etc. ad nauseum. In the long term I want all of these people to know what I do in case they know anybody that ever needs my services. I am throwing alot of spaghetti against the wall every single day. More of it is sticking every day.
3. If you have business cards sitting around you are wasting money. I actually heard this from somebody once “I am very careful about giving out my business cards because they were expensive and I need to keep them for as long possible”. Are you kidding me? Every business card sitting in the box is wasted money as long as it keeps sitting there. I give them out the EVERYBODY. Cashiers that take my money at Starbucks, people I meet at nightclubs, my bankers (even though they want MY business). I even give them out to people I already have contracts with. When I get a new set my goal is to get rid of them as soon as possible.
As I finished off number three I realized that I have about 100 more in the back of my head. Sounds like I need to do some more posting about this. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts via comments below.
I was one of the few lucky people to get a Beta invitation to WhyGoSolo. This means I filled out their form and begged for it. Well I was finally able to sign in this past weekend and take a peek. It appears to be a great product, but unlike other sites this one will not grow just by you connecting with random people. This site will require WORK on the users part for it to be of any value.
WhyGoSolo is a very different type of social networking site. It is not focused on helping you make virtual connections (LinkedIn has excelled at that and I have all kinds of neat random people of no value in my ‘network’) . It appears to me that it is focused on helping you make REAL live flesh and blood people connections. In a nutshell – You are going to the basketball game. I am going to the basketball game. Let’s plan it out and go to together. Now just take this concept and apply it coffee shop meetings, business dinners, conferences, poker games, etc. WhyGoSolo means “why go to that place or event by yourself.”.
Once you join and sign in you have the usual places to list your occupation, sites, hobbies, location, and passions. But the great part about the site is the ‘Community Board’ section. It is here where you can go search for events (not the weak online type. The real human type.) that are happening in your country, state and city. They have the events broken up into different sections so it is easy to find poker games vs. church meetings vs. off broadway shows, etc. As I check right now their list of events is starting to build. There are none here in Oklahoma City planned except my one test one. But the events list in the large cities on the East coast are starting to grow.
My open suggestions for improvement in a future version or versions:
1. You should gather the users zip code in their profile. This will allow you to prepare for…
2 . As the site grows I don’t think city will be enough of a drilldown. You should get it to show events within X miles of Zip Code 12345. The events might have to be added that way also.
3. Once you get #1 done incorporate Google maps so I can see where the events are in my city relative to me.
4. Allow for recurring events.
Overall I am pretty happy with the site. But like I mentioned earlier this site needs ALOT of input to be useful. User contributed content will be vital for this site to succeed. The WGS development team has busted their butts to bring us something pretty darn cool. So go over there and get your signup so you can add your events. In other words – Stop Doing Nothing!
Have a great week.
Patrick
P.S. Are you using WGS yet? If so post some comments of your first impression. I know the authors read this blog so any suggestions for improvement are welcome here also.
I love technology. It allows me to do things like sit in the Oklahoma City airport and blog.
(I am headed out to L.A. on business. If you are an L.A. blogger and want to get together for coffee and a chat let me know).
I am pretty excited about travelling today. The thought of landing in L.A. and wandering around my old stomping ground always puts a smile on my face. It was not always like this.
From when I started my business (1998) to about three years ago (2004) I did nothing but travel. The consulting engagements I had were never in my home city of Oklahoma City. I travelled back and forth across the country weekly. And I even did a 5 week stint in Spain. It got to the point where I would wake up in the middle of the night and walk into stuff because I had no clue where I was and what time it was. I really started to dislike the travelling consultant gig. But hey… it did get me to the Aadvantage Platinum level at American Airlines. Last time I checked my account I had around 650,000 miles with them.
But then when I was able to land a grow a local contract I started to miss the travel. It was almost too easy to get up and go back and forth to the same location for weeks and months on end. I also started to miss the people at the airport. I know that seems silly, but these were people I was used to seeing a weekly basis. I knew them, thier schedules, their childrens names, etc. As I sit here in the airport now and look around I don’t recognize any of these people.
So I have come to the conclusion that I would not mind travelling some more. Maybe once every month or two. This is a good time for this revelation also because I am in a position to start to really grow my business. I have four people working for me – three developers and one business consultant – that really know their stuff. This will allow me to get my head out of the coding business and into the business part of the business (if that makes sense). I feel very responsible to the people that work for me. They and their families are depending on the growth of my company. I’ll gladly travel if it is what is needed for me to fulfull my obligation to them.
Have you travelling recently? If you are a road warrior or homebody (both extremes) I’d like to know what your thoughts are too much/too little travel.
xo,
Patrick
Did you read my earlier post about a glimmer of our dream coming true?
Well I started a 2nd blog to track our progress on that project. I invite everybody to go over and subscribe to that blog also. If you are in the Oklahoma City area then you will get a major treat at the end of September 2007.
The new blog: WeLoveOurHouse
 |  |  |
Recent Comments