I want to thank everyone I had a chance to speak with at Blog Potomac. As always these type events humble and remind me that there are so many smarter people than I in the DC tech community. I had to leave after lunch for a development meeting, but overall the event was very helpful for us as we setup our first corporate blog, which was this weekend’s battle. Although it was cast as an “un-conference”, I would have liked a little time in between to talk with people other than in passing, but I’m sure people had time later int he day to have more in-depth conversations. The speakers were on point and helped to remind me why we were setting up this blog in the first place!

It was good to talk with Luke Richmond about his current stealth project underway. Lionel Menchaca of DELL had some great points about integrating a blog into DELL’s corporate strategy. Their blog at www.direct2dell.com shows how companies large and small can benefit from the social media communication medium.  Jared Goralnick, a great blogger, and President of SET Consulting as always had some great comments and questions. Although I didn’t really get a chance to talk with him it was good to see Shashi Bellamkonda, the Swami of Social Media from Network Solutions for a brief time.

 Ok, so we have ourselves a blog now for evDeliv. Now what do we do with it? With the energy we are putting into blogging instead of the myriad of other issues facing us we’ve been forced to take a hard look at what we are doing here. The truth is, I feel like I am trying to pretend that we are doing this for all the right reasons (engage customers, allow a discussion about our brand, company strategy and direction, and because we truly feel we have something deep and meaningful to say. the truth is however, while these are great reasons, I fear the real reason is somewhat distracting and takes away form the benefits we could see. Blogging is also clearly a marketing tool, allowing us to create a larger brand, and personal brand for myself and the rest of our small team. To reach our fingers out across the net and start to have some clout. The problem with this, is that it doesn’t inspire us to write anything new or useful, and it makes the whole act of doing this feel empty and hollow. If it is only to let people know we are launching evDeliv. It will feel empty barren, black & white, and boring.

So what are the uses for this blog that can be both rewarding for us and the people that read it?

Clarify our own thoughts

Only through conversations with others, and ourselves can we develop a mature understanding of the concepts we grasp. Moments of elucidation may occur fleetingly, late at night, or in a rush of insight, but only by digesting that information through communication and thought can something real be garnered from it.

Provide a mechanism for criticism

What is great about ideas, is that they are highly moldable objects. Without the right tools a piece of wood, is just a piece of wood, but given a saw, tape measure, router, sander, screws, putty, stain, and veneer it can become almost anything the creator can imagine. The same is true of ideas. Given two-way communication, and insight an idea can be molded, bent, prodded, and shaped into being something real, tangible and useful.

Discuss Topics important to us

In any two-way communication you are actively involved will, the topic will invariably be 50% what you want and 50% what the other participants want. (We will ignore the fact that the sum is greater int he pieces in this case) By blogging and discussing the concepts we have we allow the conversation in our life to naturally

One thing I constantly have to remind myself is to accept criticism. Not even just accept it. Relish in it. Roll around on the floor in it. Actively seek it out from every source, from a babbling idiot on the street, to technology experts, to tech savvy kids that are convinced of their own unalienable 20-20 vision of the future.

In starting EV, we have sought the council of CEOs, developers, bloggers, venture capitalists, friends, colleagues, and anyone else that would listen to our own vision.

From them we have heard the good, bad, and indifferent:

“If you don’t do this, someone else will, and it WILL be here.”

“Why would you make a desktop platform, everything is going web”

“It seems you have the bull by the tail. It’s too big and your resources are too sparse”

Each of these spats of –isms, and many more we have heard, is true to a point and helpful to us, but they certainly can’t stop our progress.

“You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn” - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

One thing that has constantly struck me as we go through the process of building a company is to relish criticism and mistakes. If we didn’t we would not be able to keep moving forward. In every area of business, communication and software development there are people that are better, faster, and stronger than you. But to improve and to reach new levels you have to be able to talk to an expert in that area, accept the truth of what they are saying, improve and keep moving forward. One thing to me is clear, much like we all do with the concept of death; You must blind yourself to failure and to actively repress that success is not a given or you can never be successful. 

And a moment of zen: Julie’s suggestion for our blog header:

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