Christophe Maire, CEO of txtr

Before meeting Christophe Maire at the NextBerlin conference I was hearing many good things about him.  As the CEO of txtr, I heard txtr was doing cool stuff, that Maire was full of good ideas and best of all that Maire could be counted on in the Berlin start-up community to help others and was working hard to make Berlin a great place to start companies.  Nice to have your reputation precede you in such a way, in such a town.

We talked about most of the big digital publishing issues of the day:

--Most important issues to solve in e-publishing: discovery and curation

-- Next big thing in reading digital books according to him:  It is essential to simplify the reading experience. (This is not a commonly held opinion, as many people are racing to embed more graphics, audio, video in ebooks.  I was glad to hear his contrarian view.)

--Is reading an immersive experience for young readers the way it is for older readers, who have adopted e-readers more aggressively than teens and 20's?  (See "Generations & Gadgets" infographic here.)  He couldn't say, but pointed me to interesting ventures like Machinima, where the words "machine" and "cinema" give you a clue to their gaming/editorial concept.  Machinima is targeted to that 18-35 male demographic, who seem to give their attention to gaming, YouTube and all things video, before reading.

--The big question:  We talked about digital textbooks and where that was headed.  Again, Maire said this will be very interesting to watch as it plays itself out.  Certainly, one advantage of digital textbooks is the ability to use small, light slices of texts, instead of having to drag around heavy, often out-of-date paper textbooks.  How tablets develop will be crucial to e-textbook adoption.

Picture Credit: LinkedIn

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

It really is so difficult to tell a short, sweet, simple story about your start-up.  As I'm listening to CEO's pitching here at the #NextBerlin conference in #Berlin and after #Techstars Demo Day last week in Boston, there's nothing more true than the K.I.S.S. principle.  Please keep it simple to keep yourself from sounding stupid.

When I go back home, I enter a Facebook world as they go public next week and I figure there were early times when even Zuckerberg explained his startup and people scratched their heads.

If you're an entrepreneur and have not read the great book, The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, drop everything and go read it.  Especially read about the way Sean Parker coached Mark Zuckerberg in terms of dealing with VC's -- Parker had been screwed before so he was very savvy about what NOT to do.  I loved the pitch where they arrived in their pyjamas like they had slept late.

Martin Luther at NextBerlin

There are some very cool people here at NextBerlin and I think Martin Luther would have fit right in.  He had that weird black hat and beneath it, a headful of wild, radical ideas.  He used the newest technology to share his ideas.  Books!

SHARE: I visited the Wartburg Castle where wealthy guys let him hide out while he translated the Bible from the priestly languages of Greek and Latin to the people's language of German. This was a radical move and got him in some serious trouble.  Luther would have loved ebooks!  I saw a great exhibit down the hill at Bach's house in Eisenach where you learn that Luther was the original indie musician as he translated the old Latin music of the church into German hymns like my favorite "A Mighty Fortress."  (See hymnal below.  I saw the real book!)   Luther was a guy who liked to click the "share" button and did it at every opportunity.

INDIE:  Yes, I can't help thinking of my boss at Libboo, Chris Howard when I read about Luther.  Chris was an indie music guy first (still a great musician) and now the indie author champion.  Luther loved to sing and did it all over the place and put hymns into the hands and hearts of the common man.  Luther loved to spread ideas in any way possible.  The guy published on a DOOR.  Chris has the same attitude.  Different hat.

TRANSLATE:  Luther put great ideas into the people's language and I can't help think as I meet bloggers, speakers, organizers and all the other great people here in Berlin that the language they use to spread ideas is the language of the Net -- English.  It's the people's language now and helps ideas fly out across the network to places near and far.

MY GOSPEL:  My religion is ebooks.  Please learn how easy they are to make, how perfect for sharing ideas that change the world, change the everyday lives of everyday people.  And best of all, do it in record time.

Photo Credit:  See Wikipedia

Vacation Mayhem: Hate Nutcracker?

Fun collection of stories about vacation and holiday "horrors" from Libboo.  Check it out here.

I love one in particular.  "The Nutcraker as I see it" by Nick Zaino III describes the totally weird experience of seeing The Nutcracker ballet one holiday with his relatives.

Did something strange happen?  Did they get into a car accident on the way to the ballet?  Did someone hit someone else over the head with a beer bottle in the Texas theatre where they did allow beer and ballet to mix?   No -- Nick and I share the exact same opinion of The Nutcracker:  it's really weird with big rats, young girls, wooden men.  What gives?

I have a particular hatred and dread of The Nutcracker as a guy I was dating once cancelled on me at the last minute because his family -- I think his mother -- insisted he attend the ballet instead of go out to a great Christmas party I'd been excited to attend with him.  Bad move.  That guy got X'ed off the list.  

Post-digital at my house

As I get ready for the #NextBerlin conference and consider the theme of the event, "the post-digital world" -- I have been asking myself, "what's really post-digital in my house?"  After a few days, I have narrowed it down to one obvious thing: my sixteen-year-old son.



Born in the year the Internet went commercial and ubiquitous, this kid has never known a pre-digital world and it shows.

If I want to reach him -- forget email or phone (and especially voice mail).  Those are media used my old folks who want to nag, bother, or punish him.   He's not interested.   If I tell him weeks after the fact that I emailed him something important to read, he scrunches up his face as if to say, "Why would you send me email and why would you think I would ever READ it?!"

My post-digital boy travels light -- his devices are mobile -- and his media starts with text (or SMS) and ends with Facebook.

He has newly downloaded iTunes constantly playing in his ears or in our house, discovered via Pandora or Grooveshark.  He also discovers a lot of his favorite music on YouTube videos of skateboarding, rock climbing or other extreme sports.

He wouldn't know what I was talking about if I said "post-digital" because he takes digital for granted.  It doesn't describe something modern or futuristic.  It's the default for his world.

10 Stamps

Even if you don't speak German, you know exactly what 10 Stamps does after this video.  Right?

From TechStars in Kendall Square to the Middle of Mitte

A week before Demo Day here at TechStars Boston in Kendall Square and I'm solidly in love with our gang of 12 start-ups, including my e-publishing start-up, Libboo, but also infatuated with what's going on in Berlin and can't wait to be there for the NextBerlin conference.  Yes, I can finally say it, NextBerlin is NEXT WEEK!   And I can't wait to get there and test out SoundCloud co-founder, Alex Ljung's theory, "We don't really live in a country.  We live on the Internet.  The idea of countries is secondary."

But maybe cities are not secondary.  And as for innovations in printing and books, I start my trip by flying to Frankfurt (not far from Mainz where Gutenberg printed his bible and invented moveable type) then visit friends in Alsfeld on the fairy-tale route where you can see a statue of the famous Grimm Brothers' Rotk?ppchen (Little Red Riding Hood) -- and those guys were the original storytelling innovators.  From here we take the train to Berlin where Techcrunch says this week, "There is a chapter in the history of technology startups, or perhaps more a book, that will be dedicated to Berlin," then reports on The Factory, a new building dedicated to start-ups.  (Also check out Henrik Berggren's quick demo of ReadMill on Techcrunch here.)

So I hope to finish up my visit to Berlin with a lot of stories about innovators and why that city is a great place to build companies.  Feel free to leave some comments about any start-ups you think I shouldn't miss.

Follow The Leader

At TechStars you learn a lot of things about being a leader FAST and new CEO's look like their taking some language immersion course at Middlebury -- Arabic?  Russian?  Serbo-Croatian?  Laotian?  No, they are learning fluent LEADERSHIP.  24/7 they are speaking it and geeking it and getting down and dirty with it and getting it down.  Some take to it faster than others.

I've been a CEO and I know it's a tough row to hoe, so I'm pretty impressed with our fearless leader.  Chris is such a natural leader, he's really a bit of a ringer.  He was likely born this way from what I can tell.

Here's what we did last week -- took a long trip to the SXSW -- we drove an RV -- and when we got there -- it rained, very very hard -- and there was ample time for total misery if our leader didn't exert his excellent skills.

For instance, after an exhausting day of attending conference events and being soaked and cold and tired, we came back to our RV park to the comfort of our big boxy home away from home to find it LEAKING.  One bed was soaked and we did not have a lot of extra beds.  Chris stepped up to it.  It wasn't his bed, and in fact,  he never expected to take the best accommodations, and that night he took the worst.

He faced the disaster quickly.  He set up a tent in the downpour, pulled together the remaining slightly damp cushions to make a bed, then slept out in the tent while we all slept inside.  In the morning, he woke like a pirate, in a puddle that was cold and very uncomfortable, feisty and ready to lead our band in a new adventure.

One morning we ordered the 2 taxis required to get the team from the RV park over to the Austin Convention Center.  In the meantime, I lost my phone and then the taxis came and Chris stepped in, deciding quickly that he would let the others go ahead and stay behind with me, help me find my phone and then head over later.  Not a complaint, not a hesitation, never making me feel like an idiot for losing my phone (I was busy feeling that way anyway.)  The result -- no taxi available in the downpour for a long time -- I messed up our morning, but he didn't sweat it.

Did I mention, it kept raining and he slept in the tent a second night, wetter and colder conditions than the night before?

Did I mention he always works harder, starts earlier and stays up later than any of us, so there's no way we can avoid giving our all for such a guy?!

Maybe I forgot to say this guy is fair, decisive, funny, inspiring in ways every leader should be -- but few are?   Well, he is.

Does his go-the-extra-mile attitude make us believe we can do anything and need to match his killer abilities?  YES!

Would we follow the leader just about anywhere thanks to the discipline, consideration and maturity this funny young CEO demonstrates every day?   Uh, that's another YES.

Photo Credit:  Sodahead 

I'm figuring you already read Guy Kawasaki's new book What the Plus, Google+ for the Rest of Us, but if you've been too busy to grab a copy, check it out here on Libboo.

Also thanks Guy for the mention in your interview in Social Media Examiner. We had a great time seeing you (and hearing you speak) at SXSW!  

Here's a little bit of the interview to get you interested.

Mike: Have you self-published this book?

Guy: I did, working with the folks at Libboo, mostly Halley Suitt Tucker, and an independent consultant named Shawn Welch.

I self-published because I wanted to hit a low price point―”less than a Starbucks grande latte” to be exact―and I wanted total flexibility to do any kind of licensing, sponsoring and whatever-strikes-my-fancy deals.

For example, Samsung is sponsoring 6,000 copies. Can you imagine trying to get that through a traditional publisher? Tim Cook (current Apple CEO) will retire before that will happen.

The link to the full piece is here. 

The Gated "Community" of SXSW

SXSW this year has been renamed and rehashtaged by me -- thanks to the ghastly weather -- as Soaking Wet South by Southwest -- #SWSXSW.  But in fact there is actually something worse this year at SXSW than the weather.  It's the exclusionary nature of the hidden conference.

There are many events, parties, meetings, even conventional talks and lectures going on for VIP's only.  If you paid to get into SXSW and you're not famous or connected enough to get into the hidden conference, you are attending a completely different conference.

The social media folks who give great advice and charge high prices to teach you to connect with "the community" don't really want to do that themselves.  Ironic isn't it?  They sell social media wares by day, but party away far from "the community" at night.  Social media stars now live in a gated community where the little people can't touch them.

This makes for a pretty lousy conference, and certainly one that is not true to the spirit of the original event.

To be fair, there are a few places where this attitude has been resisted -- in particular the great Samsung Blogger Lounge hosted by TechSet (Brian Solis and Stephanie Agresta) where they have made sure than new social media enthusiasts and stars can hang out together.  It matters.  In fact, I thought that was the whole idea ... community.

Check out my new blog: Halley Tucker's BoOkBoX

Feel free to go over there: Halley Tucker's BoOkBoX to see good stuff about the evolution of ebooks.

And check out Susy Pilgrim Waters beautiful work here. She did my logo and stuff.

One thing that was so striking at the Women's Leadership Forum (sponsored by MITX, The Girl Scouts, Staples, The Tech Review and John Hancock), last week which took place at the Microsoft NERD Center, was how chockfull of really helpful information it was.  The speakers shared great information about things that really matter!

It really stopped me in my tracks -- made me stop and think about why it was so different from most conferences dominated by male participants. Typical male geek conferences have too many speakers who seem to be there only to show off how smart or how important they are. (I've written about Alpha Males here before as you likely know.)

But this conference had so many women there who seemed to be concerned with one thing only -- how to help all of us understand what works, what doesn't work, what worked for them, what didn't work for them, what to expect, how to deal with just about anything challenging for a women trying to succeed in a business, an entrepreneur starting a business or as a powerful woman in any domain.  I've never gotten so much helpful advice about what really matters.

It made me sad for all the guys who go to guy conferences. It's so often a competitive -- "I'm cooler than you" -- atmosphere which is so counterproductive. I got so many good insights from the Women's Leadership Forum, compared to the usual conferences I attend. It was terrific!

Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was on pre-order and it suddenly appeared after dinner last night.

Got the book sent directly to my Kindle last night around 9:00 pm, a bit earlier than the promised publishing date of today. It was fun to have it just populate my Kindle without having to blink.

Plowing through the book. It's nicely written and is frank about Jobs' difficult personality. If you knew anyone who worked for him, you heard he could be ... challenging.

Back to my book!

Good piece in the Sunday New York Times Business section about Zines (short form of "fanzine" -- a short, often handmade limited-run magazine in tribute to a very narrow subject or particular person) by Jenna Wortham called Raised on the Web, But Liking a Little Ink this morning.

This supports my personal ebook and epublishing theory that most publishing will be very digital, very ubiquitous, very fast, but another side of the business will be customized, handmade, unique, slow, one-of-a-kind publishing.

As the fountain pen was a mainstream, must-have item you could buy cheaply anywhere in 1900 and now is more likely an expensive, rare objet d'art, serving less as a writing instrument and more as a collectible -- so goes the book, in my opinion.

A quote from the piece:

For Barbara Frankie Ryan, 19, a graphic design student in London who recently curated an exhibition of zines at a boutique there called Tatty Devine, the Internet and handcrafted publications exist in tandem. She runs a popular fashion blog and also makes a series of zines ― although she said she wasn’t even aware of the rich history of zine culture when she started creating them in her bedroom at the age of 15.

Instead, she was looking for an outlet for her drawings and innermost musings on popular culture and romantic crushes. And she wanted to be able to experiment. While Web sites come and go, in another sense the Web is eternal: tidbits can be searched and found when you least want them to be. That can be inhibiting.

“I’m becoming more aware how permanent and accessible things are online,” she said.

Ms. Ryan also said zines have an air of exclusivity: they are like other artifacts that were never intended for mass consumption or distribution, like a scarf knitted by a friend, a sketch or a cassette tape filled with handpicked songs.

“I like the idea that I’ve only made 40 copies, and only 40 people will see it,” she said. “It’s really easy to reveal a lot about yourself, and so this is a way of getting control back, and I find that quite comforting.”

They also talk about the work of Malaka Gharib who's food zine, The Runcible Spoon, is pictured here.

The Frankfurt Bookfair is this week -- it's the big annual booksellers conference for (mostly) legacy publishers, agents, some authors. If you want to know more about it -- go read about it in English here or in German here!

Their theme this year is Renewal. Hmmm ... lots I could say about that ... like legacy publishers better start rethinking how they will approach the tsunami known as epublishing! Standing on the beach and getting swept away is not an optimum strategy.