Mad Skills

My uncle Tom Capone was an Operating Engineer - Crane Operator. When I was young, I would work in construction for the summers, making money for college. People would say to me “You... are Tom Capone???”  But you are so young! Oh no, you are talking about my uncle…..I’m no crane operator. 

See, in his world, Operating Engineer Tom Capone was famous. He had mad skills operating a crane. In hindsight, it was like how some kids today can master a video game, and others can’t get past the first level.

In big (“heavy”) construction, cranes are key to the job site. The speed, efficiency, and overall “production” of the crane and crew sets the pace of the job. It could easily cost a General Contractor thousands of dollars per day to rent a crane and crew.

Now, if you had “mad skills” like my Uncle Tom, you were always in demand and NEVER out of work. In fact, it was known that many times a General Contractor would ask for my uncle by name, because they knew that his crane operating skills, his talents, his ability would save them - make them money. I know of times where jobs were delayed - they would not start the job until my uncle was available. They would rather delay the start of the job - knowing that the value of my uncle’s crane operating skills were worth waiting for.

It was not just the General Contractors that knew of my uncle’s reputation. The workers on the ground - the laborers, the iron workers, they all knew of Tom Capone. THEY WANTED to work on jobs where Tom Capone was going to be operating the crane. They felt safe. And because they felt safe, they would work better. They would be able to focus on the work at hand, knowing that a true master operating engineer was at the controls. It would all add up, creating a multiplying effect. My uncle’s skills allowed him to create maximum productivity on something that was costing the owner thousands of dollars per day. The rest of the job site would benefit from a form of “trickle down” efficiency. The safe workers would produce more, the entire job site would be running at the pace of the crane.  If the big rig could “do an extra ten or twenty picks” a day (construction lingo) that adds up fast. The efficiency of the crane and crew can shave days (or even weeks) off the overall schedule of the job. This savings can add up to really big money. If the job is big enough (a bridge or a tunnel or a stadium) this could translate into millions of dollars in savings.

If there is a "franchise player" on a job site, it might be the operating engineer crane operator.  

The speed of the crane is the speed of the job.

The world that we live in now - the global workforce - creates the same opportunity for people to stand out - to be “in demand”.  Just as there are many, many “crane operators” in the world, there are some that have a reputation. There are some that will be asked for by name. There are some general contractors that will say it is worth delaying the job - the decision is made that it is worth waiting for this person to become available. 

This person is worth waiting for....... powerful.

The Internet allows for coders, designers, webmasters, project managers, bookkeepers, teachers, even doctors - to work from anywhere in the world. The Internet has created a true global workforce.  But there is still an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, maybe now even more than ever. Clayton Christensen, is an example of a man in demand; a man with “mad skills” like my uncle. And now, thanks to the Internet, he can appear in YOUR office, your home, your laptop.

I miss my uncle Tom Capone, and his brother (my father Anthony). Thirty years later, I am still learning from my summer jobs, working construction.

Our Worlds are Colliding

A Collision is an event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other for a relatively short time. It is a short-duration interaction between two bodies or more than two bodies simultaneously causing change in motion of bodies involved due to internal forces acted between them.

The NYDLA.org attend the CollisionConf.com last week as a media guest. At first I questioned the name “Collision” for such an event.

Now, the choice of the name “Collision” is crystal clear.

More than 11,382 people attended the Collision technology show in New Orleans according to numbers from conference officials. That’s almost 4,000 more than attended last year’s conference in Las Vegas. The show moved to New Orleans this year to take advantage of the week in between Jazz Fest weekends. It ended Thursday at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Other numbers from the Collision conference:

• 332 speakers and moderators on stages and leading roundtables
• 630 startups exhibited
• Trello, TenantCloud, and Life.io were the startups that investors most wanted to see
• 407 investors scoping out startup talent
• 60 leading funds took part in Office Hours, where investors met with promising startups
• 700 investor/startup meetings
• 400 mentor hour sessions where experienced entrepreneurs and investors offered advice to startups. That’s around 133 meetings per day. Mentors included Jeff Glueck of Foursquare and Katy Dormer of Desk.com
• On the CollisionConf app, the most favorited startup was Trello. Investor Chris Sacca was the most favorited attendee
• The average length an attendee spent in one session was 8 minutes and 43 seconds

What’s exactly is Collision?

When Web Summit started as a small 400 person startup conference in Dublin in 2010 nobody imagined that by 2014 it would grow to 22,100 attendees from 110 countries around the world.

Collision is Web Summit’s sister conference in the United States. It started in 2014, but is growing faster than Web Summit ever did. Maybe they should change the name from Collision to “Chain Reaction”.

If I were asked to define the word “Collision” this time last week, I would have described a car crash, or maybe the elastic collision of billiard balls. But now, I think of the permanent change that a collision creates. I have been in business since 1983 and I lost count of how many trade shows, events, and conferences I have attended over the years.  Collisionconf.com is the master of them all.

So many times people attend conferences because they “have to go” or because their boss made them go to “work the show”. This is not the case for Collision. The people that I met (and I tried to meet all 11,000+) all wanted to be there. Desperately. They attended the conference because it was in their DNA to attend. They were compelled to attend. They needed to be there, not just to attend, but to interact, to experience, to “collide” with their tribe.

I understand that if you are into horses, or cooking, or cars (or anything) there are trade shows and industry conferences for YOUR area of interest - there are events for your world. I get that.

But here is the point: everything in YOUR world, will be changed by the people who attended Collision. The next Facebook. The next Airbnb. The next Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Uber, Apple, Twitter, Tesla come from the fertile minds and passionate entrepreneurial spirits of the attendees of Collision.

YOUR WORLDS shall collide with their worlds. It is inevitable. Your business, your industry, your life, will be changed forever by the people who were in New Orleans this week. And when worlds collide, things cannot remain the same as before the collision.

Worlds are indeed.........colliding

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Appiness

Sometimes I throw around the latest tech words assuming others know what I am talking about because I spend so much time with technology and the words are common to me. But the general population may still consider words such as “app” to be mysterious.

Way back in January 2011, the American Dialect Society named “app” the word of the year for 2010. Being named word of year signifies that a term is trendy and growing in its popularity.  But just because the use of a word is growing, we shouldn’t assume that everyone knows it. Being named word of the year implies that the word is newly prominent.

The word app is a noun, and it’s short for “application.”  Application in this case refers to a software application — in other words, an app is a software program. But an app is not just any old software program — it’s a special type of software program.

An app typically refers to software used on a smartphone or mobile device such as the Android, iPhone or iPad, as in “mobile app” or “iphone app.” But the  phrase “Web app” or “online app” is also used in a business setting as an abbreviation for “Web application” or “online application” meaning software that you access and use while online, via a browser, instead of software residing on your computer.

For small-business purposes, we don’t need to get complicated. For most of us, it’s sufficient to think of an app this way:  an app is a software program that you use online or on mobile devices.  

Why should we all care more than we do about apps?”  

Web apps or online apps can be a faster, cheaper, more efficient way of deploying software in your business.  Rather than buying a software license, having to install it on your servers or local computers, keeping up with updates you can simply go online and sign up for an account.    

Mobile apps extend the reach and productivity of your business.  Once you equip your mobile device and/or your employees’ mobile devices with apps, then you and they can perform all sorts of business functions while out of the office traveling, on sales calls, making service calls, etc.  A mobile app usually enables you to do something specific, like accessing your bank account in the case of a banking app, or run payroll with a payroll mobile app.

I’m attending the www.CollisionConf.com in New Orleans this week with my son, and they have a very cool app. It is a tech conference, so this is not a shocker. What IS somewhat of a shocker is that to attend the conference you MUST download the app to your mobile device.  It is mandatory. No appy, no happy.

The world is about to become a very appy place. You must use these apps, or you must shop (go, visit, play) somewhere else. And that is something to think about. 

I use E-Z Pass in my car, and I love it.  It saves me time and money - but it is still my choice. I could still pay cash at bridges and tunnels, but I choose to be automated.  The world of app development is becoming less about choice, and more about what is good for the supplier or the vendor.

Apps are very cool indeed, until they are no longer cool. Paper money is on its way out, but not yet. Debit cards and paying with my smartphone is cool, but I think the “cool” will go away if I am no longer allowed to decide for myself.

"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the "unalienable rights" which the Declaration says has been given to all human beings by their Creator, and for which governments are created to protect.

Happiness (appy-ness) should be pursued, not forced upon us, right? So, if you "choose" to click on www.TomCapone.com you will find me on one of my most favorite apps. Or not, up to you.

You Fool!

“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

April Fools' Day is celebrated every year on the 1st of April by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools. People playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting April Fool. Some newspapers, magazines, and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in small letters. Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.

Last Friday was April Fools' Day. Did you get fooled?  Did anything that you read, observed or were told…… fool you?

If you are reading this, you have access to the Internet. You can Google things. You can check things out on www.Snopes.com.  You can check just about anything on any topic from your computer, your smartphone, your tablet, in a matter of seconds.

A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion or discomfort. A person who performs a practical joke is called a "practical joker". Other terms for practical jokes include prank, gag, jape, or shenanigan.

Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks or hoaxes in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being talked into handing over money or other valuables. Practical jokes are generally light hearted and without lasting impact; their purpose is to make the victim feel humbled or foolish, but not victimized or humiliated. However, practical jokes performed with cruelty can constitute bullying, whose intent is to harass or exclude rather than reinforce social bonds through ritual humbling.

In Western culture, April Fools' Day is a day traditionally dedicated to conducting practical jokes.

Something is broken.

When I was growing up we had ONE DAY…….one dedicated day……… April 1st was the one (and only) day to get this all out of our systems. One single day.  April 1st was the day, to get all the jokes, all the pranks, all the foolishness out into the world. You would be on your guard all day long - the 24 hours of April 1st was a day to open doors slowly, a day to be weary of friends bearing gifts, and a day to use caution when taking phone calls from strangers.

Somehow, the Internet in all of its magic and power, has made every day April Fools' day. 

And that seems to be.......well.......the best prank of all.  

Find the Hidden Easter Egg

Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are decorated eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime. As such, Easter eggs are common during the Easter season. The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as chocolate. Although eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth, in Christianity, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Christians believe Jesus resurrected. In addition, one ancient tradition was the staining of Easter eggs with the colour red "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion." This custom of the Easter egg can be traced to early Christians of Mesopotamia, and from there it spread into Russia and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into through Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

A Fabergé egg is one of a limited number of jeweled eggs created by Peter Carl Fabergé and his company between 1885 and 1917. The most famous are those made for the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers, often called the 'Imperial' Fabergé eggs. The House of Fabergé made about 50 eggs, of which 43 have survived. Two more were planned for Easter 1918, but were not delivered, due to the Russian Revolution.

The first Fabergé egg was crafted for Tsar Alexander III, who had decided to give his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna, the gift of an Easter egg in 1885.

How did we go from the simplicity of

To symbols such as:

  

I find it fascinating how the human race can find a way to take one symbol, and convert it into a symbol of something very, very different.

We do this all the time, more than we realize.  We have converted the education system into a hyper competitive, global business. Family farms have been converted into corporate giants driven by insane profits (at the expense of our health). We converted the music, entertainment and sports worlds into billion dollar enterprises. In my own lifetime, we went from “no Super Bowl” to the largest media event in the world. 

Name a famously rich person. Did they cure cancer or do something amazing to eliminate suffering in the world? Or did they star in hit action movie, or can they dunk a basketball better than most?

Give us just a few years, and we can take just about any symbol (no matter how pure, no matter how honorable) and tweak it and twist it until it becomes unrecognizable - and - watch it become the opposite of its original purpose.

Can you find the “Hidden Easter Egg” in this blog?

Happy Easter Everyone!