TechLatte: Cheryl Marquez

Learn how AI can help you create a month of content in a few hours

Like World Domination

I spent the day watching the live streams of the sold out Facebook F8 Developer Conference. It was streamed by Livestream and besides a few hiccups in the beginning it was great to consume all that information from the comfort of my own desk. The conference timing couldn’t have been better, I have been defining software requirements and drawing workflows for my business partner with specifics around integration with Facebook. Learning first hand about the changes Facebook was announcing allowed me to simplify some the requirements while I was watching the broadcast. Since our website is built on WordPress.org, I was able to quickly implement the new Like button by embedding the iframe into a text/HTML widget. The Like box links the title to the Facebook Fan Page, includes member photos, and if the user is not logged into Facebook, it will allow them to login from our website and automagically post to their Facebook stream. With just a few clicks Facebook integration was accomplished. Additionally, I was able to delete about seven different WordPress plugins we were using to create this integration. Next up, my business partner is working on getting single sign-on working without using the RPX plugin.

Key Messages

  • For developers some of the announcements made by Facebook simplifies the registration and login process because the single sign-on functionality asks for permission to access email and register the users Facebook account to a website. They are now using OAuth 2.0 protocol so this will play nicely with additional login options to different services such as Twitter.
  • Social plugins such as the Like button or box and the activity feeds help even novice bloggers get started with the Facebook platform using a single line of HTML. The code is generated by Facebook after the blogger makes some selections, which can be copied into blogs.
  • Insights is the Facebook analytics tool, the website says, “get detailed information about the demographics of your users and how users are sharing from your application.”
While I believe the single sign-on is a must have, what is interesting is the analytics and the server-side personalization. When launching a new website and brand, it’s important to understand who the customer really is and what they are doing on the website or the web application. Our assumption and research is tailoring the content of our website to a particular demographic, yet what if our target demographic is completely different from our actual users. We need to learn who they are and how they are using the application so we can optimize the experience for them. 
The software requirements already build in a few tests to see which elements will drive viral growth and tracking to see where the users are dropping off. We will also request feedback and survey our users to see how their perception of what they are doing ties into actual usage. The goal is to launch a beta version in the coming weeks and update the software bi-weekly to refine how it works with a small group of people. More to follow on my side of the entrepreneurial journey in the coming weeks and how our Like box does in driving world domination. 

Social Media Addiction: Check-in Phenomenon

I realized I blog sporadically, then whip out these epic novellas when I finally put my fingers to the keyboard. I’ve decided I would write more often in bite sized quantities. Since my last post, I’ve become addicted to “checking in” on Gowalla, Yelp, and Foursquare. It makes arriving at a destination a little spastic because I have to check in to 3 different services, Foursquare updates my Facebook status, Gowalla updates my Twitter stream, and Yelp lets any of my Yelp friends know I am still alive. You may ask yourself, why doesn’t she just pick one and have it update everything? My sister asked what is the point of check-ins? At the end of the day, there really is no point in check-ins. Personally, I like that Foursquare puts a picture on my location status update on Facebook, I like the pictures. I know I can send out a tweet about where I am and what I am doing, then have Twitter update Facebook and be done with it, then there would be no picture.

In my life of leisure, I discovered the world of social media games. For those of you who are unaware, it’s all those Mafia Wars, Farmville, Cafe World, MMA Fighter, Texas Hold’em posts you see cluttering up your news feeds. These check-in applications for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, or WinMob phones have a social gaming component which allow you to collect items that you carry in your backpack, earn badges, or even become Mayor of a place just by checking in. I am happy to report Foursquare has named me the Mayor of LA Fitness for going 17 times this month. I never had any ambition to run for office, yet I’m the Mayor of the gym. Which means Foursquare thinks all I do is workout. I found at least the silver lining is that I will go to the gym regularly to keep my status as Mayor.

Entrepreneurs & Improv

Last weekend I attended Women 2.0’s startup workshop called Will it Launch at the Microsoft office in San Francisco. The offices were located right off of Market Street which made for an easy commute from Fremont BART to the Powell Street station.

The tagline for the workshop was “Ideas are a dime a dozen, and we know talk is cheap. Execution makes you money. So how do you know which startup idea to focus on for success?” David Weekly, founder and CEO of PBworks and Poornima Vijayashankar, founding engineer for Mint.com led the workshop. I will do a separate writeup of the workshops key ideas and resources in the next couple of days. Today’s post will really go over how doing improv has a lot of parallels with being an entrepreneur.

Kasey Klemm led the improv workshop on day 1 and one of the first things we did was yell out “I failed!” As we faced our fear of failure and pretty much got it out of the way as quickly as possible, we were able to continue on our journey to being more productive, instead of wracked with fear on what could happen. Including quickly trying to get to know partners to see what we had in common with them, which is the basis of networking, even though the idea of networking for some of us is really intimidating. Since we had very little time to get to know them, we tried to establish common ground very quickly to have something to present after than particular round ended. Kasey closed his improv session by asking people for words of wisdom.

  • Don’t be afraid to fail, fail in the beginning so you aren’t afraid of it anymore (yelling “I failed! loudly and with full conviction gets you over fear quickly)
  • Network and find common ground with people so you can see how you can help them and how they can help you
  • Make your team look good, they in turn will make you look good (statue game)
  • Share your wisdom with others
Lisa Rowland led the improv session on day 2 and wrapping up our improv session was Dave McClure. During Lisa’s improv session we broke into 2 groups, group A and group B. Group A started as the group that was comfortable making extended eye contact, comfortable touching people, allow their bodies to take up more space with bigger gestures and taller carriage. Group B was the group which was uncomfortable with eye contact, was told to look, then to quickly look away, try to take up less space, and turn their toes inward. The idea behind this improv exercise was to help us learn high and low status behaviors. We milled about the room doing our assigned behaviors and realized how frustrating it was to communicate with someone who couldn’t look you in the eye. We also learned we stuttered and mumbled through our pitches when taking on the group B, low status personas.
  • When pitching use a high status persona, make eye contact, stand confidently, use your space and be confident with your ideas
  • Investors want to invest in people who are confident about their ideas
  • If having a high status persona is not your natural state, fake it til you make it
    • Dave McClure runs FF Angel which is a seed-stage investment program for Founders Fund. He had us play a game called Halfbaked.com where one side of the room yelled out a word the other side yelled out a word and 2 contestants did a pitch about the two words. One of the companies we had to pitch was shittycannibals.com, shows you how quickly you need to be creative in coming up with a problem/solution pitch.
    • “When pitching, the goal is not to get through all your slides. You want people to interrupt and ask questions!”–@davemcclure #willitlaunch
    • Your entire goal for your pitch is an emotional connection –@davemcclure (once you have that wait to build upon it) #willitlaunch
    At the end of the day, to get the most out of the workshop it was best throw yourself wholeheartedly into the exercises so you can push yourself beyond any self-imposed limitations. This is also true with any startups, sometimes you have to quit your day job long before it’s comfortable, so you can really put your efforts in your startup. 
    The events of last weekend, led me to end the “Life of Leisure” chapter of my life to embark on the “Startup Life: Adventures in Making it Happen”, 2010 is shaping up to be an amazing and exciting year.