Clean slide deck by Jason Putorti from the 2010 Bessemer Cloud Conference introducing design concepts for executives, simple tactics to improve existing products, and strategies for success in product/experience design moving forward.

noteandpoint.com/documents/pdf/10things.pdf

The emerging online field is helping entrepreneurs help governments work better

Kevin Merritt never intended to become a government contractor when he launched Socrata, an online service making it easy to share data—anything from crime statistics to football schedules. But early last year he noticed that federal agencies were the site’s biggest users. “It became clear that a really good place for our technology was helping government organizations share data in the interest of transparency,” says Merritt, a Microsoft veteran who lives near Seattle. Today the 14-employee startup has 20 government clients, including Medicare and the City of Seattle, some paying more than $5,000 a month.

Merritt is at the forefront of an emerging field that some entrepreneurs call Government 2.0. With the White House urging federal agencies to make statistical data and other information available to the public, the Internet’s next big opportunity may be tapping that information to boost government transparency, efficiency, and responsiveness. Much as blogs and YouTube (GOOG) democratized media and eBay (EBAY) let anyone become a retailer, these entrepreneurs want to help citizens participate more directly in governing.

Tim O’Reilly, founder of technology publisher O’Reilly Media, likens the effort to Interstate highways, the global positioning system, and the Internet. Those public investments all unleashed private-sector innovation. Similarly, by giving everyone access to government data, “you don’t have to do all the innovating yourself,” says O’Reilly, who hosted a Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C., on

May 25, one of at least 10 similar events held across the U.S. over the past year.

One way governments encourage innovation from entrepreneurs is through apps contests. These offer prize money to developers who build software applications using public data. New York, Washington, and Portland, Ore., have all started competitions. Federal agencies have sponsored efforts aimed at expanding broadband access and reducing childhood obesity. Even the Pentagon has gotten on board with an “Apps for the Army” challenge for soldiers. All told, more than 350 apps that tap into public data have been submitted to such contests, some of which are ongoing.

Lawrence Lenihan, managing director of New York venture firm FirstMark Capital, helped judge the New York apps competition—and then invested in one of the winners, a startup called My City Way. The company makes a smartphone app that helps users find restrooms, Wi-Fi hotspots, subway stations, and more, all based on city data first made available in October. “The types of applications that were created were far better than anything the city could have offered,” Lenihan says.

Some entrepreneurs aren’t waiting for government to open up. Instead, they’re creating Web apps that help push officials and agencies to be more transparent and responsive. Ben Berkowitz and three co-founders created SeeClickFix as a way to report problems such as potholes and graffiti to the city government in New Haven, where Berkowitz lives. The site uses Google Maps to let people flag issues in their neighborhood and send notices to their local officials.

The company has licensed the tool to newspapers, TV stations, and other local news Web sites. So far, more than 400 have signed up. New Haven, Tucson, Washington, and other cities also pay to plug SeeClickFix into their own response systems, so complaints get routed directly to the appropriate agency. A total of more than 36,000 problems from cities and towns nationwide have been reported on the site, and 40 percent have been resolved, Berkowitz says. He calls Gov 2.0 a way of “redistributing governance to the hands of citizens.”

Of course, plenty of public agencies resist openness, and startups that want to sell to or partner with the government often face frustrating bureaucracies. Yet even small steps by government, such as releasing public data, can create new business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Says O’Reilly: “This is one of those amazing outcomes where the government does something small that has a huge impact on the economy.”

The bottom line: Entrepreneurs are creating online businesses that make the government more transparent, efficient, and responsive.

www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/may2010/sb20100526_721134.htm

Software entrepreneur culture is full of stories of the products that succeeded. But what about the products that failed? We rarely hear much about them.

This can lead to a very skewed perspective on what works and what doesn’t (survivor bias). But I believe that failure can teach us as much as success.

So I asked other software entrepreneurs to share their stories of failure in the hope that we might save others from making the same mistakes.

To my surprise I got excellent 12 responses, which I include below along with one of my own. It is a small sample and biased by self selection, but I think it contains a lot of useful insights.

It is an unashamedly a long post, as I didn’t want to lose any of these insights by editing it down.

successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, his provocative and persuasive new book. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. InDrive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Hi Everyone,

We want you to share with others the great offers available for elearning programs here at www.theartofservice.org

Our clients constantly tell us that we provide excellent education programs at affordable prices, but now we are hoping that you tell your friends and colleagues the good news instead.

So what is in it for you?
We’d like to reward you for recommending us by offering:

• $250 off your next purchase from www.store.theartofservice.com
• 10% off your friend’s/colleague’s next purchase as well.

How does it work?
Once you have finished your study and passed your exam, you can request a certificate of completion for the program. This certificate will include a discount code that will automatically provide a 10% discount off any purchase from our online store, excluding TSO books and ITIL® exam vouchers.

If a friend or colleague of yours also purchases one of our elearning programs (e.g. ITIL® Foundation Certification Kit, ITIL® Intermediate Program, ISO 20000 certification kit etc.) you will receive $250 off your next purchase from our online store. This means that our very popular ITIL® intermediate elearning programs would cost only $345 USD. You will not find a price cheaper than this anywhere on the internet!

How do I claim my $250 discount?
All you need to do is to have your friend/colleague email us (service@theartofservice.com) their purchase invoice for one of the elearning programs available at www.theartofservice.org with the subject “Referral Bonus” and include your details (e.g. name or email address) so that we know you have referred them.

We will then setup a one-off discount of $250 that you can then use at our online store.

Why are you doing this?
Simple, we recognise the value of positive customer satisfaction and how ‘word of mouth’ can either make or break your business. We also want to reward our customers for helping us build an online community of IT Service Management practitioners.

Is there any fine print?
As already mentioned, the discounts will not apply to TSO books (e.g. the ITIL® v3 suite) or ITIL® exam vouchers as the costs for these are controlled by external parties. We will also only recognise referrals that occur within a reasonable time frame (e.g. less than 12 months between your purchase and theirs).

So get busy letting people know of the offers available so that you can attain one of the ITIL® Intermediate Certifications for only $345!

In the words of Joe Biden….