Shabbir's Diary

Your life's work

I was struck today by several confluenced events whose central theme is someone's life's work.  It's not always a giant benefit to the planet, but it seems that there are lots of stories, big and small, that show how doing something you love ends up having a huge impact on others.

First, there was the story in this morning's Wall Street Journal about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke steering his way through the subprime housing meltdown at age 53 [subscription required], a crisis Greenspan admitted he didn't even see coming.  Here's an excerpt:

"Mr. Bernanke had been preparing for the crisis for much of his adult life. He grew up in a small South Carolina town, the son of the local drugstore owner. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979 and spent the next 23 years in academia, most of it at Princeton University.

He has long taken exception to suggestions that he lacks Mr. Greenspan's feel for the markets. Much of his career he has studied how the financial system and the economy interact, in particular during the Great Depression. He told a Fed conference in 1999 that one of the key mistakes the Fed made during the Depression was "to allow the financial system to collapse." [emphasis added -Shabbir]

Second is this story of Jonathan Goodwin, 37, from Fast Company, an amateur mechanic whose conversions of factory consumer vehicles to clean running souped up muscle cars is showing the way to the future of human transport.

"With a $5,000 bolt-on kit he co-engineered--the poor man's version of a Goodwin conversion--he can immediately transform any diesel vehicle to burn 50% less fuel and produce 80% fewer emissions. On a full-size gas-guzzler, he figures the kit earns its money back in about a year--or, on a regular car, two--while hitting an emissions target from the outset that's more stringent than any regulation we're likely to see in our lifetime."

And finally, there's no shortage of stories of people just living their daily lives, suddenly getting the chance to perform CPR when they least expected it.  Try googling "cpr child" and you'll see what I mean.  Here's just one, of a man who was 60 when his opportunity came.

"The lifesaving skills Lou Jandoli of Sunrise learned when he was a police officer in New Jersey were tested earlier last month when he came to the aid of a little boy found floating face down in a swimming pool. As Jandoli, 60 and now retired, sunbathed near the swimming pool at the Fairways of Sunrise, his tanning attempts were interrupted by calls for help when the child was pulled unconscious from the pool. Jandoli rushed to his aid, performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation"

It seems we often train for things without realizing the import of what will be thrust upon us.  I can modestly point to the work I did in the mid-1990's, creating an online grassroots constituency for Internet free speech that produced the Internet we have today.  I realized I trained for that for years agitating in all sorts of manners until I coincidentally ended up in the right place at the right time.

I'm also hoping that's not my last act.  Barring a piano falling on my head.

 

No earthquake damage

This one is for my non-SF friends who may be concerned about the quake we just experienced.  Everyone is fine, no damage, no injuries.

The earthquake hit last night, and Sarah, Moishe, the dogs and I were all mostly sitting in my home office when it happened.  I grabbed Moishe and stood in a doorway while Sarah sat on the couch unfazed.  Everyone is entirely fine.

I'm really glad we spent the money to bolt the house to the foundation, though it doesn't seem to have caused much of a ripple of damage to anyone in our neighborhood.  The shaking appears to be worse elsewhere.

The various scientific agencies have a page that aggregates all the information about the quake, and they have a questionnaire you can fill out that helps them understand what parts of the area get shaken how hard by events along each fault line.

My new poker table

I picked up a poker table and tournament chipset off Craigslist for $200 plus the cost of a Zipcar Tacoma pickup truck.  I'm looking forward to assembling a home study game.

My new frugality

This weekend I knocked out a bunch of things I'd been trying to accomplish for a while now.

First, I fixed our leaky kitchen sink.  Depending on how you closed the cold water tap it would drip or outright stream water despite being "off".  For you home improvement nuts it's a cartridge style handle.  For a new $7.99 part and my stubbornness about doing it myself, it no longer leaks.

I also have been waiting and waiting and waiting for just the right king size pillowtop mattress to go up on sale at Craigslist for Sarah's and my bedroom.  Beds are damn expensive, and we agreed that we weren't the kind of people that drop a grand or more for a bed, so I've been waiting for the right mattress from someone reputable to show up...and it did.  By ourselves we shoved it up the stairs and set it up.  After putting it into place we instinctively lay down on it and held hands....and it was good.

Finally, I found some 45 cent brass set screws that allow me to repair the antique doorknob in the house that I'm told are original to the place.  The last two truly broken things are a burner on the stove that won't turn on and the garage door opener that doesn't seem to have a close button, only open.  I've set a rule for myself that I'm only fixing broken things before I go through and start making changes to enhance the house.  I find this all weirdly satisfying, like I'm getting away with something every time I get a deal off craigslist or fix something with my new-found home improvement muscles.

On the darker side, my mom has said she's stopping her chemo treatment soon.

Why I exist.

Moishe had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and for some reason I was very nervous about it.  Partly because I couldn't be there, and partly because the experience of Moishe spending 24 hours in the hospital for tests was still fresh in my mind.  (Notice the bandage on the arm in the photo at left.)

Ahead of the appointment I set all sorts of boundaries with Sarah on what kinds of tests they'd be allowed to do to Moishe.  I didn't want him getting one of those 70 pin prick allergy tests, crying for an hour, and then finding out it's 'inconclusive'.  Medical professionals never consider what they put you through to try and get answers.  I can tolerate that kind of treatment for a while, but Moishe doesn't understand the world well enough to get through something by thinking of the Queen and knowing it will be over soon.

So it was that Sarah called me and said they wanted to do a blood draw to test for an allergy, and swore it was only one draw.  I was free and already on my way to pick them up, so I came in and went to the lab for the test.  We played together in the waiting room while a small child screamed continuously for ten minutes in the back. 

A parent wheeled that child out in a stroller and then they called us.  I sat down, put Moishe on my lap, and instantly had to assert myself for him.  Sarah said it was one draw.  The lady pulled out her rubber tourniquet and started reading the chart and pulling tubes.  "How many of those are we pulling?"  She didn't acknowledge me, so I kept asking her until she finally said, "Let me count and then I'll tell you."

Having counted four (uh huh, just one draw) she then started to reach for Moishe's arm and put her tourniquet on him.   I all but slapped her hand away and said, "If you don't let me do this, and explain what we're doing, he's going to be screaming quickly.  He may scream anyway, but our only shot at minimizing this is to let me do this at my pace."

I explained to Moishe about the tourniquet, the lab tubes, the needle, and held him the entire time.  He was unhappy but didn't scream when they put on the tourniquet, when they pricked him, and through the first two test tubes full of blood.  Not until the third one did he decide he was unhappy and needed to open his mouth.  By the time he started to make any noise it was over.  It was a very different experience from the previous child's labs, whose screams were heard by pretty much everyone within 100 yards.

When people complain about why they hate being a patient, I think this is often what they cite.  But they can speak for themselves and be respected if they are really pressed.  People gloss over children's discomfort in the healthcare system.  If you don't stand up for your kid, nobody else is watching out for them.

Death Valley

My comic book vendor, Frank at Amazing Fantasy here in SF, has a standing order for anything zombie related for me.  If he sees it, he buys it for me.  The new find is called "Death Valley".  If you want to borrow mine to read, ask Steve.  That's where all my comics go when I'm done reading them.

Convio Summit, Austin TX 2007

Convio, one of the leading online nonprofit marketing product companies, had their annual confab this past week.  Here's my take:

• APIs, Datasync tools, and extensions
• New channel conflicts for API publishers
• The next two years
• Additional reading

APIs, DataSync tools, and extensions
One of the non profit bloggers I read but often don't agree with says you shouldn't comment on APIs you haven't used.  I say bullshit on that.  An API that lets you extend the product of a company that's not a viable vendor is myopic.  I haven't programmed to the API, but I've examined the programs in this area, so I'm going to comment on everything *but* the coding experience.  A good API in a bad program, or from a non-viable vendor, is worse than useless, it in fact is a DANGEROUS SUCK ON YOUR TIME AND RESOURCES.

APIs are all the rage, and Convio released theirs right before the conference.  I had already taken the Kintera API webinar, and have looked into the Blackbaud online product.  I don't think Blackbaud's online product has an API they're pushing, though I've heard rumors it's going to be out soon. I can't comment on that.

I have to say, I wasn't impressed with the Kintera program.  When it was announced I read it to say, "Only if you join our program, we'll give you documentation.  If you produce something, we'll need to approve it before it runs on the platform for clients."  I thought, an API with non-public documentation?  I need your permission to spread my apps to people?  As one of my former engineers would aptly summarize, "That's stupid."  During the webinar, at no time did anyone from Kintera ever mention that they were going to open up the program.

Then, I assume they got a rumor that Convio was going to put out their API with a very open approach of documentation, sandboxes, open application exchanges, and suddenly they got religion.  They announced it was all going public a day or two before Convio got their announcement out.  I don't buy this stunt.  This is the same company that is trying to patent technology that form basic, obvious techniques that fundraisers need.  That kind of intellectual property fight isn't good for the market, and isn't good for nonprofits.

The Convio API is basic at the moment, but still incredibly useful.  I've seen inside the kimono and it's gotten real commitment from all the senior management.  They're also devoting very real resources, beyond engineering, to supporting the program, a sure sign that they've got the right religion.  They're even starting to recognize that it will change them as a business (more on that below) which is crucial to get the partner community support.

The other two parts of open, Datasync and extensions, are exciting too.  Using the extension platform, they've integrated into a number of other platforms, including Facebook, to leverage the investment in the Convio product.  Check out the facebook extension, you'll see how huge this is.  While it's really still a beta it hugely changes the effort/reward calculation of what it takes to maintain an outpost on social networks.  And it's certainly not the end.  The abstraction layer they've created should allow them to quickly add extensions for everything from Myspace to Linkedin to the new social network that will be big that hasn't been invented yet.

Datasync is the coolest piece that I'm going to actually use for an upcoming project.  It allows you to synchronize the silos in your organization so you don't have islands of data anymore.  The demo I saw made it look pretty easy.

The new channel conflict with all these APIs
The vendors in this space have traditionally had an uneasy relationship with partners.  Kintera, Convio, and GetActive all have made choices with my company in the past that had them pitch one of my clients and pitch for work that a good partner would have forgone.  After all, integrators and services firms like my own form their sales channel, and when you go to my client and convince the client to take work from me for yourself, why should I continue to recommend your product, or program to it's API? 

The market for nonprofit IT products isn't big enough to attract an enormous following of IT vendors who don't also pitch services to program to the API.  At the end of the day it's going to be partner firms who want to accomplish strategic objectives for their clients who use the API.  There will be some pure play IT companies producing products, but strategy firms are going to form the bulk of API users.

So the more serious and open the API is, the more partners are going to want to use it, and the more the vendors will have to de-emphasize their own service offerings to avoid a channel conflict.

To their credit, Getactive handled this the best, and in ways that always maintained a good relationship.  Convio and Kintera are now going to have to de-emphasize their services business in the sales channel if they want the partner community to enhance their platform through their APIs and other avenues.  Here are several very likely scenarios:

1. Services conflict: Partner firm pitches nonprofit on a solution that includes vendor product and additional strategy and execution services.  Vendor pitches same nonprofit and offers to do everything themselves.  In this scenario the vendor should withdraw it's services offering unless it's the kind of enhancements that you need proprietary access to the codebase for.  And both parties should combine their response.
2. Module conflict: Partner firm pitches nonprofit on a solution that includes vendor product, but their own content management system, with integrated recruitment through the API, and their services.  Vendor pitches nonprofit on a solution that includes vendor product, vendor content management system, and their services.  Vendor should pull it's services, vendor and partner should discuss what's the right content management system and give client some options.  And of course, both parties should combine their response.
3. Multi-partner conflict: Multiple partner firms pitch nonprofit on a solution that involves vendor product, extension modules, and their unique services.  Vendor pitches nonprofit on a solution that involves vendor product, modules, and their services.  Vendor should withdraw services portion and submit a non-conflicting response with just product and modules.  And share with partner bidders.

Some might look at these scenarios and see that the product vendor is losing services revenue.  Others might look at it and see that:

1. The vendor has multiple entities pushing to get new clients to adopt their software, and
2. It's a reminder that the product vendor is in the product business, not the services business.

Vendors will always have services offerings, but they fill the gap where partners don't exist or can't be found.

This isn't easy, and will represent grand changes in how the company sees itself, and very detailed changes in how people at these companies are rewarded.  But long term they'll sell more software, and at a higher profit margin this way.  I've always used Verio as my example here.  With what appeared to be a sales force of 3 or 4, but a reseller channel of hundreds, they sold ungodly amounts of webhosting.  For a while we counted for almost as much as $30k-$40k a month of revenue for them, and they never paid us a dime, just ensured that our incentives and discount schedule were motivating.

The next two years probably belong to Convio
Convio will get this right.  I don't have a good enough relationship with Kintera to know if they'll get this.  It doesn't matter though, there are many known issues with Kintera (high staff turnover, continuing financial losses, terrible stock price, performance issues, high profile client defections) that makes them a problematic vendor choice long before you get to the quality of their product.  There are also the lesser known issues that I hear from disgruntled employees, such as unhappiness with the lockup on employee share sales, a product in deep need of a rewrite and no money to do so, and the infamous weekend staff meetings. Incidently if you work for (or have recently worked for) Kintera and want to tell me if these still exist or not, call me at 415-683-7526 and leave me a message.  Don't send me e-mail from work.

Convio has it's own challenges, including the channel conflict, the potential for the IPO to be a distraction, the danger of brain drain after the IPO lockup ends, and the looming potential of Blackbaud as a serious contender in their space.  While I wouldn't recommend that Convio rest on their laurels, they certainly have some breathing room they haven't had for a few years.

I think it will be two years before a serious contender emerges.  Blackbaud will have a strong offering up by then and I still think it will be a version of eTapestry unless there's something in eTapestry's platform I'm overlooking.

Someone may actually package an open source offering that matches the Kintera/Convio/Blackbaud set by then, but I kind of doubt it.  Going open source for your eCRM as a large nonprofit typically means accepting less cost and less functionality.  Most large nonprofits like the less cost part of that equation, but not the less functionality.

Salesforce may have figured out that the nonprofit offerings in AppExchange need some help and grown more partners.  I think a third party will have emerged that today either doesn't exist or is considered too small to be a serious threat.  During that time Convio will have to ride the IPO and should be putting it's foot on the gas.  With a strong development platform, lots of partner applications, and some more targeted verticalization*, they could make 'catching up' even more expensive and reduce the potential competitor set.  If the API continues to gain expansiveness inside the platform, having fewer vendors in the market will be less problematic for clients as they will just start with the Convio core and then integrate other products as needed.  Small nonprofits will continue to buy a complete package and be the major consumer of their modules, but nobody who knows technology thinks one company is good at all of this.  Also at the low end there are a lot more options than just Convio, Kintera, or Blackbaud.

Our engineers, who go through content management systems like Paris goes through scandals, will probably rarely use the Convio CMS and just code all the registration pages into Convio through the API for their favorite CMS of the moment.

Those are my thoughts.  If you want more advice targeted towards your own technology choices, I hope you'll give me a call at 415-683-7526.

* This is a topic for another time.

Additional Reading
YOU SHOULD READ: Clayton Christensen's and Michael Raynor's work should probably be required reading for Convio/Kintera/Blackbaud senior management, though the steel mill examples have some caveats when adapted to their market.  I know at least one old-timer at Convio shares my love of Christensen's/Raynor's analysis of innovation, and I think there are many parallels to their experience.  After all, Convio disrupted someone else's business to get where they are, why shouldn't someone do it to them?  Social networks are their current disruptor, but the rise of platform API marketing means that those 'being disrupted' have options.  Something else will disrupt though, it always does.

I DO NOT: sit on any Convio special advisory committees, nor am I paid by Convio for anything.  I'm not even comped into the conference.  I'm just a company that has clients that use their stuff, and I get the same 'partner communications' you could get if you signed up on their site for the program.

A moment of introspection (at least the stuff I'm willing to tell you)

Here's what I learned about myself while I was in Austin on business travel.

1. Leaving my son breaks my heart
I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Moishe before I left, and he doesn't seem to understand what the phone is.  I think he thinks it's some sort of toy that records people's voices.  After I left, Sarah said he would ask about me, and then sulk by laying facedown on the ground in complete, desultory silence.  No whining, no crying, no tantrum, just an immense sadness. 

2. I cannot keep computers for three years, and I hate my IT company.
My IT company has a bad habit of installing things on my machine that are resource intensive.  Often, when I'm trying to use my computer the awful backup program kicks in and bricks my computer for 45 minutes.  The cpu and disk get allocated and the thing is useless.  Same is true for the virus/trojan scanner.

Sarah's seen me at my worst.  Computers are tools, designed to serve us, and here I am working around my computer's backup schedule?  This offends me at a very deep level.  Even cancelling doesn't always work.  The backup system doesn't cancel right away, and the scanner doesn't have anything like that.  At that point my computer is bricked, and I often think, what do you do with bricks?  You throw them!  But I never do that.

It doesn't have to be that way.  Backup programs like MozyPro backup when your machine is idle and allow you to set a limit to the amount of cpu share they consume.  Next time I buy a work machine, I'm configuring it myself.  Fuck my IT company.  Speaking of getting a new computer...

3. I realized that I can't keep computers for the normal 3 year replacement cycle.  I'm way too hard on machines and put in far more use than that.  I'm going to satisfy myself with a two year cycle and stop feeling guilty about that.  The third year is almost impossible because the machine's drive is starting to fail.

4. Poker has made me a much better observer of human nature.  I just saw someone I've known for almost ten years and brought up a topic I knew would make them uncomfortable.  As it came out of my mouth, I wondered, hey, does this person have any tells?

Their whole face started twitching, and then they shifted stance.  They started uncomfortably touching their ears, hair, face.  It was so obvious once I looked for it.

5. Practice practice practice
I've kept up my system of practicing poker daily, and recording that on a calendar.  I believe it has made me a better player, as my wall calender full of X's and my bigger bank account confirm.  I've started bleeding off my winnings to a Fidelity account and keeping a base bankroll of about $2,500-$3,000 mostly in a savings account.  For the once or twice a week live games of $1/$2 NL and $6/$12 limit I think it's plenty.

Online I'm still playing microstakes on the same $200 I put into Sportsbook.com months ago, though I've lost a hunk of it.  Speaking of which...

6. I've finally figured out my I suck at online poker, and do better at live poker.  The players live suck more, and I don't focus well when I play online.  I surf the web, do other stuff, talk to people and lots of other distracting things when I play online.  For the sake of my bankroll, and to actually make my commitment of at least 30 minutes / day of poker really worth it, I'm going to re-double my efforts to focus when playing online.  In particular I'm going to try just listening to music and doing nothing else while I'm playing.

How to save more money for retirement, without actually putting one more dime into your IRA

Since we moved to California I've pitched in to take my turn at steering the family finances.  I've setup Quicken, combined our money, put us on a strict budget and examined all our retirement finances.  One of the things I became obsessed with is our retirement funds.  One thing I focused on was a Simple IRA at Fidelity that I can't move to be managed by Sarah's broker who has most of our nest egg.  Since I still work at the company where I started the Simple IRA, I have to leave it there and manage it myself. 

I had just blindly been putting it into a lifecycle fund with basically tracked the performance of the markets and had a 0.82% annual expense rate.  That means that no matter what the market did I was paying 0.82% in expenses.  I thought this was good when I started the plan until I checked out some other ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) that can have expenses as low as 0.07% and also perform as well (or as bad as) the overall market.

Then this article appeared in the Wall Street Journal about how you can construct a pretty impressive portfolio based around ETFs for just 0.15%.  Why bother?  What's the difference?  Well the difference of 0.67% is real money.  Annually you can shove in around $10,000 tax free to most retirement vehicles like IRAs and 401ks.  That 0.67% is $67 extra you can put in.  If you're not at your first job and you've been saving like this for five years, then you've got at least $50,000 in your retirement account.  Every year you save 0.067% you have an additional $335.  Over time that starts to add up.  After 10 years you probably have at least $100,000, and that's $670 extra you've saved for yourself, without actually putting any more money into the account.

My existential poker dilemna.

Last night I went to my favorite cardroom and ran smack into a horseshoe.  After sitting down, I played three big hands.  In the first two I simply had a better hand and decided to push a football bettor who was on tilt really hard and he just consistently called my all ins.  In the first hand I had Aces and they held.  In the second hand I had a set and he had a flush draw, and he made his flush and I boated on the river.  In the third he actually caught a good hand (KK) and I called his raise with A9 on a 953 board.  Thinking he was still on tilt, I pushed, he called, and his two pair was invalidated when I hit my ace on the turn and I suddenly had a better two pair.  (that was my bad call)

I've been here 30 minutes and now I have $750 in front of me, $550 of it all profit since I bought in for $200.  I suddenly had to have the existentialist poker discussion with myself. 

• Why am I here? 
• Why do I play poker? 
• Do I leave and bank the money?
• Should I switch tables and pocket the profit on the way to the second table?
• Am I playing well or am I just going to donk it off if I stay?
• Am I a favorite in this game?

I am here because I want to learn to play poker better.  If I was just doing this to make money, I'd do something else.  My former poker colleague Bradley once chided me for not playing in looser games where I could make more money, instead struggling on poker websites which allowed me to do PokerTracker analysis because my interest was playing, practicing, and learning.  I had a moment of schadenfreud when Bradley quit grinding because he burned out.  "Grinding" is playing poker purely for money and some living expenses, but I took the lesson to heart.  Grinding is not fun.  If I get up now and bank the money, I've only had 30 minutes of practice, and so I'm not investing in my learning.  If that becomes how I handle this situation, then I'm quickly going to become focused on my luck, not on my skill.

So the answer to the first two are that I'm here to play and practice, and improve.  So I should stay.  The money's nice of course.  Do I leave and bank?  No.  I should have switched tables and pocketed the profit, but I chose not to do that and I think that was a mistake.  I thought I was playing pretty well, but it had only been half an hour and I had been pretty lucky.  Over the next few hours I ran into two situations where I was provided with odds to draw to the nuts (nut flushes with no sets or two pairs out there) and sufficient pot odds to shove $100 or so in the pot, and in both cases my draws missed.  By the end of the day I realized I was too tired to play effectively and had given back about $250 of my stack, and that I was no longer a favorite in the game, so I left.

I just surpassed the $2k in live profits for the year mark, and am making about $21 per hour of play.  By the end of the year that number will probably drop into the high teens, but still, how many people can say the hobby they thoroughly enjoy pays them $21 per hour to indulge in it?

I'll post totals in January, but I've decided for the moment to stay at $1/$2 no limit for practice and stick with microstakes online where I've never been able to figure out what's wrong with my play.  (I suspect it's a lack of patience or focus)  I have plenty to learn, but I still find myself learning at these stakes, and frankly, it's a lot easier to learn when you're not beating yourself up because you lose $200 every time you step into a card room.  As a result of not moving up, I'm going to trim my bankroll to an appropriate amount for these stakes and shove it into Fidelity in an index fund.