Google Plus Engagement Pre Versus Post Communities; clicky to embiggen

Whereas these results reflect my experience, they might not necessarily be applicable to all users and may not be as meaningful when applied across the entire Google Plus ecosystem. There are some power users, or more accurately G+ attractors — people who attract massive followings — for whom the quantity and quality of engagement is most likely constant or even increasing. However I do believe that for the majority of Google Plus users, these results most likely apply.

Want the synopsis? For a tl;dr version click here, but you’ll miss all the cool charts!

Basic Methodology

I assessed engagement with my content over the most recent six month period. I choose a six-month period of time for a reason. Google Plus Communities launched on Thursday, December 6, 2012. It has been three months since the launch — actually, thirteen weeks have passed. I gathered data for the 13 weeks prior to the launch of Communities and the 13 weeks after. The week Google Plus Communities launched was used as the dividing point and did not go entirely into one content bucket or the other (more on that below). Thus I gathered data over a 27 week period.

All data comes from personal Stream and Community Stream posts that I initiated. As I rarely post to a limited audience, all data comes from public posts. In fact, since I first started using Google plus, I’m guessing that Ninety-eight percent (or more) of my posts are to the public. That aspect of my posting behavior remains unchanged.

For a given post, engagement was calculated by tallying all the +1s, Shares, and Comments for each post. Plus Ones were only counted for the OP and not for any received on comments I made within my own posts. Also, I excluded any comments I made to the comment stream of my own posts and any shares I initiated of my own posts as I wanted to get an accurate assessment of engagement with me, with my content. My engagement with my own content did not count.

Each comment (excluding my own) was counted as a single point of engagement. On numerous occasions the same person would add more than one comment to a post’s comment stream. Each comment was counted as one point. In other words, I did not count unique users commenting. I counted each piece of engagement.

The total engagement for a given week is simply the summation of all engagement across three categories (+1s, Shares, and Comments) for all posts in a given week. I then calculated engagement per post per week by dividing total engagement for that week by the number of posts for that week.

The engagement per follower ratio is not an actual calculation of engagement activity per follower. It is a coarser metric to see how total weekly engagement with my posts has varied as my follower count has changed over time.

Follower numbers by week come from CircleCount. Here is the link to my CircleCount data.

Raw Engagement Data; clicky to embiggen

Each regularly active Google Plus user understands engagement activity differs on weekends versus weekdays. For most of us, engagement is lower on weekends than weekdays, often with a noticeable decrease in engagement starting Friday afternoons. Therefore, I tallied posts made on the weekend in a separate column. So, as an example, the week that just ended — the week of March 3 — I made a total of 18 posts across all seven days. Out of all the posts made for that week, one was made on a weekend and the other seventeen were posted during the work week (Monday through Friday). I captured these data to see if there was a significant difference between my weekend-posting patterns pre Communities versus post Communities and, if so, whether or not there might be some correlation with impact on engagement.

Finally, engagement across the three categories is not weighted. Each point of engagement is given an equal weight. Even weighted, the percentage change between pre and post Communities would be unaffected.

All engagement is not equal. A Plus One is the lowest quality of engagement. It is analogous to a Facebook Like and is a quick and simple way for someone to acknowledge your post (or comment). A Share is of higher quality as it sends your thoughts into the Streams of those who follow the user that shared your post. A share also may result in new users following and possibly engaging with you. But, in most cases, shares fracture your post and result in engagement and conversations occurring outside of your original piece of content. A comment is the highest quality of engagement as it starts or adds to a conversation about the content of your post and is contained entirely within your post. When reading the below analysis, keep in mind that there is a qualitative difference in quality of engagement with type.

A note about the charts. The trend lines on each chart are software calculated. In other words, I did not eyeball draw them.

Results and Analysis

Overall engagement with my posts (threads, OPs) has increased by 14.1 percent since Google Plus Communities launched but the clear trend is decreasing engagement over time since the launch. Communities appear to be cannibalizing user attention from personal posts and the type of engagement has shifted from higher quality to lower quality.

Over the recent six-month period, my follower count has increased by 23.4 percent. Whereas that is a nice gain, the metrics show a mixed picture. Total engagement has increased 14.1 percent but the figure for engagement per post has actually deceased 6.6 percent.

All things being equal, with more followers — more people who actively choose to follow you — you would expect an increase in overall engagement, or at least for engagement to have remained consistent over this period of time. Yet the quality of engagement is not keeping up with my gains in follower count.

Pre Versus Post Communities: The Trend Is Not Your Friend

To assess what might be going on, I divided this six-month period (27 weeks actually) into two buckets — a 13 week pre-Communities bucket and a 13 week post-Communities bucket. The week in between these two buckets, the week of December 2, 2012, is the week that Google Plus Communities launched. I split that week up as well, placing the data from the first four days of the week in the pre-launch Communities bucket and the last three days of the week in the post-launch Communities bucket.

Pre Versus Post Communities’ Data

Google Plus Engagement Pre Versus Post Communities; clicky to embiggen

In the sections below, you will see that I created charts for the entire six-month period, adding a trend line to each chart. I also created two additional charts that broke down engagement into pre- and post-Communities — the two different buckets I described in the above paragraph. Looking at the six-month chart gives you one picture. But looking at the pre- versus post-Communities charts reveals something else.

In the sections below, you will first see the six-month chart with a brief assessment. Then you will see the pre- and post-Communities charts.

Quantity Versus Quality

The quality of engagement has changed. Post Communities I’ve seen a respectable 31.4 percent increase in +1s to my posts and a healthy 11.4 percent increase in Shares of my posts. However, I have also experienced a 13.2 percent decrease in Comments to my OPs. Taking all together, this results in a modest gain of 14.1 percent in total engagement.

That does seems like a net positive. But remember that Comments are the highest quality of engagement and Plus Ones are the lowest. Even though I have more overall engagement, the lion’s share is coming from a large percentage increase in Plus Ones. The quantity of engagement has increased but the quality has also decreased.

Clicky to embiggen

When I looked at Posts versus Engagement breakdown of the data for pre and post Communities, the nicely inclined trend line in Plus Ones that is seen over the six-month period is revealed to be anomalous. The trends for engagement metrics (+1s, Shares, and Comments) since the launch of Google Plus Communities are actually on a decline. You will also notice that the trend line for my posting activity is also on a decline.

Pre- Versus Post-Communities Engagement Details; clicky to embiggen

With regards to posting frequency, pre Communities, I averaged 12.8 posts per week. Post Communities, my average number of posts per week increased to 15.7. But as the charts reveal, my weekly posting averages are now on the decline as well. I talk about why I’ve decreased my posting frequency in the conclusion section below.

Here are the charts combining all weekly engagement. The six-month chart does show an increasing trend in total engagement whereas posting frequency remains relatively steady and level.

Clicky to embiggen

However, the pre- and post-Communities’ charts show a different picture. There has been a downward trend, a steady erosion in total engagement since Google Plus Communities launched three months ago.

Pre- Versus Post-Communities: Posts Versus Engagement; clicky to embiggen

When engagement per post per week is considered, it is clear that overall engagement is actually slightly lower than before. Prior to Communities, my engagement per post average was 8.1 precent. But since the launch of Communities, my engagement per post average has declined by 6.6 percent to 7.5.

Click to embiggen

Pre- versus Post-Communities: Posts Versus Engagement Per Post; clicky to embiggen

As most Google Plus users know, engagement on the weekends tends to be noticeably lower than with weekday postings. I looked at any impacts that weekend versus weekday posting might be having on the results. Prior to Communities, 19.8 percent of my posts we placed on weekends. After Communities, my weekend posting average declined to 12.8 percent of all posts. As a greater percentage of my posts were made during the weekdays after the launch of Communities, I would have expected to see more overall engagement per post. But that was not the case as detailed above.

What does this all mean? Whereas total engagement has increased, and my follower count has ballooned, the average engagement per post is decreasing and the quality of that engagement has changed. I am having to work harder — post more often than in the past — to draw people’s attention and the quality of the interactions are of lessor value than before.

Engagement Per Follower

Another ratio I looked at was engagement per follower. This is a coarser metric to see how total weekly engagement with my posts has varied as my follower count has changed over time.

In theory, as you gain more followers you would expect engagement to increase. Indeed, as discussed above, with a follower increase of almost 25 percent over the most recent six-month period, I have experienced an overall engagement increase of 14.1 percent.

As the chart below shows, over the six-month period in question, there does not appear to be any apparent change in weekly engagement per follower ratio. The trend line is ever so slightly upward slanting, but for the most part it is level.

Clicky to embiggen

However, when I looked at the pre versus post Communities weekly engagement per follower ratio, a different picture emerges. The trend before and after Communities is very evident. Before Communities launched, the trend was an increase in my weekly engagement per follower ratio. But over the past three months, since the launch of Communities, the trend has reversed with an obvious steady decline in my weekly engagement per follower ratio. I am gaining more followers but it is not resulting in a corresponding increase in engagement.

Clicky to embiggen

One, of several, explanations for this observed trend is that my follower base is actually becoming less active over time. So, whereas I have more overall followers, the percentage of those followers who are (still) active is decreasing. This may point to a more systemic issue with Google Plus — inactive followers. Could the decrease in engagement quality and the fracturing of personal brands be driving once frequent, active users away from Google Plus?

Post Conclusion

It would be interesting to look at these same metrics for other Google Plus users and see whether my results bear out for them as well. If you are interested in performing your own analysis, you’ll have to gather the data on your own. It is an easy, straight forward process, but it does take time. You might be able to cut some code using the Google Plus API to pull these figures automatically for you. I decided not to do that as this was a one time effort and I do not plan to continue tracking these metrics.

What are your pre versus post Google Plus Communities’ experiences? Have you noticed a change in engagement levels (both quantity and quality) since the new Community model was launched? Has the change been positive, neutral, or negative?

Epilogue

During the first full week of the Google Plus Community role out, I wrote four posts on the topic of what Communities might mean for personal brand and user Stream management. You can find those posts here:

• My Individuality Atoms Are Derezzing
• Duplicating Old Posts Into New Communities
• Google Plus, G+ Communities, And Your Stream
• Google Communities And Personal Brand Dilution?

Based on the analysis of the data presented here, I still believe that the best way for Google to integrate the Interest Graph into Google Plus is by enabling user-based Content Channels. I’ve written several posts on that topic before. Here is an excerpt of one of my comments in the comment stream of my post, Google Communities And Personal Brand Dilution? (See above link)

Whereas G+ Communities are helping to create the Interest Graph within G+, the way they are currently implemented means that your interests do not necessarily get connected to your personal brand in a way that is easy for your followers to see.

Whereas all of your public posts and posts within public Communities do seem to appear on your personal profile page, I think it is too much to ask or expect your followers to click through to your profile just to make sure they did not miss anything of interest to them. Your followers deserve the right to stay within their Stream, to discover your content in the container that they spend the most time.

I still want the facility to follow people’s interests via Content Channels. I want to subscribe to your posts about your interests and not have to follow you into various Communities just so that I might get to see what your thoughts may be about a certain topic (interest).

Imagine having to collect and remit sales tax to hundreds of taxing authorities. For etailers, that nightmare may soon be a reality.

The last mentioned opportunity is actually not a startup yet as I am in the information-gathering stage. Whether I decide to promote it to a viable startup depends on the results of what I call my startup due diligence process.

Red Flags A Waving

As I’m going about the process of due diligence with this concept — determining whether or not this opportunity makes business sense — a big potential red flag has become apparent. This year or next, there might very well be a massive headache with respect to collecting online sales tax from out-of-state customers.

Since the inception of ecommerce on the Web, online sales have been exempt from state sales tax — with the exception of the state(s) in which you have had a physical presence. It is believed that this respite from the burden of having to comply with the varying taxing laws of hundreds (thousands) of different taxing authorities helped skyrocket the success of the Web as a business platform.

But if various state governors get their way and manage to persuade the US Congress to implement an out-of-state sales tax, it could be curtains for online retailing — at least the startups and small to medium sized etailers. Why?

If some form of this legislation gets signed into law, online ecommerce sites would be required to determine the proper sales tax owed by each customer based on the geographic location in which they reside and then collect and remit taxes to each of those taxing jurisdictions. Since there are literally thousands of different taxing authorities in the United States, that would be a hellish burden. Remember, this is compared to an in-state, Brick-and-mortar retailer who collects at just one state and one local sales tax rate.

Benefits Derived Versus Payment For Nothing

In theory, both online and brick-and-mortar businesses receive some benefit from state and local government services and programs. However, that is only if they are physically located in the jurisdictions of those governmental entities. What kind of relevant, realistic benefits and services would an online business receive from the hundreds or thousands of out-of-state taxing authorities to whom they may soon be forced to remit sales tax payments?

Let’s look at this from the standpoint of a brick-and-mortar store (B&M) being required to charge a sales tax based on the state and county of each of their customers. Although most customers of B&Ms are likely in-state, local citizens, many B&Ms have customers from different counties within the state, and different states. What if these B&M retailers had to ask each customer their home address and then make sure they charged the proper state and local sales taxes for that customer? They would then have to remit the sales tax to each state and local authority.

How many small mom and pop shops would be able to comply with that requirement? How many people would decide not to open up a new business, or expand into a new physical location in another state, if they were under the same onerous taxing rules?

Legally-legislated Enforcement Money?

Requiring online etailers to monitor, collect, and remit out-of-state sales tax is tantamount to the days of gangs and mobs charging local shop owners enforcement money. If the shops kept paying the money, the mobs would not hurt the owners nor shut down their businesses. Other than those benefits, they did not truly derive any useful services in return for monies paid.

Yet that is exactly what this legislation will amount to for tens of thousands of small- to medium-sized etailers. They will be forced to collect and remit payments with no benefits received in return — other than the promise of not being fined, sued, or shutdown.

The threat of a nightmarish onslaught of paper work may very well make me decide not to pursue this startup concept. The regulatory overburden might cause other ecommerce startups to fail, or not even get out of the starting blocks. It could be the end of ecommerce startups.

How Likely Is This Threat?

There is proposed legislation in the US Congress by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) that would reverse the legal precedent set by the Supreme Court that exempts online and catalog businesses from having to collect out-of-state sales tax. According to this resource, in past rulings that dealt with the issue of out-of-state collection of sales tax, the Supreme Court has basically stated that:

…the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution bars a state from compelling an out-of-state retailer from collecting taxes on sales to its residents…that collection is a burden on interstate commerce…[and] that taxes must be fair and nondiscriminatory, that there must be substantial nexus with the jurisdiction and a relationship between the tax and any state-provided services.

Requiring out-of-state businesses to manage the collection and remittance of in-state sales tax would cause an undue burden on the etailer — a burden that would not come with any viable, tangible, or reciprocal benefits.

If passed, this law would make etailers cringe each time they obtained a new customer that came from a state or locale to which they had previously not sold anything. With each new geographic location served, additional paperwork, sales tax remittance checks mailed, and compliance monitoring would be required.

In an attempt to provide a simplified method for collecting sales tax, some legislators have proposed what they call a Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement (SSTA). Would this make it easier for out-of-state retailers to comply with this new law? Not really.

Also from the above linked-to resource:

To start with, mandatory tax collection under the SSTA would cause thousands of merchants throughout the United States to be confronted with the entirely new obligation of collecting tax for over 7,500 local tax jurisdictions (including school districts, transportation districts, sanitation districts, sports arena districts, etc.)  This will create an enormous increase in the complexity of doing business for interstate marketers –certainly not a move towards simplification.
  
To make matters worse, the drafters of the SSTA failed in their original mission to reduce the number of tax jurisdictions.  Under the terms of the SSTA, the number of tax rates could actually increase to over 15,000 (each tax jurisdiction is permitted to have two rates).

Even with the proposed Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, etailers would have a massive tangle of red tape and paperwork to figure out and stay up to date on. It would essentially be an overly costly, impossible task.

To Etail Or Not Etail?

As I was going through my startup due diligence checklist, the issue of taxes came up. After a little research, I learned that the promise land of the etailing space might soon be corralled by the myopic acts of local, state, and federal legislators.

If you are concerned about the very-real possibility of this narrow-minded legislation, please contact your local, state, and federal officials and express your support for a fair across-the-board sales tax policy for all retailers. If etailers have to collect out-of-state sales tax from their customers, then so should brick-and-mortar retailers.

Better yet, let’s keep innovation on the InterWebs alive and well by siding with the Supreme Court on this issue. Taxes should only be collected and remitted in return for direct, tangible benefits from local and state government.

Other Resources

Tax Break Nears End for Online Shoppers

What You Should Know About Potential Federal Tax Law Changes

What You Need to Know About Online Sales Tax

Thanks to this resource for the copyright and royalty free piggy bank image used as the foundation of the above graphic.

Two-years ago this Saturday, Peter Thiel made a still-controversial announcement that kids are better off dropping out of college — or not going in the first place — and instead starting a company. To help motivate his quarry, and entice (grab) young talent twenty-years old and younger, Thiel offers a two-year mentorship and $100k. However, the thumbing of a college education may be a short-lived trend. Why? Because the next version of hacker will not be the computer whiz kid who is touted as the up and coming coding guru.* The next celebrated hackers will not be able to safely learn how to cut complex code in their bedroom.

If you have kids, siblings, nephews or nieces that are ten-years old or younger, you should advise them not only to go to college, but also consider biology, chemistry, biochemistry, or molecular engineering as their major. Why? Because in as few as ten years from now, the need for and desirability of computer coding skills will plateau and the frenetic pace of new InterWeb startups will be past peak.

In fact, experienced, high-quality coders will be a dime a dozen as the wild-west decades of the InterWeb come to an end. After about 30 years of growth, dominance, and innovation, the InterWeb as the hotbed of revolutionary innovation will come to pass. Instead, biology will experience a Cambrian explosion of revolutionary innovation, a renaissance period. More precisely, synthetic biologist will be like the much-hailed hackers of today.

Biologists who code with genes will be the new cool kids on the block. Web-2.0 startups will be a thing of the past. Whereas there will be some innovation in the Web-3.0 and Web-4.0 space, the true revolutions will be occurring in the hard sciences.

Startup successes will shift from coding in binary to coding in quaternary — the base-4 system of the genes. Other revolutions will occur in the nanotech space, coding products from the atom up using the periodic table of elements as ingredients.

Hacking will not mean coding in binary on a computer to create a new app, Web-2.0 service, or SaaS product. Instead, biohacking will be the hot pursuit. This I call CaaS — Cells as a service. Cells will be our manufaturing plants. Cells will be our computers. Cells will be our platform on which we innovate. CaaS will be the new open source mantra.

DNA may be the oldest operating system (OS) on Earth, but it is also one of the most powerful OSs. We now have the tools and technology to cheaply manipulate genes, to create synthetic genomes, and to store those genomes digitally. This means that genetic innovations — for instance new medicines, new products — can be electronically shared across the InterWebs and then printed out and enabled elsewhere with ease.

Of course, in the near term, molecular assemblers will be biologically based, they will be living cells. Novel, synthetic products will be created by encoding genes to produce the molecules of which nanotechnologists dream.

So if your are thinking about a future as a coder, a current-day hacker, a computer engineer, you might want to consider biohacking instead. And please, if you are in high school and considering not going to college because you believe all the real action, innovation, and opportunities lie in cutting code at a startup, think again. The code cutters of the near future will be slicing genes, not spitting out binary.

Addendum

It is important to add that even though the hotly-sought-after coders of tomorrow will be biochemical and nanommaterial engineers, and not computer scientist, the career and skills of binary code hacking will still be important. Computer hackers will play key roles in synthetic biology and nanotechnology innovation. Data scientists will be required to help make sense of the exponential increase in data. Coders with a keen understanding of and grasp of linked data technologies will be necessary to help tie together all the data. The point is that what is currently the hot career and the engine of innovation — binary code-based startups — will shift to biohacking-based startups.

*Note: Thiel’s 20 Under 20 Fellowship is targeted at many different areas, not just InterWeb startups. However, very few (if any) teens will be truly able to compete with university-trained nanotechnologist, biochemsits, or molecular engineers.

Image Source: Visualizations of A-, B-, and Z- DNA strands via Wikipedia user Zephyris. Image is licensed under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Much of my recent work has been licensed under the GPL. The GPL is administered and promulgated by the FSF. Apparently what is now considered the open source movement, actually was the result of a schism from the free software movement. In other words, open source was spawned out of the free software movement, not the other way around.

To some, there are philosophical differences between the two movements. They can best be summed up as follows: all free software is open source but not all open source software is free (although much of it is). You can learn more about the subtleties of this argument in this article on the GNU website, Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software.

Not Free As In Cost

This brings me to the point of this post. The usage of the word free has caused and continues to cause confusion — so much so that the article linked-to above spends time defining what is meant be the word. There are additional places on GNU’s website that take time to explain what is meant by the word free. In fact, there is even an entire article devoted to defining the phrase “free software” and the word “free” (see, What is free software?).

When you have to spend paragraphs, yet alone entire articles, defining and explaining two simple words in a two-word phrase, something is wrong.

The various paragraphs and articles on this topic on GNU’s website use catchy phrases to better define the “free software” phrase.

think of “free speech,” not “free beer”

“free software” is a matter of liberty, not price

Why is this such a big deal?

To the passerby, to the casual user, the word free has an obvious connotation — free as in zero cost. But this is absolutely wrong. It is not what is meant by the phrase “free software” and is exactly why there’s a problem. The GNU website once again has another article to help dispel the assumption that free software is free as in zero cost (see, Selling Free Software).

This issue has caused numerous headaches for me and other developers of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software ) projects. For instance, there are many WordPress, BuddyPress, and Drupal users who wrongfully assume that plugins are mandated by the GPL to be free as in cost. When this incorrect assumption is corrected — by pointing them to the Selling Free Software article on GNU’s website — they then take the stance that open source software should not cost anything. After all, they can download WordPress or Drupal for zero cost. So why shouldn’t all plugins or modules be free as in cost?

Of course, these same people often have no qualms with purchasing a premium theme from a design shop. They fail to see the irony in expecting developers to code and support their work for free, but smiling at designers who create high-quality themes and charge for them.

To be fair, there have been developers who have sold their work for years. In fact, there are more starting to do so each day. However, the concept of free as in zero cost is a direct result of using the phrase “free software”. It has caused and continues to cause issue for those of us who wish to make a living creating high-quality software with freedoms.

I wrote about the “free software” conundrum from a developer’s perspective in an article two-years ago (see, How Can BuddyPress Developers Earn a Living?). Reading the comments sheds more light on this issue.

It’s Software With Freedoms

In essence, free software is software with freedoms. Saying that would be straight forward and lead to a lot less confusion. Time could then be spent on defining and discussing those freedoms without any need to bother defining the ambiguity of a word like free.

It seems to me that the phrase “free software” is more of a marketing slogan or buzzword. Whereas “free software” does roll off of the tongue, and it does sound more tasty, the fact that it requires so much time and effort to effectively define is a problem.

I propose all FOSS / FLOSS advocates start using the phrase “software with freedoms” instead of “free software”. That way time can be spent on discussing those freedoms and not correcting the mistaken assumptions of cost. As an additional benefit, I imagine that the phrase “software with freedoms” would translate very well into a majority of languages keeping its contextual semantics intact — that is for languages that have a word for software.

About The Free Beer Logo

The Free Beer logo is an inside joke based on the issues discussed above but has transformed into a movement of its own . You can learn more about it here, The Geekiest Beer on Earth, and here, Free Beer! You can also get your own zero-cost copy of the Free Beer logo to use on your own craft brews by visiting the Free Beer project.

In my previous two blog articles I shared with you another side of me — that of naturalist and ecologist. What I did not share at the time was that I was embarking on a new short-term project. This post describes that project in detail.

I’m Co-authoring a Field Guide!

What is this secret project I have embarked upon? I’m co-authoring a field guide with the respected, and respectable, naturalist Kenn Kaufman. For those of you who do not know of Kenn, here is a brief biography of his life and work.

My wife April and I have had the privilege of knowing Kenn Kaufman for almost 18 years since we first met him at a birding and nature conference in Sierra Vista, Arizona in 1995. Besides a lifelong intrigue with the natural world, I quickly found out that I shared another commonality with Kenn — we were both originally from South Bend, Indiana.

Jeff (right) spending some field time with Kenn Kaufman

This past spring, during The Biggest Week in American Birding festival — an annual celebration of bird migration and nature — Kenn approached me with a proposal. He was interested in having me as his co-author on the next book in his acclaimed Kaufman Field Guide Series. My primary responsibilities would be the botanical sections of the book.

As this would be a big responsibility and would require a big time commitment on my part, I spent five days seriously weighing the pros and cons of Kenn’s offer. As much as I needed to remain focused on my InterWeb startup, this project was captivatingly enticing.

In the end, the decision was clear. This was an opportunity I could not decline. With my years of experience as a restoration ecologist, my time at JFNew running their native plant nursery, my love of botany, and my hands-on time caring for and studying the more than 400 species of native plants that we had planted on our acre-and-a-half piece of land, this project was a perfect fit.

My decision process required considerable soul searching and resulted in two long blog articles: The Wilder Side of Me and A Migration Celebration.

The Kaufman Field Guide (KFG) Series is an important body of work. Whereas there are a number of other worthy nature field guide series currently in print, Kenn’s series is built around the simple yet hard-to-actualize concept of crafting expert guides that are accessible to beginners. In my opinion the KFG series has accomplished that difficult task with an elegant brilliance.

The book I am co-authoring will be entitled, Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of the Midwest. I am primarily responsible for the botanical sections but will also be providing assistance in a number of other ways with the project. This book will be the second in KFG’s regional guides. The first in the regional series, Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of New England, will be released this October on the 16th — in three short weeks!

A Summer of Field Work

Co-authoring a field guide to nature requires not only prior knowledge but also lots of research. It is not sufficient to rest on past experience nor rely on previous adventures. Since the KFG series is crafted to be welcoming to the novice naturalist, you must attempt to view the world through the eyes of those who have yet to develop a keener awareness of the natural world. To do that, you must get out in the field and visit places that are likely to be visited — or could be visited — by your target audience.

From the moment I agreed to share a co-author spot with Kenn, I jumped into this project with both feet. It was not going to be acceptable to spend some time in the field. Instead, I knew I was going to spend a lot of time in the field — field time is what naturalists, ecologists, birders, botanists, environmental researchers, etcetera call time spent outdoors in habitats suited to their line of study.

Jeff stands in an old-growth field of Prairie Dock Plants (Silphium terebinthinaceum).

With North America experiencing a record warm and dry spring and summer, it has been a challenging field season to say the least. Capturing target species often required visiting multiple locations to find a specimen that was in healthy-enough condition to photograph. On the other hand, we were amazed by the resiliency of some species to thrive in seemingly impossible conditions. Our efforts to get out in the field, even on the hottest and driest of weeks, were often rewarded with great finds.

The time April and I have spent in the field over the past four months has been nothing short of amazing. We visited numerous places throughout six Midwestern states taking notes, photos, and simply reveling in the breathtaking species richness, unique geology, and stories of the many local, state, and national parks that we visited.

Although I am co-authoring the book with Kenn, it has been a wonderful experience to spend so much time in the field with April. Nature is a core interest that brought us together almost twenty-five years ago. April is a very successful children’s book author focused on science and natural history. Our travels this field season will surely inspire her to pen another award-winning children’s book or two!

Part of the task I have assigned myself with this project is to photograph as many plant species in high-definition detail as possible. Next field season, in addition to revisiting a number of places, we will be covering the remaining areas of our territory to capture additional species. We will be visiting upper Minnesota and Wisconsin, all of Ohio, lower Illinois and Indiana, and the eastern half of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

The map to the right shows the places we visited this field season.

Here are some statistics from our summer field season:

Miles traveled: 3,618
Photos taken: 11,919
Places visited: 42 over six states
Species photographed: 306

In our travels we have experienced some ecological jewels and have been awestruck by the beauty and resiliency of these ancient ecological marvels. Treading on virgin pieces of habitat — land that has neither seen nor felt the destructive forces of humankind (well, minus global climate change) — it is hard not to be moved.

Whereas we’re fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience nearly pristine habitats, we also have many fond memories from our visits on lands that have not be as fortunate to escape the plow, bulldozer, or poison. There is always a gem to be found if you know where to look. Many local and state parks and private preserves are working hard to reclaim and restore the land. We were honored to have met and been guided by a number of stewards who are the true heroes in the fight to preserve and return nature to its former grandeur.

A gallery of some places, species, and sights seen (click thumbnails for larger images):

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

The Federally-endangered Pitcher’s Thistle (Cirsium pitcheri) blooming on a Michigan dunescape.

Jeff walks a very-dry trail at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

iPhone photo of Jeff’s forty-pound photo pack. Try carrying that for ten hours each day in 100 degree heat up and down dune trails, into bogs, or through chest-high prairies.

A rare plant that is considered endangered or threatened in Illinois and Indiana, the Royal Catchfly (Silene regia) is stunning when in full bloom.

Why is it named catchfly? The calyx of each flower is covered with glandular hairs that exude a sticky substance. Small insects that land on this part of the plant often get trapped. Here yet-to-open flowers of a Royal Catchfly (Silene regia) demonstrate the reason for the name.

A beautiful eroded limestone rock formation within the forest of Picture Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

An unusual orchid, Green-leaved Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia), in full bloom deep within the forests of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Clark Lake Bog in Tahquamenon State Park in the UP of Michigan.

Jeff carefully steps out on to the fragile — and potentially deadly — bog mat near Clark Lake Bog to photograph the scene. The area is punctuated with Tamarack trees (Larix laricina), a species closely associated with acidic bogs.

Jeff carefully positions himself and his tripod on a tenuous platform jutting out into Clark Lake Bog. What is he attempting to photograph? See the next image.

Success! I captured this other-worldly image of the small, carnivorous Spatulate-leaved Sundew (Drosera intermedia) as the sun began to set.

A macro shot of a beautiful Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina).

Am amazing Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) pollinating a Prairie Monarda (Monarda fistulosa).

Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare), also known as Blueweed, is an attractive non-native plant that can be found on roadsides and waste places of limestone regions.

The individual flowers on the floral spike of the aptly-named Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana) will remain for a time in whatever position they are moved.

Count the deer flies. We were bitten by numerous deer flies and uncountable mosquitoes during our time in the field. How many deer flies do you see swarming around Jeff? At least 21.

It’s all about timing. We returned to this particular spot four times just to get this picture of a Michigan Lily (Lilium michiganense).

Unseen Benefits of This Endeavor

This field guide project has provided me with the opportunity to reconnect to the natural world in a way that I had been missing for some time. In retrospect, had I not accepted this project, I believe that the work I do in the world of technology would not be as meaningful to me going forward.

Besides providing me with an excuse (did I really need one) to spend more time out in nature, out in the field, this project enabled me to unplug from the metaverse, to hit the reset button and reevaluate what is truly important. It had become too apparent that I was spending more and more time in the metaverse, posting and chatting on various social channels in ways that truly did not prove useful to me nor my startup.

Although I claimed it was of little relevance to me, I did actually care about my social metrics — number of Twitter and G+ followers, my Klout score, etc. Whereas putting more time into the metaverse did maintain and sometimes increase my overall social metric rankings, the reality was that time spent in the metaspace did very little to improve my existence in the physical world. Breaking free of the shallow and often hollow trappings of the metaverse has allowed me to reassess what is truly important.

In the metaverse, there seem to always be an unlimited number of opportunities with which to get involved — open source projects, other startups, W3C groups, lengthy Google Plus threads. But few if any of these pursuits helped pay my bills nor did they result in long-term, meaningful work.

At first it was hard to unplug from the artificial and reinsert myself into the physical world. But after a week of immersive nature therapy, key synapses began to restrengthen. An important and essential core of my life began to reawaken.

I have made many friends in the metaspace and do strongly believe in the worth of open source and W3C groups. However, my involvement in various initiatives did not help my startup move anywhere closer to launch. If anything, it distracted me from my efforts.

You may be thinking that taking on the duties and responsibilities of co-authoring a field guide is an even greater hindrance to launching my startup. In a sense, that is true. However, as stated above, this project has rescued me from a deep dive into the metaverse. For that alone I am thankful.

Much of my writings about the Social Web and the Future of Humankind are rooted in my understanding and appreciation of the natural world and in particular ecology. However, I had become so immersed in the metaverse that I was spending fewer and fewer hours each week within nature and had reduced my time working on my startup. Instead, I was lost in conversations and thought. Although I would take breaks to walk in our native plant gardens, to go birding during migration, or to watch an occasional nature documentary, I was not tuned into the patterns of nature, I did not feel part of the natural world.

Have I Given Up On The Social Web?

Whereas I have not been working full-time on my current startup nor spending hardly any time on Twitter, Google Plus, or even on W3C committee work, as this field season comes to a close, I will be refocusing more of my efforts in these areas once again. Of course I will be putting in more field time next spring and summer and will be working on the field guide this winter — writing, photo sorting and editing, and range map creating.

With a very successful field season completed this year, and the reintegration of a core piece of myself, I feel confident that I can now juggle two disparate jobs — that of smartup entrepreneur and that of field guide author.

Coming in 2014!

Do you live in the Midwest, plan to visit the Midwest, or have friends or family that live in the Midwest? If so, look for my Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of the Midwest book to come out some time in 2014. I’ll keep you posted on a more precise release date.

A wondrous high-quality sand terraced dunal habitat on the western shores of the Mississippi River, Weaver Dunes Scientific and Natural Area is protected thanks to The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota.

In my article, The Wilder Side of Me, I ended with this thought that I think is appropriate to revisit:

E. O. Wilson says that, “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.” I have known this to be true for decades. But nature also holds the keys to our species future, keys that can only be utilized if we take the time to truly comprehend the marvel that is the Web of Life.

While you eagerly await the publication of my latest tome, I encourage you to step back a little from the metaverse and reengage and immerse yourself in the physical world. Take a walk at a local park during a lunch break, visit a state park this weekend, or just spend time in your yard or on your porch watching the marvels of nature. As our society accelerates toward increasingly complex technologies, let’s not forget the foundation upon which our lives and livelihoods depend — the natural world.

Why on Earth would I do this? It is spring migration!

Jeff in the field birding

The past several weeks, my wife April and I have been taking in the spectacle of animal migration — primarily birds. We’ve done this together each year for more than two decades. We are birders and proud of it!

A Great Nature Event

At this time of year in the eastern US, there is a free great nature event that anyone with a pair of eyes or even ears can experience. It is the time of year when part of the tropics returns to your backyard — with birds passing through on their way to prime breeding grounds further north. Literally billions of migrating birds make a dangerous, arduous journey from their wintering grounds, primarily in Central or South America, to their breeding grounds in North America (north of Mexico).

When thinking about the spectacle of mass animal migration many people may think of the massive movement of large ungulates on the Serengeti plains, or the throngs of North American Caribou on the Arctic tundra, or even the Humpback Whales’ long journey from wintering to breeding grounds. Yet the biennial migration of neotropical birds between the American continents may be the largest, if not greatest, mass animal migration on Earth. More than 250 species of birds are considered neotropical migrants. From hawks, to shorebirds, to waterfowl, to songbirds, these avian pilgrims make a twice-a-year journey from wintering grounds to breeding grounds and back.

The sheer number of migrating neotropical birds is astounding. It is estimated that approximately 5 billion birds migrate from the subtropics and tropics each spring to the United States and Canada. Even with the high mortality rates of adult birds during spring migration and while on breeding territory, the number of birds making the southward journey in the fall is probably greater as the adult birds are joined by juveniles.

Although you can experience bird migration in the western and central parts of the United States, if you live in the eastern third of the country (east of the Mississippi River), the number and diversity of migrating terrestrial-based bird species is significantly greater. Furthermore there are some gems of the avian world that are best seen in their eastern migratory flyways — primarily the group of birds generally called the New World wood-warblers as many of them require some degree of forest habitat for breeding.

Prothonotary Warbler

Northern Parula

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler

A Male Cape May Warbler

A Celebration of Migration

April and I have traveled all over North America and several other continents to study birds. But this time of year, we do not venture too far from our home as we let the birds do the traveling to visit with us. Over the past several years, we have been spending more and more of the spring migration time in northwest Ohio in what is becoming known as the Warbler Capital of the World. We spend much of our time in and around the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, a world-renowned migrant trap: a place where, if conditions are right, large numbers and a great diversity of neotropical migrants may stopover on their journey north.

Birders at The Biggest Week

The past three years we have participated in a new birding festival known as The Biggest Week in American Birding. It is a celebration of migration, a wonderful place to see some of the jewels of the avian world, interact with birders from around the world, and meet people of all skill and interest levels. Literally thousands of birders flock to this location each year to take in the experience.

Beyond The Count

Although we do not keep year lists or even a life list anymore — a tally of the total bird species we have seen over a given time period and/or at a given geographic location — I did tally up the species we encountered during our most recent Biggest Week sojourn. We saw or heard a total of 154 species of birds — some of them were year-round residents and thus non-migratory species.

Whereas to hardcore, consummate birders that number may seem a little low given that over 230+ species were theoretically possible, to us the list, the tally, is not important. Once we hit 1000 bird species on our life list, we grew tired of chasing a number. We learned that what brought the most joy and happiness to our natural wanderings was getting to know a species better, getting to truly understand its behavior and the ecological niches on which it depends. That requires studying a bird well, observing it whenever you have the opportunity. It also requires getting to know its habitat — the plants, the prey, the biogeographic makeup of its niche. Thus finding rare birds is still fun, but what provides us with greater insight is the time we spend with species that we have seen many times before.

Although we keep field notes from each of our major trips and could come up with a total life list, we no longer enter any of our data into a birding database. Now, after two decades plus of tropical travel, we do not have a concrete count at where we stand — although I have a relatively good idea at where our life list probably stands.

Birding’s Cool And Birders Rock!

At The Biggest Week festival, we attended a keynote by world-renowned bird expert, naturalist, and field guide series author and editor Kenn Kaufman, who made a powerful, impassioned plea for the need to rebrand the activity of birding. I’ll attempt to encapsulate the essence of his speech in this section.

Jeff with his good friend Kenn Kaufman study a Prairie Warbler

Kenn remarked that the old-school view of birdwatchers as dweebs or nerds is passé. Birders come from diverse professional and personal backgrounds. From lawyers and doctors, to corporate executives and military Generals, to past Presidents of the United States and renowned conservationists, to scientists and school children of all ages, birders and the activity of birding are cool.

Birding is growing in popularity. This is a positive trend as there are real-world political, economic, and environmental consequences of humans gaining a better insight into and deepening their appreciation of the larger ecological connections that power our ecosphere.

Whereas avocations like running, tennis, golf, and even NASCAR may provide an important respite to participants, their benefit to the ecosphere is nil — in some cases these pursuits actually have a net-negative to the overall health of the planet. However pursuits such as birding that help participants reconnect to the natural world can accrue net-positives for the Earth over time. Birders’ activities can even provide useful scientific data for monitoring species and ecosystem health.

Prairie Warbler

Tower at Magee Marsh

A packed boardwalk of eager birders hoping to see a Golden-winged Warbler

Golden-winged Warbler that was just banded

The Wilder Side of Me

Although I spend much of my professional time thinking about and working on the issue of the technological transformation of society and our world, I lead a double life. These days my vocation is InterWeb technologist and technological futurist, yet my avocations are naturalist and ecologist. But in the past, these roles have been reversed.

If you’re interested in learning more, please read my recent post, The Wilder Side of Me.

Outside Resources

Magee: Anatomy of a Migrant Hotspot

This post is an celebration of life — literally. It is a celebration of the wonders of the natural world and my seemingly-innate connection to it from an early age. It is an autobiographical essay about how I become a naturalist and ecologist.

Jeff photographing a Tree Frog on a Mayapple leaf

Although the vast majority of readers of my blog know me as an InterWeb technologist and technological futurist, I am as much a naturalist as I am a technologist. To me, the study of the natural world, the drive to understand the intimate connections of the Web of Life, and my fascination with the complex adaptive systems that power our ecosphere, provide me with unique insights into the technological challenges our species faces. Thus, being a naturalist makes me a better technologist and futurist.

An Exotic Bird Sparks My Imagination

From my earliest memories, I was fascinated by the natural world. Although I was a very sickly kid, that did not stop me from dreaming about animals, wishing to explore the wilds of my backyard. As a kid, I collected spiders and insects in jars so as to study them. I watched the Red-headed Woodpeckers that nested in our ancient Red oaks. I absorbed every wildlife documentary and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom episode I could watch.

Red-headed Woodpecker

In summer my family would travel to Cape Cod, to Plymouth Beach. We would spend two weeks at the beach in a cottage that my mother’s sister, my aunt, owned. The cottage was on the shore with great views of the ocean. There I would explore the shoreline, study the intertidal pools, and try not to let my terrible asthma ruin my time.

When I was six or seven, I encountered an exotic bird at this cottage. I was transfixed by its song. I would spend long periods of time just sitting on the front porch, looking out over the ocean, and listening to the wonderful, melodious song of this bird. I had no idea what it was and only occasionally caught glimpses of it perched on a shrub down below me.

Each year when our vacation was over and we were jumping into the car for our long drive home, I would intently listen, trying to catch the song of this exotic bird one last time. Each year I looked forward to returning to the cottage so as I could hear the music of this marvelous creature again.

It was not until I was nine or ten years old that I figured out the mystery of this bird. One summer’s day in South Bend, I heard the mystical song of this bird at our home. I grabbed our Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America and finally identified my exotic quarry. It was a Song Sparrow! It turned out to be a rather common sparrow with a wide distribution throughout most of the United States and Canada. But for some reason, I had never heard it anywhere else except in Cape Cod — that was until now.

Although I had been fascinated by the Red-headed woodpeckers that nested in our yard and the Common Redpolls that showed up only in the wintertime at our feeders, it was this common bird, the Song Sparrow, that sparked my interest in and love of birds.

To this day whenever I hear a Song Sparrow singing I am transported back to the front porch of that cottage on Plymouth Beach. I am a six-year old kid once again and anything seems possible. To me, a Song Sparrow remains an exotic, mystical bird.

Song Sparrow

With my growing interest in birds, it was not long until I started going out into the field (our neighborhood) to actively pursue them. When I was ten or eleven, my Father’s father, my grandfather, moved to Green Valley, Arizona. One summer we traveled to Arizona to visit him. I remember the evening when my father announced that he planned to wake up at 5:30 am to go bird watching in and around Mount Wrightson — one of the sky islands of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert region. That sounded interesting to me so I asked him if I could join him. Our first bird of the morning, and the first bird that I saw as an official traveling birder, was a Phainopepla — a Northern Cardinal shaped and sized bird but that is all black.

Lessons From A Big Brown Bug: I Started Fifth Grade With Four Insects In A Jar

The summer before fifth grade, my classmates and I were sent a letter from our soon-to-be science teacher instructing us on the insect collection we were to assiduously begin while we were on summer break. We had to collect a minimum of 30 insects making sure that we had a good variety of species. I refused to collect any insects — at least in the way we had been instructed — in a jar partially filled with alcohol.

I had learned years previously how to properly collect insects: in a jar with a lid into which holes were punched so the insects would have plenty of oxygen. Capturing a live insect and dropping it into a jar or alcohol to kill and preserve it was out of the question. Besides, I argued, I could easily use my older brothers’ insect collections; we still had them in the house. I also suggested that I already knew more about insects than my classmates because I had been studying live specimens for years.

My parents were sympathetic but insisted that I at least give it a try. I was a stellar student with a penchant for science and they did not want me to flunk. So I did as they requested, painfully catching three insects in the jar of death. I saw my fourth insect fly to a low-hanging oak limb in my best friend’s front yard. I knew what it was just from its flight pattern. It was a large brown true bug, in the order Hemiptera.

I quickly approached the oak tree, opening my jar that had no holes in the lid. I positioned the lid on top of the leaf and the true bug, and the jar below the leaf. With one swift motion, I slammed the lid down and the jar up, trapping the insect in the container. The insect was now trapped between the torn leaf and the underside of the lid. I carefully opened the jar and slid the leaf out from underneath the lid, making sure the true bug did not escape.

Then it happened.

I watched as the true bug futilely tried to cling on to the sides of the slippery glass jar. It struggled to grip the smooth surface as it succumbed to the deadly vapors of the alcohol. My peripheral vision began to collapse as I watched in horror as the true bug hit the liquid and sank. I literally had tunnel vision. I slumped to the ground, jar in my hands, watching the insect’s last moments of life. I was deeply saddened. I sat on the hilltop of my friend’s lawn, stunned at what I had done. It was a visceral experience that I vividly remember to this day.

I had been a collector and observer of insects for years. But I used collection jars that let me study live specimens and learn about their behaviors. Now I had trivialized an insect’s utility by killing it in alcohol just so that I could get a good grade in my fifth-grade science class. I already knew the body parts of an insect. I already knew about the various life cycles and taxonomic classifications of many of the insects in our yard. This process would teach me nothing new — other than how to put a pin in a dead bug.

Right then and there, in my emotionally-distraught state and filled with guilt, I vowed that this was the end of my fifth-grade science insect collection. I slowly walked home in tears. When my Mom saw me, she knew too that my insect collecting days were over — at least the type of collecting that requires a killing jar.

So, with only four insects in my jar of death, I started fifth grade. And guess what? My science teacher was accepting of my choice. I did an alternate project instead and remained the best science student in my class.

Microbiology and Ecology: Two Seemingly-Disparate Fields

The time I spent studying insects and birds in my backyard as a kid, as well as the horrible experience I had killing insects for a fifth-grade science class, shaped my decisions for years to come. I attended the University of Notre Dame, majoring in molecular microbiology and ecology — two seemingly-disparate fields. Why ecology? Because I could not give up my love of natural history.

Although I was fascinated by life on the microscopic scale, I squeezed in extra coursework on field ecology, botany, population ecology and more so that I could sate the thirst I had for natural history.

So Long Science, Hello Something Else — Anything Else

After four years of studying science and spending too much time in dingy science labs, I lost track of what I wanted to do next. With my degree in microbiology and coursework in chemistry and biochemistry, I could have applied to medical school. But I had lost interest in that idea between my freshman and sophomore years. During the summer, I spent some time hanging out with a thoracic surgeon, actually accompanying him on his hospital rounds and standing next to him in the operating arena as he performed various surgeries. Although that was fascinating, the idea of being cooped up in a hospital for the rest of my career was unappealing.

I considered going to graduate school in the sciences — possible ecology or even marine biology — as I still had an interest in ecology and field work. But the reality was that I was burned out studying science. I simply had had one too many labs and too much science coursework.

I needed a break.

So instead of getting a job, I decided to enroll in business school. I thought that studying something that was entirely different from what I had been studying ever since I was a kid might be a refreshing change.

I was accepted into Notre Dame’s Graduate Business School, into their MBA program. I decided to pursue a dual track, concentrating in both information technology and marketing. As I had learned how to program computers during my freshman year of high school and I was quite good at it, this course of study seemed to make sense.

As graduation from the MBA program approached, I realized once again that I did not want to pursue the typical career paths that my graduate business colleagues were interested in pursuing. Instead, I wanted to combine my new-found business skills with my love of science and nature.

I graduated with high honors from the program and landed a position with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in Washington, DC. That was serendipitous as it was at the NWF where I met my future wife.

Our Malagasy Adventure: The Makings of A Tropical Ecologist

I was hired by the NWF’s Corporate Conservation Council to work on a wetlands mitigation database project. The pay was miserable and I knew that in less than a year I would be looking for another job. But working at NWF and meeting April helped me to rekindled my love of nature and science.

Soon we were engaged and dreaming about our future. We both decided to go to graduate school in biology — she would study biological anthropology and I would study tropical ecology with an emphasis on ornithology.

We took the general GREs and the GRE biology subject tests. It was the second time I took both tests — the first time I took them was just before I had decided to get a MBA and forego graduate school in the sciences.

April’s advisor for her undergraduate science major was a famous primatologist — Dr. Patricia Wright. She was working on a conservation project in Madagascar. In the summer of 1990, she invited the two of us — now freshly married — to come to Madagascar to help out with a major habitat and species assessment project for Madagascar’s first proposed national park — Ranomafana National Park.

There we helped in several studies: foraging behavior of Diademed Sifakas (a type of lemur) and nesting behavior and brooding success of Rufous Vangas and Malagasy Paradise Flycatchers.

Jeff watching the nest of a Rufous Vanga

Namorona River in Ranomafana National Park

Male Malagasy Paradise Flycatcher

Female Malagasy Paradise Flycatcher

Jeff weighing Malagasy Paradise Flycatcher hatchlings

The smallest primate on earth -- the Mouse Lemur

A New Species And Some Sobering Advice

During our off time, April and I would explore the rainforest, sometimes venturing a couple hours away from base camp. On one such break, we actually decided to explore the river bank near our camp — we, as well as all the researchers, lived in tents.

We came across a small bird constructing a nest. We observed it for awhile and realized that it was a species we had not yet encountered. When we were in Madagascar, there was no field guide to the birds. Although one was in the works, it was not yet in print — it came out a few weeks after we left Madagascar.

We realized that we needed to show this bird to the ornithologist for whom we were doing research. Suffice it to say that it was a new species — the Cryptic Warbler — but it would not be officially “discovered” until two years later by two birding tour guides scouting the location as a possible tour destination. They found the bird very close to the area in which we first observed it. If you ever see me out in the field, ask me to finish the story about how we almost co-discovered a new bird species but didn’t.

Whereas it would be a few years before we realized our unfortunate luck in not being co-discoverers of a new species of bird, we had a more fundamental, life-changing experience in Madagascar. We were told in no uncertain terms by several of the world-class researchers in the camp that we should not go to graduate school.

After all our time, effort, and interest in pursuing graduate degrees in science, top-notched scientists were telling us that it was not worth it. They said that funding for graduate students studying tropical ecology was almost impossible to get due to drastic cut backs. They said that they had great difficulties in securing funding for their projects. If world-renowned scientists were having difficulties obtaining funding, what chances did we have in securing funding for our graduate studies?

Confused And Back In The States

We returned back to the states wondering what we should do. April was still employed by NWF but her time there was drawing to a close. Her experiences in Madagascar made her realize that she wanted to pursue a writing career, focusing on science and nature. It is the career she has cultivated with much success for over twenty years.

I, on the other hand, was confused. After a call from a friend and graduate school colleague, April and I decided to move back to my hometown of South Bend, Indiana. There I would join him in a new computer consulting venture. That was the start of my consulting career. You can read more details about the business side of my life on my About Me page.

Even though I had decided for a second time not to pursue a graduate degree in science, my passion for nature had been rekindled by our experiences in Madagascar and by April’s infectious love of wildlife. I searched for ways that I could cobble together some semblance of a nature-based avocation. Although my vocation was computers, I desperately wished that I could find a way to make nature my vocation instead of avocation.

When the first Gulf War broke out, my business partner was called to duty — he was a career Air Force navigator who remained in the Air Force Reserves. He wanted to keep the business but with him going, it did not make sense for me to stick around. So, I started my own consulting company.

To maintain my connection to natural-history pursuits, I served as Vice President and then President of our local chapter of the Audubon Society. I discovered that, according to others, I had a gift for hearing, learning, and identifying bird vocalizations. Although I knew the songs and calls of many bird species already, I spent time expanding my knowledge base, learning the vocalizations of many of the North America’s bird species. I also co-wrote with April an adult book on the ecology of North American hummingbirds (north of Mexico). On the weekends April and I would go birding or I would work on honing my botanical skills.

JFNew, Native Plant Nursery, And Prairie Fen

The dotcom bubble (or bust) brought another change in my career. In 1999, I no longer worked at the consulting company I had started. Through my work with the South Bend – Elkhart Audubon Society, an opportunity came along to join a relatively young ecological consulting firm — JFNew & Associates. I was initially hired to turn around a failing division of the company that had never turned a profit but I served in many concurrent capacities.

I served as a restoration ecologist, director of the native plant nursery, and partner of the firm. Along with running the daily operations of the nursery division, I also managed ecological assessments, bird surveys, and helped clients obtain permits for their projects. Again, you can read more about my business success at JFNew on my About Me page.

My proudest accomplishment as a result of my client work at JFNew was the co-discovery of a significant acreage of a very rare habitat type in Michigan called prairie fen. Our discovery of 140 acres of habitat added almost 10% to the total known extant acreage of this rare prairie fen habitat type to the state of Michigan. After three years of off-the-clock survey work on the weekends and difficult negotiations between the developers and The Nature Conservancy state office in Michigan, we were able to reach an agreement for purchase and transfer of this land. It is now protected from future development. As there are many rare, threatened, or endangered plants and animals that call this place home, it is a victory I will always cherish.

Jeff with his 71-year old Father at the Prairie Fen

The Prairie Fen makes the cover of the Michigan TNC's 2003 Annual Report

An article about the Prairie Fen in the Michigan TNC magazine

Restoring Our Yard

There are a number of benefits of running a native plant nursery. One of the best benefits is discounted and free plants. I took advantage of the opportunity and purchased and acquired many thousands of native plant cuttings, plugs, and starts. We used the material to restore and landscape a large portion of our yard.

Native Columbine, a hummingbird favorite

The almost glowing purple flowers of Spiderwort

Cupplants offer a great source of nectar for native bees and seed in the fall for American Goldfinches

A field of Lupinus perennis, another early-spring native bee nectar source

Royal Catchfly, a state listed species in Indiana, is another hummingbird favorite

Over the course of six years, we restored almost an acre of our one-and-a-half acre yard, returning it to savanna, prairie, and wetland habitat.

Jeff and a colleague perform a controlled burn to prepare the planting site

Jeff marks borders for the savanna restoration planting

A crew helps install more than 1000 native savanna plants

Heavy equipment was required for multiple projects

The savanna after one year.

We even built a large water garden to help propagate rare native plant species and provide suitable habitat for pond-based animals.

The fully excavated water garden basins -- three in all.

Water garden excavation closeup

Laying the liner. This is not a small water garden!

Functioning water garden after a few months.

Close up of small pond vegetated with native aquatic plants

View of large pond. Just behind is a peat bog with rare native plants.

A Green Frog finds a comfortable home

A Blue Dasher perched on the spike of Pickerel Weed

At its heyday, we had almost 400 species of genotypically-local native plants in our yard. Today, the number has dwindled as we’ve let natural processes decide which plant populations thrive and which ones die. Before we returned native vegetation to our yard and got rid of much of the lawn, we had recorded 6 species of butterfly and moth. After, we had over 43 species.

We raised a group of Io Moths that we found on one of our Redbuds

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on a Liatris Spike

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth feeding on Prairie Monarda

A gorgeous Red-spotted Purple butterfly

Through my work at the native plant nursery, with ecological assessments, and our work in restoring our yard, my botanical interests and skills blossomed. I became a better-rounded naturalist, rather than a lopsided ecologist who primarily knew about the birds.

Tropical Tour Guiding

While I was still at JFNew, April and I started a nature tour company. It was yet another way for me to get out in the wilds and immerse myself in nature. We called our company a natural-history adventure travel company and offered tours to the tropics during the few weeks of vacation that I took each year from my ecological consulting company.

I dreamed of growing this business to the point that I could retire from JFNew and spend a good portion of my time exploring tropical rainforests while making a living doing it.

Jeff (in center) after canopy-climbing adventure in Panama

A Chestnut-mandibled Toucan in a Cecropia Tree

Male Fasciated Antshrike

A Chapter Ends As My Journey Is Threatened

In early 2004, it became apparent that I was very sick. It took almost eight months to place a name on my disease. I was diagnosed with a deadly disease and made the decision to resign my partnership at JFNew in early 2005. I left the company and my native plant nursery so as to focus on my health. As a result of my illness, we also had to suspend our Sayre Nature Adventures tours.

During my fight for health, I needed to do something to keep my mind preoccupied. As it was not practical or advisable for me to spend too much time outdoors — or at least exploring the wilds in some exotic locale — I decided to return to my computer consulting days. However, instead of taking on clients, I caught up on the latest and greatest Internet programming paradigms with the goal of eventually starting a media-based publishing startup.

With my change of focus to Internet technologies, I came full circle and nature once again became an avocation, taking a backseat in my daily routine. To this day, I continually struggle with finding ways to integrate nature into my business life. I have a few options that I am exploring that might make the pursuit of natural history more than an avocation, but my current InterWeb startup path is also a passion of mine.

Thus, I lead a double life. Most of you known me as a technologist and futurist. But some of my closest friends know me as a naturalist and ecologist. What am I? I am both.

Much of the foundation of my technological musings is based on ecological theories and the study of complex adaptive systems in nature. Honing my skills as a naturalist and opening my mind to the ecological ties in nature have helped me to see the larger, intrinsic connections that are shaping the technological basis of humanity’s communication revolution. Homo sapiens is but a single species. Although humankind may believe that it is separate from the natural world, we are inextricably incorporated into the Web of Life. We are part of the natural world. We are but another species of animal — albeit one that is increasingly stressing the bonds of the ecosphere.

The Journey Continues

Oh, by the way, I did not die from my disease. In fact, I am healthier in many ways than I was a decade or more ago. A few years back, as it became apparent that I had beat the disease that was trying to conquer me, I began to workout once again. Lifting, running, returning to the field to bird and botanize. I have slowly rebuilt my strength and body and reengaged with the natural world. Whereas life is a constant struggle and a complex challenge, time spent observing, studying, and appreciating the natural world is not only good for the soul but also helps put one’s place in the world into proper perspective.

E. O. Wilson says that, “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.” I have known this to be true for decades. But nature also holds the keys to our species future, keys that can only be utilized if we take the time to truly comprehend the marvel that is the Web of Life.

Related Articles

To learn more about how I like to spend my time in the physical world, see my article, A Migration Celebration.

Do you think Quentin has got it right? If you would like to comment on this story, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Explorers examine a crevasse on Lyman Glacier in 1916. (Photo courtesy of the United States Forest Service. Archived at the World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder, CO.)

I do not know how long the BBC has relied on an outside site to host and hold conversations about their articles. I believe that BBC’s decision — or any site’s — to fracture their content stream by choice is a bad idea.

Why? Because it makes users have to leave their site — why would they want that — and log into another site just to read and post comments about an article. As some of us do not have Facebook accounts by choice (like me), it also means that they are alienating some people from the conversation.

Fracturing By User

Whereas fracturing your own Stream by choice is not a good idea, sometimes it is the users who fracture your commenting stream.

One well-known and respected VC, Mark Suster (G+, T), has publicly stated that he does not like to announce his blog posts on Google Plus or Facebook as it fractures the conversation stream. People would comment on his post within his Google Plus or Facebook thread but not bother to reply on his blog post. He wisely prefers to have the conversation stream occur in one place — on his blog. That way it can easily be accessible to all, and moderated by him. So instead of using Google Plus to announce his newest postings, he relies on Twitter as it is suited to broadcasting about his posts.

I, too, have debated the desirability of announcing my latest blog articles on Google Plus as 95% of the comments I receive occur on my Google Plus thread and not within my blog post. I have made the observation before that Twitter is more a broadcast platform and Google Plus is more of a conversation ecosystem. Mark’s experiences and mine seem to back up this assertion.

You run the risk of giving your readers the opportunity to fracture your article’s conversation stream if you announce it on Google Plus or Facebook. To prevent that from happening while still benefiting from announcing their posts on social networking sites, some bloggers will turn off commenting within Google Plus and Facebook and ask their readers to leave comments on their original posting.

Are There Solutions?

As long as there are multiple Stream Channel providers, the reality of Stream fracturing will remain. However, fracturing your own stream on purpose, as the BBC does, seems like a bad idea. But, it is something that you can control. Preventing others from fracturing your own stream can be a little more difficult as readers can repost or reshare your content and create new channels of conversation that are divorced from the original content bucket.

It is clear that part of the issue with fracturing of streams in the blogging has to do with the outdate paradigm of blogging engines. I wrote about the need for blogging to evolve in my article, It’s Time for Blogging to Evolve. In that article, I propose a path toward making blogging a fully-integrated member in the real-time social web.

Other Articles of Mine On Stream Fracturing

Is Surrogate Blogging via Google Plus a Good Idea?

How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?

To be accurate and fair, this lifestyle change was spurred on by my wife. She’s wanted a standing desk in her office for sometime. As I looked into the benefits of such a setup, I decided that I should switch to a standing desk as well. Now, both of us have a standing desk in a home office that we share.

Pull Up A Chair

I spend a considerable amount of time at my home office, sitting in a chair, working at my computer — writing, coding, chatting, and sometimes just starring at the screen. I average about 60 hours a week sitting on my rear in front of my computer. Since I usually do that six days a week, that means I average 10 hours per day sitting at my computer.

With only 24 hours in each day on Earth, and with my often-met goal of getting at least eight hours of sleep each night, that meant I was spending at least 18 hours of each day in a sitting or supine position. When I added in sitting for meals and other activities, I calculated that that meant I was in a fully-upright position (standing, running, walking) for fewer than 5 hours each day — only about 20% of my life.

Wow! For creatures that evolved efficient, bipedal locomotion, it sure seems like a twenty precent usage rate might make such a feature secondary in importance. Modern office dwellers should have evolved much larger butts as sitting is clearly more important. Of course, many modern-day office workers do indeed obtain that feature overtime because they fail to appreciate our body’s natural design.

It’s About Wellness and Productivity

I’m an active person. I usually workout an average of 1.4 hours per day, four to six days a week. However, I am not getting any younger. I’m always interested in steps I can take to maximize and maintain my health for as long as possible.

In the past, I had read articles about the adverse health effects and risks associated with sitting for hours on end — pun intended — and learned about the many benefits of working in a standing position. Along with reduced back strain and increased energy, you can burn up to 60 calories more per hour than sitting. That means that in a week’s time, and at my average hours worked per day, I will burn 3600 additional calories per week just by standing at my desk instead of sitting.

Now I am not really too worried about burning extra calories, but as I said, I am not getting any younger. Every little bit will help me stay in good to great shape, to age more gracefully, and to continue leading an active life.

My Solution

I spent literally a day and a half last week researching the ergonomics of standing desks and looking at a number of pre-constructed options. I finally decided I didn’t like most of the options (especially the cost). So, I would design and build my own standing desk. A few more hours on the InterWebs getting design ideas and I was ready to locate the parts.

Surprisingly, I ended up purchasing most of the parts from Ikea. As Ikea is known for their love of particle board, I was skeptically that I could find a solid wood table top. That was an important feature. I avoid particle board and other processed, composite wood products as they outgas formaldehyde — often for up to two years. Whereas you can get low-emission composite wood products (Ikea apparently uses such material in their particle board offerings), why would you want to expose yourself to any emissions.

Fortunately, Ikea has a few solid wood, edge-glued countertops and tabletops that are acceptable. Their solid wood tabletops have been pretreated with linseed oil, so there is a slight outgassing from that, but it is not nearly as toxic as formaldehyde. Besides, I plan to finish treat the desktop with a non-toxic beeswax furniture polish which will not only protect the surface better, but also it will help reduce any remaining linseed oil from outgassing.

Here are the items I purchased from Ikea for each standing desk I made:

• 1 Vika Byske tabletop
• 5 Vika Byske adjustable legs
• 6 Capita brackets (they come two per set, so three sets)

For the shelf, I went to my local Lowes and purchased an edge-glued 3/4” x 15” x 48” solid aspen panel. Since the screws that come with the Capita brackets were too long — they’re meant for shelf depths of at least 1” — I purchased 5/8” #8 flat head phillips wood screws. They worked fine to anchor the Capita brackets to the shelf.

As you can see in the pictures, each table has five legs. Based on my research, I discovered that the Vika Byske adjustable legs do not offer the most stable base if used for a free-standing table. Unfortunately, the higher you extended the legs, the more unstable they can become. I decided to go with a fifth leg to add a little more stability.

Although that did seem to work, in the end I determined that the table still wobbled too much for my liking. Since we planned to position our new standing desks next to a wall, I took Ikea up on their assertion that the legs “should only be combined with a wall-mounted table top” (see the “Good to know” section on the Vika Byske adjustable legs webpage). Each leg comes with one small angle bracket. You attach one end to the bottom of the tabletop and the other to the wall. I used two of the small brackets to secure one side of the standing desk to a horizontal 2 x 3 board (not 2 x 4) that I attached to the wall. The depth of the board is what mattered, not the width. So a 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 would have worked equally as well. I just had an odd dimensional piece of stock lumber in the garage so I used it.

With the additional stability of the wall attachment, our standing desks are very solid. Furthermore the three sets of Capita brackets and the fifth leg centered under the centerline of the shelf, allow the shelf to hold considerable weight. How much? I am not sure, but my iMac weighs thirty pounds. Normally, you would not want to place such weight on a solid 3/4” thick board that is supported on only two ends (laminated wood would be much stronger).

The total cost (not including my time, of course) for each finished standing desk was $300. As I was in Chicago last Thursday, I took advantage of the trip to visit one of their local Ikea stores and picked up all the items needed. When you deduct the cost of gas and toll, traveling to Ikea saved $230 on shipping. The Vika Byske tabletops are too bulky to ship via UPS or FedEx, so they must be shipped freight. To ship two of the Vika Byske tabletops to our house would have cost $300 extra.

The End Result

What is the end result? Well, I am off my end and have started this week working at my awesome standing desk. So far I’m enjoying the experience. I’m having no issues using my computer, typing on the keyboard while in a standing position. I’ll let you know how it turns out but I’ve already burned 420 more calories today than I would have had I been sitting on my rear.

And yes, as tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, this is my gift to my wife. Instead of chocolate, it is better health and longevity. Besides, we always have plenty of dark chocolate around the house.

More Resources

Gina Trapani’s interesting read, Why and How I Switched to a Standing Desk

Standing Desks Are on the Rise

As a consulting company, we tracked each hour of each employee’s day. We knew what they did and for how long they did it. We could calculate an employee’s total number of hours worked per year, average hours worked per day/week/month, what activities they spent most of their time focused doing, and therefore, each employee’s chargeability. That is consulting slang for how much profit we could squeeze out of each lemon employee.

As it turned out, I had some leverage concerning the big disagreement that I had with my partners on this yet-to-be-revealed work-style issue. For each of the years I worked at the firm (except for the first year), I had the highest average working-hours-per-month total out of all the employees in the firm (over a hundred). To make matters worse (from my partners’ perspective), the division with which I had P & L responsibility was not only the most profitable in percentage terms but also in real dollars. Finally, before I came along, this division had never turned a profit and was a significant cash sink from the corporate coffers. I turned my division around in 18 months and it stayed strong from that point on.

So, when I did or suggested something that was not popular, I managed to at least get a slight pause and a few moments of consideration before the arguing would begin. I was a stellar model of an exemplary employee, manager, and director. But to most of my fellow partners, I was not a stellar example of a partner. Why? Because I was seen as the maverick who not only looked at things differently, but also who was constantly trying to stir things up.

Of course, I was trying to evolve the corporate culture so that our employees would enjoy their time at the company, so that they would have less stress, so that they would not only feel more appreciated but would actually be more appreciated. This would lead to greater productivity, faster growth, and more profits. My partners could not see this.

The Big Work Style Issue Revealed

I never liked the inherent, non-spoken, holier-than-thou, outdated and absurd mantra, and sacred covenant that businesses and their employees buy into — that it is not appropriate for employees to bring their home issues to work. Whereas it of course can be distracting to the productivity of the workforce when an employee lets her or his personal issues mix with their work issues, we are human beings after all and it is almost impossible — except maybe for true sociopaths — to avoid periodically letting home life impact work life. Furthermore, companies never have issues with employees bringing their work life and issues home. In fact, for most white-collared workers, it is often expected that you will always be available for contact when you are at home or on vacation. This is a double standard with which I could not tolerate.

To that end, I did two things that most partners at successful consulting firms would never dream of doing — mostly because they would view it as abhorrent and unprofessional behavior. 

First, I allowed my employees to bring their personal lives to work. I sat down with employees who were having a bad day, week, or month as a result of personal issues at home or their own serious health issues. I became someone who did not frown upon those who showed vulnerabilities. Second, I used each and everyone of my vacation days each year and did not allow my firm to contact me when I was on vacation.

It is unfortunate that most employees feel that by not taking all their allotted and earned vacation days, that it shows dedication. Employees also often sub optimize their vacation days taken as they feel that their managers frown on them when they use their vacation days. To me, however, I knew that I earned and deserved each and every one of those vacation days — and even more.

So, I took all my vacation days each year and would leave explicit instruction with my employees and partners not to call me. I made that especially easy as my wife and I usually traveled to an exotic, remote locale where it would be very difficult — if not impossible — to contact me. I also strongly encouraged each of my employees to use all of their vacation days each year (some did, some did not). I even promoted this practice outside of my division, although it was up to my partners to allow that for their employees.

Why did I do this? Because our employees deserved the time off. They earned it. I also believed that if someone could not afford to take all of their earned vacation days in a given year, then that meant that either they were poor time managers or, that we needed to hire more quality employees to distribute the workload.

Most employers give vacation allotments as an incentive but then when it comes time for an employee to use them, they make the employee feel guilty. However, they appreciate employees who underutilize time off. In fact, they use an awful trick to “reward” them for not using vacation days — they pay them for those days. Of course, this is a much better deal for the employers than the employee. An employer expects to earn a profit for each hour an employee works. So, paying them not to take their vacation days results in them making more money than if that employee had taken the vacation day.

Stirring The Pot To Make Gold

I stirred up the pot in other ways as well. I fought to share a larger portion of profits in an equitably manner with each employee (and not in the ridiculously formulaic way in which it was done — and then, not with any regularity or real fairness). I pushed for better wages and salaries. I argued that the company should award more aggressive bonuses. I even lobbied to have our employees treated and viewed as assets instead of resources.

Resources, after all, are something that is mined, consumed, and then discarded when every last drop of usefulness has been extracted. The phrase Human Capital was just beginning to come into vogue, but I disliked that term just as much as Human Resources. Capital expenditures are depreciable investments. No, instead I pushed, with very little success, to be innovators in the HR field, to treat and view our employees as appreciable assets.

Fight For Your Life

So, if you are a startup founder, a partner, manager, or lower-lever employee, do you live for work or work to live? It is up to each of you to decide how you are treated and to treat others in a way that lets them thrive, grow, and lead a life in which work is not viewed as an all-consuming necessity but instead is welcomed as a wonderful partner in achieving personal and family goals.

Comments?

Please feel free to comment below or join the active conversation on this article on Google Plus.

Image Credits

Royalty-free image thanks to Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

BitNami offers a variety of development and production stacks that make it quick and easy to set up a localhost-based development environment or even provision a production-based server with a full suite of tools. If you are familiar with the better known MAMP, offered by the German company appsolute GmbH, then you should have no issues using BitNami’s version instead.

What are the benefits of using BitNami’s MAMPStack?

First, as of the date of this article, their stack is up to date. It is compiled and built with the most recent, stable versions of PHP, Apache, MySQL, and phpmyadmin. Second, they offer a very easy-to-install PostgreSQL addon module that integrates into the MAMPStack. This provides the opportunity to use an alternative database, even leveraging PHP’s PDO extension to create a truly SQL-agnostic application. It should not be too hard in the future to add support for other open source SQL-based RDBMSs like Percona or even Drizzle. Third, they seem very responsive to their user community.

Why would you want to integrate MongoDB into your MAMPStack?

The days when a RDBMS could be the end all and be all of your backend are over. For more on this point, read part three of my five-part Smartup series, Web 3.0 Smartups: Moving Beyond the Relational Database.

In short, in the Social Web, smartups cannot use a RDBMS as their only backend tool for every job. A RDBMS is not a universal tool. In fact, RDBMSs — MySQL in particular — are overused and often misused.

Let’s Get Started!

Integrating MongoDB into your BitNami MAMPStack is a relatively straightforward process — at least if you are a developer accustomed to building and modifying your dev stacks. Reading this article will take you some time. But, once you fully understand this process, it should take no more than fifteen minutes to install and configure MongoDB to work within your BitNami MAMPStack.

How do I know? Because before posting this article, I deleted my BitNami MAMPStack using the uninstall.app application with which it ships. This deleted all the work I did in integrating MongoDB into the stack. I then reinstalled the stack and repeated the process below. Of course, I had backup copies of the BitNami MAMPStack because there is no need to redownload that. But, I did go through the entire below process. Total time? Thirteen minutes and four point six seconds — and that is with two MAMPStack server restarts. Bam!

Disclaimer: Before you begin, you agree that you have read this disclaimer and the next one and agree with them. You understand that you are entirely on your own with this process. If you are not comfortable with UNIX commands, if you have never worked within Terminal before, if you do not know how the steps listed below will affect your computer, and if you do not know how to fix any issues that may arise out of trying out these steps, then do not proceed. I am not responsible for what happens to your computer as a result of these suggested techniques. You have been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

Disclaimer 2: This process should not be used on production servers. It is only suitable for a development environment running on localhost.

A. Compiling the MongoDB PHP Driver From Source

Grab the very latest version of the MongoDB PHP Driver. Download the tarball version.

(Note: Although you can try installing the driver using PHP’s PECL command, I’ve had spotty luck with that approach in the past when attempting to install MongoDB into a third-party dev stack. The driver did not always get installed in the proper location. Sometimes it got installed in the extension directory of the default version of PHP that ships with OS X. When that happens, you have to uninstall the driver and try reinstalling it into the proper directory. As this has proven unreliable in the past, I find it easiest to compile from source then move the extension into the proper location within the MAMPStack. It just takes a few more minutes but ensures that everything is in its proper place.)

Drag the tarball out of your Downloads folder onto your desktop. Then double click on the mongo-x.x.x.tar tarball to extract the files. This will create the driver folder. Open up Terminal and navigate to that folder. Each line below starting with a “$” indicates a new terminal command. Before beginning, see the notes below the ordered list. Enter these commands one at a time in Terminal:

NOTE: You may need to change the mampstack version number below if you are installing a newer version — in other words, a version that came out after this article was posted or updated. It is currently updated for MAMPStack version 5.3.10-1 and PostgreSQL Module Addon 5.3.10-1.

1. $ cd /Users/{your_user_name}/Desktop

2. $ ls

3. $ cd mongo-x.x.x

4. $ cd mongo-x.x.x

5. $ sudo /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/bin/phpize

6. $ ./configure

7. $ sudo make install

Terminal Notes

Step 1: Replace {your_user_name} with the name of your mac account user. It is the name that appears within the /Users folder.

Step 2: The list command will allow you to double check the MongoDB file folder name which you will enter in the next step.

Step 3: Switch to the directory that contains your MongoDB PHP Driver and associated files. Replace the x.x.x with the version number of the driver which should be the same as that listed for the folder name.

Step 4: This seems like a repeat of above, but if you inspect the folder structure of the driver download, you will see what is going on. This switches into the directory within the downloaded folder that contains the actual driver source files. It is within this directory that you run the compile commands.

Step 5: The phpize command prepares the build environment for PHP extensions — in this case, for building the MongoDB PHP Driver extension (mongo.so). You will be prompted to enter your administrator password. This is your mac user account password (assuming that you are the owner of the mac).

When the screen of output is finished, you will have a compiled MongoDB Driver extension located in the modules directory of the driver folder. Look in /mongo-x.x.x/mongo-x.x.x/modules for the extension named mongo.so. Copy that extension into the following folder in your BitNami MAMPStack directory:

mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/lib/php/extensions

Now you need to add the following to your listed extensions within the php.ini file. In the BitNami MAMPStack, the php.ini file can be found here:

mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/etc

Open the php.ini file in your favorite IDE and add this to the “Dynamic Extensions” section of the file, just below the last active extension:

extension=mongo.so

Save and close the php.ini file.

Now, before continuing on to the next step, if your MAMPStack server is running, stop it and then restart it. Visit your phpinfo page to make sure that the MongoDB PHP Driver has been installed and is active. If you don’t know what a phpinfo page is, visit this link. (I made my PHP Info Page and placed it at root level in the apache2/htdocs folder before I began this process.) Run your phpinfo page and look for the “Configuration” section in the output. Now scroll down until you see “mongo”. Check to make sure the version number is what you expect.

If you do not see “mongo” listed, or the version number is incorrect, you’ll have to start the process again — but first you will need to delete the mongo.so file from BitNami MAMPStack’s PHP extension folder. However, if everything looks fine, you’re ready for the next section below — part two.

B. Adding and configuring the MongoDB Database

In this section, we’ll setup the MongoDB backend and make sure that it is functioning properly.

Follow these simple steps:

1. Download the most recent, stable OS X 64-bit binary version of MongoDB. Double click the tarball to extract the files.
2. Create a new folder called “mongo” in BitNami MAMPStack’s root. When you are done, you will have this directory structure: mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo
3. Create three subfolders in this newly-created mongo folder, setting their permissions to 775:

   bin

   data

   tmp

   Within the newly-created data directory, add the following subfolder with permissions set to 775 as well:

   db

4. Install the MongoDB files you’ve just downloaded and extracted into the mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/bin. Make sure you install just the contents of the bin folder within the downloaded MongoDB folder and not the bin folder too.
5. Next, you’ll create a configuration file for mongoDB. This file will tell mongo where to store data, log errors, and which directory to use for temporary stuff. In your favorite IDE, create a new file named mongodb.conf in the root directory of your mongo install ( mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo ). In that file, add the following:

   Important Note: You can copy the entire text below and paste it into your new, empty mongodb.conf file. However, before saving and closing this file, make sure there are no spaces on the blank lines between the code blocks. If you have even a single space on a blank line — or even after a command line — your Mongo server will not start up as it will believe the line with a space is a command line. It will not know how to interpret this phantom command. So, when attempting to start your Mongo server in step 6 below, if you receive this error, error command line: unrecognized line in ‘ ’, that means you have a space somewhere in this file. Find it, delete it, and try again. As much as I tried, I could not get the Syntax Highlighter to create the below text without adding an extra space between lines.

   # Store data in default MongoDB directory structure, /data/db/
   dbpath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/data/db
   
   # Set location where all MongoDB errors should be logged.
   # This should create a log file if it does not exist
   logpath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/mongodb.log
   
   # Set location of pid file; this should create one if it does not exist
   pidfilepath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/tmp/mongo.pid
   
   # Only accept local connections
   bind_ip = 127.0.0.1

   Save and close your newly-created mongodb.conf file.

6. To launch MongoDB server, open up terminal and type the following command all on one line. However, as we have just made significant additions and changes to the basic, out-of-the-box BitNami MAMPStack, you need to restart your BitNami MAMPStack servers to make sure all the changes are picked up.

   Once the MAMPStack servers have restarted, type this into Terminal — place your cursor in the box and copy the entire string as it does extend beyond the margins of the box:

   sudo /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/bin/mongod --config=/Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/mongodb.conf

   Please note: From now on, this is how you will start your mongod server.

7. Test your MongoDB install to make sure that the server is running. By default, MongoDB listens to port 27017. You can verify which port MongoDB is listening to by looking up the configuration settings of your MongoDB PHP Driver in the PHP Info page. However, Mongo’s Web-based admin console listens to port 28017. Therefore by visiting “localhost:28017” in your browser, you can see if you have a connection. If you do, you’re all set!

To learn more about starting and stopping the MongoDB server (Mongod), see this resource.

(Note: You could install MongoDB into your /usr/local/ directory and then symlink the binaries out of the /usr/local/mongo/bin folder to the BitNami MAMPStack. However, the idea in this method is to keep all the applications bundled under the same master folder — your BitNami MAMPStack. That way, uninstalling the stack is very simple. You just delete the BitNami MAMPStack folder from your /Applications directory. The method presented here also makes it easy to move this application setup to another machine. Finally, although it is normally not an issue, with this method you do not have to worry about potential problems when upgrading your OS.)

C. Download and install phpMoAdmin

We are almost finished! If you’ve successfully completed parts one and two above, congratulations! You have integrated MongoDB to run inside of your BitNami MAMPStack. This last step will provide you with a tool to manage MongoDB.

Just as you use phpmyadmin to administer and manage your MySQL databases, MongoDB has several database admin tools written in PHP. We’re going to be installing phpMoAdmin. Grab the most recent stable version.

Once you’ve downloaded a copy, unzip it if it did not automatically unzip. Next, create a new folder within Apache’s htdocs folder called phpmoadmin. Copy the moadmin.php file into this new folder.

Done! You now can access this very simple, but useful MongoDB admin tool by visiting “localhost:8080/phpmoadmin/moadmin.php” in your browser.

Alternatively, you can use MongoHub or RockMongo to administer your MongoDB backend. I suggest checking all three out and deciding which one you like best.

Why are we using phpMoAdmin? It offers the most recently-updated version out of the three and it is simple to install as it is a single, small file. For this article, it is sufficient. However, the other tools may provide better GUIs and a stronger set of features. So, you should check them out and decide which one you like best.

Don’t Forget to Give Thanks!

That’s it!

You can further expand your BitNami MAMPStack by setting up VHOSTs in your Apache config file, but that is beyond this article. If you’re interested in that, see the documentation in the /apache2/manual folder.

Finally, please remember to give back to the open source community as it provides you with high-quality, powerful software with many freedoms — and often free as in cost, too. Share this article, write your own, create a version of this article for Linux distros or Windows, volunteer time to an open source project, contribute bug fixes, thank BitNami for their services, or donate to help fund an open source project. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) needs your support!

Now go out there and create the next, greatest Smartup!

More resources

• Learn more about MongoDB
• MongoDB books
• Blending the Doctrine ORM with the Doctrine MongoDB ODM

I see the issues of Internet censorship, access rights, and content reuse as part of a much larger phenomenon that many people are unaware. Whereas the Internet has been a revolutionary force in humanity’s communication capabilities, facilitating numerous societal, cultural, political, and economic changes, I believe that it is the emerging evolutionary changes fueled by the accelerating growth in technology that will bring about the most radical and fundamental transformation.

Let me lead you through my thinking.

The Internet as a Right

Today I’ve seen this article by Vint Cerf posted twice to my Google Plus Stream, Internet Access Is Not a Human Right (independently posted by Tim O’Reilly and John Blossom). John Blossom’s post and ensuing comments present a well-reasoned argument on why access to the Internet should be considered a human right. Discussing the seminal insights in America’s First Amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of the press), John successfully argues that the right to unfettered Internet access is a natural extension of these two rights.

This issue was thrown into the spotlight in the middle of last year when the United Nations’ Human Rights Council declared that access to the InterWeb was a basic, global human right. Vint Cerf, on the other hand, makes his case in his article why he believes that is an improper viewpoint.

I agree with the UN’s declaration and respectfully disagree with Vint Cerf’s reasoning. To me, however, this debate misses a larger issue — the Internet is transforming in profound ways that push this discussion beyond the simple notion of access rights.

The Internet as a Cultural and Spiritual Resource

Also floating by in my Google Plus Stream this morning was this article (shared by Kingsley Idehen), about the Missionary Church of Kopimism being approved as an official religion in Sweden.

In my rehashing of Kingsley’s post, I mused about the possible ramifications the religion of Kopimism could have in the United States on the SOPA / PIPA legislative process. I asked if, “policy makers [could] be infringing on [freedom of religion] and the separation of church and state by trying to regulate the Internet and its activities.”

In the article about Kopimism, I found this statement very intriguing:

It makes perfect sense to observe that all life comes from copying and remixing of previous life, and to therefore hold copying and remixing as higher, sacred acts worthy of reverence…People who have observed that copying and remixing is the basis for all our being deserve every bit of respect for considering those acts connected with life itself.

(Note: Here is another article on this issue, A Few Thoughts on Kopimism as a Religion)

This is an interesting perspective. Of course biological life maintains and perpetuates itself via mitosis and meiosis. Our past cells and current self can only survive via the copying and passing on of genetic information. Evolution proceeds via the copying and mixing of various genes and through creation of novel genes thanks to mutations. Copying is also fundamental to disseminating and perpetuating software, content, knowledge, ideas, and cultural memes.

Thus copying can be viewed as something that transcends the myopic view of intellectual property protection and its strict enforcement of infringement laws. Censorship and a reduction of access rights to the Internet eschews the higher-level cultural and spiritual import of our social interactions on the InterWeb.

I suppose it could be argued that copying, remixing, sharing, and disseminating are at the core of the fabric of the universe. So how is the Internet moving past the basic issue of access rights and evolving into a more holistic manifestation of our biological and universal predilections to copy, share, disseminate and connect?

The Emerging Global Brain

As the growth of computing technology accelerates at an accelerating rate, the tools and means with which our species communicates will radically change. Already at least one billion people are emotionally connected and attached to their social media networks and obsessively enamored with their smart devices. At least a billion people more covet the notion of being connected in the same way.

For those of us intimately tied into the Social Web, our connection and devices might as well be a permanent piece of our neural anatomy. In my article, Who Should Own the Internet, I make this observation:

The Internet has become our global data ecosystem. It is an evolutionary force in the speciation of humanities’ communication and computation infrastructure. As a result of the ease with which data of all types flows around the global, and with the increasing connections made to this data on a daily basis, our species is on the verge of seismic and profound changes.

In just a few decades, the Internet has grown like a developing nervous system, transcending national boundaries, shrinking geographic distances, dissolving geopolitical barriers, and binding many of us together into a single, global network. If allowed to continue its course unshackled by shortsighted power players, then it may become humankind’s most powerful, liberating, unifying, and transformational force.

As our computing and communication technologies become smaller, more powerful, cheaper, and ubiquitous, humanity will begin to merge with these tools. Currently, we have superficially merged with our communication tools, but in a few decades, we will have augmented reality interfaces in our glasses and contact lenses, various Internet-enabled sensors in our bodies, and a copious amount of micro sensors providing reams of data from the Web of Sensors—a global mesh network of sensors.

At some point, the Global Brain will come to life. It will be part organic, part inorganic. It will be part us and part our creations. It will be a universal communications binding whose existence is greater than the sum of its parts.

(Note: I go into more detail about the Global Brain in my thought piece, Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity)

Because of this belief, in my Who Should Own the Internet article, I put forth my view of the needs of the Internet as follows:

…the Internet [should be] granted its own rights and freedoms—freedoms to grow, to prosper, to evolve unencumbered by corporate or governmental red tape as if it were its own emerging metaphysical entity.

In the coming decades, humanity’s sojourns and journeys across the Social Web will transform as the technological and cultural seismic shift in global communication patterns and infrastructure brings use closer together and intimately connects us. The Internet is evolving in ways that may be currently hard to comprehend. If the global netizenry does not stand up for its rights and those of an unencumbered Internet, then corporate greed, myopic political leaders, and misplaced fear will prevent humanity from achieving an amazing future.

My Related Articles

1. The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections
2. Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity
3. Who Should Own the Internet?

The current Web has moved past the point where personal blogging is a big focus into the realm of real-time (RT) social interaction. Most content is now generated and shared via RT social networks than on CMS-based systems. However, unlike a CMS’s focus on content, the RT social networks’ focus is on users and their Streams.

No longer is it sufficient to place content at the center of a system’s model. Instead, the RT Social Web demands that users have primacy, that their content preferences, that their Stream choices and channels, are just a part of their overall presence on the Web.

Instead of blogging-1.0 styled CMSs, the paradigm has shifted to what I call User Stream Manager (USM) systems. A USM places the user at the center of the system, not the user’s content.

One such USM is Bottlenose, a self-described tool ”that helps you engage with your streams more intelligently.” Bottlenose was founded by Nova Spivack (T, G+) , a prolific Venture Producer, and Dominiek ter Heide (T, G+), a very talented developer and CTO.

I’ve been privy to Bottlenose’s development for more than a year, watching it evolve into a more robust, well-envisioned Stream management tool — a USM. Although I have not used it on a daily or weekly basis, I’ve kept an eye trained on its progress, stepping back in every so often to test its waters.

I just did so again last week and all I can say is Bottlenose will become my default real-time Stream management system. I’ve grown tired of TweetDeck, HootSuite, and other social media dashboards. Whereas Bottlenose is still a nascent platform and therefore should not be compared apples to apples with the aforementioned dashboards, it’s future prospects are greater in my opinion.

Bottlenose’s foundation embraces Web 3.0; the company lives in what I call the Smartup space. The technology and the company are leading the way toward the era of the User Stream Manager. As consummate Smartup practitioners, they’re aiming at building an ecosystem around their core technology, including the ability for 3rd-party plugins to enhance the Bottlenose experience. Add to this the possibility of an app store, and you have a smartup that not only will monetize in a smart way, but share some of their financial success with other developers.

There is a lot of low-level, amazing, and cool technology that churns underneath Bottlenose’s surface, helping to sort out the flotsam and jetsam in your Stream from the treasures. Their proprietary tech helps extract the signal in your Stream from the noise in your channels. It learns what you like and dislike. It allows you to teach it how you prefer paddling your reach of the RT social river.

Currently, Bottlenose’s oars, rudders, and keel are just in the Twitter and Facebook Streams. As it continues to evolve, hopefully adding additional Streams into the mix (Google Plus, Quora), its utility will only increase and each user’s journey down their RT social Stream will become more meaningful.

If you have not yet tried Bottlenose, it’s time for you to jump on in. The water is fine and the flow is just right!

My Related Articles

1. Flocking To the Stream
2. Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack
3. How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?
4. The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections
5. The first article in my five-part smartup series, Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups

Life Is About Complex Adaptive Systems

What was the impetus behind this aha moment? In 1995 I read the first edition of the book, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos by Roger Lewin. It changed my perspective on humanity’s relationship to the ecosphere.

This book was my introduction to complexity theory and the concept of Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs). In brief, a CAS is a network of self-similar adaptive agents. These agents operate as a supra-entity, as a collective. Each individual agent interacts and communicates with the others in a dynamic way. A CAS’s overall behavior is shaped, altered, and dependent on the experiences of each individual agent and that of the collective as a whole.

Before reading this book, I had an innate sense of the interconnectedness of humankind with Earth’s ecosystem services. After all, prior to receiving my MBA, I majored in ecology (I also majored in molecular microbiology). But the notion of CASs opened up a more technological understanding of this interconnectedness and made me realize that economies cannot thrive in the longterm without full integration into the ecosphere.

Economies As Malfunctioning CASs

Economies depend upon raw materials that are processed to create and exchange value of some form or fashion. The raw materials range from basic materials such as natural resources to higher-level materials such as human thought, energy, and action. All along the way, inputs of one type of material are transformed into outputs of another type of material.

Each subsystem within an economy is its own Complex Adaptive System (CAS). In fact, economies operate as nested CASs. Transactions within and between an economy’s CASs ebb and flow across information channels—the outputs and inputs that conjoin the various parts of the overall system.

The set of all economic subsystems is a singular high-level economic CAS, the master CAS in which all other economic system exists. Here we use the singular term “economy” to encompass the global economic engine, the net affect of all subset economies.

In a healthy functioning economic system, the likelihood (probability) of outputs from one Complex Adaptive System being properly received and utilized as inputs to another CAS is high. The issue with today’s economy is that outputs that are deemed of low-value (have limited utility in being processed into new outputs) are usually classified as waste products and expunged from the system.

Another way of stating this is that waste products are not perceived by the economy as worthwhile inputs for any other process. The terms byproduct and waste are often used interchangeably to differentiate what is considered low-value materials from that which is considered useful output.

The Economy Has Become Malignant

The economy is not the highest-level Complex Adaptive System. And as much as some people may like to believe, the economy is not the most important CAS either. For purposes of this discussion, we will assume that the highest-level system is the ecosphere—the concatenated, symbiotic network that encompasses the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere. It is the complex web of planet-wide foundational services upon which all life depends.

From an information theory viewpoint, CASs can only have two operating states—they ingest inputs and release outputs. In order for CASs to operate in harmony, in a healthy and symbiotic manner, all inputs and outputs must be processed. In other words, nothing is considered waste. Another CAS exists that can readily accept a given output as its needed input. This is exactly what a properly functioning ecosphere does. There is not a single output that does not act, is not received, as an input into some other CAS at the same or different level.

A malfunctioning economy–such as our current global economy–accepts the existence of some outputs that cannot be reused or repurposed anywhere. The issue that the global economic CAS currently is facing is that some of the waste products expunged by lower-level economic CASs are not readily usable by the ecosphere—or at best are not needed in the quantities that they are currently being produced.

What does this mean? The “waste” generated by a diseased economy might actually not find a CAS at any level that wants or needs it as an input. From this sense, an unhealthy economy acts more like a cancer than a valued collection of tissue. Over time, it provides little value, maybe even harm, to the larger CAS of which it is a part.

Sustainability and Growth Can Be Counter Currents

Economies depend on growth as a key measure of health. As the highest-level CAS, the ecosphere depends on resource sharing and recycling. If one sub-level CAS consumes a disproportionate share of those resources, the higher-level CASs can get out of balance. In other words, growth in one CAS is not necessarily sustainable when it results in other CASs losing resiliency. The notion of economic growth as the only desirable, sustaining measures of health needs to be revisited.

All economic outputs need to be viewed as resources that should and can be utilized by at least one other CAS—whether a subsystem CAS within the economy or a higher-level CAS outside of the economy. By retooling the economy to properly think about its inputs and outputs, this diseased, misbehaving tissue cluster can be reintegrated into the larger CAS.

Shouldn’t we want to truly integrate the economy into the ecosphere? After all, the ecosphere is the higher-level CAS upon which the global economy ultimately depends.

Additional Resources

For more resources on Complex Adaptive Systems, visit the Santa Fe Institute’s site.

Notes

Part of this article was originally posted to a Google Plus post by me as a comment to one of Seb Paquet’s posts. I’ve decided to extract my comment and expand the concept into an article that lives on my blog, under my full control. Why would I do this? See my article, Is Surrogate Blogging via Google Plus a Good Idea?

The Apple boys used Jobs’ parents’ free garage. The Google boys used a friend’s garage for free (initially). HP founders used an unattached garage that was part of the home for which they shared the rent (Dave Packard and his wife lived in the house).

Thus the G+ thread was a discussion about what has replaced real garage spaces as a place where startups should startup. In the post’s comments, a number of apparent startup founders were praising the virtues of co-working spaces, claiming that they are the new startup garage.

I found this statement odd. Bootstrapping founders don’t pay for anything until they absolutely need it. Even if a startup has more money than they know what to do with, wise founders don’t pay for something until it is essential. To me, whatever is the cheapest location option for a startup is the new garage.

The key with the startup-bootstrapping approach is to minimize expenses upfront. Use space for which you are already paying but not using efficiently–your bedroom, dining room, garage, shed, basement, one-room apartment, or dorm room. Or borrow (for free) extra space in your parents’ or friend’s home or apartment. Coffee shops or even libraries might work too but co-working spaces definitely do not. Why spend precious resources when you can get space for free. Once you have an initial product to demo, and you’re beginning to gain traction, it may make sense to look for better facilities.

Renting an expensive place will not make you successful. The “it’s key for networking” mantra is a thinly veiled excuse. Nothing prevents you from networking if you work out of your house. If people only networked with people whom they share the same physical office building, then the world would collapse.

Whether you’re a bootstrapped startup or a well-funded startup, the key is execution on building your prototype, creating your MVP. Don’t foolishly waste cash just to be in a cool place. If you don’t have a founder’s team that can successfully execute the startup’s vision, then the team is flawed. Having the coolest place on earth will not change that. Besides, what can be cooler than starting up in a real garage — especially in the winter!

Note: Before any of my readers get a guilty feeling that I’m talking about you and your startup, relax. I’ve held this view for years and decided to share it after reading the interchange on the aforementioned G+ post. After all, my current startup uses the already-paid-for space in my house and my business partners’ houses. Although there is a fabulous co-working space in a high-tech park less than three miles from my house, I have zero interest in paying for more real estate when I already have real estate that I can use.

I want to address an odd trend–although it’s not yet clear if this actually is a trend. Over the past several months, I’ve heard similar statements from several unrelated Internet startups—the notion that they are not tech startups.

Instead of thinking of themselves as tech startups, they believe they have a higher-calling, claiming to be some flavor of socially-focused company. This may be the result of more and more non-tech-oriented business people forming Internet-based startups, but whatever the cause, in my opinion, it must be nipped in the bud.

Now if I had heard that sentiment from two unrelated parties, I would not think much about it. But hearing that statement from several unrelated parties has made me pause and think.

The Rise of the Data Civilization

In the conclusion of Stephen Wolfram’s excellent article entitled Advance of the Data Civilization: A Timeline, he states that the “systematization of data and knowledge provides core infrastructure for the world.” Technologies have evolved over time, increasing the rate of collection, processing, and dissemination of that data to help turn them into knowledge.

To our globally-connected and insatiably data-hungry community, in my view, the Internet is perhaps the most relevant class of innovation. The Internet is becoming not only the preferred repository of most of our data but also the accelerator of the systematization of data and knowledge that Wolfram discusses. Our civilization is more dependent on data today than ever before—and that dependence will continue to increase.

As humanity races toward the Internet of Things, data–and lots of it (big data)–will be a fundamental supporting sublayer to our everyday lives. The Internet is becoming the platform on which our society, culture, and economy depends. The Internet is an essential partner in much of our current and future innovations. Don’t discount the importance of the Internet and its underlying technologies. Technology is at the core of our society’s future and your smartup’s success.

Technology as Platform, Engine, and Change Agent

All Internet-obligate companies have some type of a vision and mission, usually backed by a set of closely-held ideals that flavor their implementation of that vision. Whatever that vision may be, the fundamental foundation of any smartup is its technological platform. But as you’ll discover in the Layer’s of the Smartup Stack article, the platform does encompass more than just core code technology.

The technological platform though is at the center of, the innermost layer of, the smartup stack. Why is this the case? Because technology is the enabler of the wonderful and fantastic vision your smartup has for the world. Your smartup plans to leverage the power, reach, and socially-transmutational forces of the Internet. To do so requires that you envelope your vision with those technologies that can help bring your vision to fruition.

Whereas it is fabulous that you want to change the world, your Internet-obligate company mandates a technological base. Make sure that base is as strong as it can be. Architect it properly and build it correctly from the start.

Don’t let some branding game cloud your judgement about the key components to your smartup’s future. Remember that your company is at the startup stage. It is not at the growth to maturity stage. You are building the foundation of your vision—a vision that should indisputably be much greater than its technological underpinnings and will be if you do it right. But in order to get to that next stage, you need to come to terms with the seeds of your humble beginnings. There will be plenty of time to expand your focus, to embrace your greater ideals.

Conclusion

It is clear that technology is integral to all Social Web platforms. As smartups are Internet-obligate endeavors, they must be firmly grounded in a tech core. But smartups are greater than the sum of their technologies. The fifth installment of my smartup series lays out the greater ecosystem vision that all startups should strive to embrace. Please read, Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack.

Outside Resources

Here’s a great article by Steve Blank, The Startup Team. The composition of your founding startup team is instrumental to your success — or lack thereof. Technology must be represented on that founding team or you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

As every Trekkie knows, the first Star Trek series was a flop in the eyes of the network executives. The series was canceled into its third session. But it struck a chord with viewers. A letter-writing campaign by fans was responsible for the network re-airing the series and for its eventual syndication. Through syndication and fan-driven Star Trek conventions, the ideals of the series lived on, spawning four more successful series and a growing list of Hollywood movies.

Star Trek struck a chord with viewers for a number of reasons. Through its interracial, intercultural, mixed gender, and mixed species crew, it sent the message that humanity could strive toward a greater ideal, that we would eventually overcome our social, political, and economic conflicts.

The original series (TOS), and the subsequent series in the franchise, also sparked the imaginations of many young children and teenagers, helping them dream about science, technology, and the future. Today there are a number of prominent scientists who have stated that Star Trek was a primary reason they got interested in science and math.

But for the first time in almost two decades, there is not an actively-produced, airing Star Trek series. How can a new generation of viewers get inspired by the ideals and vision of the Trek universe? How should Gene Roddenberry’s vision live on?

To Boldly Go

Whereas there seems to be renewed interest in the Hollywood-side of the Trek franchise, a new Star Trek movie coming out every two or three years is not sufficient to keep fans satiated nor inspire new fans to get interested in math and science. There have been fan-created Trek series going for some time–one of them even attracting the participation of past TOS stars and screenwriters–but these productions cannot pump out the volume of annual episodes required to keep an audience engaged, to keep the vision of Roddenberry alive.

So what is the solution?

I believe that creating a single, new television-based Star Trek series is not in keeping with Gene Roddenberry’s vision. As a futurist, Roddenberry would have been enthralled with the power of today’s Web-based Internet.

Roddenberry would have reached out and embraced the Web, leveraging social media, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and cloud-based distribution. He surely would have recognized that with the new production toolkits and distribution channels, multiple teams of independent production companies could simultaneously leverage the power of the Web to expand and explore his vision.

Instead of a single, very-expensive-to-produce, television-based Star Trek series being aired at a time, imagine eight or ten cheaper-to-produce, independently-run Star Trek Web franchises running simultaneously. Imagine the richness and diversity of Roddenberry’s vision blossoming in the frontiers of Web-based media production.

The Next Production Frontier

CBS Studios–the current copyright holder of the television side of the Star Trek franchise–needs to accept the changing face of media production. It needs to honor and respect Gene Roddenberry’s creation and future-focused vision by putting in place a mechanism for the creation of independently-owned and -operated mini Star Trek Production Houses (STPH).

Note: What I’m proposing for the Star Trek franchise can equally apply to the Stargate franchise as well

The overall goal of the STPH program would be to enable small, for-profit production companies to make a living producing new Star Trek series for a world-wide fanbase. The fans would support each production via subscription fees and merchandise purchases. Only those STPH productions that were deemed worthwhile would garner sufficient fan support to continue production. Here’s how the STPH model would work:

1. Getting Started: Each STPH would be pay an initial small licensing fee to CBS Studios for the rights to use the Star Trek name and body of work in a for-profit venture. An initial two-year license would cost a nominal amount—$10k. This would help the fledgling series get established without too much of their precious initial funding going to licensing. The small fee while affordable, is still large enough that only serious production teams would be willing to pay the initial fee.
2. Licensing Fee Escalation: Starting with year three, licensing could switch to being annually renewable with an escalation of the fee to $25k. Year four would see the fee jump to $50k and year five would see the fee capped at a maximum $100k for that year and each subsequent years. By year three, either a series is doing well enough to afford a higher fee or it is ready to shut down. So, whereas the annual fees in years 4 and onward seem steep compared to the first three years, it is reasonable to assume that a successful series will have more than sufficient annual subscription revenue to easily afford these fees. The increased fees are also a thank you to CBS Studios for allowing young production companies to get up and running without a burdensome initial licensing fee.
3. Production Requirements: Part of the licensing agreement would establish minimum production requirements that ensure sufficient quality of production output. However, the minimum production requirements should not be a deal killer; they cannot require too expensive of a production toolset; they cannot require that actors be screen actor guild members nor that gaffers, lighting technicians (etcetera) be union. The Web-based production paradigm is much closer to guerilla, shoebox, garage-level production than Hollywood-level cinematic overkill. Requiring big-budget television, or worse, Hollywoord-level production capabilities does not recognize nor appreciate the agility with which Web-based productions must operate.
4. Production Quality: Whereas costs must be contained, and therefore old-school media production mindsets will not work in the fasted-paced world of Web productions, there are a few essentials to help ensure sufficient production quality. A list of minimum equipment quality, facilities, and production capabilities would be spelled out in the licensing agreement. This list would cover:

   * Cameras
   * Studio space
   * Sets, props, and costumes
   * Scripts
   * Post production quality, such as VFX capabilites
   * Website design and community requirements
   * Episode formatting for Web broadcast

5. Organizational Structure: Each independent STPH must be a chartered for-profit corporate organization. In other words, it has to be a business and run like a business. It cannot be three guys in their garage making a fan flick.
6. Monetization: Each STPH would utilize crowdfunding to fund their series production. This could be done through a combination of funding techniques, but selling annual subscriptions to a series would be the primary revenue source for each STPH.
7. Profit Sharing: Profit sharing of 70/30 (STPH / CBS Studios). CBS Studios would receive a thirty-precent topline subscription revenue share and a thirty-precent net profit share (on all other revenue streams minus subscription revenue) such as sales of merchandise, DVDs, conferences, onset tours, premium Web member fees, etcetera.
8. Need for Profit: Each STPH Webseries’ creative team and production company need to have sufficient motivation and profit opportunities. They need to have the ability to earn a respectable profit to fund future growth and improvements. A thirty-precent profit share with CBS Studios is more than generous and could add up to a respectable bonus revenue stream all for just agreeing to license the Star Trek brand and let others do the rest of the work.
9. Creative Freedom: Whereas CBS Studios would approve each new licensee and the proposed Webseries’ place in the Star Trek Universe (STU), they would not have creative control over a Webseries’ production. The only control they would have is to refuse license renewal at the end of a licensing period or the ability to revoke a license midterm if other contractual obligations have not been met. The license agreement would have to safeguard the original creative team and STPH company so as to prevent license termination for the sole purpose of taking over a popular Webseries (see last bullet point). There would of course be a set of rules that each Webseries would have to follow regarding the expansion of the STU and also a set of production guidelines that should be followed. But Web-based new media projects cannot function under old school, overly ridged, greatly politicized production policies and practices. In the world of new media there is no room for the old school studio executives playing god. There is no room and allowance for script reviews and approval. Web-based cinema is a lean, quick paced production environment. The reason it exists is to get away from the excesses and gross inefficiencies of old school, traditional media. If CBS Studios wants to succeed in the new media Web world, it has to learn the new rules, it has to change its ways of doing business.
10. Copyright: Each STPH webseries would have a joint copyright between CBS Studios and the STPH Webseries production company with all profits shared as agreed upon in the licensing agreement. The copyright and profit sharing would continue after series completion or termination.
11. Communication, Participation, Marketing: Regular communication would occur between each licensed STPH and CBS Studios. This would be facilitated via a special CBS Studio STPH Envoy. CBS Studios would help market each licensed STPH via promotion on StarTrek.com and other outlets.
12. Potential for Television Series: It may make sense for CBS Studios to directly nurture a select few STPH Webseries, providing them with additional funding, and maybe even turning them into full-fledged Star Trek TV series. This would require careful consideration of the impacts to the STPH company (owners, actors, production team, copyright issues, etcetera).

The Web, Star Trek’s Final Frontier?

Why should CBS Studios entertain this proposal? Besides that it is more than likely in keeping with Gene Roddenberry’s vision, it could provide a nice yearly revenue stream.

It’s realistic to project a possible annual income from all licensed STPH Webseries to approach $36m by the fourth year of this program. With ten active, licensed Star Trek webseries each paying $50k per licensing year, that is $500k in licensing fees in year four alone. Year five would double income from licensing to $1m.

The profit sharing arrangement offers the lion’s share of the opportunity. Assuming each STPH Webseries has at a minimum 500k annual subscribers each paying $20 per year for the privilege of seeing the series, that would make a total of $10 million per series times ten series divided by 30 percent. Therefore the shared revenue split would bring in $30m per annum.

Furthermore, I guesstimate that each successful fourth-season webseries would have a minimum additional net revenue stream of $2 million per annum through merchandising and other avenues. This means an additional $6 million per year to CBS Studios. That may not sound like much money to a mega-media company like CBS, but it would be $36 million dollars per year that CBS would not have otherwise.

The real payoff to CBS Studios may be in keeping Roddenberry’s vision alive and bringing it into the future. With possibly a dozen independent mini Star Trek Production Houses producing hundreds of hours of Web-based programming each year, the franchise will be reinvigorated. Future television-based series, merchandizing, and renewed syndication revenue from past television series could lead to a windfall profit for CBS Studios.

As we celebrate Star Trek’s 45th anniversary, let’s keep Gene Roddenberry’s vision alive and boldly go into a new production frontier.

As a Social Web architect and an open source advocate I frequently write, think, and promote the notion and ideals of the Open and Social Web. My work in the areas of user-centric control (identity, privacy, data portability, and rights), federated Social Web models, future-of-money projects, and W3C standards groups has shaped my views presented here.

Soon after publishing my 4-part smartup series (almost a year ago), I began to think about key parts of what has become this article. I’ve had bits and pieces of this article jotted down in various places. Over the past three months, the ideas have coalesced into a cohesive framework. With a recent and lengthy process of helping a potential smartup try to find its foundation, I’ve been motivated to assemble, clarify, and share my views on what I call the layers of the smartup stack.

If you’ve carefully read my previous installments in my smartup series you will have discovered–in part–the message that is expressed here. This next installment in the series seeks to clearly present the framework of the smartup stack.

Smartups are Socially Transformative

Smartups look to operate beyond the stale disruptive technology mantra; the smartup vision is not simply a paradigm shift. Instead, smartups are best described as innovating at the intersection of technical, social, and cultural evolution. As such, well thought-out and executed smartups are revolutionary entities. They are socially transformative ecosystems.

The power that a corps of ecosystem partners can bring to your smartup’s success cannot be emphasized enough.

The layers of the smartup stack embrace the uniqueness of each smartup while recognizing the interconnectedness of the greater community. In this regard, smartup’s do not build software. Smartup’s create ecosystems. Like an ecological food web, your smartup can be viewed as an organism that is linked to and interdependent upon other organisms and system services. This mindset requires a broader view of your smartup’s role in society. A smartup’s ultimate goal is to create greater value than is captured.

No matter the grand vision of a given smartup, all smartups share the same DNA at their foundation. They are tech-reliant, Internet-obligate companies. If you need some convincing of this fact, please see my article, Putting the Tech Back into Social Web.

The Layers of the Smartup Stack

Whereas technology is at the center of the smartup stack, you will see in this article that smartups are greater than the sum of their technologies. As we explore each additional layer of the smartup stack, the focus shifts more and more to the outside. Greater emphasis is placed on the social, economic, and cultural frameworks. This will help integrate your vision into the real world. It will help bridge your metaspace creations with their meatspace participants.

Layers can connote horizontal levels upon which other material is placed or stacked. But in the view presented here, layers are rings that surround and bind to any lower and higher concentric-ring partners.

It is practically impossible to singularly architect and build each of the smartup layers without regard to their immediately contiguous layers. However, I will present each layer as if it were a well-defined and self-sufficient entity. The reality is that at all stages of building out your smartup stack, the interconnections to and interdependencies on other layers (inner and outer) must be carefully explored and considered. This is one reason (among many) why your smartup must have in-house technological expertise from the start.

As mentioned above, smartup’s do not build software, they create ecosystems. They recognize that there is great benefit to being linked to and interdependent upon others in a larger system. As many of the system services are outside of a smartup’s immediate control, a smartup must architect its ecosystem to work in symbiotic harmony with the greater Web community.

To that end, a smartup leverages and relies upon open source tools and open Web standards. As we will discuss in the section about the outermost smartup stack layer, smartups also give back to the Open Web movement in order to embrace an ecosystem approach.

The Inner most Layer: the Technology Platform

As mentioned above, technology is at the very core of every Internet-obligate smartup. The center of the smartup stack, then, is the technology platform. There are four pieces that comprise the technology platform. As previous smartup articles discuss two of these pieces in depth, I will not present much additional detail about them.

Each piece of the tech platform layer relies on Open Source tools and standards where ever possible. Although a smartup creates its own technology in aggregate, it leverages code libraries, tools, and standards to help make the process of building out their platform quick and efficient.

At this stage you will be proportioning your smartup’s time between product iteration (which means more coding), marketing your MVP, and customer development. Although you must find the proper balance between these three activities, the primary focus of this process is on building out your smartup’s foundational technology platform.

Here are the four pieces of the tech platform:

1. Schemaless Backend
2. Semantic Web / LOD Stack
3. Responsive Codebase
4. Modern Web Standards

Schemaless Backend

I’ve written an entire smartup article on the virtues of NOSQL versus SQL, so I will not repeat anything here except to say that some smartups may need to use an RDBMS as well for part of their overall data warehousing needs. The main point is that smartups are big-data players and as such they need to utilize the best technology for modeling, capturing, and managing that data. NOSQL databases are, by and large, the preferred choice.

Semantic Web / LOD Stack

I’ve also written an entire smartup article on the Web of Data. Suffice it to say that Semantic Web technologies, which some prefer to refer to as Linked Data technologies, enable the linking of data and allows for the serendipitous discovery of new connections with other datasets.

Smartups understand the value of and participate in the Web of Data. Smartups realize that data is the unit of exchange on the Web, not documents. Instead of Hyperlinks being the engine of exchange, it is Hyperdata. Data is the energy, the food, exchanged between participants in the Social Web. Semantic Web technologies facilitate the flow of information between “habitats”, between communities.

Responsive Codebase

This is the most generic-sounding piece in the tech platform layer. I will not delve too much into this piece of the tech platform layer as it deserves its own full-length article (perhaps the sixth installment in my smartup series).

There is not one preferred or recommended framework, language construct, or codebase that all smartups use. Different smartups use different code-creating tools. They pick those that they are most comfortable with and that serve their particular tech needs. However, there are some clear trends and, therefore, advice that can be offered to each smartup.

The broadest bit of advice is that Internet-coding technologies are evolving to catch up with and meet the needs of a more data-intensive world. Although a smartup CTO should use tools with which he or she feels comfortable, that does not mean that they can be complacent, that they should not spend time exploring and learning some of the newer options.

For instance, a smartup will choose an object-oriented coding style versus a procedural-coding style. But that does not mean that all smartups have to code in PHP, Python, or Ruby. There are some promising, new, convention-breaking language platforms that are the current rage in the Web dev world. One of these is NodeJS—a highly-scalable, high-concurrency, event-driven framework.

Another major smartup trend that epitomizes the Responsive Codebase mantra is moving as much of the processing away from the server side as possible (Web-1.0 and 2.0s thick-server approach). The focus is on creating what are referred to as fat- or thick-client applications. In other words, the browser or mobile device handles considerable more of the processing, relying a lot less on the server.

Another trend is the use of light-weight code libraries. When properly utilized, they allow a smartup to react more quickly and be nimble in their coding practices. As an example, one light-weight code library that my newest smartup uses is JSON-LD. It brilliantly facilitates cross-piece integration and as such can be categorized as falling into both pieces two and three in the tech platform layer.

A final smartup trend is preferred data formats. According to a recent report, 55 percent of all new APIs have support for JSON and a staggering 20 percent of new APIs support only JSON. This demonstrates the quickly-growing trend of utilizing JSON as a preferred data format (see slides 22 & 23). It also indicates that for data interchange, the reliance on XML is fading fast.

Modern Web Standards

Smartups support, adopt, and utilize Web standards. HTML5 and CSS3 are currently among the two most important Web standards. There are of course other standards, whose utility will vary among smartups, but these two should be utilized by all smartups.

The Second Layer: User-control and Economic Engine

The next layer of the smartup stack contains two sublayers that interconnect via their direct connections with the technology platform. Once again, this illustrates the importance of the technology platform as being a fundamental, foundational layer to all smartups.

These two sublayers are:

1. User-centric Rights & Control
2. Future-looking Economic Engine

User-centric Rights & Control

As I have written much about user-centric control over identity, privacy, usage rights, and data portability in the past, I will gloss over most of the details. If you’re interested in learning more about my viewpoints on these topics, simply search my website.

All smartups believe in and understand the importance of returning as much control over data as possible back to the users. They realize that it not only makes sense from the standpoint of being good social stewards, but also it makes good business sense as well.

With support from the smartup’s tech platform, users have significant power over each piece of data that they contribute, that they generate. Further support for users’ rights and control can be provided through novel, user-friendly legal contracts.

Future-looking Economic Engine

I’ve been interested in future-of-money projects and theories for sometime—particularly in how technology, specifically Internet tech, is leading to a revolution in how value is exchanged. This is why I am a charter member of the newly-announced W3C Web Payments Standards Community Group.

I believe that new micropayment frameworks and economic models are essential to not only the healthy growth and long-term viability of a truly Social Web, but also to our greater global society. The future of money and of economic self reliance rests in the emergent properties of the social-driven superorganism. Centrally-controlled currencies will eventually give rise to decentralized currencies and instead of tightly controlled and regulated markets, self-regulation via distributed command and control processes will become the norm.

Smartups are on the bleeding edge of this economic revolution. Smartups thus play an important part in helping to push new payment frameworks and economic models. They are intimately involved in evolving economic models and understanding the need for a universal payment mechanism for the Web—a mechanism that will facilitate the proliferation of alternative currencies, friction-less payments, crowdfunding, and general value exchange.

One payment framework that my smartup will be leveraging is PaySwarm. It is described as, “an open standard that enables web browsers and web devices to perform micropayments and copyright-aware, peer-to-peer digital media distribution.” I believe that PaySwarm can become one of the central pillars to any smartup’s future-looking economic engine.

The Third Layer: the Smartup Social Engine

This layer integrates with the innermost two layers of the smartup stack. The focus is more on the user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX).

When combined with the first two layers, this layer comprises what can best be described as the Smartup’s Social Engine. It is the internal platform that contains any intellectual property (IP). It is the fully-functioning application that provides the smartup’s unique product and service offering.

Although basic UI/UX considerations were made during the initial MVP testing, proving, and refinement phase, it was a Lean UI and Lean UX process. The Social Engine Layer is where a smartup spends considerable time perfecting its full-blown UI and UX. Issues such as tight integration with the the User-centric Rights & Control and Future-looking Economic Engine sublayers are addressed. Issues with proper social interaction flow are addressed.

At this level in the smartup stack, the focus begins to shift more toward the outside, toward the physical usage of the service, and not its technical underpinnings. Toward that end, pathways with which others can interact, integrate, and extend the smartups services are developed and engineered. These become the domain of the next layer.

The Fourth Layer: Outward-facing Connections

A key vision of the smartup model is to encourage and enable outside parties–3rd-party developers and other smartups–to contribute to and expand upon your smartup’s vision. To bring that goal to fruition, a smartup makes anywhere from one to three of the following sublayers available to outside parties. How many sublayers are offered depends on the type of smartup and its overall needs and vision.

The three possible sublayers of the fourth smartup stack layer are:

1. Smartup API Access
2. Smartup Open Source SDK
3. Smartup Standards Group

Smartup API Access

By and large, the vast majority of smartups publish a set of APIs that allow outside parties select access to their datasets. As discussed in the final layer section below, the use of APIs by outside parties can be a major catalyst in a smartup’s growth and success.

Smartup Open Source SDK

The Software Development Kit (SDK) sublayer is more accurately termed an Application Development Kit (ADK) sublayer. The notion behind this sublayer is that there are core codebase modules that may very well be primed for open sourcing. We will see below in the discussion of the final layer of the smartup stack why open sourcing some (or all) of your smartup’s codebase can significantly accelerate the development and evolution of your platform.

Smartup Standards Group

This sublayer is the least-frequently encountered sublayer in the smartup world. The purpose of this sublayer is to standardize key pieces of a smartup’s platform.

Above, in the second layer section, I briefly mentioned PaySwarm. That is a perfect example of a smartup opening up some of its work, exposing their efforts to the open standards process. The newly-announced W3C Web Payments Standards Community Group will focus its efforts around core working technology—mainly PaySwarm.

If your smartup has key technologies that could benefit the greater Social Web by becoming a part of an open standard, then you are encouraged to offer up as much of your technology as possible to make that happen.

The Final Layer: the Smartup Ecosystem

This last layer is perhaps the most difficult one to describe in a few paragraphs. The goal is to freely offer unrelated, 3rd-party smartups and developers tools that they can leverage to help build out, evolve, and expand upon your smartup’s original vision. At the same time, the access that you provide to your smartup’s datasets and technology allows them to create their own paths to success. This is what I term a smartup’s ecosystem.

The sublayer offerings in the fourth layer enable the creation of a motivated, loosely-organized team of volunteer coders that can and will help expand upon and evolve your technology—at least that part of your technology to which you allow 3rd-party access. The power that a corps of ecosystem partners can bring to your smartup’s success cannot be emphasized enough. This is why the ultimate goal of each smartup should be to create more value than is extracted from the ecosystem.

As an example, think of what happened when Automattic–the original makers and copyright holders of WordPress–open sourced the codebase. This led to the eventual, very-large ecosystem of WordPress theme shops, plugin developers, and consultants. It also allowed for Automattic to gain an exceptionally cheap (as in cost) and talented labor force which it continues to use to this day to help it build out the WordPress codebase. That is one of the powers of crowd-sourced software development via open source practices.

Twitter is another great example of the virtues of creating an ecosystem. In its early days, Twitter not only welcomed, but strongly supported and encouraged 3rd-party developers and startups to help expand their ecosystem. They published a rigorous set of APIs that allowed for developers to gain access to many of the datasets Twitter captured. In return, the 3rd-party developers were able to create new features and services that augmented the Twitter experience. This led to a number of successful companies that seemed to pop up over night, swirling around the core of Twitter.

Without these ecosystem partners, Twitter may very well not have succeeded. Unfortunately, as Twitter continues to struggle with figuring out how it can monetize its success, it has cracked down on their ecosystem partners in recent months, making many of them wonder if they can trust Twitter anymore. Twitter’s brilliant ecosystem strategy may be coming to a close.

Facebook was also an early creator of an ecosystem of developers. They offered limited API access, created their Open Graph ontology, and even open sourced a few of their key technologies. However, for the most part, Facebook required (and still does) that the apps of 3rd-party developers live within the siloed confines of the Facebook universe. Facebook is not a proponent of the Open Web, Open Standards, or user-centric control.

Of course, neither Automattic, Twitter, or Facebook are considered smartups. Although they do support–each to differing degrees–some level of open source involvement with their projects, they fail the smartup test with respect to many of the other smartup stack layers detailed above.

Conclusion

You don’t build a startup, you build a company. Whereas the word startup is an enticing concept, it is nothing more than a brand, it connotes nothing more than the early stages of a company. Each stage has its own specific needs and foci. Smartups are no different in this regard.

As mentioned above, many Internet-based startups do not transcend their technology but smartups have a vision beyond their technology. Even so, smartups recognize that–as Internet-obligate entities–they cannot divorce themselves from their technological foundations.

A smartup first builds a strong, foundational layer of technology upon which it then layers on additional functional components. Each of these components–also called sublayers–help push the smartup closer to its vision. To fully actualize its vision a smartup must create the conditions that enable, encourage, and support a system of ecosystem partners. In unison with its ecosystem partners, a smartup works toward providing services that empower users to pursue some of their passions and fulfill some of their goals.

Past Smartup Series Articles

Part 1: Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups

Part 2: Web 3.0 Smartups: the Social Web and the Web of Data

Part 3: Web 3.0 Smartups: Moving Beyond the Relational Database

Part 4: Web 3.0 Smartups: the New Web Business Space

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How to Get Me Involved in Your Smartup

Interested in getting me involved in your smartup? Please see my 7-by-7 rules.

Below you will find what I call my 7-by-7 rules. Whereas this is my current set of criteria, I believe this list is useable by anyone seeking to attract talent or looking to start a smartup. Please feel free to adopt, modifying, or expand upon this list and use it as you see fit.

I’ve created this post for one purpose. To help alleviate the emails, requests for Skype convos, and PMs that I periodically receive. I’m guessing that I’ve spent 200 hours this year alone rehashing, justifying, even debating to the point of arguing, some of the items below. This post will serve as a one-stop-shop to learn about my requirements. If you read this and still think that we should talk, then contact me.

First an important note. I have my own nascent smartup that requires most of my time. I also have a number of other projects and responsibilities that use up any remaining time. I am active on three W3C standards groups, closely work with a few open source projects, and spend as much spare time as possible with my family.

Thus it will be very difficult to get me to bite on your project. But if you want to maximize your chances of success, here is how.

General Requirements

1. Your startup must be in the Web-based or mobile-based Internet space. In other words, it is a technology-obligate Internet company. Although in the not-too-distant future, my horizons will broaden to include nanotech and biotech startups as well.
2. Your startup must be a smartup. I am not interested in stale Web-2.0 startups.
3. Your smartup must be looking to build, or at least contribute to, the Social Web
4. Your smartup and its founders must be proven participants in or at least supporters of open source projects and principles
5. Your smartup must primarily use open source tools and technologies to build its technology platform
6. You understand, believe in, and adhere to the practices and principles of lean startups
7. I will not sign an NDA. In 2009, I signed a few and requested a few others to do the same. In 2010, I requested zero NDAs and only signed one. Now, I will no longer request nor sign NDAs. To learn why, see this good read on the topic.

Specific Requirements

Note: If you are at the earliest stages of your smartup–having yet to incorporate–and are interested in coaxing me to join as a founder, then I will help you address each of the below points assuming that I agree to come on board.

1. The smartup founders must be pre-aligned on exit valuation and have a written exit strategy that all founders have signed. Why? See this great resource.
2. You must understand startup valuation and its impact on future employees and future investors. See this interesting link for one way to assess your smartup’s current value. If you think that your smartup has a current value other than zero, you must be able to justify it. Although your sweat equity and early accomplishments of course add value to your smartup, you are initially being compensated for your contributions by receiving a large chunk of very cheap stock. If you are a pre-profit, pre-revenue, pre-product smartup that has yet to cut a single line of code or have yet created a prototype product, please don’t overvalue your contributions at this stage. Outside investors will certainly not make that mistake.
3. With respect to point two above, you have a well-reasoned and modeled capitalization table (cap table). This may not seem crucial right now, but it becomes essential if and when you seek outside investment. Creating, understanding, managing, and periodically updating your cap table early on is key to making better business decisions. Remember, you are starting a business, not a charity.
4. Your smartup must know when to think outside of the box factory and when it must view the box from within. As a founding team, you will meet some very fascinating, talented, and inspiring people as you promote your project. Don’t get too caught up in wanting to hangout with inspiring people all day long. We all want to do that. What matters right now is laying a solid technical foundation for your smartup (see point 1, General Requirements, and point 5, Specific Requirements). Properly allocating scarce resources to accomplish that crucial task at inception is essential to your long-term survivability, investor suitability, and future success.
5. You firmly understand and agree that at the early stages of your smartup, tech is at the core of your company. To that end, your smartup has an internal technical founder. Whereas having a strong business foundation within the core team is fine, even desirable, not having any technical expertise in the core team is detrimental. See this article section for an exhaustive reasoning for this requirement.
6. You have sufficient in-house engineering skills to begin the process of building out your technical platform, of creating and iterating your MVP. You do not plan on using contract coding firms or overseas hacking sweatshops for building your platform. If you are a nanotech or biotech startup, you have the proper in-house (biochemical, electrical, materials science, etc) engineering skills to build your product. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. See this article section for a story behind this requirement.
7. With rare exceptions, I have no interest in becoming a basic employee or a non-founder-level executive. By and large, if you want me to be part of your smartup, I’m interested in a founder’s position with a healthy ownership stake. I must have the opportunity for significant reward with the opportunity costs that I will incur. If a founder’s position is not possible, I may consider an advisory or outside board member position for the right smartup.

Image Credit: Sekko Da Vinci (see link below)

Whereas you will find my insights and thoughts about the Social Semantic Web strewn throughout my website, this article is an attempt to extrapolate a few of those ideas in a more provocative and profound–if not frightening–way. So, you have be forewarned. Any resemblance to reality may be greatly over exaggerated!

Pioneering the Philosophical Study of Cybernetics

Image Credit: Publicly available graphic by Sekko Da Vinci