The shift to mobile is creating tectonic shifts in the industry. It’s an incredible time to be an entrepreneur.

Kuddos to Jason and his team from King Toledo Entertainment for doing a nice job with the video.

While more open and authentic, the sharing that happens via the private-by-default social networks is still a constrained subset of our experiences. As the number of connections increases, our willingness to share changes. This is true for Path, even with the imposed limit on the number of connections. Path’s constraint of 150 friends may respect the ‘cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships‘ but it doesn’t capture the fact that sharing changes as our networks grow.

Think about what you share with your significant other, family members, or closest friends via email, sms, and the like. This type of sharing is considerably different from what we share across social networks.

I understand the business opportunities and network growth that public sharing provides. But considering the type of sharing that these services don’t capture I am a fan of the emerging services trying to solve the 1:1 and small group sharing problem.

Most importantly, they both focus on raising awareness instead of providing precise measurement. The FuelBand reports activity in a made up metric called Fuel. The Eatery provides a crowdsourced Health score. Some will argue that the imprecision of these measures negate the value of the service. It’s my opinion that these measures are good enough to help make you aware of the general health of your decisions.

Additionally, the good enough nature of the measures enable an important user experience: easy access to immediate feedback. On the FuelBand you hit a button on your wrist. With The Eatery you snap a photo. That’s it. No inputting info by hand, no sync required. It’s this instant access to data that creates the behavioral change.

Checking the FuelBand after work last week showed that I had been woefully inactive that day. At that moment I didn’t care about the precision of the data. I was happy to be reminded that I hadn’t done much that day and so I made a conscious decision to change behavior: instead of getting into the subway I walked uptown.

The services share other positive traits: historical trends, social features, etc. but in my opinion it’s the interplay of instant access to good enough data that creates the change in behavior. As Michael said, writing about the same observation, it’s similar to the done is better than perfect mantra.

On Tuesday, April 3 I had an early morning flight to NYC. It wasn’t until I was at the airport that I realized that I had forgotten my wallet at home. I made the decision to board my flight, fully accepting that I would land in New York without cash or credit card.

Here’s what I did have: Cell (Google Nexus S), passport, metro card, computer.

While not having cash or credit was certainly a nuisance, I was able to comfortably get by for four days. Here are a few highlights from the experience (tl;dr: there literally is an app for that)

Transit from the airport to the office: Uber. This was my first experience with Uber and it was delightful. I opened the app, it found my location, I pushed the button, and a driver appeared within 2 min. Magic.

Food: I used Seamless Web and a variety of apps. It was interesting to see the various payment approaches across the apps: scanning a barcode on the phone (Starbucks); prepaying; using NFC and tapping the phone on a terminal (Google Wallet).

The biggest hassle was at the hotel. While my room was prepaid they insisted on a credit card for incidentals. It turns out that I had registered years ago for their guest program and had a credit card associated with that account.

I know that in isolation none of these experiences are significant. In aggregate, however, it did feel odd to comfortably get by for four days without needing cash or credit. Some day, years from now, my kids will read this and laugh at the thought that this felt futuristic, but that’s exactly what it felt like when I boarded the flight home.

But is art the new steel? Of course not. And to answer differently is to minimize the impact that the art community can have on Hamilton at this point in the city’s history.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Technology is rewiring societies and economies. The world is in a transitional period, shifting from top-down hierarchical organizations to network structures. The impact of this shift can be seen all around us, from how dictators are defeated to how we communicate with friends.

Our policies, planning, and the way we operate need to evolve to support the transition that’s underway. The notion that a few monolithic organizations can be the engine for an entire city’s economy ended with the death of the industrial city. It is in this respect that art is not the new steel.

The Blueprint

Made up of dozens of interconnected entities, the art community is organized as a network. This network structure offers many benefits to the art community as well as Hamilton, including:

• Resilience: since it relies on a large number of smaller entities, the art community is more resilient than an industry that relies on a small number of large groups.
• Collaboration: from governments to grassroots organizations, aspiring artists to the AGH, collaboration is making the whole larger than the sum of the parts.
• Employment: individuals within the art community are literally and figuratively part of the creative class, a major driver of economic development.
• Revitalisation: as individuals within the art community seek to live, work, and play within the James St North area, an important region of our city is being revitalized.

It is the art community’s network structure that offers Hamilton a blueprint for change. In this respect art can have an impact beyond simply being the new steel.

City leaders should seek to understand the dynamics of the art community. By doing so the city can implement strategies to nurture similar results in other sectors of the city. Imagine if policy and planning supported networks around the city’s areas of strength, such as eduction and health? It would be transformative.

Hamilton should accept that there will never be a new steel. By embracing the socio-economic transition that’s underway throughout the world, and supporting the structural shift from hierarchies to networks, Hamilton can realize its tremendous potential. And art offers the blueprint for how to make this happen.

First attempt: Rdio.com. I’ve been a paid subscriber of this service for a few months. I like the idea of music as a service. I like paying for music. Additionally, this option is more convenient than piracy.

Problem: the album can’t be streamed. OK, fine. I understand that streaming music services may not be a good source of income for artists/labels.

Second attempt: iTunes. It’s not my favorite option, but the one-click option is convenient.

Problem: the album isn’t available for purchase from iTunes. The rest of his catalog is there, but not the new album. OK, whatever.

Third attempt: Amazon. The album can be purchased via Amazon MP3. The process isn’t as convenient as iTunes, but it will have to do.

Problem: after clicking the purchase button I’m told that I need the Amazon MP3 Download app. I already have it installed, but OK. After installing it I am presented with a link to download the album. Clicking the link informs me that due to rights restrictions, the album can’t be downloaded in Canada. The annoyance of the artificially imposed region restriction is compounded by Amazon’s terrible user experience of burying the notification behind so many steps.

Fourth attempt: BenKweller.com. I searched for where else I could buy the album and ended up on the artist’s site. The price was reasonable and while the process wasn’t as convenient, I was happy to directly support an artist that I love.

Problem: I filled out the form, entered my credit card info, finalized the purchase, and the transaction was confirmed via email. However, I was unable to find where on the site I actually downloaded the album from. After spending too long searching I decided to use the contact form on the site to seek guidance. After submitting my request I was presented with: “An error occurred.” A day later I still have no idea where to download the album from.

In a world where a torrent is a few clicks away, this can’t be a sustainable strategy. I’m certain that in the long run we’ll look back on these days and laugh about how hard it was to get music legally. Because of the way they treat their customers, I’m also certain that the existing players will not be around then.

I recently read Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs and I came across this great quote about focusing from Jobs:

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” he said. “That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.”

The quote from Jobs reminded me of what Apple’s Tim Cook said in 2010:

“This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of,” Cook said. “We say no to good ideas every day” so that the company can keep its focus on a small number of areas. Cook took note of the tables conference attendees were sitting at, and pointed out that most of Apple’s product line could fit on those tables.

Because there are so many good ideas, and so much opportunity, the challenge in focusing isn’t about separating what’s valuable from what’s not. The task is an optimization problem, it’s about identifying what’s most valuable and doubling down on that.

Someone from the audience asked whether Apple was concerned about cannibalization of business from the iPod with the introduction of the iPhone, and Steve answered that if there’s going to be cannibalization of Apple, they want it to be by Apple.

Apple’s iPod business in context (via Dan Frommer’s Splatf):

Incredible.

For those who haven’t released a web product the experience is fun but stressful. Pre-launch activities are an exercise in plate spinning. Parsing and prioritizing feedback for final product iterations. Planning marketing messaging and preparing necessary materials. Lining up press. Coordinating supportive efforts from partners. It’s difficult to align the timing on everything.

Launch day is tough on the nerves. The immediacy of Twitter and other social sites means that feedback is real-time and unfiltered. Waiting for coverage is an exercise in patience. Stat services make it easy to track performance. When it comes to the success of the product, most of these immediate measures are meaningless. Still, it’s hard not to get caught up in it all.

I’ve learned that the end of release day is just the start of it — the real work comes after the product’s live. Because of this, I like to go for a run at the end of the day to clear my head and to try to have a good sleep.

Like everything we do we have an iterative approach to product launches. Our process today is significantly different from what it was in the past. We’ve learned and iterated along the way. Yesterday’s release went well but we’ll improve the process.

(For those who are interested: users are enjoying the app; the reviews were positive: Techcrunch, Mashable, Macworld, etc.; stats were up; I slept OK last night)