MyPunchblog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

If you don’t want to read this post, then just head right over to Twitter and follow Matt Douglas on Twitter. Otherwise, read on for a few reasons why you might want to follow me on Twitter…

After months of watching Twitter from the sidelines, I’ve decided to start using Twitter on a daily basis. I’ll write more in a future blog post about why I decided now was the right time to integrate Twitter into my daily life. I’m going to try this for at least a month and see how it enhances my connections to customers, partners, and others in the industry.  To motivate you, here are a few reasons to follow me on Twitter.

5 Reasons to follow @mattdouglas on Twitter

1. Learn what it takes to run a consumer internet startup in convenient 140 character snippets
2. Read my brutally honest opinion about new developments in the web industry. I promise to be harsh whenever possible for your amusement.
3. Receive links to interesting websites and useful blog posts
4. Hear inside details about new features and functionality on MyPunchbowl
5. Get some daily amusement with my random musings about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Whether you are a customer, partner, friend (or foe), I hope that you will take a moment to follow me on Twitter: Matt Douglas on Twitter.

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

Is there an unwritten rule about how quickly one should respond to an email?

I received an email from my brother today with a simple, unimportant question that was anything but urgent.

Here at Punchbowl we have continual access to our email. Not only do we use it in the standard manner, we use Gmail chat to send quick notes and links as well.  So while some people check their email maybe a few times a day at their job, we check our email about 6,000 times a day (actually it just updates itself).

So when I received this email from my brother I could have responded in about 3 seconds. But I didn’t. I thought “that’s just a little too quick”. Is it me or is there a sort of grace period that you apply (depending on the person and the subject) when responding to emails? On the other side of the coin, have you ever received a response to an email waaay too quickly?

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

I know this might be hard to believe given that I’m in marketing and pr, but I’m a total introvert. There are several definitions of an introvert, but here’s one that I like (and describes me pretty well): “a person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with their own thoughts.” For those who know me—friends, family, and even my coworkers at MyPunchbowl—they would probably say that I’m pretty social and outgoing. But like many people, I’m very different with people I don’t know.

While being an introvert has its advantages (we tend to think before we speak and focus our attention more readily and for longer periods of time), there are certainly disadvantages. The first that comes to mind is that entering a room where I don’t know anyone is a bit daunting. I also prefer to be more private, less public. This explains why I recently struggled with preparing a simple video of myself to demonstrate how to include video with your eCards in MyPunchbowl eCard Studio. It was torture!

The good thing is being able to recognize my personality type as it relates to my position at MyPunchbowl and deciding to do something about it. So far I’ve attended two networking events by myself to practice and get more comfortable around strangers. The first event I attended was a meetup for Boston area internet marketing professionals. The meetup was held at a restaurant near my home so the barriers to attending were nil (as in I couldn’t talk myself out of it). I was nervous going in but realized that most people there didn’t know anyone either. I ended up speaking with 5 or 6 people before the presentation started, exchanged business cards, and even got a tip on a good book. Now that’s success.

Tonight I had plans to go to the Web Innovators Group meeting. I’ve signed up to attend previous meetings but always seemed to get tied up and therefore missing the event. I had originally planned to go with coworkers but when it came time to leave it was just me. I was extremely close to skipping the event. Then I realized that this would be another great opportunity to practice my networking skills. I definitely felt a little more uncomfortable since it did appear that most people knew each other, but I managed to speak with a few people. One guy told me about his experience using MyPunchbowl to plan his New Year’s party. After speaking with another woman for a few minutes, we realized with knew some of the same people. Pretty cool.

I know you can’t change who you are, but as with anything “practice makes perfect.” I realize that at times being a little more outgoing is a good thing is this business. Hopefully with a little practice, I’ll be more outgoing. Who knows, maybe you’ll see some videos of me on MyPunchbowl soon…

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

The boarded up windows,
The empty streets
While my brother’s down on his knees
My city of ruins
My city of ruins

Bruce Springsteen’s words have been haunting me over the last few days. It seems that everywhere I look, things are going badly for people I know. Some have lost their jobs in this horrible economy, others have lost their savings. In the past month, three people who are very close to me lost their beloved pets to sudden deaths. I personally know a few couples who are having marital problems, some of them with children in the mix. When I turn on the TV, there is bad news on almost every channel. And today the stock market lost another 300 points to close at levels not seen since 1996. It seems our cities and our world is in ruins.

Those who work on MyPunchbowl haven’t been immune to the ruins around us. We see it on the faces of our co-workers, we hear it when we interact with our customers, and we feel it as we talk to our partners. We all are experiencing tough times with lots of uncertainty about the future. As the CEO of Punchbowl Software, it’s been particularly hard for me over the last few weeks to keep my head up. I know that in my position that I shoulder the responsibility of making the right decisions for all of the stakeholders in our company. Ultimately these decisions will help the company succeed or fail in the long-run. I take this responsibility very seriously, and the right path is not always crystal clear. And sometimes, all of the pressure is just too much to bear. As my wife reminded me this weekend, this is why I need to get away from the office at least a few times a year. (Her real quote was “If people want to know why you need a few vacations a year, then tell them to try doing your job for a week.”)

I have spoken privately with many other startup CEO’s who feel the same way as I do. In many ways, we are all just trying to get through it, shouldering this quiet burden of responsibility. As I left the office on Friday of last week, I felt the burden more than ever.  I know my colleagues saw it on my face, but not many of them know that the issues on the surface pale in comparison to the deeper feeling of burden. This weekend, I spent a lot of time de-compressing, and thought about how to get rid of the negativity.  And the more I thought, the more I realized how simple it is. With all of the bad news around me, it’s easy to feel the way I do. Everyone else is negative and down, so I join right in. I’m following the pack, and taking the easy road. Well, enough is enough.

I am a natural contrarian, and I have never taken the easy road. Attitude is a choice, and as of right now, I’m officially rejecting negativity. It is time for me — and for all of us –  to rise up above the bad news. Here is my 10 point plan for all of us to regain entrepreneurial optimism. Read it, feel it, and act it. It’s time for all of us to Rise Up.

1. Be proud of what you’ve accomplished. The startup road is not an easy one, and only those who have gone down it know how hard it can be. Come on, rise up!
2. Eat a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Take care of your health so you have energy to get through the hard times. Come on, rise up!
3. Carry yourself with optimism and demand that others around you do the same. Things will get better, but only if we all believe it. Come on rise up!
4. Set hard to reach goals and celebrate when you achieve them. Come on, rise up!
5. Stop comparing yourself to everyone else. Do the best you can with the resources around you. Come on, rise up!
6. Work hard when you are working, but take time to nurture your family and loved ones around you. Come on, rise up!
7. Deal with problems as they come up, and try to solve them to the best of your ability. Come on, rise up!
8. Reach out to someone around you in need. Perhaps you have a friend (or brother) who has lost his job. Come on, rise up!
9. Schedule your next vacation. Just do it. Get it on the calendar so you have something to work towards.  Come on, rise up!
10. Reassure your colleagues that regardless of what happens, it’s going to be ok. We all need a shoulder to lean on once in a while. Come on, rise up!

We may be down, but it’s time to Rise Up. And with the soothing lyrics of Bruce Springsteen, I hope we can all find the inspiration.

Now with these hands,
With these hands,
With these hands,
I pray Lord
With these hands,
With these hands,
I pray for the strength, Lord
With these hands,
With these hands,
I pray for the faith, Lord
We pray for your love, Lord
We pray for the lost, Lord
We pray for this world, Lord
We pray for the strength, Lord
We pray for the strength, Lord

Come on
Come on
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up
Come on, rise up

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

I can type pretty fast, but there are certain words that I mis-type almost every time. I have a feeling I’m not alone here. These are my top three:

• liek (like) - I literally mis-typed it just as I wrote that.

• thinkign ( … or really any word ending in “-ing”) - always comes out -ign.

• inviation/invitaion/invtitaion (invitation). You can imagine the inconvenience of this for customer support at MyPunchbowl … it’s a word I use a lot.

Thankfully, Firefox 3 has a built in spell-checker so I can usually just right click the word with squiggly red underlines to correct it. But I notice that often times the word I want isn’t in that list. It seems that the spell checker tries to guess what word you mean based on the letters in the mis-typed word. but often times I mis-type by hitting a key next to the letter I wanted. Here’s an example: I’ll often type “onw” when I meant “one” (the “w” key is next to the “e” key). When I right click on that my options are “now, own, ow, on, won”.

You’d think that the layout of the keyboard would be a big factor in Firefox’s built-in spellchecker, but it’s clearly not.

All of this is summed up nicely by an email signature I saw recently: “I can spell, I just can’t type.”

If you’re waiting for a profound conclusion or deep meaning I’m afraid you’re about to be disappointed. If there is one, I guess it has something to do with software/hardware, internet/real-life, computer/human disconnect.

Until next tiem …

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

The internet is a wonderful thing.

This is not a controversial statement, but really, it is. Yesterday I caught myself thinking in search terms. Let me explain: I like working on cars as you may recall (ok probably not) from a very old post. The other day I was pulling out of the garage and my old Subaru made a funny noise. I knew it was coming from the Anti-lock Brake System control unit (how? that’s another story) so I popped the hood to have a look. The ABS box was whirring away. It sounded like a pump was stuck on. I unplugged the unit’s electrical harness and it stopped.

Fast forward a day or so and I was out walking. I started to think about my ABS problem. I didn’t just start to think about it though, I started to think in search terms. What would be the best terms for an internet search that might get me an answer?

“ABS whir not stop”

“ABS pump on”

“ABS pump runs”

When I got back home I sat down and tried out “95 Subaru ABS pump runs”. I got a few hits, and finally landed on this random page which suggests this may be a known issue. I’ll keep digging.

This is not the first time I’ve thought in search terms, nor will it be the last. Searching the internet is really a skill unto itself. You can’t have too many words, nor too little, and they have to be just the right words. But maybe that’s another blog topic …

I got a very sad call tonight from my brother. His beloved (and very crazy) cat Marcel had to be put to sleep. He was only 4 1/2 years old.

In my family, pets are treated as part of the family — so the loss of a pet is very sad. In this case, Marcel’s life was cut short by a known heart condition. My brother and his wife always knew that Marcel would live an abbreviated life, but they never expected a mere 4 1/2 years. That all changed suddenly this evening.

Marcel was a cat that lived life to the fullest. I’ve known many cats in my life, and I’ve never seen a cat so full of energy and so crazy. Here’s just a partial list of things that Marcel could do:

1. Turn on the bathroom faucet himself (yes, himself!), to drink directly from the faucet
2. Jump 3 feet vertically into the air, chasing a toy feather
3. Steal your socks as you’re trying to get dressed (this happened to me on my last visit in July)
4. Sprint across the living room at top speed, so all you saw was a flash of orange (followed by another flash of orange as he ran the other way)

Marcel is a cat who lived his life to the fullest. He wasted no time, and everyone who met him had the same impression: that is one crazy cat.

Do you live your life to the fullest? What would you change if you knew your days on earth were numbered? Would you spend more time with loved ones? Would you spend more time having fun? Would you just act a little more crazy once in a while?

Take a moment today and ponder the life of Marcel and pay him a tribute. Run across the room, or jump straight into the air, or drink directly from the faucet (yes, actually try this… it’s fun). Do something to remind yourself that tomorrow is not promised to anyone — whether you are a cat or a person.

To Marcel: you crazy, crazy cat. You will be sorely missed.

Last week, I was lamenting to a co-worker that I didn’t have any quarters in my car for the meters in Boston. This was particularly ironic because a few days earlier I noted that my change jar at home was almost entirely filled. Of course, I didn’t remember to bring any change with me that day.

I’ve always had a fascination with change and coins. I remember collecting change as a kid, rolling it up in paper coin holders, and bringing it to the bank. I think that was probably around the time when I realized that I really enjoyed making (and saving) money. Later in life, I got a machine that rolled up coins automatically. Pretty neat. A few years ago, I discovered the Coin Star machines in the local supermarkets. What a brilliant business model. I’ve been a fan (and customer) of Coin Star ever since.

Back in college, my roommate (John Simeone) introduced me to the best way use your leftover coins. He explained to me that you should try to use your change on a daily basis rather than collect it in a jar at home. John pointed out that keeping change in a jar was poor money management — it was like putting it into a bank that didn’t pay out any interest. He believes that the best policy for your change is to use it everyday rather than collect it. So how do you efficiently use your change on a daily basis?

Allow me to introduce you to the “Simeone Change Theory.” It goes like this:

“The best way to use of all your change (including quarters), is to carry 54 cents with you on a daily basis, in the form of one quarter, two dimes, one nickel, and four pennies. Having this change on you will allow you to get rid of excess change while not carrying a bunch of coins on you or holding up lines while searching for the correct amount. With 54 cents, you can obviously “round off” any transaction 54 cents or less. This is almost like saving $1 on a cash purchase since the change you get might otherwise be lost or allowed to accumulate. On purchases where the cents exceeds 54 cents, you can use pennies (or larger combos if you’re feeling ambitious) to reduce the amount of change you get or control the denominations. For example, if your total bill is $5.78, you give the cashier $6.03 to get back one quarter instead of two dimes and two pennies. You’ve also rid yourself of three pennies. On a transaction of $6.56, you could give the cashier $7.06. You’re trading a nickel and a penny for two quarters instead of 44 cents (one quarter, one dime, one nickel, and four pennies). You get the idea. Note that the whole thing blows up if you need quarters for laundry. In that case, I’d carry 59 cents (five dimes, one nickel, and four pennies).”

There you have it. If you do this everyday, you’ll be saving almost $1 a day. Now that’s what I call an economic stimulus plan.

My cell phone number has the area code 650. I got this number when I bought my first cell phone in California in 1998. I went down to the Sprint store on University Avenue in Palo Alto and I purchased a big brick of a cell phone (remember, this was 1998 when cell phones resembled those old car phones from early 80s movies). Living in Silicon Valley, it made a lot of sense to have a phone number with area code 650.In 2001, I moved to North Carolina. I kept my phone, and I kept my phone number. A few years later, I moved up to Boston. This time I purchased a new cell phone, but I kept my number. By this point, I was a long-time customer of Sprint, and had a great cell phone plan. Over the next few years, I went through a few more cell phones, and always kept my number.

For my birthday this year, I took the plunge and bought an iPhone. After 10 years with Sprint, I switched to AT&T (iPhone’s only work on AT&T). I’m really happy with my new iPhone — it’s a great product. Thanks to cell phone number portability legislation, I was able to keep my 650 area code cell phone.

So what’s the point of this post? Just again this morning I was on the phone with a reporter from Silicon Valley. He knows that we are a Boston-based company, and asked me quizically about my cell phone number.

Reporter: “Do you still live in Boston? I called a 650 number.”

Matt: “Yes, I’m in Boston. I’ve had my cell phone number for years. There’s no reason to switch. Long distance is the same everywhere, and everyone knows my number.”

Can we all just agree that your cell phone area code is no longer a good indication of where you currently live? It’s just an indicator of where you purchased your first cell phone.

This past week, the Donors Choose tech blog challenge kicked off. Over the next month or so, some of the biggest tech blogs will be competing to see who can raise the most money for schools across the country. Last year, Fred Wilson and his blog AVC beat out TechCrunch, Engadget, and even the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D blog. It’s a great challenge, as the tech blogs band together in friendly competition to raise money for schools around the country.

As soon as I heard about this year’s challenge, I asked Fred Wilson to add one particular project to his list: “It’s a Small World After All.” This project is a classroom in Texas — and I know the teacher. The teacher is a woman named Bari — my sister-in-law. Bari moved to Texas because my brother is doing a clerkship at the 5th circuit court. So Bari found herself in Texas, looking for a new career start. She decided to spend the time and money to become a certified teacher in Texas. After a year of helping in the classroom, Bari now has her own class. It’s pretty sad to hear that the school doesn’t even provide the basics that a teacher needs such as chalk and erasers. Rather than complain about that, Bari purchased her own supplies but still wants to improve the classroom. Her project is to purchase a globe for the classroom so that the kids in the class can be taught about the world around them. I’m really excited that Fred has included this project on his list.

One important note about Donors Choose: when you donate money to a Donors Choose project, your money goes directly to purchase the items that the teacher needs. Rather than sending money, Donors Choose purchases the item and sends it directly to the teacher. It’s a fraud-free way to donate directly to schools.

I hope you’re interested in reading more about “It’s a Small World After All” and Fred Wilson’s tech blogger challenge. Even a small $20 donation can really help teachers across this country.