Monthly Archives: March 2010

I wasn’t going to write about this because I’ve been covering the upcoming Apple iPad launch, from various angles, almost every day for the past few weeks. But a story about the iPad’s board game potential piqued my interest. A preview of TUAW’s iPad app GameTable has gotten me all excited, primarily because of the possibilities for a new generation to fall in love with board games.

You see, I’m a huge fan of Backgammon. I’ll play against the computer for hours, forgoing sleep on some occasions. I’ve been a bit of a Backgammon addict when it comes to online play, working my way up in rank against other players from around the world. I’m not saying I’m the best at Backgammon (though I am the best at Text Twist), but I really like the game.

And I don’t even think that Backgammon is part of the new GameTable iPad app, but it should be. Still, that’s not exactly the point here. My main reason for writing this article is to sing my praises to board games on the iPad. As Mashable points out, the larger tablet screen makes board game play a great deal easier, especially when you factor in two-player games.

Board games may not be the most exciting in the world, but as I just mentioned, they’re good for two players. And with the size of the iPad, I’m hoping that a new era has dawned for the popularity of board games. Chess, checkers, Backgammon and the like are great learning experiences for people of any age. They help you to maintain your mental activity, strategy and logic. Boardgames aid you in your ability to control your environment, and overcome obstacles. The benefits of board game play reach far beyond those of a global leaderboard and high scores.

The funny thing is, I’m not even sure how I ended up loving Backgammon as much as I do. My mother taught me how to play, and she ensured that I would one day beat her by making me practice against myself. Sounds like a crappy way to spend a sizeable portion of my summer vacations, but apparently it worked out for the best. Even though there were a few years in high school when I stopped playing Backgammon all together, the rise of Yahoo Games revived my interest, as the game was suddenly electronic, on-demand, and I no longer had to play alone.

I’m hoping the same explosion will happen as a result of the touch screen, graphics and overall usability of the iPad and other multimedia tablet devices. Sure, I’m joining the bandwagon of those placing far too many expectations on a new consumer electronic device, but I think that highly of board games. So I’m really hoping GameTable adds Backgammon to its repertoire.

In celebration of the release of their first iPhone application, Dale Carnegie Training is giving away 200 hardback copies of “How To Win Friends & Influence People.” This classic book has sold over 15 million copies to date, and incorporates human relations principles which have helped generations of people worldwide enjoy personal and professional success.

The books will be distributed via contests to the readers at 20 blogs – including Bubblicious. To enter, our readers simply need to follow bubblicious on Twitter, and retweet this post (see the “Tweet this” button below). Winners will be notified via DM. Here are the overall Contest Rules on the Dale Carnegie blog.

The application is a an adaptation of Dale Carnegie courses aimed to help you enhance your relationships with others, gain cooperation, and be a leader. The skills gained can be directly applied to improving public speaking, mastering workplace culture, presentation effectiveness, team member engagement, leadership development, sales effectiveness, customer service and lots more.

For more information about the Secrets of Success app, visit the iTunes store.

Larry Chiang writes about hacking business and school. After a Harvard Business School keynote, they wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. If you read his scandalously awesome “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford About Getting Revenge” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Public Speaking” you will like his latest post about Getting VCs to Pitch Us Entrepreneurs.

If you spend 60 minutes reading his stuff, you’ll be street smart by St Patrick’s Day.

By Larry Chiang

B-School is a lot like the NSA… awesome stuff but sometimes not very immediately applicable.

My concurrent session will break a lot of rules including speech structure, content organization and absolutely no flow or use of transitions. But it will have deliciously scandalous tips like;

-1- Being Media to Get Media

It used to be that we would aspire to get on TV news or a talk show. Now, we can move our own sales needle by being media to get media. An example is guest posting on a popular blog like ProBlogger or BusinessWeek. The last time I checked, blogging at NSA Speaker.org has a pretty darn low bar (even I am allowed to post as much as I want). And the good news is that they don’t even edit your stuff so you can be as self-promotional as you want to

Once you are media, you can write about what major media should be writing about. Heck you can even call out a writer such as Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, Brad Stone of the NY Times, Om Malik of GigaOm or Josh Tyrangiel of BusinessWeek

-2- Using Twitter to Get a Testimonial

Use it a little or use it a lot. If you use Twitter a little, do what my venture capitalist friend Ken Howery did. Tweet seven times and just stop.

If you want to use it a lot, you can squeeze a testimonial out of people when they tweet at you. It doesn’t even need to be in the right context which works great if you’re a pretty bad speaker like me. For example, Eric Ries, author of the blog, theLeanStartUp, said of during a dinner, “Larry Chiang is a genius.”

He was referring to the fact that I had four iPhone chargers in my pocket and was offering to charge people’s phone for $3.50 or a tweet. He wasn’t referring to my CEO-ing abilities or any other ability except to be boy scout prepared at a conference we were both speaking at.

-3- Doing a Two-Way Keynote

This is what the cool kids are doing.

The two way keynote is where information flows both ways. Audience feedback is live. Leveraging listener train of tweet is critical to your ability to do a two-way keynote. I discovered this skill purely by accident: My audience (sorority girls) is/was multi-tasking me. I thought, why not have them cheat on me… with me. Cheat your attention to my keynote with my material on-line.

There are some very advanced skills required to listen while talking so it works best if you learn…

-4- Moderating a Two-Way Panel

Moderating a two-way panel is one step easier than doing a two-way keynote. When your panelists talk, you can read the Twitter stream. For example, when I moderated a panel on Venture Capital, I used the hashtag “#vcSecrets”. When audience members had questions, they could tweet them to the live-stream. The live stream was projected onto a huge screen in the room.

An added channel of the two-way moderated panel is to take questions via text message. I do it to show off my ability to listen while speaking. It explodes the attention the audience pays to my stuff because they think they are controlling me and my content by texting and tweeting me.

-5- Getting 60 questions / interaction within one keynote

It is very possible to get 60+ interactions per 45 minute keynote. It is also very possible that over half of your tweet stream won’t even be in the room.

-6- Pre-Programming

I pre-load articles that I think will pop up during Q and A. Ideally, it’s an article I wrote or a paper I published that shows expertise. I live ambushing an ambusher. Lets say I am talking about FICO credit scores and I pontificate on how things might be, what to keep an eye on and what it all really means… I pre-load up my Congressional testimony at some bit.ly link ( a bit.ly link takes a long web address and makes it smaller so you can tweet it. Tweets are under 140 characters )

-7- Using an “air traffic controller” during your keynote to fire off tweets as you speak

An “air traffic controller” is someone sitting at home with a computer ready to go. The air traffic controller gets an audio feed of your speech and loads up tweets as if you were tweeting them yourself. You can amaze, shock and awe even the most jaded of college students if you tweet while you talk.

I also like to record video of people asking questions while I speak. Yes I use a flip cam. Being media gets you media.

-8- How to Self Syndicate Content

It used to be you had to have real writing talent to syndicate your written material. Now, all you need is a decent focus (mine is ‘What They Don’t Teach in Business School’) and the moxie to cold-call blog editors to post your stuff. Write once, publish 18x.

-9- Rebate on a a freebie speaking gig

My biggest problems come from when I say yes to the free speaking gig. Here is how I solve that problem: I charge them a deposit and make them agree to simple terms. I used to get fired from free gigs before I even spoke. How depressing is that?! I solve the problem of the last-minute-deal-change by using my deposit gambit.

I also use this when I host a workshop. My speaker friends always wanna come for free so I get them spots if they leave a deposit. Also, this works great if you use EventBrite because your tickets have price momentum.

Here’s an example that shows price momentum. Lets say you have a 100 person venue. The worst thing you can do is put it out there that you have 100 unsold tix… I tranche the tickets 25 / 25 /25 and mark it sold out at 75. I always sell way more after my event has been sold out
The first 25 are a rebate meaning you get your 45c back if you show up. The next 25 tickets are 55c but there is no rebate. The next 25 tickets are 61c so people see, the longer you wait, the higher it goes.

After I mark it ‘sold out’, it is uber easy to sell tix. An example of this is here

Larry Chiang boils down difficult things into bitesize chunks to execute. His bestseller, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” – He has spoken at Harvard and Stanford about how to be street smart. He has had a half-dozen mentors at NSA and he is passionate about entrepreneurship and has the goal to keep the social media time sink in under 20 minutes a week.

I wrote this in 30 minutes. If I missed something, email me… larry @larrychiang dot com and include your cell in the subject line.

DISCLOSURE: I kick a lot of butt. Text or call me during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes on my cell: 650-283-8008.

Larry Chiang is the founder of Duck9 , which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He is a frequent contributor to BusinessWeek. His earlier posts on GigaOm include: How to Work The Room ; 8 Tips On How to Get Mentored ; and 9 VCs You’re Gonna Want To Avoid . You can read more equally funny, but non-founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog .

A couple of weeks ago, the entire “Vayner-nation” was treated to a real delight as Gary Vaynerchuk, host of WineLibrary.tv and co-founder of Vaynermedia, hosted a live-taping of his widely popular podcast right in the heart of South by Southwest. As an added bonus to those in attendance, Vaynerchuk had Brian Solis, author of the new book “Engage” and principal of FutureWorks PR, on the set to help taste and grade several variations of champagne. I was fortunate enough to be there with a camera on hand and you can view the entire live recording in the above video or on WineLibrary.tv.

Taped live at the offices of PGi, Vaynerchuk and Solis truly got the crowd behind them and interactive. From random hoots and hollers to questions being tossed to Vaynerchuk, this was definitely one lively program. It all started out with Solis promoting his new book Engage which is out in stores now and available directly on Amazon. Four champagne bottles later and it’s time to open up the other bottles and give the audience a sip of the good stuff. Those in the audience included Jeff Jarvis, Frank Gruber, Dave Mathews, Wm. Marc Salsberry, Sloane Berrant, Darren Rowse, Jesse Thomas, Leslie Bradshaw, Nick O’Neill, Leora Israel, Peter Corbett and many others.

Here are a few photos from the event:

Brian Solis & Gary Vaynerchuk

Brian Solis talks about his book “Engage”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Taking a “sniffy sniff”

It’s a packed room for this live taping!

Cheers!

Gary Vaynerchuk has magical powers? He can make “Engage” float in mid-air??

Jeff Jarvis & Brian Solis

Darren Rowse & Leslie Bradshaw

Sloane Berrent

A large contingent from Washignton, DC geeks

More photos from this event can be found by going to my Flickr photo set.

You can purchase your copy of “Engage” on Amazon right now by clicking here.

The iPad isn’t out yet, and that leaves us a few more days to speculate about its greatness. Isn’t speculation fun? We have no idea how many iPads have been ordered so far, meaning your guess is as good as mine. We have very little idea as to how the device will work in the practical, every day sense. We don’t even quite know where to categorize the tablet, seeing as it appears to be a bigger version of the iPod Touch, but with a lot of the cool factor that has been determined by the popularity of the iPhone.

Seeing as the iPad is a little bit the same and a little bit different from everything we’ve experienced before, there’s a lot of room for…speculation. When it comes to the applications built for the iPad, there’s not only room for speculation, but for opportunity as well.

Selling more apps could be big business for some app developers, especially as the iPad has such a large focus on media consumption. But a recent review by Wired indicates that a few other things may be different for the iPad’s app store, some of which could have consequences (good and bad) all their own.

Browsing the iPad App Store: A Video [By @viticci] from Federico Viticci on Vimeo.

The three areas Wired mentions are the cover flow, the pricing and the titles of the apps themselves. These partially address some of the concerns that have been brought up since we saw our first Steve Jobs demo of the iPad.

With what appears to be a new section for highlighted apps, the cover flow of the iPad app store may be different than what iPhone users are accustomed to. Yet similar changes are being made to the iTunes App Store as well, especially as Apple seems a better way to help users fin the apps they’re looking for. Adding a new Adult category for those apps that have previously been banned all together is just one concession Apple may make towards offering more app options within a system the company is comfortable with.

The prices of the iPad apps have already changed, as many developers are requesting higher prices for apps already present for the iPhone. Of course, the apps aren’t exactly the same–optimizing for the new tablet has been something many developers have already begun working on, particularly those in the media production and distribution industries. Yet, we’ll still have to see what the demand will be for pricier apps that are coming in a bigger size.

Naming the apps for an iPad app store would seem like a trivial thing to concentrate on, but the vastness of the existing iTunes App Store means that a properly named app could do even better on the iPad than on the iPhone. It’s safe to say that this can be confusing for consumers if a company has changed the name but not the product, but even more important is whether or not Apple will create a new store entirely for iPad apps. This would offer a bit of a reprieve for users, as the iTunes App Store is already filled with apps and its search and recommendation system is less than stellar. However, carrying over the iTunes App Store to the iPad seems like the logical thing to do.

What we’ve seen from the iPad so far seems to have merely raised more questions than answers, so we’ll still have to wait a few more days to see how things really play out. But the fact that so many questions have been raised means that the expectations around the iPad may truly offer Apple another great opportunity to build its brand and increase consumer satisfaction with its wireless, mobile devices.