I’ve found myself in plenty of conversations about Twitter lately (like probably everybody). These conversations are for the most part about “getting it”, people asking (me) what Twitter actually is and the pungent question they always ask: Why is it important what I’m doing? Who cares? Well, nobody cares, that’s exactly the point. Twitter shouldn’t be used to showcase trivial, out of context and irrelevant musings. Its greatness comes with everything else that it does, like opening innovation to build upon its platform or like providing this super-freshness to the web we interact with everyday.

Then I opened my (physical) mailbox one Saturday and there it was, Twitter on the cover of Time magazine. A printed proof that Twitter has crossed the chasm. I’m sure the editors regretted not waiting one more week to print that story when they saw the role Twitter played in the overwhelming coverage of the #IranElection. But, then again, that situation continued to cement Twitter’s entrance to the mass media category and find its way into more and more conversations of un-geeks and “normal people”.

The part I liked the most about the Time story was the argument they made about Twitter’s legacy as a technology and an online communication standard:

(…) the key elements of the Twitter platform — the follower structure, link-sharing, real-time searching — will persevere regardless of Twitter’s fortunes, just as Web conventions like links, posts and feeds have endured over the past decade. In fact, every major channel of information will be Twitterfied in one way or another in the coming years

As a new media geek, I’m not only convinced of this but I’m enjoying the network effects and the way this new technology has tweeted its way to the other end of the chasm. Jeremiah Owyang’s tweet (@jowyang) came very much in handy the other day:

New to twitter? Here’s a tip; answer “what’s important to me” instead of “what am i doing”

I'm @bernardososa on Twitter

Today I woke up (well, Mateo woke us up), opened my browser and incorporated my first company. I have to say that it’s a great feeling but also one of contradictory emotions. I’ll do everything in my power to keep the entrepreneurial strength and try to balance this imbalance towards the positive. After all, that’s Babson’s number one take-away.

GroupGuess, LLC is the company that today I lead and will start to get off the ground. At GroupGuess, we strive to be the easiest way to aggregate collective knowledge and provide better context for your decision on the web. I’ve spent the last few days studying the code by which our prototype works, learning how powerful Python is for web development and redesigning the GUI to achieve the best usability. I’ve set two important milestones that have to be achieved in terms of development within the month to be able to start showing the service to the world. What “the world” thinks of it will be pretty much what will define the next steps.

In a different order of ideas, I hope that June allows me to return to this complicated activity (blogging) in an orderly fashion. I have tons of post drafts with very good stuff (music, last lectures at Babson). Tomorrow will also mark Mateo’s second month in this world. Suffice it to say that it has been the most amazing time in my life and the great amount by which it has changed my life only compares to the amount by which it has brought happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction to our small family. Looking forward to every single second that follows.

I’m also happy to see that my incorporation happens at the right time. June is Innovation Month in New England. Scott Kirsner, et al, proposes to spark innovation this month as a way to get the gears of the economy turning again (here’s his column yesterday in the Globe). There are plenty of events this month for entrepreneurs and wanna-be entrepreneurs, innovators and new-venture enthusiasts.

“New start-ups, new product ideas from established companies, new approaches to old problems” is what we expect to see in all the innovation-related events this month. I hope the weather contributes to make it the perfect month in Boston.

I can still remember the smell of things that morning of August 13th, 2007 when I first entered Olin Hall at Babson. Things were so strange and new, so simple but inexplicably complicated. I had absolutely no idea what I was about to experience, the level I was about to perform at and the people I was destined to meet and engage with in meaningful relationships. I had absolutely no idea where lessons would take me, what take-aways would stick in my mind and what skills I was about to develop. Looking back, having no expectations was a clever thing to do. Babson has literally blown my mind.
Today I wrapped up my MBA. I had my last class, did my last presentation in front of the class, submitted my last self-evaluation. Two years of this deserves a larger report but I reckon that this is a blog post and I use it just to leave a statement, a short testimonial.
On a more personal note, I started the MBA being freshly wed and I finish it being a dad, a husband and an entrepreneur.

Looking forward to what the next months have in store for me.

I’m probably the worst blogger ever. I don’t even want to mention the date of my last post or the fact that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to “blog more”. But today is a brand new month and as we wrap up the first 3 months of the year (or, as financiers like to call it: “the worst Q1 in modern history”) I’m thoughtfully retaking my blogging responsibilities.

Fact to the matter is that I’ve been quite busy. The Dad-to-be role is a capital intensive and time consuming job that I’ve been enjoying every single second of. The excitement and eagerness grow exponentially as time passes and feelings tend to separate from everything we’ve felt in our lives so far and beyond any description possible. Mateo will breathe in this world any of these coming days. (He’ll also read this post someday, so, Mateo, this is your father before you were even born).

I’ve also been spending a lot of time creating a story and a presence for an ambitious project at Babson. Almost 2 years ago the individuals that today lead the Babson Latin America Business Club set out to plan and organize the first region-focused entrepreneurship event at Babson. Today, the Latin America Entrepreneurship Forum is a reality. It will be held on April 24 and will host more than 15 speakers and panelists with an expected attendance of over 300 MBA students and professionals interested in Latin America. If you’re feeling any sort of interest, you should check out the website or, even better, register online for the evemt.

I’m also thrilled to report that GroupGuess, the venture that has taken us to an amazing journey through Babson’s entrepreneurship elites, is a finalist in the 22nd Annual Douglass Foundation Graduate Business Plan Competition. We’ll be presenting the day of the Student Venturing event for a chance to win $20,000 in money prizes.

April will literally change my life. I hope that the news I get during this month are good ones for the most part and that I’m able to receive May (graduation month) with a better understanding of where my life will take me in the near future.

Writing a paper on Google and Innovation (I know, what a strange combination, right?) I find myself continuously amazed by how the company lives by the following 2 rules when it comes to product design and development and how positive it turns out every time:

1. “Ubiquity first, revenues later”
2. “Usefulness first, usability later”

Love it.

A couple of minutes ago, my colleague and I finally finished coding the alpha site of GroupGuess, the early-stage venture we have created while at Babson.
We came up with a simple site that will let people guess Oscar 2009 winners in 5 categories: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor.
This exercise will let us gather our first set of collective data and analyze how effective “groupguessing” is and how it can be applied to real business problems. In this first open guess we introduced the incentive to answer guesses outlined in our business plan as a revenue source: there’s a $100 USD prize for the best guesser(s). So, if you’re reading this, what are you waiting for? Go to GroupGuess.com and participate! (you’ll need a Google Account to log in the system).
I must also say that it has been a great experience learning to deploy to Google App Engine. It’s fast, functional and, best of all, free.

To arrange a meeting with Mr. Bob Caspe, you have to go to his website and fill out a form (he’ll be teaching Marketing for Entrepreneurs this semester). During the first session he shared with us the books he read over the break, recommending specially one that changed his life. These are the kind of things you expect from a professor. Another of these things changed my marketing mind forever:

Marketing is the art of buying your customers.

This is how I’ll tackle my entrepreneurial marketing tasks this semester: Selling air to the first customer, buying him into acquiring my product.

I’m in for a thrilling ride.

En Reforma me encuentro un artículo que relata el discurso que la politóloga Denise Dresser da ante el foro México ante la Crisis: ¿Qué hacer para crecer? en frente de diputados y senadores. Acaba con ellos, acusandolos de servir solo a grandes intereses de empresarios y no gobernar para los ciudadanos (ver artículo de Reforma abajo). Al final, en una “standing ovation” se deja ver que todos reconocemos que ese es uno de los grandes problemas de nuestro país. Tristemente aplaudimos con fuerza, como un tipo de protesta moderada, reconociendo que eso es lo primero que tenemos que empezar por cambiar. Sin ese cambio nada pasará.

Desde el atril -donde lamentó ser la única mujer invitada-, frente a los coordinadores parlamentarios del Senado y la Cámara de Diputados, insistió en cuestionarlos si realmente son ellos los que gobiernan o una red de “poderosos” que opera con base en favores y concesiones.

Al término de su discurso los presentes se pusieron de pie ovacionando a la escritora con otro aplauso.

vía Reforma.com

This is an excerpt of a final write-up assignment I wrote for a marketing class at Babson. It takes the form of a letter to a marketing manager at Xerox addressing the marketing challenges that the introduction of a new “erasable paper” poses to the firm.

In a 2001 essay published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Anirudh Dhebar, marketing professor at Babson College (and one of the best professors I’ve had the honor to sit in front of), insightfully added 5 more chasms to precede Geoffrey Moore’s well-known chasm between early market and mainstream market that products in a high-tech context have to cross. These 5 new chasms apply to other constituencies and areas that the new product will have to convince in order to achieve long-term success for the company.

The first chasm is of the utmost importance in the case of erasable paper: the Chasm Within The Mind. Think of it: paper that erases by itself. It is indeed a completely new paradigm and all the members of the Xerox community must first cross this chasm, this gulf between the concept of paper as we know it (a disposable, low-value and neglectful item that serves a one-time purpose) and the concept of a product that can be used several times and has a “life of its own”, erasing itself and preparing itself automatically to bring repeated value to its user. This chasm has to be equally crossed by the consumer and other intermediaries in the paper and printing businesses. For this, a very creative and educational initiative has to be started and taken in front of the eyes (and minds) of all the instances that will participate in the market engagement of erasable paper. Xerox’s tradition of innovation and capacity to “think outside the box” will surely contribute to this effort.

Secondly, the crossing of New-Business-Model Chasm is also pivotal to this product’s success. The selling of paper that can be reused suggests a complete redesign of the business model behind paper and its complementary products. Being printing technologies a core competency of Xerox, this doesn’t affect Xerox’s core business enterprise architecture directly but it will certainly affect its value network, as paper manufacturers and distributors will react rather negatively to a product that will dramatically reduce its sales of paper. You, as marketer, have to worry less about the way the company will solve this interesting dilemma. Nevertheless, you have to make sure that the new business models that result of this paradigm shift are present in the marketing plan and are gradually understood by all interlocutors that will take part in the “marketing erasable paper” conversation. For this, I also recommend that the network externalities be actively managed so that Xerox can reap the benefits of direct network effects. The more companies that adopt an erasable-paper-printer, the more the benefits will increase and the greater the incentives for adoption will be for other companies, namely the ability to use this new paper seamlessly in every day life, without worrying about who uses it and who doesn’t.

The third chasm that has to be crossed is the Break-With-The-Past Chasm. In this case, the fissure between normal paper (and normal printers) and their compatibility with the new version of paper and printers: will new-paper-printers be compatible with the plain old paper? Clearly, the new paper will not be compatible with old printers and therefore the switching benefits and advantages of the new printers have to be clearly communicated to the customer and be also easily observable without the inherent ambiguity of improved versions of products. For this, the sustainable aspect of the new paper has to be constantly reminded.

The Disruptive-Technology Chasm in this case will have to be crossed when consumers (and other participants in the value chain) can’t initially notice the improvement of erasable paper compared to normal paper.

The fifth chasm is the Expedient-Fix/Strategic-Solution Chasm and its crossing suggests the realization of erasable paper as a long-term strategic offering by Xerox and not a temporary fix to a short-term solution (like wasting less paper).

After so much chasm crossing, hopefully the crossing of the original Chasm Between Early and Mainstream Markets may seem less challenging and will come as natural progression of the previous crossings. This, dear sir, is what I truthfully wish for this brave marketing endeavor and for the widespread adoption of erasable paper.

I’m starting this 2009 spending quiet quality time with the family this side of the Atlantic in beautiful Wiesbaden, Germany. I’m using this time to think about the challenges that this year will pose and the dilemmas that will come once I’m done with the MBA and my first child is born (both events will almost happen simultaneously). An interesting reading has accompanied my thoughts: The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar. The book was recommended by a good friend as I expressed him the trouble I was having figuring out whether to go back to the corporate world or embark on an entrepreneurial adventure after graduation. 

The book really addresses this dilemma and answers the important questions somebody may have when facing a startup opportunity. He makes the case for a “whole life plan” in which you have to do that thing you would do for the rest of your life versus the “deferred life plan” in which you do other insignificant things to gather the resources that will finally, after all, let you do that thing you really love and which you really feel passionate about. Particularly, I loved the distinction he makes between drive and passion, when thinking about life and professional choices:

Passion and drive are not the same at all [...] Passion pulls you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do.

I highly recommend this book to anyone feeling this kind of dilemmas or struggling to decide which is the best path to follow facing an important professional crossroads. Personally, I’ll do everything to find that passion in whatever I should end up doing in June of 2009.