After the jasmine

The gardners told me they would severely prune back some jasmine in the front yard - it was growing under an oak and a liquid amber tree, was leggy and full of fallen leaves, doing a slow decay. Well, they pruned it all right - back to dirt! "Shovel-pruned" as my mother-in-law used to say.

It's a front-lawn type area, bordered by sidewalks and driveways, so I'm thinking maybe I could take out the liquid amber tree (messy! and crowding the oak, and starting to affect the driveway). But then I need something that would make a nice-looking screen from the street. Maybe bamboo would look OK under an oak, grow to 5 - 8 ft tall?

In the meantime, it was interesting to discover there was a drainage/sump system under there!

Prospects want reassurance

A business friend called, to talk about overcoming sales objections he's facing. The product he would sell is from a very small company, and has been sold into maybe a dozen custom installations - classic early "enterprise" style stuff. Problem is, it takes a customer's data all inside itself and helps the customer execute their business - so, asks the prospect, what happens when/if this little company goes toes up?

He was thinking the answer is "we escrow the source, you get it" but I disagreed - who wants the source to a dead product? I suggested the answer is "standards - we supply a way to export your data and processes to standardized formats, so you can hire a consultant to shift you over to some other (inferior :) implementation" ... I wonder if that's the right answer?

I wonder if there is a consulting business in writing up the current standards-based approach to a given solution, as a risk reduction mechanism ... preparing a "After Doomsday" white paper for leading edge products?

Re-starts

So, I've left Siderean and will be doing "something else" ... wanted to get into a startup mindset, so I read "Blue Ocean Strategies," now making progress through "Seeing What's Next" and almost done with Guy Kawasaki's "The Art Of The Start." Each is though-provoking:

• BOS showed me way to get a simple view of why I might do one thing versus another
• TAOTS is very pragmatic and has a wonderful focus on ... well ... staying focused'
• SWN will (I think) help me understand if the innovations I dream up have a chance

I'm following Kawasaki's advice and working to get something into revenue-producing m0de as quickly as possible - like everyone else on the planet I'll do that by hooking into internet advertising at first ... but I think my real chance to do something exciting will come when I enable a community somehow, sell services that let a group come together to accomplish something good.