i d e a g r o u p

There is nobody like you.

There is without question a lot of junk that comes out of Christian churches around the world. One church that is consistently creating something of value is Cleveland's Parkside Church through it's remarkable pastor, Alistair Begg.

The following is a letter that Pastor Begg read in a message entitled, "The Power of Weakness - Part A." (you can get it on iTunes) It struck me as powerful reminder that we all have a very unique and special purpose on earth and way too often misunderstand or overlook both our uniqueness and our calling.

In all the world there is nobody, nobody like you.

Since the beginning of time there has never been a person like you.

Nobody has your smile, your eyes, your hands, your hair.
Nobody owns your handwriting or your voice.
Nobody can paint your brush strokes.
Nobody has your taste for food or music or dance or art.
Nobody in the universe sees things as you do.

In all of time, there has never been anyone who laughs in exactly your way.
And what makes you laugh or cry or think may have a totally different response in another.
You are different from every other person who has ever lived in the history of the universe.

You are the only one in the whole creation who has your particular set of abilities.

There is always someone who is better at one thing or another.
Every person is your superior in at least one way.
But nobody in the universe can reach the quality of the combination of your talents and your feelings.

Throughout all of eternity, nobody will ever walk, talk, think, or do, exactly like you.

You are rare.
And in all rarity, there is enormous value, and because of your great value, the need for you to imitate anyone else is absolutely wrong.

You happen to be special.
And it is no accident that you are.

Please realize that God made you for a special purpose.
He has a job for you to do that no one else can do as well as you can.
Out of the billions of applicants, only one is qualified.
Only one has the unique and right combination of what it takes.

And that one is you.

I hope that as you close 2007 and begin to consider what 2008 may bring, that you have clarity of what your bigger purpose is and a grasp of how uniquely qualified you are to fulfill that purpose.

All the best,

bc

Viewzi Preview is Live!

Last week we launched the Viewzi Preview site. Go here to check it out.

This is still very early in the process--so there are tons of things we want to improve before showing this to an audience outside of friends and family. The Preview is an early version of the site and is designed to garner feedback and ideas that will be used to shape further development.

Shoot me a note if you would like to try things out.

The edge of the circle

[My apologies in advance. This post has nothing to do with technology, gadgets, or search....I just had to write this stuff down.]

Lunch wasn't supposed to be that hard today.

Today I had my second lunch with Doug Kramp. I was connecting him with another friend of mine, Matt. I thought they would really benefit from meeting each other. Wow, did I underestimate how much I would benefit from them both.

Doug's first wife died of cancer about a decade ago. It was big news because of Doug and Erin's passionate pursuit of life, in the face of death.

They made journals and lists of all of the things they wanted to enjoy together before she died. They made videos of all of the things she wanted to tell their daughter, but wouldn't be able to. Their lives were chronicled by the local media, by national media, by religious media, by Oprah.  They were convinced Erin would beat the cancer, despite the odds. She did not.  Through the process, he and Erin learned more about living than most of us ever do.

Matt and his wife Mandy met in college. He tried for years to get her attention but it wasn't until later, years after college that things finally came together. After being the "project" of most of his married friends, Matt was tired of the dating scene and re-met Mandy in the craziest of ways (your secret is safe Matt).  They hit it off and soon fell in love. The only hitch--and a significant one, was Mandy's terminal disease, Cystic Fibrosis.

Matt, unfazed by this (or should I say, fazed but not forlorn) pursued her with all determination and they married soon after. They have been married now four-plus years.

So, what's all this about?

Today, I was reminded, through both Doug and Matt's stories--Doug's of living through Erin's cancer, and Matt's of living through Mandy's CF, that we must face the reality of death in order to really live.

We must really think about death--not avoid it. We must long to grasp what it means to die and lose it all, so that we may have the passion to live.

A fuzzy view of death equals a dispassionate view of life.

"I learned things about my wife I never knew." As Doug and Erin started making the short list of things they wanted to do together before she died, he learned things about her he had never known. As I listened, I realized the pitiful truth that I know little about the dreams of my wife. Sure, I know she wants to be a better mom and a better wife (she is already great at both), but what are her real dreams? I need to know more.

For Doug and Erin, they had to define their boundaries and push those edges. It was this constant effort to try to be living on the edge of that circle that we usually try to stay well within.

Doug and Matt, thank you for the real world examples you both are to me and those whose lives you intersect. God is using you both in huge ways.

The photo is one of my favorite ones of my youngest daughter on a lake in Colorado. It reminds me of just one of the reasons I have to live on the edge of the circle.

// bc

AppleTV makes for a nice digital art server

Well after a year of testing three different HD media players for my makeshift video wall at home I finally got things up and running with the AppleTV and I am sold.

There were more parts needed than I had originally planned (namely a 3-way DVI splitter from Hall Research Technologies that was like 300 bucks) but in the end, it looks great and was a breeze to put together.

The only remaining hitch is aspect ratio / display resolution support issues with the AppleTV. It currently is designed to run with HD televisions and not high resolution pc/mac displays (an oversight in my opinion) and so when you connect it to a PC display (in this case, three Sony 17" flat panels framed in custom wood frames) it squeezes the images. 

The (manual labor required) workaround is to convert all images to a format that is too wide so that when the images get squeezed down they end up the correct aspect ratio. I am hoping that in the coming months Apple will release new drivers / support for different display resolutions and aspect ratios.

(don't give me any crap about the complete mess behind the displays....this is like the 5th time I have had to install and uninstall a media player so the nicely tied down cables went out the window long ago)

Viewzi Prototype Launches

We had planned on wrapping things up with the viewzi prototype last week, but after our review on Friday, Chris and I made the decision to keep brewing things another week, and completed it today.

The second (and final) stage of the prototype includes:

• new and improved primary user interface including “google-maps-style” dragging to move around
• new “view mix” view that includes “quick results” – search results right on the view mix page in addition to the view samples
• a new “dynamic view” that builds based on category or other keyword as needed (this is more related to prototyping and usability testing than something that will be needed or the live site)
• wikipedia data source added
• most importantly, a working version of the “view picker” that selects the best views based on the search string

We have started the process of building relationships with content providers. The first two that we are meeting with are AOL and CNET. We have had a few conference calls with CNET already and the group that runs the Gaming content sites as well as the Metacritic (film reviews) content site. The initial conversations went very well—very positive about Viewzi (“This is gorgeous!” was the quote from one contact at CNET).

This Monday we go to LA to meet with AOL to talk about licensing the Moviefone content (among other content items).

The next few weeks are all about three things: FUND RAISING, PLANNING and USABILITY TESTING. We are continuing to interview usability firms and usability freelancers. We will most likely work with two: one here in town to do informal testing about high-level concepts, and one specialist to do the more intricate details of web usability and navigation.

Users=Viewzers

As most of you know, I began working on a new search company called Viewzi a few months ago with a long time friend named Chris Mancini. Chris worked with me at Broadcast.com/Yahoo! almost a decade ago. I think one of the last projects we did together was the Jenny McCarthy fart game...a work of art it was not.

Things here are going along very well. We have enough money raised to get the prototype built and start getting feedback---while building the core team of smart people to go make it happen. More money still to raise, and a few more people to hire still, but overall, we feel very good about where things are and the direction it is going.

Go sign up here to get a slot in the beta...we would love your help.  Or, shoot me a note if you want to see an early version of the prototype.

The new office

Here are some shots of the new office. We moved Feb 1 from our old place on Commerce downtown, to this new one down in Deep Ellum. Enjoy.

MySpace/MyKids

This week is going to be full of plate spinning as we move offices (see pics of new place here), reshoot the MySpace/MyKids online course (splash page here), and continue to press ahead on key components of the viewzi prototype.

I thought I would tell you a little about the MySpace/MyKids project since I haven't written about it yet.

The project arose out of a conversation Steve Reinemund (Chairman of PepsiCo) and I had at a prayer breakfast about how many parents are clueless about MySpace and that there may be an opportunity to help teach them. Further, Steve wanted to help make this happen and wanted to meet again to figure out how. I had built an online learning platform for Pure Online but knew only enough to be dangerous when it came to social networking and the dangers of MySpace.

But, the very next day, I get an email from this guy Jason Ilian who's telling me about this new book he has coming out called MySpace/MyKids--a book for parents of teens that helps them understand and deal with MySpace. Wow....now we have a project.

So, a few weeks later Jason and I presented Steve with a plan of attack and a budget. He funded it that following week and we began production that next day.

This week, we go back into the studio to shoot Jason, Liz Casteel (a counselor that works with teens), and Chris Witt (director of Sky Ranch--and has worked with teens and their parents for over a decade). We are rapidly approaching our deadline so our post production guys will be in the studio while we are shooting so that once chapter one is shot, we can begin editing it while we shoot chapter two. Rapid application development at its best.

The project will launch on February 10th and has already gotten great support from the execs at MySpace. Lets hope that parents are ready to invest a little time to be better equipped to deal with this new medium their kids have so fully embraced.

//bc

 

The NCPOWE

I have started a new non-profit organization this week. It is called NCPOWE (pronounced, "nuc-pow-wee"). The acronym stands for "National Coalition for the Prevention of Overreporting Weather Events".

This week in Dallas we had a bunch of rain, followed by some really cold temperatures, followed by a little ice here and there. It was pretty messy.  Here in Dallas, we have like 3 sanding trucks that have to go around the entire huge city and sand everything down for us Texas drivers. 

So yes, I agree, there are issues.  The combination of a) drivers with little practice driving in ice/snow, with b) sparce bad weather road gear, do make for some interesting driving when you get out on the roads in this stuff.

But couldn't you just have one little segment, as part of the weather, that says, "Hey, it is icy out there, and remember, you don't know how to drive on the ice so either don't go out and drive, or slow way down."  Shouldn't that do it?  And then, the whole weather team could sit inside by the fire and hang out and just do other news stuff like shootings and Iraq.

Instead *all* the news stations have dropped EVERYTHING and the entire newscast has gone into "ICE ALERT".  They scatter around town reporting, "ice mishaps", "icy blast accidents", "slippery conditions", "slip sliding away", blah, blah, blah.  Last night there were about a dozen scenes of minivans spinning into onramps, Hondas hitting curbs, and a comical mix of reporters standing in the freakin-freeezing weather with ball caps and bandannas trying to report more and more and more about the (un)exciting events sliding around town.

So, I am calling for change. I want to see one station. Just one....take the initiative and sit back in the studio where it is nice and toasty, and just give us one good warning and then move on. Give us the weather, then remind us about our lack of driving skill on ice, then drop it.

Way back when, these guys had to report to the FCC on why they should have a license and how it benefited the public in some way. I just don't get how hours of reporting on minivans spinning around is in the public good.

Report something of moderate interest and then sit back and drink some hot chocolate and let the other guys skid around overreporting when the ice comes to town.

Send your donations to NCPOWE today to stop the madness.

Business Time

In the event you haven't already seen this, please go watch it. You will laugh out loud.