Bring It!

Jimmy Valentine, the famous safecracker, would sandpaper his fingertips before commencing to winkle open a safe.

Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five.

Yesterday I committed my first successful Hangout, Google Plus videoconference. Just like AT&T predicted in the fifties, only in color...with a bigger screen!

Zack, our technical architect, was on the call and got passionate about the mission and the value of our next company, and I thought, “Wow! How can I get that on paper?”

Now I know “Why video?” You can bring the passion. You can use the passion.

So I thought I was ready for last night’s DC Week Keynotes. I like Peter Corbett. He is Peter Pan bringing technology to the lost boys of Washington. When he advertises Keynote“s”, he’s not kidding.

Mayor Vince Gray introduced the members of five DC school robotics clubs.

Genevieve Bell, Intel’s anthropologist taught me about the third place, and made me desperately want to see more when I look.

Scott Kelly from Ford had the video of the blind former Mustang owner of 25 years ago hitting 140 on the salt flats in the new Mustang. Did I care? I don’t know. I was crying too hard.

Game over. Or so I thought.

Coming in to the Warner Theatre. We were given copies of Brian Solis’ The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution.

I had just seen Brian for the first time, interviewing John Battelle earlier in the week, so I was pleased. Okay. He’s good.

Wrong. Brian comes out and upends my business paradigm in the first three minutes. Sure you can build an app, but why bother if you’re not going to make the world a much better place? You’ve got the power! Figure out how to use it!

That wasn’t a harangue. It was examples that made me laugh, made me cry, made me mad. We’re now in an Egosystem – all those apps that revolve around you.

Brian’s right. But what if it’s hard?

You want hard? Check out Frank Warren. Frank Warren is on a daily campaign to stare down death and win. He has a website and books as PostSecret, a where people can post their secrets, share them so they become less terrible. Money from that goes to train suicide prevention volunteers at IMAlive.

I would come to a full stop any time for a Frank Warren. But Murphy’s Law “If anything can go wrong it will,” has kicked in with a vengeance. AV support, which has been much more art than science to this point, grinds to a full stop.

How does this affect Frank Warren?

He sees it, he acknowledges it, but not for a second does his focus waver from converting the audience. I guess if your main occupation is staring down death and winning, a little computer nonsupport is a grin.

Finally after adlibbing, starting the balloon toss above the audience, leaving us to entertain ourselves while he goes backstage to assist, and finally getting meaningful help from a geek computer scientist in the audience, Oz appears.

That whole segue was the definition of Master of the Universe.

Keynote“s” Yup.

And the message given to me that day?

Find the passion. Bring it.

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