January 2012 – CanooterValve

Channel You

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Jan 302012

So much bicycle and tech news to get through today, starting with business tycoon and inventor of yellow bracelets, Lance Armstrong, who’s joining the board at tech startup Mobli, a “place” (you’re not supposed to call them web sites any more) where people can post videos and images of their lives so that other people can oogle them. I’ve noticed that blending celebrity with tech startup is the new hipster business model, maybe because all conventional forms of publishing and making money off of content are rapidly disintegrating, and it’s getting tougher and tougher to buy that sixth Ferrari each and every year. Hence we find ourselves entering the age of the human “celebusinesses,” people like Zooey Deschanel who act, sort of make music, and sell us shit based on the fact that we’re almost buying it from Zooey Daschanel. It’s a weird kind of pop-culture feedback loop, no doubt. Mobli offers “channels” that attempt to be peoples’ lives, so you can basically stalk someone without having to actually put on pants and go outside. Given that one of the only things America is producing these days is narcissistic self-obsession, I predict Mobli is going to blow up huge–or at least get a ridiculous amount of VC money before going public and losing two thirds of its value in three days. In going direct-to-consumer with his life, Armstrong joins a roster of Mobli celebrities already investing, on the board, or just ~~inflicting themselves upon us~~ making their lives available for view, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton, and David Arquette. I would have provided more information about Armstrong’s specific “channel,” but once I got to Mobli, I found it impossible to look away from David Arquette’s life.

In other news this morning, Reverend Paul Sinclair is reconsidering the sale of his tandem hearse. According to Sinclair,

I said I wanted to sell it because I was struggling to ride it. But I have had so much interest in it since I said that, and people saying ‘Oh, I’d like to use that’, I think what I should be doing is hunting out someone fit enough to ride the thing for me.”

Rumors that the massive influx of interested buyers was largely the result of a Canootervalve post advertising the tandem hearse could not be confirmed at the time this post was written.

Frame Material: Steel
Head Tube Type: Standard 1-1/8″
Fork Steerer Tube Diameter: 1-1/8″
Seatpost Diameter: 27.2mm
Rear Dropout Spacing: 135mm
Rear Dropout Type: Standard Geared
Maximum Tire Size: 26×2.3-inches
Wheel Size: 26-inches
Front Dropout Spacing: 100mm
Water Bottle Bosses: 1 set, top of downtube
Color: Green
Size: 18-inch (both captain and stoker)

Here’s your chance to pretend to own a truly exclusive bike. This is the only tandem bicycle hearse in the UK. The Reverend Paul Sinclair of Motorcycle Funerals had this unique bike fabricated for addition to his unique line up of funereal vehicles. Unfortunately, Reverend Sinclair does not feel he’s sufficiently fit to operate the hearse, so he’s making it available in the hope that it will one day find a good home. Own a genuine piece of British history that just also happens to be able to transport dead bodies. Should also be able to transport at least two kegs, 4-8 surfboards, children, furniture, and another bike.

Learn more about the bike on the Daily Mail’s site.

$3,522.37

I haven’t forgotten that I’m supposed to drop the little bit of code required to make that “product for sale” box in anybody’s WordPress page (and probably just about any other type of blog post, too). I would’ve gotten to that today, but I was too fascinated with the new clothing line by venerable saddle manufacturer and arbiters of all things “authenticly artisanal,” Brooks.

Word from Bicycle Retailer is that Brooks has controlling ownership of Pedaled, a Japanese company offering clothing for people who’s smugness precludes them owning anything of opulence that doesn’t involve bicycles or coffee. And once you’ve installed your own indoor Peruvian forest and bean roasting facility, about all that’s left is to spring for a $520 jacket. Suck on that, Rapha!

Like all truly expensive hipster-wear, Brooks new Pedaled clothing is displayed hanging from meat hooks, evoking simultaneously a sense of casual durability and a disdain for lofty marketing, with just a hint of unrepressed veganism. When you can finally manage to pry yourself away from the life channel of Lance Armstrong or David Arquette and start looking for pants, you can, of course, purchase stuff directly from Pedaled.com. I don’t know what the mark-up is on a $120 t-shirt, though, so I can’t fault Brooks from cutting out bike shops and going consumer-direct with this new line. Something tells me the new line isn’t targeted at “people who ride bicycles” anyway, so much as “urban cyclists” looking for “outfit solutions.”

Final note: so I changed my logo over the weekend. I’d always disliked the original graphic, and some updated descriptive text was in order, given that bike technology is only one of the topics my rants occasionally veer into. In the process, I noticed that my “theme” had gone wonky. WordPress lets you plug in various themes–the look and feel of your site–but WordPress itself seems to get updated about once every thirty-seven seconds, and that can screw up some more unique themes. The lesson for WordPress users who don’t want to wrestle with this sort of thing? Use a really boring, standard theme, and let your images, logos and overall content be what makes it unique. It really should be the content that people find interesting anyway, not the decorations. Or so I’ve read.

Friday’s Crotch of Luxury and Self-Esteem Check

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Jan 272012

While enjoying my morning ritual of fourteen cups of coffee and browsing, I was relieved to see yet another place to custom build your own luxury, multi-colored, ~~bike~~fashion accessory. Apparently Villy Customs will let you create just about any color $150 bicycle you’d like for between $400 and $800, thus fulfilling their corporate mission statement: “Luxury. Fashion. Bicycle.” (In that order.)

Because I think a lot about marketing, when I see yet another company with a fancy color-picker feature, I don’t concern myself with the overall shoddy quality of the product or what I suspect to be a woeful lack of customer service (I leave those concerns to the buyers), but, rather, the funny way these companies distinguish themselves from the actual bicycle industry, which apparently sells an entirely different product. See, a “bicycle” is a mechanical device, which needs proper assembly and periodic maintenance, whereas a personalized “Cruiser” or a “Fixie” is actually classified as a fashion accessory, and, as such, apparently needs none of those things. Smartly, the companies offering these fashionable accessories understand that they are “luxury” items in a way that properly designed and functionally assembled bicycles can never be. Cruisers and Fixies that allow potential owners to choose from a rainbow of nondescript components of dubious quality are, in fact, the very definition of luxury. Think of them as small, street-going yachts with chains chattering against improperly installed but festooned-with-painted-daisies chain guards, veritable Bugatti Veyrons of style, oozing down the street with all the passion and aggression a rapidly detensioning and wobbly rear wheel can command.

As such, their companies inevitably have their own marketing pages bolted (threads stripped) right onto their sites. In the case of Villy, this page is smartly filled with the various local morning TV shows that found their products adorable. Who needs function, when Entrepreneur magazine, Modern Luxury Dallas, and Good Morning Texas have featured your business.

Speaking of personalized service, one of my older posts regarding Specialized and the recent nonsense with Volagi received the following comment yesterday:

This is a poor representation of the Specialized brand. I feel Specialized strives to protect it’s intellectual property and it’s IBD network. No other brand is as IBD exclusive as Specialized. They could double there numbers if they sold to everyone and anyone. But they don’t they only want true knowledgeable bike shops representing there brand. Agreed the lawsuit with Volagi is a bit frivolous however if you let one company copy your ideas than soon all will.”

I thanked this person for the comment, and I can appreciate a need to stand up for the many positive things Specialized has done, the clearly great bikes they make, and the support they do offer dealers.

But I had to take issue with both points made in that comment, which are not only inaccurate, but also reinforce dangerous misconceptions about this particular case, and about the relationship Specialized and other vendors have with independent bike dealers. So I replied. And replied. And replied some more. Because, for some reason, I take both of these issues very seriously, and I reject the warm and fuzzy notion that Specialized–or anybody else–bases their relationship with dealers solely on some kind of vague personal respect. It’s an adorable and whimsical idea, but I think the reality has a lot more to do with things like territory, supply chain strategy, and mutual need.

For starters, the intellectual property argument might have some validity if Specialized had actually had any intellectual property stolen, but they didn’t. Just because the battle is over, doesn’t mean you get to rewrite the outcome, or give validity to an argument the legal proceeding dismantled. This whole sad event wasn’t just a bad marketing decision for Specialized; it was a genuine legal proceeding, and its results confirmed they had no intellectual property stolen. The lawsuit wasn’t “a bit frivolous”; it was baseless, and the more we learned about it, the more it seemed like classic intimidation of competition, something I find distasteful. Volagi did not steal anything from Specialized. Your assertion that once you allow one company to steal your intellectual property, others will follow, makes it sound like theft occurred here. What we’ve determined is that it did not.

I’d like to put to rest the bullshit notion that a company like Specialized could “double there [sic] numbers if they sold to everyone and anyone.” I’ve heard this ridiculous assertion put forward in the bike industry time and time again, and it’s the argument of beaten down IBDs with serious daddy complexes: “Daddy only sells through us ’cause Daddy loves us and takes care of us!”

Bullshit.

I applaud Specialized’s business model and their execution–they’ve done an amazing job of working within an established system for selling bicycles. But it’s an established system, not something they’ve done out of compassion, and there are reasons they don’t sell directly to consumers. The point I’ve been trying to make is that if independent bike shops don’t start spending less time drinking Kool-aid and more time learning to read tea leaves, they could find themselves caught unprepared for the inevitable. Specialized has already begun selling “selective” products directly to consumers on-line. Independent bike shops should be hedging against even the slightest possibility of that trend continuing, and blind faith in the benevolence of vendors is not a viable business plan.

I honestly do believe dealer loyalty plays a role in Specialized’s decision to restrict sales of bicycles to brick-and-mortar transactions, but it’s a smaller role than you think. There are more valid business forces keeping them from selling direct. Why doesn’t General Motors sell directly to consumers? For certain products, the benefits of consumer direct sales do not outweigh the expenses. The notion that Specialized, or GM, or any company built on a dealer representative platform could flip a switch overnight and begin selling direct to consumers–if only they chose to–is just not accurate. Believing that glorifies the manufacturer while disparaging the role of independent dealers. If you own or work at a bike shop, think of the work you do to sell and maintain bikes. It’s tremendous. So you’re telling me Specialized, or any other company, could just absorb that workload? Even if IBDs continued to offer some support, the actual expenses associated with turning a B2B company into a consumer-facing enterprise are staggering. There are legitimate barriers there.

But what I find truly bizarre about all of this is the screwy logic that lets presumably good bike shops demean themselves–instinctively, and by default. I have a lot of respect for Specialized and their products. I can understand how any shop would be happy and proud to be able to offer their products. Almost nothing should come before a dealer’s relationship with his vendors–but belief in your own business should. By definition, if you’re a quality shop, doing quality work, you should not believe your vendors sell to you only because they’re being kind. Instead of counting on their continued kindness–even as the market shifts all around them–shouldn’t you be making yourself indispensable? Look at a retail brand like Competitive Cyclist and tell me that putting your brand first doesn’t work. Claiming to add value without being able to articulate that value to consumers is becoming obsolete. What’s great about any shop has to be far more than just what brands they carry, but too many shops still place their own self worth in the brands they sell. So Specialized could “double” sales if they let their bikes be sold everywhere, but “they only want true knowledgeable bike shops representing there [sic] brand.” Look at the word “want” in there. Why have you not replaced that with “need”? That’s what you need to ask yourself.

The Little Things

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Jan 262012

Sometimes I think that, if I could have three wishes, the first would be for someone to finally drive a stake through the heart of the fashion industry’s fleeting love of bikes, and the second and third would both be for the first to come true, just in case. The image of the $5,000 Bianchi hipster-mobile above comes to us courtesy of a site called “The Pursuitist,” who’s mission is apparently to, “Find and share the good things in life.” Inevitably this seems to consist almost entirely of increasingly elaborate devices designed to take what little soul you might’ve been born with and painfully extract it from your person. According to the article:

Biking is a luxury, and now it has a price tag to go along with it too. Gucci has launched two exclusive Bianchi by Gucci bicycles designed by the brand’s Creative Director, Frida Giannini.

Giannini told us, “The Bianchi by Gucci bicycles perfectly carry forward our codes of luxury while creating a new cosmopolitan aesthetic for those looking to turn heads while on the go”.

However, the Bianchi by Gucci bikes are only available for purchase in London from Gucci’s store at 18 Sloane Street. The white, hydro-formed steel single speed bike (above) costs $5,000 while the black carbon fiber monocoque model (below) is priced at $14,000.”

Yes, as anyone in China can tell you, biking is, indeed, a luxury. I just quoted that in its entirety because I honestly couldn’t bring myself to read through it one more time to pick out only the quotable parts. And no, I don’t have the spiritual fortitude to show you the carbon fiber one, if you haven’t already seen it. I can’t claim to understand what strange force has trapped certain Italian bike companies in the ’80s, but could someone please tell Colnago and Bianchi that most of the pastel-suitjacket-wearing coke addicts who used to represent a market for high-fashion, co-branded bicycle abominations are now either dead or riding Specialized Venges? And everyone knows kids ride Cinellis. Yes, the 21st Century is proving confusing to some companies. Today, managing to have a bike featured on a site next to artisanal mable syrum and $800 amplification horns for iPhones is arguably the most ironic sign of “status” possible.

Still, you have to love how ruthlessly practical bicycles manage to remain, despite the pressure to turn them into luxury items and fashion accessories, probably because you almost always have to actually ride a bike in order to show it off to everyone, and that’s a pretty high barrier of entry for the frail and soul-less.

Besides, everybody knows it’s the #littlethings that really matter. Word in business news today is that McDonald’s is attempting to rebound from their ill-fated #McDStories Twitter social media bloodbath with a fresh hashtag, “#littlethings,” which, hopefully, will be a few more degrees separated from worms in fish sandwiches and “dying inside.” Clearly, some–I’ll go ahead and assume frantic–discussion occurred at Clown Food Central over the past 48-hours, and it was determined that anything even vaguely close to the discussion of actual food products was the real liability in this campaign, and that a new hashtag was needed that was much more difficult to relate back even to their company, let alone the “food.” Hence, “#littlethings.” Brilliant.

Here I’d like to official introduce a new term into the lexicon of social media marketing: to “rainblow.” It means to shield your otherwise disgusting brand, service, or product behind some form of generally recognized piece of undeniable goodness. I believe this is actually one the marketing industry stole from Congress, the original masters of rainblowing our minds by authoring bills with names like the “Children’s Health Act” that actually allows companies to dispose of green, glowing toxic waste by pouring it directly into the mouths of anyone with a household income less than $250,000 a year.

The beauty of the new McDonald’s hashtag is how it boldly says, “Think of the special shit that really matters to you. OK, got it? Now give it to us.” That’s some bold social marketing, right there. It says, “We don’t stand for the shit we expect you to eat. We stand for whatever you think is good . . . whatever matters to you dumbass morons, just think ‘McDonald’s!’ when you picture that.”

Speaking of social networking and the Internets, I haven’t forgotten the official wrap up of my e-commerce how-to segment. All put together, the actual ad is going to look like this:

Frame Material: Steel
Head Tube Type: Standard 1-1/8″
Fork Steerer Tube Diameter: 1-1/8″
Seatpost Diameter: 27.2mm
Rear Dropout Spacing: 135mm
Rear Dropout Type: Standard Geared
Maximum Tire Size: 26×2.3-inches
Wheel Size: 26-inches
Front Dropout Spacing: 100mm
Water Bottle Bosses: 1 set, top of downtube
Color: Green
Size: 18-inch (both captain and stoker)

Learn more about the bike on the Daily Mail’s site.

$3,522.37

Next, I’ll be walking everyone through the exact little bit of code necessary to create that product listing, and then we’ll be able to start testing that buy button. Before then, I either need to make a tandem hearse to sell, or find something else I need to get rid of. Preferably something smaller than a tandem hearse or a Big Dummy, and easier to fit into a box and ship. #littlethings

Bicycle Hearses and McFailing

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Jan 252012

These days there’s a lot of talk in e-commerce and marketing circles about “managing social.” Entire departments are being created within companies, and an industry has appeared to support these efforts. The irony, of course, is that you can’t manage social. Sort of by definition, social relies on the people being people, and when you censor them, or try to direct the firehose blast of content they can generate, what you have ceases to be truly social. In other words, the problem with social–from a business standpoint–is the people.

McDonald’s ran into the “people problem” recently when they realized the shit they post on Twitter can be seen by everyone–even those who think McDonald’s food is repugnant. As countless people are pointing out on Twitter right now, a company known primarily for borderline poisonous food-shaped products probably shouldn’t serve up a ready-made hashtag–“#McDStories”–inviting everyone to share stories about McDonald’s-related experiences.

Here’s a screen grab from last night that shows you just how well social is working for McDonald’s, a company with sufficient resources at their disposal to be using social as effectively as possible.

In a sea of people pointing out how wrong this campaign has gone, there are still gems of personal stories here and there, and that second one from the top is among my favorites.

I mention all of this because I’ve been babbling a bit about e-commerce lately, and how independent bike shops need to get off their asses and start building a presence on-line. McDonald’s thoughtfully illustrates one of the potential dangers of staggering half-assedly onto the fast-moving and emotionally merciless Internet–but they also illustrate what a great opportunity these social sites are for small business. Here are a few things they did wrong, and how you can turn them around:

It’s About the People No, really, it is. That means you can’t just expect them to sing your praises. You’re a corporation. You might be much more important than people in America right now, but you haven’t yet figured out a way to force us to love you. You want promotional help? People ask what’s in it for them. How does participating in this stupid hashtag make their lives better? If you’re not sure, the answer is usually either, “It doesn’t” or, as in the case with McDonald’s, “It lets them vent their rage at you.”

The Web is Inherently Negative That might seem pessimistic, but, aside from adorable cats, the Internet is the Wild West of emotions and opinions. People value freedom of expression and entertainment value–not necessarily in that order. Even a company with legendary customer service knows better than to willfully put their head on the chopping block. Best to hedge with a safe and non-committal interaction. “Tweet your description of a new, trimmed down Grimus, and it must be under 140 characters.” That sort of thing. But all that safety is recommended even if you have a phenomenally respected product with an unassailable reputation for quality. Can you think of a positive experience at McDonald’s that would be fun to read? Personally, the last time I was forced into one (thanks again, Jason), the ketchup dispenser produced a giant, pink foam ball when I tried to use it. That’s my #McDStory. What the hell were they thinking?

Don’t Expect Something for Nothing My first example dealt with offering the people entertainment and truly listening to them, but a separate tactic is to just pay them off with swag. Today’s digitally social appreciate the value of their content. They know their content is helping to sell your products, and they expect something for it. Cough it up. Failing to “gamify” the deal, or offer some free stuff or other reward only serves to remind the consumer that they’re working for you for free. Marketing inside McDonald’s might love their company, but please don’t assume we all do. I suspect most people eat there because the food-shaped salt and sugar forms are so cheap, not because we have strong feelings about the company.

So the social media management lesson for those of us just now considering an on-line presence is simple: be yourself, but demonstrate at every step of the way that you’re there for the consumer. You’ll rarely receive warm and fuzzy moments from a consumer based just on his or her undying and irrational love of your company. Sweeten the deal. Give consumers a reason to participate, and make sure you’re standing beside them instead of peering down from your golden arches.

Used social media to build a wildly successful following for your on-line bike shop yet? Good. Then you’re ready to sell some stuff, and here’s another step toward making that happen.

Remember how we were working on adding product photos, information, and an “Add to Cart” button to our WordPress post? Today, I want to show you one of the last and easiest pieces to putting together a simple WordPress shopping cart: a nice border.

I’ve already had enough interest in the Big Dummy frameset I’m selling that even posting now seems to make no sense, so until I find something new to sell (there’s plenty), I’ve found an ideal stand-in.

For Sale: UK’s Only Tandem Bicycle Hearse

Yes, though this would probably be only one of thousands of bicycle hearses if located in Portland, the only tandem hearse in the UK is now available for you to purchase. The reverend who owns it claims he’s not fit enough to use it, but that it’s a great buy.

Now that we have some content, let’s build a container for it.

Borders are really easy to create using an HTML “div” tag and some simple “CSS.” I’m not going to tell you what any of that stands for, because I’m not teaching you coding here–we’re just stealing a little of it for our immediate purposes. Suffice to say that a “div” is a box you can create anywhere on a web page. They live in three dimensions, so things like those fancy menus that pop out when you mouse over them? Those are just hidden divs appearing over the top of the page itself, triggered by your mouse position. You can do just about anything with a div, but our purposes are really simple. We just need to drop in a small bit of code to make our borders.

A great characteristic of WordPress is that you can add custom code to your entries just by clicking the little “HTML” tab at the top right of the entry field for your text (that big box where you type stuff people will read). Make sure that’s clicked then copy and paste in this content:

<div style="border:2px solid;border-radius:25px;-moz-border-radius:20px;">

Congratulations, you just made a border. That’s the fancy new kind with rounded borders, because Steve Jobs said everything should have rounded borders and really juicy-looking buttons, and all web designers tend to like to dress up and pretend to be him. The sad news is that these fancy new rounded edge kinds won’t work in ancient, shitty, diabolical browsers like Microsoft’s IE6 (aka “Internet Exploder 6”). My friend Tae tells me IE6 still has like 90% of market share in Korea, so if that’s your target market, you might want to dial the fancy down a bit and stick with something more like this.

<div style="border:2px solid">

This will give you a border with good, old-fashioned square edges and make your border visible even in South Korea (though probably nothing else on your page will be loading correctly anyway).

Here’s what the fancy border with the rounded edges looks like:

I am in the house.

From here there’s just the simple step of putting our content together inside our swanky new border and then adding our “Add to Cart” button, and that’s what we’ll do next time.

Low Resolutions

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Jan 242012

My New Year’s resolution was to have a better fucking attitude about shit. I’ve found it takes a lot of coffee. And practice. I’m getting better at it, though. Case in point: I’m going to bring you good news today.

Samuel B. Gause Retrieves Stolen Bike

Who’s Samuel B. Gause? He’s a Chemistry student at the University of Florida who’s once again the proud owner of an IRO Angus. Gause’s bike was stolen this past Sunday, but he found it for sale on Craig’s List and got his sting operation on, setting up a meeting to check out the bike and calling the Gainesville police, who ended up arresting one Collin D. Smith, a 5’6″ tall, 140-pound man who’d apparently been charged with battery and burglary the previous year. Gause, who appears to be nearly tall enough to race cyclocross for Kona Bicycles, sounds like a nice guy who was clearly nervous as hell setting up his first foray into crime fighting, and I’m happy he got his bike back. According to The Alligator, Smith, who was arrested and charged with grand theft and dealing in stolen property by use of the Internet didn’t return a phone call requesting comment, presumably because he was in jail. I suspect The Alligator also has incredibly poor luck receiving comments from deceased individuals and victims of kidnappings. Based on what we know, however, we can assume that Smith’s comment would have been something like, “You tall people with your fucking giant-ass bikes! I will find you all, and I will tilt your saddles into extremely uncomfortable angles! No jail will hold me, and I will find you! Gloating, towering, bicycle-riding, lanky bitches! You think you’re so great! I will find you all! I will make you so uncomfortable!”

Smith is currently being held pending extradition to Portland.

Something Completely Different

I know I’ve also been bitching a lot about the lack of innovative products out there lately, but I’m happy to report some people are still pushing the envelope. My friend Josh just let me know about a little company called Solstice.

Solstice owner and designer, Chuck Dunlap, is focused on making one frame. One pretty wild, innovative, patented suspension frame. The Solstice is built around something Dunlap calls an “inverted 4-bar,” and that really does make sense once you look at it.

I’ve noticed the fashionable thing to say about a totally unique suspension design you’ve only seen in photos is: “Looks like it has a vertical axle path.” Word is this does, however, have a pretty vertical axle path, something I was after with my design, too.

It doesn’t look particularly stiff, but there’s an article about the design in the Mountain Flyer, and it claims the rear end on this bike tracks great, and that it pedals well and absolutely stomps nasty terrain. Very interesting stuff.

The swingarm parts are cold forged, which is pretty cool and makes me wonder how a tiny bike company producing only a handful of frames can manage to create such a clean and professional looking machine. There’s a kind of beautiful simplicity to the design, despite the complexity of the suspension.

The Solstice features a fully “floating” rear shock, which is another way of saying it has a shock that doesn’t anchor to the main frame anywhere; instead, it “floats” or bolts to moving parts of the suspension system on each of its ends. Sandwiching a shock between two moving suspension members is scary stuff, as the shock rates can get really difficult to manage, but Dunlap’s design looks very well thought out.

The bike is getting 160mm of travel and no, there is no 29er version out there, as far as I know. At over seven pounds, it ain’t light, but there seems to be no reason this design needs to weigh much more than similar frames, so I think the heft represents a bit of caution on the part of Solstice. Better to have the occasional complaint about the weight, than to run into problems.

Most importantly, seeing this really cheered me up. Just the idea that here’s a guy hell-bent on making innovative new products–products that literally turn conventional wisdom upside down.

This is nice, this being positive bullshit. I think I can tolerate it in small doses.

I need a fourth cup of coffee.

Mad Skills

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Jan 232012

Everyone needs a skill.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about skills. It must the resumes I’m sending out, the career search process in general, but I find myself thinking about the often blurry concept of “job skills” and what it means to be know how to do something. If this post has a practical use–and I’m not claiming it does–it’s as advice for small business owners, hoping to hire outstanding people who can actually improve a company.

I can remember sitting through an excruciating hermeneutics graduate course many years ago, watching some guys pouring concrete for a new sidewalk outside. After we’d wasted an hour dissecting sentences word by word, painfully trying to comprehend ridiculously cryptic ideas in a book that’s very subject was how we communicate, the professor adjourned the class with the pronouncement, “We did good work today.” A friend of mine and fellow writer of fiction (there were mostly philosophy students in this class, but some of the MFA writers–myself included–had ended up there because we needed the credits) announced matter-of-factly, “We didn’t do good work today.” Everyone turned to look at him, and he clarified: “We didn’t do any work today. They did work today,” he said, gesturing to the work crew outside the window. “What we did wasn’t work.” He was right.

When I went on to put in time as an English professor myself, the lesson I took with me from that class was to always be relevant, always keep the discussion of even the most obscure subjects rooted in the every day experiences of my students. This wasn’t a challenge, because I’d always thought of books as a necessary tool to get through life–a kind of multi-tool that included everything from a life jacket to hand grenades. You learn to read books and think critically about complicated subjects so that you can form your own opinions about things and make good decisions. I regarded those skills as being every bit as crucial and necessary to the average person as a level and nails are to a carpenter.

That particularly bad grad course I’d sat through didn’t have any meaning to me because there was no regard for a product: we weren’t even trying to create anything. To my thinking, the further you drifted away from concrete, tangible productivity–making something–the less relevant any of your gibberish became. Writers were, at least, still driven to create something.

This weekend, Bill Maher pointed out the difference between this photo of Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital

and photos of other famous wealthy people, including Henry Ford standing beside his Model T, Woz and Steve Jobs sitting there with their first computer, and Walt Disney at his desk, drawing a cartoon.

The distinction Maher’s photos made was a powerful one. Seems like too often these days, real money doesn’t come from making anything (except more money). Those gifted at living without creating anything tend to make money from money, and, as we’ve seen, they usually manage to do this by using loopholes, bad faith, and one hell of a disregard for others. Financial services companies can use the term “product” to describe things like Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and Credit Default Swaps (CDSs), but that’s like saying you’re a rock star because you got drunk and crashed your car. Whoever created those must surely be proud, but I have to believe it’s a different kind of pride than what an engineer or an artist might have in creating something.

With all of this in mind, it occurred to me that the best people I’ve known, those who demonstrate what I consider to be strong moral character, are always people who can make things. I’ve known devoutly religious people, people held in high esteem by their local communities, whom I’d not let anywhere near my kids. This isn’t to say every diesel mechanic is a saint, but, if you think about your business like a child, I’d much rather have doers on board than talkers. Probably the thing that shocked me so much as I moved around my part of the business world–including everything from C-level managers, to business software developers, to mergers and acquisitions specialists–was just little anyone could actually do.

To my mind the world is already too full of people so absolutely incapable of successfully performing even the most basic of tasks that they end up in upper management positions. Sadly, what that can do to a company is pretty gruesome in and of itself. Here are a few e-commerce business rules I’ve learned the hard way.

Upper management that’s never engaged directly with the end user is useless. If you’re a consumer-facing retailer or e-commerce store, look for management and operations people who’ve spoken to customers, one way or another, somewhere in their past. Preferably within the past year. Unless you’re Proctor and Gamble, the days of the ivory tower CEO and COO in the retail space are over.

Everybody should know how to write at least some code. Yes. Everybody. I’m not talking about hardcore application development, but anyone involved in marketing, management, or creative development for your company should know some basic HTML, CSS, and, preferably, some really basic Javascript. How can anyone make good decisions about business development and marketing if he or she has no idea what’s behind the curtain at a web site? It’s management with zero coding skills that leads to consumer facing web sites with Flash screens that take two minutes to load.

Mergers and acquisitions guys have to understand technology. Without the ability to understand how Company A is making their donuts–or at least be able to comprehend the analysis of someone who does–how can anyone making business development decisions put a real price tag on merging it with Company B. There are cases where even two relatively strong companies, brought together by a weak M and A team, become much less than the sum of their parts due to incompatible technology.

Marketing people should have some experience in sales and customer service. This matters not just because they need to understand the consumer’s point of view, but because they need to understand the process of their own salespeople.

All managers are part-time chief technology officers, especially CFOs. The basic costs associated with something like an e-commerce site can vary enormously and most companies would do well to have a watchdog along every checkpoint. If you’re paying $25,000 a month for web hosting, and don’t know enough to realize you could be paying less than $1,000, don’t assume the IT department is going to take the time to set you straight. They’re still busy trying to get the reconditioned phone system you bought on sale to work properly.

The list could really go on all day, but the basic idea stays the same. All those job ads that include phrases like “creative thinker” might not be going far enough. In order to be a creative thinker, you need to have an arsenal of skills from which to generate ideas. You need to know how to make stuff and do stuff. I’d like to think that America in particular can reverse the current trend toward generating wealth without actually producing anything useful. Maybe Mitt Romney’s a nice guy, though I doubt it, and there’d have to be documented video proof of Mitt eating a live baby for him to scare me more than Newt Gingrich, but I think there’s something inherently wrong when separating value from reward. That image of the Bain Capital guys in suits stuffed with money is the America you end up with when the people making the most money have the least to offer.

Singing Toothbrushes and Simple E-commerce

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Jan 202012