Archive for July, 2009
July 27, 2009
Do you ever wonder how people get to where they are? What are the daily things that happen or don’t happen that contribute to where you are right now? It’s often hard to piece everything together, but I found myself wondering that recently when thinking about friends, myself, and other entrepreneurs.
An older gentleman came in to pitch his company to the Austin Technology Incubator recently. He had an interesting concept having to do with wireless technology but it was as if he was living in a different time dimension. He actually presented using transparencies on an overhead projector that we happened to have because we are part of the University, but I daresay that projector has sat mostly unused for over a decade. He had over 40 transparencies and we asked him to skip most of them. When I asked him why he chose to use transparencies instead of a PowerPoint presentation, I don’t think he really understood what I was asking him. He equated transparencies to being more technical.
His point of view of his situation and why he wasn’t able to raise money for his venture for the past 9 or so years was so far off from our points of view, that it seemed too far a gap to bridge. He would have to have a spontaneous shift in being and thinking that would probably take someone a lot of time to help him achieve. A true paradigm shift (business buzzword of the 90′s) would have to occur.
It made me think about how we all view our worlds a certain way and how some people have such far gaps to bridge to see another person’s or group’s reality. It made me wonder about myself and how my perception might be skewed in certain situations in my life/business and conversely how I could be trying to relate to someone or a group, but they can’t relate because they are living in a transparency world and I’m living in a PowerPoint world.
I’m guessing that this happens in a less obvious way in many start-up companies but many of us entrepreneurs are just too blind to see it or really can’t see it because we don’t know how and don’t have the right glasses to help us see the light.
Maybe I’m just being too philosophical and thinking too much, which is quite possible.
July 26, 2009
This past Friday, I attended the annual Austin Business Journal’s Profiles of Women in Power event. I attended on behalf of my co-worker and friend, Melissa Rabeaux who I have mentioned on this blog before. She runs most of the green technology organizations in town including the Clean Energy Venture Summit, CleanTX.org, and Austin Solar Energy Entrepreneur’s Network. She was nominated for the event in the non-profit category. She wasn’t able to attend because she is recovering really well from successful surgery!
I sat at the IC2 table. IC2 is the parent organization to the Austin Technology Incubator (check out our NEW website), where I work by day. It was probably the best of the Profiles events I had attended and I’ve attended a handful throughout the years. IC2 sponsors the event every year. We sat right next to the keynote/award recipient table.
Last year Laura Kilcrease, founding director of ATI, was the 1st Lifetime Achievement award recipient. This year it was Betty Sue Flowers (see fuzzy iPhone picture of me with Betty Sue taken by someone who doesn’t know how to take iPhone pics).
I met with Betty Sue several years ago when I was working on a book concept that I have yet to complete. My friend Randi Shade introduced me to her. She said she remembered me and that she had seen some of the articles that I’d published. She also said the offer to write the Foreword of my eventual book was still open even after she moves to New York with her new love, former senator Bill Bradley, who was also at the lunch. He’s a very tall man! Now I just have to write that book…whatever it ends up being.
Karen Hughes (former Bush under secretary) was the keynote speaker! She was a fabulous, engaging speaker and even spoke about Bush’s made up words like ‘misunderestimated’ and how they often had to tell them they weren’t real words. It’s stunning to me that he didn’t know they weren’t real words, but Betty Sue in her acceptance speech said she liked that word and that as a professor of English she thought it should be added to the Oxford dictionary. She said it should mean something like people underestimate the extent to which they misunderstand something. Betty Sue is so good with words! Because it was a woman’s event, Karen spoke about jewelry she bought (and was wearing at the lunch) with Arabic on it when she visited Kuwait and how honored they were that she was wearing it. They were impressed that a White House official would wear something with Arabic on it. She said her husband told her it was just an excuse to buy jewelry! 
The winners of the final awards were (ones in bold I know and/or are friends with):
Joyce Batcheller – Seton Family of Hospitals
Marilyn Bostick – Dee’s Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas/Seton Family of Hospitals
Linda Brucker, A Legacy of Giving
Tausha Carlson, Marahton Real Estate
Ewina Carrinton, Reznick Group, P.C.
Deborah Cole, Greater Texas Landscapes
Charlene Crump, Mary Lee Foundation
Nancy Ebe, Ebe & Associates, P.C.
Nora Foster, Campus Advantage
Candice Houston, ThinkStreet
Julie Jumonville, UpSpring Baby
Vickie Lee, VP HR of Tokyo Electron
Marny Lifshen, Marny Lifshen Consulting
Victoria Lynden, Alliance Abroad Group, AIDE, Kohana Coffee, Cissis market & Wine Bar
Sandra martin, founding CEO of Center for Child Protection
Caroline Murphy, St. David’s Healthcare/HCA, Mayor of BeeCave
Rebecca Powers, Impact Austin
Kerri Qunell, Capital Area Food Bank of Texas
Kendra Scott, Kendra Scott Design
Sue Snyder, Jackson Walker LLP
Denis Trauth, President of Texas of Texas State University – San Marcos
Jimmie Ann Vaughn, Jimmie Ann Vaughn Real Estate/Bastrop Downtown Business Alliance
Stuart Vick Smith, Maxwell Lock & Ritter, LLP
Lisa Williamson, UpSpring Baby
Ellen Wood, vcfo
Patricia Young Brown, Travis County Healthcare District
I saw several people I hadn’t seen in a while, and I enjoyed the event immensely. Maybe one day I’ll be nominated for an award and win something… 
July 23, 2009
Well that’s not entirely true. There is always many things to write about but it doesn’t always fit the topics of this blog which are business and parenting. I’m meeting some great people on this path to finding a home for Babble Soft (I so enjoyed the comments from all of you on that post) but nothing I can write about yet. It’s an interesting process to go through because we haven’t really set a price for the company but of course people want to know what the price is, and I say it depends on the buyer! Which it kind of does because we want to make sure it’s the right fit with the right marketing channels that will enable Babble Soft to live on.
I found it interesting that one of the professors at UT Austin did her dissertation/thesis to prove that entrepreneur’s don’t always sell their company to the highest bidder. I could have told her that without all the research. We look for the right fit, the right timing, the right exit, and for hopefully the place it will live on the longest and be paid the most attention to. The hope is that the highest bidder fits all of those criteria!
The kids are doing great and enjoying summer camp. My daughter has a little end of summer camp performance tomorrow and then she’ll be at the same place my son is at but it won’t really be camp for her like it is for him. He goes bowling, swimming, skating, to the park, and on field trips constantly it seems like. At the end of August they will start at their new school: The Magellan School and soon they will be babbling in Spanish!
So yes, there’s loads to write about but writing about the trivia and minutia of daily life takes too much time and is boring to most and the high tragic/dark comedy drama…well we must leave that to reality TV shows, the movies, and to shows like Grey’s Anatomy.
July 21, 2009
I interviewed Susan Hays (pdf) for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, for an article that was published in the March/April 2006 issue. My writing partner, Pam Losefksy, and I pulled these articles together a while back and you can see them on the Success Profiles page of this blog. You can see the full article on Susan by clicking HERE (pdf).
Susan is a lawyer with her own practice. Previuosly she worked with Waters & Kraus, LLP and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP. She served as briefing attorney for Texas Supreme Court Justice Rose Spector. She earned her JD from Georgetown University and was the Dallas County Democratic Party Chair from 2002-2005. She is also the co-founder of Jane’s Due Process and received Texas Monthly’s Best Lawyers in Texas under 40.
She shares:
Another Biblical adage that I think resonates really well with the notion of success is, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I absolutely believe that we have a duty to do good with what power and influence we’re given. It really upsets me when I see someone who has achieved a
high office but doesn’t use it for the betterment of the state or country.
She goes on to say:
I don’t think luck, if you define it as 100 percent chance, has much to do with success; success has much more to do with a willingness to seize interesting opportunities. Successful people see opportunities as challenges and not something scary. Wildly successful business people are smart enough to spot a need and gutsy enough to go out on a limb.
Susan has done a lot of great things for her community and to help young people, especially pregnant teens via Jane’s Due Process. So many of us have been given so much and we don’t always put our resources, skills, and talents making the biggest difference we can. It does take hard work, wrestling with your definition of yourself and society, as well as facing your fears to make the biggest impact we can. Seize those opportunities when they come your way!
Posted by Aruni
8:58 pm •
success story •
July 14, 2009
When I was in high school in Lubbock, Texas, I took a part time job at Mr. Gatti’s Pizza because one of my friend’s worked there and I wanted to earn some extra money. I even worked there on my 18th birthday and served my very first beer. I remember the thrill of pulling the tap and angling the plastic, chilled mug to get the right amount of beer and foam top.
I also remember a few other things from that time and one was one of my co-worker’s statements about country music. I can’t remember his name, but I remember how he looked when we had the conversation. He was short to medium height, average looking, with curly light brown hair and was wearing the Mr. Gatti’s uniform (tan pants, white buttoned shirt, and apron). I think he was in his early 20′s. We were standing in the front area by the register. At the time, I couldn’t stand country music. I told him how lame, annoying, and stupid it was. He looked at me and said something like “You obviously haven’t had your heart broken. Come talk to me about country music after you have had your heart broken.” I looked at him and thought to myself “Well, I better not let anyone break my heart then.”
Well for me Happiness was Lubbock, Texas in my Rear View Mirror (Mac Davis) and I have no interest in being buried there in my jeans.
As I grew older and had my heart broken, I did come to appreciate country music. I’m still not an avid fan of the entire genre (broken trucks, everyone leaves, the dog dies, somebody kills themselves, etc.) but artists like George Strait, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain really know how to sing to a broken heart.
Broken hearts come in many forms but the kind involving personal relationships hurts the most. I’ve had my heart broken a few times in my career, two of which have partially happened while I’ve been blogging (2 years now) and you, my readers, have been along for the ride. Once when I learned about my first company’s/baby’s death and wrote a post called The Entrepreneurial Ledge. My heart broke when I left the company back in 2001 and it broke some more when I found out it was gone in late 2008. The other is of course having to find a home for Babble Soft, but I’m still optimistic that there will be a good outcome and it will live on in some form or fashion.
So if you want to shed some tears, relieve some tension, and appreciate the learning/yearning from some of your broken hearts check out some of these country songs on You Tube:
You Look So Good In Love – George Strait
Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue – Crystal Gayle (quasi-country)
Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash
Walk the Line – Johnny Cash
Landslide – Dixie Chicks (via Fleetwood Mac)
Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain – Shania Twain and Willie Nelson
As they say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!“ My heart will hopefully be stronger (with some duct tape, stitches, and super glue) on the other side.
July 12, 2009
I’ve seen a few interesting quotes recently and thought I’d share. On another note, on Friday I was talking about wanting a sno-cone and yesterday (Saturday) I took the kids to one of my son’s friend’s birthday parties and they had a sno-cone machine! I chalked up the fortuitous coincidence to the Law of Attraction (wikipedia). One of my online friends, Edward Mills, blogs and coaches on the Law of Attraction. I’m not sure he would agree that having a desired sno-cone show up in my life is the best example, but still.
Now for some quotes:
“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” – Albert Schweitzer. From a Deepak Chopra Center for Wellbeing newsletter I get occasionally.
“At the age of 20, we don’t care what the world thinks of us; at 30, we worry about what it is thinking of us; at 40, we discover that it wasn’t thinking of us at all.” - unknown. From a birthday party evite from a friend who is turning 40. I’m looking forward to 40 only for that reason.
The following quotes are from a guy named Jeffrey Fry who I honestly can’t remember how I know. He sends out a daily quote/tidbit email and since I find many of them interesting, I have stayed subscribed to his list.
“You often love someone not for what they are, but for what you are when you are with them.” – Jeffrey Fry
“Change only happens when the status quo becomes unbearable.” - Michael Drapkin. I recently heard a speaker on the topic of understanding people and he had another twist on this quote that goes something like this “Nothing changes until the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of changing.”
“Kindness is the oil that takes the friction out of life.” – Dustin Hosterler
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert
Love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and that he is at one with the All. - Rabindranath Tagore. Interestingly, I have a cousin named after Rabindranath
Posted by Aruni
8:00 am •
FYI,
random stuff •
July 4, 2009
In between doing some laundry, making beds, painting my daughter’s fingernails, and making grilled ham & cheese sandwiches for the kids, I spent much of today getting things and documents together that people who might be interested in taking in Babble Soft will want to look at. I just finished up the typical “one pager” that entrepreneurs use to gain interest from a potential investor or acquirer. I got some great feedback from a couple of my co-workers at the Austin Technology Incubator that I think enhanced it quite a bit. That’s one of the pluses of having a day job where the Directors review such docs for other technology start-ups.
The one pager can be different depending on who you are sending it to. It’s much harder to write a one pager than a novel sometimes because you have to really figure out the best words to put down in a limited amount of space. It’s a cross between a product sales sheet and a company highlights document. A ‘teaser’ document that will hopefully get someone to call you to discuss your company further.
Since tweeting about us finding a home for Babble Soft, I already have more leads than I expected. That is the power of a strong social network…so many people reaching out to help others. I’ve started following up on those leads and they are interestingly quite different. I also sent messages to some of my LinkedIn contacts to see if they might have connections to appropriate partners.
I’m not as organized as I should be about this process as I’m pulling together information in real time. I guess I’m following a “fire, ready, aim” route instead of the proper one but it’s the best I can do at this moment in life so may the winds of favor smile on us. Thank goodness for smiley emoticons.
On an unrelated note, in the background today I’ve been playing music. For all of my life, I’ve loved music but I haven’t been able to have it playing in the background when I work. I usually have to have almost complete silence when I read, study, type, etc. But for some odd reason that wasn’t the case today. I found myself listening to Jim Croce, James Taylor, ABBA, Simon & Garfunkel (Feelin’ Groovy), Michael Jackson, and of course Backyardigan’s while working at my computer. Not sure if that bodes well or not to the final product, but it’s an interesting new experience for me. I guess I’ve just enhanced my multi-tasking abilities or maybe I’ve killed those brain cells that tell me I can’t listen to music and concentrate at the same time.
Just finished listening to I Am A Rock - by Simon & Garfunkel “And a rock feels no pain and an island never cries”
My husband is just getting back from taking the kids grocery shopping, and now we’re off to take the kids to see Ice Age – Dawn of the Dinosaurs at the theater.
The thing I enjoy most about 4th of July is the fireworks. I remember my dad taking us to parks to watch fireworks when we were kids and letting us light fireworks at his house or other friend’s houses.
I have a great friend who has a house on the lake and every year, they throw a 4th of July party. This is the same friend who got me the purple peacock hat for my birthday. You get a perfect view of the fireworks right from the back yard of her house and there’s nothing like watching fireworks in an uncrowded place while sitting on chairs.
Needless to say I got my pyro-fix for the time being with a few firey delights which shall remain nameless. I’ve always been fascinated with fire. My mom used to get really upset with us for melting candle wax on the fireplace ledge and making things out of the wax when she wasn’t there. Rightly, she was worried that we were going to burn the house down. Fortunately, that never happened.
I did accidentally burn my sister’s fingers when we were kids. I got in huge trouble with my grandfather who rarely got upset with us. He sent me to a corner and I was devastated. I think I was about 9 years old and in my mind I was conducting an experiment with medical tape wrapped around my sister’s finger and lighting one end of the tape with fire. I have no idea what I thought would happen, and I had no idea how quickly it would burn. I guess I just thought it would just stay at the end like a candle wick, but I was wrong and after my sister screamed, I knew I would get in trouble!
With little kids around, we don’t burn that many candles in the house these days but when I do see fire, I find myself mesmerized by it for a while. It’s sort of calming in a weird way.
I wonder if other entrepreneur’s have a fascination with fire because really what we do is play with fire with some of the risks we take…
