In the last year, I’ve become a supporter of an organization called EARN.  EARN is a charitable organization that partners with people of modest means to help them achieve the goal of saving money.

How?

The simple answer is that EARN offers matched savings accounts.  Save $2000 in a defined time period?  EARN will match it with $4000.

The more complete answer is that EARN has learned, through years of trial and error, the techniques that enable behavior modification in the form of savings.  And this recipe enables people to reach goals they never thought possible.

What I love most about EARN is how they focus on empowering the individual.  You need only read the customer stories about how reaching small goals enabled them to reach even bigger goals over time; you’ll be moved by the life-changing outcomes.

A year ago, I heard Ben Mangan tell the story of EARN to a gathering of potential benefactors.  I was inspired.  But then my cheeks flushed in embarrassment.  I didn’t have money to contribute; I was just getting a startup off the ground with my own time & money.

The story Ben told was about their journey of learning how to partner with their savers to enable the behavior changes that are so powerful.  And how Ben was literally re-constructing his entire organization to take it from a local provider in San Francisco to a national platform.  His “BHAG” is to serve 1 million Americans in need.  And he thinks there are 30+ million Americans on the edge of poverty.

The only way EARN can reach 1 million Americans is online.  Which is the area that I’ve been helping ,with my advice and my time.

Check out EARN and consider how you might help them, too.

It’s not supposed to happen this way.  Clent Richardson dies at age 52 or so.  Bonnie Swymer at 52.  Klaus Kjaer in his early 70’s.  They all passed away in the last 3 weeks.  Like a wave of mortality crashing over my otherwise serene life.

It gives you pause.  And makes you reflect on how precious – and short – life can be.

My advice: follow your passion.  Happiness is about pursuing your dreams and passions.  Say no to shit jobs, shit bosses, shit towns, shit whatever.  Period.  No excuses.

It’s also time to celebrate these people and what they gave to the world.

Clent was the best business partner I ever had, with the exception of my current one.  He and I were engaged in an effort of transforming a company.  Having somebody you can trust completely makes the effort of driving change so much easier.  And tolerable.  He was a loyal and devoted husband and father.  He lived in several places around the world, and was worldly as a result.  In a good way.  He grew grapes that apparently make for awfully good wine.  How do you match that?

Bonnie was somebody I knew less.  But I know her husband, and know the truth in the adage that behind every good man stands a great woman.  When a man worships his wife as Rob did Bonnie, you know there’s something special about her.  I bore witness to both their good times and times they were building for something better.  She was the same supportive person, always.

Which leaves Klaus. They broke the mold for him.  For 25 years in a row, with a couple exceptions, I spent a long weekend with him and a couple dozen buddies playing golf in the mountains of New Hampshire.  Klaus helped define what the trip is all about: brotherhood, jokes, learning to swear in Danish, drinking good wine (Amarone was a particular vice of his), gorging on lobsters and steak.  This trip is a highlight of the year.

Klaus was as close to a playboy as I ever met.  He knew the intimate details of living “la dolce vita”.  From the best towns to stay in Switzerland to the best vineyards in Italy, to ski areas in the Alps that only a local would know about.  Or Klaus.

Klaus was such a strong personality that I can only imagine living with him.  Which explains why three women each took a try at it.  In all seriousness, Donna was a source of strength, love and stability that made Klaus a whole person.

In the swirl of sadness, memories, funny stories and all the feelings of loss, I can only hope that these people inspire me to live my life to the fullest.  Every day.

Godspeed.

Since leaving AVG and Prague last year, I’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front.  Which makes sense given I was writing about living in Prague and working in the Freemium consumer software world.

In the meantime, I researched and ultimately co-founded a new company in San Francisco called Bluenose Analytics.  And attracted a kick-ass venture investor as partner.  Details on all of this will come with the company and product launch later this year.

A few hints: we’re building an analytics application in the cloud using a Big Data stack.  The application will help companies with subscription business models keep their customers longer and earn more recurring revenue.

This is a huge market opportunity.  I repeat, huge.

In the meantime, we’re hiring.  User experience designers, Java developers and Big Data stack developers.  If you’re interested to know more, contact me.  Or, share this with some friends.

My contact details are on my “about me” page and all over social media platforms.

I love Pandora.  I use it on my iPhone while driving around the San Francisco area.

I’ve tried almost all of the others.  But Pandora’s music matching algorithms have exposed me to lots of new & cool artists from genres I already like; better than the other services.

So why are we getting divorced (maybe)?  Because the streaming of a song in progress is often interrupted by the start of another song.  Or an ad.  Both interruptions are a huge bummer (Ads are ok between songs.  I use the free version, after all).

I tweeted Pandora’s CTO pleading for help in fixing their app.  And he was incredibly responsive.  But I ultimately got put into a process designed to make the user go through all of the hoops.  The latest email I got after previously being directed to uninstall & re-install the app and re-boot my phone:

Sorry for the continued trouble, but thanks for giving those steps a shot. I noticed that you aren’t running the latest version of iOS on your iPhone, which helps address bugs and provides you with new features. 

You can install the free update by connecting your iPhone to your computer. Now, click ‘Update’ on the main iPhone screen in iTunes. You can also update your phone by installing the update directly by going to Settings -» General -» Software Update (it’s recommended that you plug your phone in during the update). 

If the issue still continues, then network congestion or a signal strength issue is the most likely cause.

If you’re having trouble when using a 3G or EDGE connection (in other words, not Wi-Fi), you can often get better performance with the “higher quality audio” option turned off. (Tap the arrow in the upper left of the Pandora “Now Playing” screen to reach the Station List page, then tap “Settings” -» “Advanced” -» “Higher quality audio” -» Off). This will ensure the minimum bandwidth is used to stream music when using a cellular-data connection (Wi-Fi connections are always automatically streamed in “higher quality audio” whether this option is on or off. For best results, use Wi-Fi whenever possible — e.g. at home, work, a coffee shop or a friend’s house).

If you are still having issues with “higher quality audio” turned off, then this is almost always due to poor cell reception. Note that the “number of bars” is often not an accurate measure of bandwidth. You can test your actual iPhone bandwidth by visiting http://www.testmyiphone.com on your Safari web browser. It will tell you your upload and download speeds. A consistent download speed of over 80kbps is generally required to stream Pandora smoothly. If you have less bandwidth than this, please change location — even a few feet can sometimes make a difference — or wait and try Pandora again later.

The user – me – isn’t the issue.  Half of these steps don’t even address the fact I’m using 3G networks.  And the problem has been occurring for months on a state-of-the-art phone over 3G networks around San Francisco that are amongst the densest in the world.

The issue is something much more technical and out of the user’s control.  It’s probably rooted in cacheing and compression algorithms that deliver data to my phone.

Anyone try Skype 10 years ago?  Remember the crappy sound and video quality?  Skype has since spent tons of time and money to write great algorithms that now deliver a wonderful service that overcomes lots of network problems.

Pandora has yet to, based on my experience.

I’m the kind of person that probably would have installed diagnostic software on my phone to give Pandora a hand.  Instead, I get asked to do a bunch of stuff that skirts the real issue and ignores the actual usage scenarios.

Is Pandora alone in delivering technical support this way?  Certainly not.  I’ve seen it in companies I worked at too.  But it doesn’t make it right.  Vendors delivering support should take an active role in troubleshooting instead of exhausting the users’ efforts (and loyalty) before owning the problem.

Today, AVG’s IPO is complete.  We start trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “AVG”.

I’m proud of those who have played such a big role in building the company to this point.  And I’m proud to have played a small role too.

Time to sit back and watch the ticker with fingers crossed.

I’m proud to be part of a big milestone at AVG: its IPO filing which you can read here.

It’s now the “quiet period” according to our friends at the regulators, so I won’t comment beyond that.

I was surprised to randomly discover that I was nominated for the following award:  http://boston.blogger.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/vote/misc/

It proves that one’s readership can reach into many unexpected corners of the Internet.

Given my blogging has been silent for a few weeks (massive corporate strategy project followed by long vacation in mental recovery mode), maybe I’m not so worthy of a vote.  But if you’re willing to vote for me, by all means do.

I promise to be a better blogger real soon.  😉