cre8Buzz Blog

We got a lot of things to do to get over this wall. Ya’ll have given us a lot of new feature suggestions, and slammin’ ideas and we appreciate em. But, before we implement some of these slammin’ ideas, we gotta get to the core and we gotta execute.

What do I mean by execute? Execution is the “HOW” ya get something done. With out being able to execute, good ideas are wasted!

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability. It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organizations capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy, synchronizing those people and their various disciplines, and linking rewards to outcomes. It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy.

In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality an acting on it.
-Larry Bossidy, Execution

When we look at execution this way, we need to get our sh*t together. We need a plan, we need to articulate our strategy, we need to be clear about our direction and were the business environment is headed, and how to make sure we have the right resources to execute on the plan/strategy.

So first things first!

1) We’re gonna do a plan
2) We’re gonna get technical expertise
3) We’re gonna get some money

To do this the boys and I have committed to have 3 things done by July 21st!

1) A complete and robust business plan, outlining our goals, strategies, initiatives, etc.
2) A list of potential candidates who can and are interested in joinin’ the team
3) A pipeline of potential friends and family/angel investors to raise 100k

If we get this done, we’ll be closer than we are today.

Let the journey begin ya’ll . . . Let’s Git-R-Done!

I’m sure many of ya have noticed the buzz has been awfully quiet lately. We haven’t had an update since the photo albums, the blog has been quiet, no new pictures or slammin’ content on the Antman’s profile, etc. The reason; we have hit a wall. Havin’ been at this for over 18 months, we are struggling. Like we said before, Start Ups Are Hard!

When ya start something new it is exciting, full of energy, and captivating! Building something new is the bomb. However, once ya get into it, things can start to change, the energy dies, the failures begin to mount, yes there are failures, things take longer than expected and they never turnout like they are supposed to. This all starts to take its toll and ya hit a wall.

cre8Buzz has hit it’s wall. The energy seems to have waned, we have lost momentum, defeats have gotten the best of us and we are at a crossroads.

We started cre8Buzz to give the little guy a chance to be seen. We wanted to extend the long-tail for everyone, regardless of interest, or talent. That passion and commitment has not gone away. Our goal of allowing people to be seen, heard and found, while making the best user-generated content on the web easy to find is as fresh as ever. Now, we need to leverage our vision to re-energize us and get over the wall.

To get over the wall we need to get back to basics. We need to build a plan, lay out our strategy, identify and capitalize on opportunity, and most important, execute, execute execute. The wall is BIG. We are out of money. We no longer have a full time developer. Original founders have left. New partners have come in. Some of our most active buzzers are gone. We have more competition. The site needs mad updates and “slammin” new features. We need to turn it up. It’s gonna be hard.

Despite how hard it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be tight for real. cre8Buzz is the most mature, content rich, active site on the net. Our members are supportive, intelligent, creative, and talented. cre8Buzz content is engaging, funny, and informative. It is for our users and because of our vision we’re gonna get over this wall. We’re gonna build a plan. We’re gonna execute on a strategy, and we’re gonna create opportunity.

Our first commitment in our journey back, is we’re opening the kimono. We’re gonna blog daily. We’re gonna share our plan, and strategy. You will see it all. We’ll tell you what we are planning before we do it. We’ll share what happens once we do do it. You’ll have a front row seat. You will be exposed to it all. We won’t hold back; the ups the downs, the disagreements, and the fights, the frustrations and the jubilation, you will see it all. Beyond that, we want YOUR thoughts. Tell us what you think of our plan. School us on what you think we should do. Tell us if you disagree with our direction. Share ya knowledge, thoughts and opinions. We’re listening. We’re gonna lay it out there for you to pick up.

We’ll post everyday. We’re gonna add Disqus to improve the dialog We’ve created a new category, “cre8Buzz Re-Do”, so ya can stay up to date.

We’re ready to blow it up in here. Ya’ll have more than a front row seat. You’re gonna be in the game.

We can’t tell ya where we’ll end up, but we will know how we got there.

Wall, what wall?

Peace!

Isn’t that an oxymoron? Absolutely. But the electorate’s tastes are evolving. Check out this great interview and the preview quote below:

“This is the first cycle where authenticity is really in the fore, both in how people view the candidates and how pundits describe the race. You can have hardly any article out there today that doesn’t talk about the level of perceived authenticity of this or another candidate. I daresay that in the end, whoever wins is going to be the one whom more voters perceive as authentic.”

Right or wrong we put tremendous value on a candidate being genuine. We like our cowboys and workboots and rolled up sleeves and straight talk and flag pins other “Real American” traits. On the other hand, being primped, a la John Edwards’ famous video is the kiss of death. As is being seen as untruthful or a flip-flopper. In fact, it’s so important that we’ve boiled down our electoral decisions to silly questions like “Who would you rather have a beer with” polls from previous elections.

Earlier this year I spent some time talking about how people want Authentic connections and how it can make for a better online experience when a site is “real” Well, politics, by nature are pretty contrived. However, some see the importance of Authenticity being at an all time high. Interestingly enough, I believe that they way we judge authenticity has changed and is growing more sophisticated. Kissing babies and
evoking the name of the town you are speaking dozens of times was once the way to connect but we now see it as pandering and fake.

For you Simpsons fans:

Spinal Tap is playing in the Simpson’s home town of Springfield (with reference to neighboring rival town of Shelbyville)

Nigel Tufnel: [addressing the crowd] We were told they knew how to rock in Shelbyville.
[the crowd 'boos']
Derek Smalls: But nobody rocks like…
[looks on the back of his guitar where he has placed a reminder of the name of the town they're playing in]
Derek Smalls: Springfield!

Ok, I think the same thing is happening with our online communities. Users are growing more sophisticated and some are demanding more. It’s no longer enough to be able to connect with friends, share a couple of pictures and catch up. Some want more. We at the ‘Buzz sure think so.

Sometimes a little bit piles up on top of a little bit and the next thing you know you are buried and can’t (or don’t want to) dig yourself out. It’s been that way for me for a while. And, honestly, it’s been more the “don’t want to” category for me. I’ve been focused on making enough $$ to pay the bills, maintaining some semblance of a social life, and racing.

Side note: my last race had me doing this:

David Millar biffing his bike

Jim and the Antman have been carrying the load and I appreciate it. I’m back however and hope to make a strong contribution to the best site on the web for great people with great content. I will take my lashes in the form of comments. Besides, sob, sniffle, I missed you guys.

First it was MySpace and Facebook, then it was Digg, now it’s Twitter. Web 2.0 moves fast. Ideas come out, some sites show a little promise, they spread like wildfire and bam, they are blowin’ up. V.C’s are investin’, and the buzz is deafening.

What I find interesting however, is it seems Web 2.0 ideas have a short shelf life. The sites don’t go anywhere, they are still growing, but the buzz seems to die, and the money follows the buzz. How many social networks do you think investors are looking at. How many Digg like companies are on investors radars? My gut is telling me, not many! It’s a whole lot of been there and done that. BUT, are the first or second players in a new industry the best? Does first to market always mean the winner? New players to a market, can at times see what the early adopters missed.

Why don’t investors see that?

Apple clearly wasn’t first to the Mobile market. However, their approach has turned it on its head. In 1999, search was supposed to be dead, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN, and Alta-Vista already did it. The talk was about portals. Nobody told Google about that.

The negative association with terms like; “A Me Too site” or “Been there, done that” are enough to make a entrepreneur cringe, but should investors and entrepreneurs be so quick to move to the next big thing? Are MySpace and Facebook, the best a social network can be? Is Digg, the penultimate in social bookmarking? Is giving up on those spaces and moving on to the next cool thing, the right way to go, or just the coolest thing to do? I ain’t sure, but I’d love to hear what all the cats who said “Search was dead” have to say about it. Cause I know they ain’t holdin’ any Google equity.

Things mature, markets change, a new player to an existing market doesn’t always mean “Me Too!” It may be the best, and that is better than good and better!

I read often of great people. I see those who have achieved their goals. I see the thousands of people on the buzz, all with talent, all with stories to tell. So what is it, what separates people from the crowd? Why is it one person makes it and another doesn’t. Why is it one company or start up succeeds, and others fail. Why is it I have only 150 followers on Twitter and Guy Kawasaki has 1200, (ok, I can figure that one out). But for real, what is it?

Is it mental toughness?

Making it is HARD work. There are constant challenges. I’ve talked about it in Start-Ups are Hard and shared a hard experience in Start-Ups are Hard II. Getting what you want and getting to where you want is amazingly difficult. (probably, because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t wanna be there). Is mental toughness the wild card? It just might be.

When are you most successful? When do you win, when competing against yourself? With me, it is a mental game. When the weak side wins out, I loose. I think Earl Woods was onto something. How tough are you?

One of my favorite and least used features on cre8Buzz is “Ask the Group.” Each community has a little box like this on it’s community page:

Why do I think this feature is so tight? Cause it captures the intellectual capacity of all the buzzers. I dig it cause it aggregates the total experiences of an entire group of people.

What do you wanna know?

Do ya wanna get crayon out of ya new sofa, cause the little bugga, thought he was Picasso? Go to ask the group in Moms and just ask! Something tells me they got an answer for ya.

Do ya wanna know the best way to sell a house in a down market? Throw out the question to the Real Estate community, I bet ya get mad information that will get ya house sold.

Are ya lookin’ for a cool, inexpensive, out of the way vacation? Ask the travel community, they’ll get ya back.

What ever ya want to know, I bet the buzz can answer it. To see one of the best examples of Ask the Group check out the Mutiple Sclerosis Community

If ya got the question, the buzz has the answers.

Lemme know what ya’ll think. What was the best question you got answered?

Peace!

Antman~

Start ups aren’t hard, they are frickin brutal. Yesterday was a banner day for this statement. We changed the buzzrank. Holy crap, what a fire storm.

So what to do now?

We have a truckload of pissed off users. Some have already destroyed their accounts. Some have threatened to leave. Others have called into question our authenticity, the VERY thing we strive most for here on the buzz. (We took those allegations the most personal.)

Well, we have been givin’ some thought to all of this and I am recalling my B-School days. We’re gonna stay true to who we are and what we are about and let the chips fall where they may.

We are not going to do anything.

When we made the changes it was never our expectation they would be perfect. We anticipated changes would have to be made. Getting things right is important to us. So, regardless of yesterdays reaction(s) we are moving forward as planned. We are looking at the ranking, the effect it has on content and how closely it represents the likes and dislikes of you, our members.

What are we looking for the ranking to do?

We will know the ranking is correct when things look like this:

1) The MOST active people on the buzz with the BEST content have the highest rankings
2) The people with the BEST content, but are a LESS active are in the middle
3) The people who are MOST active but have average to POOR content are in the bottom half
4) The people who are LESS active and have POOR content, well they are scrappin the bottom of the barrel.

(MOST BEST is the best. BEST LESS is good, MOST POOR OK, LESS POOR, ain’t gonna cut it.)

The above is our goal. As part of this goal the above will be fresh. The content and profiles will be representative of the here and now. Those who are most active today, this week, with content that folks on the site today and in the here and now are ranking and following, will be the highest ranked. Not those of yesterday.

In order for cre8Buzz to blow up we have to be different, we have to offer more than just the same old. We believe that something different on cre8Buzz is the sharing of the content, traditionally locked away in other social networks. If we don’t move the good stuff to the front and do it regularly, then we are no different than the rest and we might as well shut it down now.

Movin’ forward-
We see there is a bug in the algorithm. We know it. We are now trying to find it. When we do, we’ll fix it and see what happens. We won’t stop until the above has been reached. (MB, BL, MP, LP)

Finally, if we upset ya with the changes, we are sorry. It was not our intention. If you feel that we don’t value those of you who helped get us this far because of the changes, that couldn’t be any further from the truth. For those who think the buzzrank is a reward for those who participate the most, that is not the case. It helps, but it’s not who cre8Buzz is. We are about the best content, getting exposure for those who have it and help those who are lookin’ for it, find it.

If this isn’t what you signed up for and you leave us, we understand. We know some of you have already left and we were sorry to see ya go.

We have a vision to be the place where the average person can have a chance to be seen, heard and found for what ever it is they are good at. Anything short of that and we just ain’t havin’ it.

If ya dig the vision stay with us. We’re gonna get there.

Peace

Antman~

UPDATE:
Thanks to those of you who have expressed ya support, put ya big girl pants on and to those of ya who took a little of the heat off. We could feel it and it meant a lot. We never meant to upset anyone . . . for real. It was never to be taken personal. We love ya’ll and we’re gonna get there.