From the Laptop of Jeremy Irish

If school was invented from scratch today, with the technology now available, what would it look like?

We're seeing teaching reinvented through the Khan Academy, TED talks, M.I.T.x, and a very brilliant idea, flipped classrooms. Lectures are being recorded and replayed outside the universities that created them. Classrooms of the future will be to reinforce the lessons that were viewed for homework.

It makes sense to have students learn from the best teachers, and use classroom time to reinforce those lessons. And if lessons could be stack ranked you could get the best curriculum that money doesn't have to buy.

I look forward to seeing how these new sites and programs evolve.

I don't support SOPA, or PIPA or dogs sleeping on sofas. But it turns out Wikipedia decided to black out the english version of their web site because they really, really don't support them.

As a result, I didn't have access Wikipedia for a full 24 hours, and that turned out to be a good thing.

What I realized is that I was using Wikipedia as a crutch instead of doing my own research, which is pretty much what I used to do in school with Encyclopedia Britannica (or at least the volumes we owned from picking them up at the grocery store every so often. I did a lot of reports on subjects that started with P, for example, not owning every volume).

So, like when the power went out of my house, I had to get out of my comfort zone and do things a little different. I found new web sites to get the answers I needed (and the communities around those subjects), and actually found differing opinions on the subject that weren't relegated to a discuss page. In other cases I came to my own conclusions doing my own research, instead of relying on the expert on Wikipedia - who frankly ends up to be the one with the most time on their hands to edit the topic.

So thanks Wikipedia for going dark. It helped to decentralize information and made me smarter. I'm not sure if I plan to go back to you as often as I used to.

Everyone will eventually have their own operating system running in the cloud.

If you look at computers over the years, computing power has moved like a pendulum from a centralized infrastructure to a distributed one, then back again. This is usually based on the cost of computing power, cost and accessibility.

Internet access has been the same way. Before Internet Service Providers there was AOL. Eventually this centralized infrastructure for content was replaced by billions of web pages and millions of web servers. Now content has shifted back to centralized social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

I propose that the majority of what we do with our personal computers will soon move to the cloud, just like enterprise systems are today. Everyone will have their own server running in the cloud, storing their data, their email and their social graph.

How will this happen? A company will create a layer on top of cloud computing platforms like Azure or Amazon’s EC2 that supports a one click installation of a personal OS in the cloud. This will happen when cloud computing becomes affordable enough that a mainstream customer (or an early adopter) finds value in having an always available, always running operating system with very little (if no) maintenance.

What this means for us is that we will have the ability to have our own decentralized, customized Facebook, Twitter, and data storage.  We will want this because we want control of our data, our social network and our online persona. By owning our own OS in the cloud we can decide how information is presented to us, what features we want, and how we want to share our own information.

If there was a Facebook or Twitter killer, this would be it.

(I know what some of you may be thinking. ChromeOS is an OS for the cloud today. But it is restrictive since it only creates a platform for Google’s cloud solutions.)

Looking back after 10 years, I decided to jot down a few reasons why you should bootstrap your business instead of finding an investor. The biggest benefit is that you have an infinite runway - you will never be forced to "exit" by selling your company or going public. The biggest drawback is that you have to eat what you kill from day one.

• You are less than 6’ tall – According to the book Blink, the average man is 5’9” tall. While only 3.9% of adult men are 6’2”, 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs were 6’2 or taller. If you are vertically challenged it may be easier to bootstrap instead of raising money. I'm 5' 8" tall.
• You don’t have status – If you don’t have the right pedigree, such as education, notable former employer, run your own business before, or if you are a relative unknown in the industry you are targeting, you are a high risk for any investor. Prove yourself by bootstrapping yourself.
• You are not willing to ask for money – This can be surprisingly hard for some folks, like me, who want to raise capital for their business.
• Valuations are low – If you don’t expect to get a good value for your idea, build out your idea until valuations are higher. Most investors want traction. If you have traction, why would you need to raise money?
• You have at least one co-founder – Running a bootstrapped company is hard. Running it on your own is close to impossible.  A co-founder helps support you and keep you centered. Three, like at Groundspeak, is optimal since there is always the opportunity for a tie-breaker when there is conflict in the business. There will always be conflict in the business.
• You worked with your co-founders before – Optimally you have worked with your co-founders in the past and understand their work ethic. Going into business with your friends doesn’t give you an insight into how they work in a business environment. The co-founders of Groundspeak worked together before running the company.
• You have everything you need – You have the skills and partners to make the business work without additional support
• You have no young children – When kids enter the picture you need to mitigate risk and, depending on your parenting style, won’t have the time to dedicate your sweat equity into the business. When we started Groundspeak, we didn't have kids.
• Your co-founder is your spouse – I have heard more than once that investors don’t put money into business run by married couples. Too many investors have been burned by a divorce. I wouldn’t recommend starting a business with your spouse at all, but if you do you should bootstrap your business. It’s likely your only option.

Are you a powerboater or a sailor?

Powerboaters focus on a location and motor directly towards the goal, while sailors use the wind and “tack” back and forth to the goal, only occasionally pointing directly towards it.

I find that entrepreneurs tend to sail, since you often have to change direction based on the current weather conditions. Sometimes the wind is blowing in the wrong direction but you can slowly make progress, and sometimes the wind is in your sails.

If you work on goals like a powerboater in business you’ll likely run out of gas.

Over the past year I have taken advantage of local deals through several different Groupon sites (Groupon, Tipper, Living Social). You can't resist, especially when they are for locations you already frequent. It feels like the deals are too good to be true so you have to buy into them.

Well, they are too good to be true.

There are already many articles about this, but most merchants don't do the math and realize how much they are really losing on these deals. The coupon customers are also unlikely to offer you repeat business. But as a merchant you become popular. More people walk through your door. It feels successful. You feel successful.

This was exactly how the dot com bubble went. Deals were everywhere, everything was free and there was no business model (except to be snapped up by a larger company, or go public). Your web site received a lot of traffic so it felt successful. And by this measurement you were successful. So money flowed and companies blossomed. Until they didn't.

There's a point where this bubble will burst, so get your coupon purchases in now. I am.

This is the first time I was ever offended to receive cash in the mail.

A few days ago, via FedEx, I received a package that contained a $50 bill (which is not illegal) and information from a Crestcom franchise providing management skills training. Although I wasn't obligated to take a 3 minute call to discuss their services, the franchise called repeatedly over the next few days to speak with me. I finally took the call, and explained I had no interest in the service before I had to suffer through the pitch. The response? Thanks for your time and please send back the money.

WTF?

Don't expect that I should be obligated to talk to you if you send me money. It even makes me less likely to want to do business with you. It's just flat out creepy. But to have the gall to ask for the money back after I took the call? That's just sleazy.

So JH, if you read this, I'm donating the cash to a geocaching program at DonorsChoose.org since I have no obligation to give it back.

After 10 years running Geocaching.com we have come up with a lot of fun and quirky ideas that never made it out of design. While going through my old external presentations over the years I came across a gem that I presented to Garmin in January, 2008 that I wanted to share.

Launching Wherigo

January, 2008 was around the time when Garmin announced the Colorado. Before this time, Groundspeak worked with Garmin to launch Wherigo on the new device. The idea was to take geocaching outside the box as a media rich experience, and Garmin was the obvious choice as a first partner. They were the first to recognize geocaching as an important activity for their outdoor devices, being the first to add a geocache "treasure box" icon to their devices. Since then they have often been the first to release features for geocachers, though more recently there has been healthy competition from other GPS manufacturers.

Because Garmin's handhelds weren't connected to the Internet, Wherigo adventures, called "cartridges," are self contained games that can be downloaded and played offline. Once the game is completed the save file can be uploaded back to the web site to prove you completed the cartridge.

Even though the Colorado was missing some basic media features, like animation capabilities and sound (other than system beeps), it did have ANT - a low power wireless feature that intrigued me. It was being used to send geocache data from one Colorado device to another, but it had the capability to do much much more.

Enter the Noodle Network

For the launch of Garmin's new Colorado device, the Groundspeak partners went to CES to support Wherigo and the new geocaching features. During that time we had the fortune to meet up with ANT, the company that was acquired by Garmin to provide short range, low power wireless capabilities. I had a nice chat with one of the employees about the capabilities of ANT and I became really excited about the prospect of using this with Wherigo and geocaching.

Shortly after returning from CES, I developed an idea and presented it to Garmin during a planned visit to Seattle. The concept was ultimately code named "Noodle Nodes."

Click here to download:

ANTProposal.ppt (338 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

ANTProposal.ppt (338 KB)

A Noodle Network would be a flexible, inexpensive wireless network for location-based experiences. Each network would contain Noodle Nodes - Low powered and pre-programmed wireless modules. These Noodle Nodes would communicate with your handheld device to allow you to interact with the information contained within them. It could be as simple as discovering they are nearby, or receiving detailed information for a larger adventure.

With these nodes you could put them in caches to send data back to the device (like "I'm here!") or more detailed information and media through Lua, a scripting language that we use with Wherigo. Because each node has a unique identifier it could link a specific node to a geocache, or to prove that a node works with a particular Wherigo cartridge.

There were various other proposed ideas in gaming, tourism, social networking, and even local positioning. I even shared a conversation with a Microsoft employee who said "if you can offer a way to find a Microsoft conference room with Wherigo, we'd buy a ton of them."

Why This Didn't Happen

Wherigo as a concept is great, but due to it being a beta product it required several patches and updates in order to adapt to the response from the community. As we learned, it became very difficult to deploy new patches for Garmin to roll out, since they release very few patches over the lifetime of the device. It became a problem when we were limited to a new release every couple of months.

(In today's environment you can release a web page several times a day, a new Android application update daily, or an iPhone application update every couple of weeks. I like today's environment!)

We're also not in the hardware business, so we have to rely on our partners to develop a product like this. In the end, Wherigo just wasn't a big enough focus to incorporate this concept. The SDK for ANT was still in beta at the time, so development with ANT was also difficult. And with little support for Wherigo we expected there would be even less support with new concepts like ANT.

Also, in the end, ANT is a proprietary wireless protocol which would have restricted the use of the technology to a small subset of users that own the devices that support it. We felt at the time that it would be a disservice for us to promote one device (and protocol) over another, so it never came to fruition.

I still think there is some life to this project and would love to see this happen in a more open way. If you have some interest in working on this idea, we'd love to work with you.

How can we capture the "eureka!" moment of finding a cache without finding something physical?

Even before we deployed our iPhone Geocaching application we've been thinking of ways where we can extend the experience beyond the physical cache container. This led to questions about how we can build tools to create adventures "beyond the box," such as Wherigo Cartridges and the replacement for Virtuals.

One straightforward idea that came out of the mix was... souvenirs.

Filling in the Blanks

For almost the beginning of geocaching, users have been generating state maps on their geocaching profiles. When a geocacher finds a cache in each state, they fill it in. I even do it, though not in my profile. My wife and I challenge each other to find a cache in a state when we travel on business. I tend to have an unfair advantage but she has a couple of states that I don't - and she lets me know it!

Another grass roots project is Delorme Challenges - Try to find a cache on every page of a Delorme Map book for each state. This is a notable challenge even if you are referencing the map of Rhode Island! Geocachers have been challenging each other to finish them for many years now.

Outside of geocaching, achievements have been a popular way for video games to recognize milestones in games. I seek out achievements for my Xbox Live Account for the reward of seeing that icon in my profile. It tends to make me do something different in a game which ultimately makes me enjoy the game and play it more.

It seemed natural that we should try and apply the concept of achievements with geocaching, but it also made sense to come up with an idea that was relatively straightforward and could be rolled out and tested with the community. This would ensure that we didn't design a big project in a vacuum and have it turn out to be something the community doesn't like. So the idea was to release souvenirs.

Launching Souvenirs

Souvenirs are pieces of unique art that are assigned to a location. When you find a cache online, or search for a cache on one of our official Geocaching mobile applications, the system posts the location to our souvenir system and sees if there is an award to acquire. If so, it assigns a unique piece of artwork to your geocaching.com profile and marks the date it was discovered. You can then go back and review the artwork any time you choose.

Although the official launch of souvenirs to the world was on October 10, 2010, to celebrate 10 years of geocaching and Groundspeak, we had released several souvenirs on the iPhone before then. For example, I received one for the Scotland Mega event, and both the original cache location and the Project APE cache have them.

Currently souvenirs can only be created and awarded based on some very basic criteria, though we plan to expand the functionality moving forward. Today, souvenirs can only be received by visiting an area that has one, on a specific day anywhere in the world, or a specific place and timeframe.

Our design team has already created souvenirs for the 50 US states, provinces in Canada, states in Germany and souvenirs for many countries in Europe. We'll be sorting out the release schedule but they will all be applied retroactively. In addition, any other souvenirs will run against previous logs so those that deserve to be awarded the souvenir will get them. We had to hold off awarding them retroactively before we could stress test the web site with real-world activity.

Is this the solution to the return of Virtuals? Definitely not! We're still planning to bring back virtuals in a new form, but this isn't it. It's just a new unique way to take geocaching adventures "beyond the box."

Read more about souvenirs on Geocaching.com

It's about time we had an official blog. Today we announced Latitude 47 as the official Geocaching.com blog, and introduced Eric is handling the day to day operations as well as managing the stories for Groundspeak's Lost & Found.

I'll remain using this as my personal blog and continue intermittently posting entries on a range of topics that interest me, not all of them geocaching related. That isn't to say that topics won't bleed over from time to time.

The videos for Lost & Found are coming along nicely, and we should have a teaser video up next week.