Month: January 2011

How to Replicate Airplane Productivity: Or Why I Don’t Buy Wireless on Flights

I am incredibly productive on airplanes.  I read faster, write more and am more creative.  Some of the best ideas for Entrustet have come while I’ve been at 30,000 feet.  In early January, I took a flight from San Francisco to Atlanta on my way back to Chile.  During that 3.5 hour flight, I wrote my last five blog posts, read all of The Economist’s dense year end review and the last half of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  (I don’t get that book at all, but that’s another blog post)

That’s 3,754 words written, 50+ Economist articles and about 250 pages of fiction.  It felt great and quality didn’t suffer.  Three of my last four blog posts are now in my five most trafficked posts of all time.  So first, how did it happen?

I’ve experienced similar spurts of productivity when on airplanes.  I’ve been able to attribute it to a few things:

1. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

There are no distractions.  No trash tv, no twitter, no facebook messages and emails to check.  There’s no phone calls and you can’t leave (unless you have a parachute).  It’s just you and your thoughts for the duration of the flight.

2. Traveling causes you to think

Getting out of your normal routine changes your perspective, even if you don’t notice it.  When you get on that flight, you’re out of your routine.  You see things differently.  Couple this new perspective with no distractions and you’ll be more productive.

3. You have an uninterrupted, known block of time to work with

You (hopefully) will have a defined block of time during your flight.  When you have a definite stop and end time, you’re more likely to get things done, than if you’re just sitting at your desk or in your kitchen trying to get things done.

Once I got back to Santiago, I looked at all of the things I’d done during my 3.5 our flight and was astounded.  I’d been meaning to write most of those blog posts, but I would get distracted by tv, sports, friends, email, phone calls, whatever.  I could always push it until later.  I don’t buy wireless because my productivity is so good without it.  I decided I wanted to try to replicate my time on an airplane.

Here’s what I’ve been doing so far:

1. Exercise at a strange time

Go on a walk, take a bike ride, go for a swim.  Do something to take your mind off of whatever you’ve been thinking about.  I guessed that exercise would replicate travel and getting out of my routine.  Even 15 minutes will do.

2. Set a defined block of time and pick a location

After exercising, pick a defined amount of time for your “plane time.”  I’ve started with 1 hour.  I’ve been going up to our rooftop, but you can go to a coffee shop, a park or anywhere where you you’ll have at least one hour of uninterrupted work time.

3. Turn off your cell phone

Do it.  It’s not the end of the world.  Better yet, leave it at home.

4. Bring diverse materials

Bring a book, magazine, notebook/pen and your computer.  For me, I want to work on whatever I feel like, not something I need to get done.  It helps me avoid writers block or decision paralysis.  I’ve done this two times now and the first time, I just read for an hour.  The second time, I worked almost exclusively on Entrustet.

So far, it seems to be working.  In our society, we’re always plugged in and multitasking.  It’s been worth it to me to take a step back and just let my mind wander to whatever task it wants to do.  Getting out of a routine has been helpful to me to duplicate the productivty gains I’ve experienced on flights.

I’m planning on experimenting to see if I can get closer to my airplane level of productivity and will update as I find out more.  Are you more productive on airplanes?  Do you try to get out of your routine to work better?  Interested in giving my ideas a test flight?  Got any tips?

An Open Letter to Paul Ryan

Representative Ryan,

I’m a 25 year old technology entrepreneur originally from Milwaukee, WI.  I went to school at the University of Wisconsin and have stayed in Madison after graduating in 2009 to start another web business.

I’ve followed your career with interest since I first heard about you sometime during high school.  I’ve always been impressed with your views on the economy and your willingness to propose solutions to issues that other politicians have been unwilling to take on.  This is exactly what we need from our politicians.

It was great see you take on some of the political third rails of our budget process when you released your Roadmap for America.  While I don’t agree with everything in your new budget proposal, I’m extremely happy to see you proposing real solutions to the huge problems we face as a country.

I’m writing today to tell you to keep up the good work, but I also want to implore you to not fall into the trap of veering right on the social issues and falling into the religious right.  I talk to business people all the time who would love to support you and your ideas and view you as one of the only competent politicians in the United States today, but if you start talking the talk of the religious right, you’ll lose much of this support.  Don’t get co-opted like the Tea Party did.

I’m not telling you to change what you believe in.  I believe that our fiscal problems are the single biggest threat to the United States and believe that if nothing is done, we’ll turn into a third world country, complete with huge inflation, income inequality and a huge underclass of unemployed people.

I don’t know what you believe on abortion, gay marriage, don’t ask don’t tell, drug legalization, creationism or any of the other religious right issues and honestly I don’t care.  Just focus on the economic issues and you’ll likely have my support, along with a huge amount of business people who want to support you.

Simply saying, “I don’t support abortion and gay marriage, but the biggest problem facing the United States is our budget deficit, national debt and the economy.  I want to fix these huge problems first before we talk about these other important issues,” will give you huge credibility and I think it’s what the country needs.  While I will disagree with you on most of those issues, I’m willing to overlook it if you don’t veer extremely right and make it a focal point of your platform.  Please don’t fall into the trap John McCain fell into in the last presidential election.

Please continue to focus on economic issues and continue to represent Wisconsin well, especially tonight when you give the response to President Obama.

An Empire Eaten From Within

In a recent edition of the Economist, Ariana Huffington claims we face a stark choice as Americans.  We can continue going down our current path and turn into a third world country, a shell of our former selves, or Americans can demand more from their leaders and start to take the lead in their own lives to restore the US back to previous heights.

The US is already starting to resemble a third world country in many ways:  The gap between the rich and the poor is growing toward South American levels.  City and state governments are making decisions to cut school teachers and school days, turning off street lights and deciding to let some roads return to nature.

Our infrastructure is beginning to crumble and we’re developing an underclass of unskilled, unemployable people in addition to the abundance of service jobs like nannies, maids, restaurant workers and farm work that are being filled on one side by over educated workers and on the other illegal immigrants.  Our deficits are some of the highest per capita in the world and our national debt is the biggest in the history of the world.  All the while, we demand more.

The rich want to pay lower taxes, but still get the benefits of the state.  Bankers want to be able to play in their casino and if they screw up, they cry to be bailed out from the public coffers.  Public unions want to retire in their 50s or early 60s with a full pension and health care, while contributing hardly anything toward these benefits while they are still working.  Republicans want to keep spending huge amounts on the military and continue to spend on bases in 75% of the world.  Democrats want to spend more on transfer payments, regulation and social programs and nobody is willing to compromise.

Economist say that people are “motivated by self interest,” but I think we’ve crossed the line from self-interest to plain old selfishness.  Most Americans want theirs and don’t seem to care about the rest of the country.  They think (and sometimes say), “as long as I get mine, fuck the rest.”

America’s rich are starting to realize that they don’t really need us anymore.  They can live the good life in the United States while producing and selling their products in developing markets around the world.

I’ve written extensively about how Americans have lived the good life off of debt, but it seems like the rest of the world is starting to see through our profligacy.  People want to continue to live in McMansions with the latest cars and electronic toys and spend outrageous amounts of money on the military, health care and social security, without feeling any of the pain of actually paying the bills.

I haven’t really proposed any solutions, mostly because I don’t really see any that have a chance of working.  It will take a huge change in America’s mindset.  I don’t generally subscribe to the “great leader” theory of change, but they do come around every once in awhile.  Ghandi, Martin Luther King , Nelson Mandela and others have inspired huge, national movements that changed the world, but most change comes from within, from smaller movements.

I think the only way we will see the change necessary to save America from it’s current trajectory is a leader or a movement that is willing to tell it like it is.  Americans need to be told:

  • Manufacturing jobs are not coming back
  • Americans need to be able to compete with people in the rest of the world, so you need to try in school.  A college degree with no skills does not cut it anymore.
  • Our standard of living is going to fall, we need to downsize our lives
  • We ALL need to make sacrifices and many of these sacrifices will be painful.
  • You can’t always get what you want.  If you’re demanding 100% of your agenda, you’re being selfish and damaging the country.  Even if you’re demanding 75% you’re still probably doing it.

We need to paint people who are being selfish (not self interested) as the selfish people they are.  Public unions can’t continue to live like they have.  Bankers cannot continue to speculate and gamble with our money.  The military will have to be scaled back and bases will have to be closed.  We’ll have to examine legalizing marijuana and releasing non-violent offenders.  We’ll have to look at privatizing portions of social security.  We’ll have to demand that Americans take personal responsibility and get in shape (economically and physically).  This will lower health care costs for us all.  We’ll need to back off the ledge of our 24 hour, soundbite, black vs. white “news” cycle and go back to actually solving problems.

We need to create a common sense movement to tell our leaders they are on the wrong track.  It’s not a Republican/Democrat issue.  It’s a systemic problem.  The current crop in both parties are part of the problem.

We need to turn inward and take a long look at ourselves and start to take responsibility.  We have the government (and the media) we deserve.  It’s a selfish government, catering to the needs of special interests, rather than the greater good.  We need to demand that our government tackles the big problems, not the politically expedient ones.  If we don’t, we’ll continue down the path we’re on.  Nobody will do it for us.  It’s on us.

If we don’t, we’ll end up an empire eaten from within.  And it will be our fault.

Do you agree?

How to Talk to Media and Get Quoted in the Press

The first time I was interviewed in the media, I think I was about 19 and was incredibly excited, but also nervous.  Over the 30 minute interview with my local newspaper, I talked a ton and thought it went really well.  When the article came out, I wasn’t even quoted and only got a short mention.

The next interview I did with another newspaper, they quoted me, but took some of the quotes out of context and tried to pin me into a corner on one aspect of my business.  Over the next three years, I got better at talking to the media and giving public presentations, culminating in a 20 minute presentation to a congressional committee (PDF) and a TV news segment about my website.

Fast-forward six years.  My business partner Jesse and I have been interviewed 100s of times for major newspapers and blogs including the NY Times, Mashable, the Financial Times, TechCrunch and have appeared live on Fox Business News, two local TV stations and multiple radio shows including NPR San Francisco.  Now we both get prime coverage, tons of quotes and compliments on how well we handle speaking to the press.

So what went wrong in 2005? And how have Jesse and I gotten to the point where we’re completely comfortable in any media situation that comes our way?

In 2005, I talked quickly, rambled and didn’t really practice ahead of time.  I gave up too much information just because the reporter asked.  I talked about too many things, but not one super interesting stat.  In short, I made the journalist’s job hard.

Over the course of 2005-2008, I got better speaking to the media with practice.  In 2009, just before we were launching Entrustet at South By Southwest, we hired a PR firm called Shift Communications to help us out with our launch for our first few weeks.  They did a good job helping us get in the news, but to me, their real value with in their prep work.

Shift interviewed Jesse and me and then told us which parts to keep and which parts sucked.  They listened in on our first interviews and then helped us with “after action reports.” After each call, Shift employees told us how we could have said something better, the parts the journalist really liked and the parts we should drop for future interviews.  After a few weeks, Jesse and I were clearly getting better.  By the time our contract with Shift was up, we were pretty good.

Over the next few months, we honed our interview style on our own.  Here’s 19 tips for giving interviews so that your quotes get used and you don’t say something you regret:

Before the Interview

 

1.     Practice.  Write down 3-4 key points that you want to get across and practice saying them concisely.  Practice on your friends, family, in the mirror, random victims in the coffee shops/bars.  Try reaching out to small blogs and pitch them your story.  If you make a mistake or are nervous, only a small audience will notice.

2.     Get 1 go-to stat.  Ours is three Facebook users die every single minute and Facebook doesn’t know who they are or what they wanted done with their accounts.  With ExchangeHut, it was we facilitated ticket transfers for 10% of the student section during homecoming games. Our Facebook stat has been used in the NY Times, Atlantic, TechCrunch and many more.

3.     Get Feeback. Find someone outside your company who will agree to listen to your first few interviews while you are giving them who can provide feedback after the interview is done.

4.     Make a plan. Decide if there is anything you absolutely don’t want to discuss and go over your 3 main points you’ve been practicing.

During the Interview

 

5.     Relax. The interviewer wants to get your story.

6.     Ask how much time you have. At the beginning, ask the reporter if he has a hard stop, which is asking if the reporter must stop at a certain time. If you only have a short window, don’t chitchat, just get right to the point.

7.     Talk slowly. Reporters are taking notes, so talk slowly.  If you’re live, talking slowly makes you sound relaxed, smart and personable, even if you’re not.

8.     Don’t ramble.  Try not to speak for more than 30-60 seconds at a time.

9.     Answer directly. Don’t use business buzzwords and don’t speak too technically.

10. Don’t feel like you need to answer every question. If you don’t want to answer a question, don’t.  Develop a line to sidestep the question.  Say, “we’d rather keep that stat private.” Or “we’re a private company and we don’t disclose those figures.”

11. Don’t fill silence. In non-live interviews, silence is ok. The interviewer is gathering her thoughts or taking notes.  They don’t want to hear your nervous verbal diarrhea.

12. Let the interviewer finish. Even if you know what the question is going to be.  Nothing pisses off a journalist more and it makes you sound like an asshole.

13. Don’t sell.  Inform. Nobody likes a salesman.  Being a salesman is the quickest way to piss off a reporter, who will not include your quotes.  Be yourself.

14. If you don’t know, admit it. Don’t make something up.  The correct response is “That’s a great question we hadn’t though of yet.  I’ll research it and let you know the answer when we find out.”

 

After the Interview

 

15. Say Thanks. Send a thank you email telling the reporter that they should feel free to contact you if they have any follow up questions or need anything clarified.  Include your phone/email.

16. Follow up with facts. If there is anything to add to the story, email the reporter before the article is published.  For example, Oklahoma just passed a law that allows executors access to online accounts of dead people.  I emailed a link to any reporters who were still working on our story and might benefit from it.

17. Respond to comments/Twitter. When the article is published, make sure to respond to comments and interact on Twitter.

18. Do an after action report with your friend who listened to the interview.  Be honest and demand honesty from your friend.  If they don’t provide honest feedback, you’ll never get better.

19. Be honest with yourself and learn from each interview.  Take your friend’s feedback and incorporate it into your next interview.

Do you have any tips or strategies you use to make sure you get quoted?  Do you disagree with any of my tips?  What would you add to my list?

Photo Credit: Jon S.