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For many outsiders looking in, the endemic talents and skills of a web entrepreneur are perceived as being extremely rare and nearly impossible to comprehend. It’s not uncommon for someone who isn’t involved with technology to cringe when the hear terms such as “Front-End Developer”,”Server-Side Developer”,”UX Designer”,”Software Engineer”. The truth is that there are distinguishable skill sets among the different roles, and each task will likely require very specific knowledge. However, from my various short eye-opening experiences working and interacting with highly successful people in technology, nearly all of them practice the psychology of a “Creative Technologist”.

I was recently browsing one of my favorite websites which is built entirely in Adobe Flash,  AgencyNet, and I have visited several times previously for idea inspration. The agency places the value of visual stimulation, uniqueness, and experience above all else. To that end, I noticed a career opening they are advertising on their site, Creative Technologist. I believe that their goal to hire people who can create effective solutions to problems with a creative mindset is a tribute to the highly publicized startup founders that we’ve started to idolize in the past decade.

The unquantifiable skills of a Creative Technologist are likely to be found in the character and actions of any passionate leader. Take a minute to brief yourself on these traits which can apply to almost any career:

If you’ve managed to figure out how to execute a healthy balance of everything above, then it’s likely you already have proficiency in the specific skills of a Creative Technologist below:

One final thing I’d like to emphasize is the Education aspect of a Creative Technologist. From my best knowledge, I have found that every high achiever that I’ve ever gotten to know is also a voracious reader. Sometimes this goes without saying, but if you are really passionate about a particular field or interest, then learning becomes autodidactic. The relentless pursuit of knowledge and information is a key component to why some people achieve their ambitions to a high level, and others settle for mediocrity. In my own personal experience, I have not found traditional literature and fantasy  taught in school to be intriguing or interesting. Even though you might not find me reading classic novels often, I could not imagine a day that I did not read a magazine article at breakfast, or did not read technology and business blogs for at least an hour each night. This incremental increase in awareness of all things related to internet startups has allowed me to capitalize on several fortunate opportunities.

My best advice to aspiring Creative Technologists would be to find a passion, and take action towards your vision. After a while the necessary talents and skills not only become more clear, they become more attainable.

Simon Sinek presented his theory on the power behind the greatest leaders in the world, past and present. This brief presentation can literally change the way you look at the highest achievers in the world today.

Essentially the idea is rationalized into three parts. Why, how, and what.

Sinek emphasizes that the most successful leaders and innovators “inspire action” by doing things that make other people believe in what they are doing. His thoughts are focused on the common theme of attracting people to believe in your thoughts and ideals. When you attract people who have a common belief, they begin to join you because they are attracted to why you are doing something, not what you are doing.

The easiest example he demonstrates with this theory is Apple:

Apple believes in making great user experiences. Apple makes great user experiences by building products with exceptional design. The products that they happen to make best are computers.

Towards the end of Sinek’s presentation, he makes note on why it is important to do things on the basis of persuading other people to believe what you believe. He explains the benefits of “starting with why” by showing the Law of Diffusion of Innovation:

First 2.5% of population:  Innovators

Next 13.5%:  Early Adopters

Next 34%:  Early Majority

Next 34%:  Late Majority

Final 16%:  Laggards

The difference between ideas that change the world and ideas that are simple fads is the 15-18% tipping point. After this tipping point, it’s highly likely that the mainstream adoption will occur, and greater than 80% of the mass market will at least accept the idea.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Watch it in your next twenty minutes free!

John, David, Nick

The past couple of days have been absolutely jam packed with interviews, pitches, and networking. My team and I were excited to meet the other Thiel Fellowship finalists on Sunday at the Hyatt in downtown San Francisco. The first thing that surprised me was the geographically diverse group selected to interview with the Thiel Foundation. At any given moment, I could’ve been in casual conversation with a music guy from London, student from India, inventor from Ireland, or an entrepreneur from Australia. The diversity of the 32 different ideas to change the world was equally astounding. Finalists were presenting ideas that were proposing profound changes in anti-aging, solar tech, electric vehicles, medical assistance, education, and more.

On Sunday morning my team and I decided to stay as relaxed as possible. We had just finished a couple days of intense refinement of our pitch and presentation. In order to review for our interview, we created a simple one page overview of the most important parts to our idea. This exercise got us in the habit of delivering only the most pertinent information to prospective interviewers and mentors. After doing a final practice interview among ourselves, we agreed on who would take which types of interview questions. By 4:15PM our time slot had come and before long we were doing our interview with the board members of the Thiel Foundation, as well as a couple employees of Clarium Capital. The questions were simple and straightforward, mostly about our idea rather than our team. We think our most striking answers in the interview were on the subject of the proof that demand for our product already exists and our revenue model. One area that we needed improvement was a more clear and concise way to describe our distribution.

With one of the key parts of our visit out of the way by Sunday night, we were focused on delivering the best possible pitch for Tuesday’s lightning talk. Monday morning was our first official meeting with a large portion of the 20 Under 20 Finalists. My team and I were happy to have a delicious breakfast while talking about medical research tools with a team of Princeton students. By this point, we were increasingly anxious to meet the other finalists and hear their pitch. The main focus of the day was the lightening talk at 4:30PM, so we decided to stay relaxed after lunch by exploring downtown San Francisco.

The key ingredient in our pitch preparation was a quick smoothie stop at Jamba Juice. (Yes!) This gave us the energy to fend off any remaining jet-lag that threatened to fatigue our interviews. (From what we determined earlier in the week, excessive tiredness decreases the quality of our clarity thoughts drastically.) Leading up to show-time, I made the final decision that I would be doing the entire 2-minute pitch. We practiced the entire sequence numerous times, and by 4:30PM we were ready. The short talk by Luke Nosec and Patri Freedman was truly inspirational, they helped to momentarily calm everyone’s nerves. Finally after waiting patiently for 26 other speakers to do their pitch, we lined up outside the door and moved promptly onto the stage filled with bright lights. The feeling of pitching a simple educational concept to an intimidating room packed with over 75 people judging our pitch was especially profound.

After everyone pitched their idea, we moved to a nearby room with cafe tables setup for informal interviews. As we had hoped, a number of mentors who stopped by our table mentioned that our pitch stood out a great deal among the five other education related ideas. The two parts of our idea that we were most frequently questioned on are our plans for distribution, and the market demand for this product. These interviews turned out to be an excellent networking session for my team, and we even walked away with an additional idea to monetize our platform.

By 7:30PM we left the Hyatt to take a bus over to Mr. Thiel’s house where he hosted us for dinner. The dinner was an interesting mix of competitive and relaxing spirits. During any particular moment, we had the opportunity to meet some of the most accomplished technologists and visionaries from the Bay Area. Meanwhile, the limited opportunity to take up casual conversation with other finalists and soak in the Golden Gate Bridge views provided a healthy element of fun to the evening. The chance to have in-depth conversations about electric cars and rocket-ships with visionaries such as Peter Thiel and Luke Nosec was an experience that I will deeply value.

Our final day in San Francisco was a bit less active. We had an awesome time meeting up with the guys working at SpeakerText, and we enjoyed a warm spring afternoon in the California sun. By nightfall, we were ready to take action on our plan with newly minted thoughts, ideas, and contacts from the past few days in San Francisco.

Hey everyone, I want write a brief update about a neat project I’ve been working on for the past three months in anticipation for this weekend’s interview. From the outside looking in, I haven’t revealed much information regarding some of the things I’ve been heavily investing my time in lately. Back in late December 2010, I came across Peter Thiel’s new fellowship program 20 Under 20. After reading the initial press release, I immediately contacted two of my closest buddies who have a close following of the startup technology scene, David Merfield and Nick Cammarata. We all agreed that this opportunity staring us in the face was an something we could not put off for any amount of time. With nothing to fear but fear itself, we were certain that we needed to start seriously thinking about an avenue for which to pursue a world-changing venture. David, Nick, and I discussed the most important aspects of our lives thus far that could be significantly improved with the help of new technology. To us, education is an area that we see as a traditional system that has become one of the last major sectors to fend off technological innovations. While all three of us have had different schooling experiences, we are all passionate to disrupt the current education model.

Before the New Year, we submitted our team essay to the Thiel Foundation on the subjects of How we want the change the world collectively and One thing we believe is true that most other people believe is not true. With the understanding that the amount of time a teacher spends with an individual student directly correlates with the student’s competence of course material, we set out to flip the existing education model. The current student-teacher relationship is inefficient, and we believe we can profoundly change education by enabling teachers to mechanize the repetitive aspects of teaching. With the motivation that we can harness the attention of students who are becoming increasingly digital learners, we began to plan out our venture that would encourage teachers to re-evaluate how the convey course material.

In the past month, we’ve made through the initial selection rounds and preliminary phone-interview. In the past couple weeks leading up to final selections made in the upcoming days, we’ve been busy gathering thoughts in opinions from everyone in our personal and professional networks regarding our proposal. One resource that has been very beneficial towards our project is the New York Startup Digest. The NYC tech scene may take hard hits now and then from California techies, but the range of events offered every week is substantial. Thanks to the educational technology meetups in New York, we were able to find a potential partner to integrate with our platform.

When you voraciously pursue an idea for three months through endless refinement it’s imperative that you communicate what you are trying to do very clearly. We’ve found that the best way to share our ideas on our planned venture is to convey our thoughts in a format that forces others to learn things about our team, and also forces others recognize more about themselves. We will giving several talks to the Thiel Foundation, mentors from the Thiel Foundation, and other finalists for the 20 Under 20 program. My final piece of advice as my flight descends upon the Bay Area is to not be afraid to take a chance, just be aware of why you are taking the risk. We will be arriving in San Francisco today, and we will be walking on our dream.

This past week Joel Stein of TIME Magazine published a examination of his research on behavioral targeting technology. In his self-discovery of the various categories for which data mining companies categorize his behavior into, he makes a significant distinction that consumers are not fully aware of the difference between tracking and sharing. The current state of the internet has reached a critical juncture that is dividing the people into two groups: collective groups advocating for anonymous identity and shameless individuals calling for their unique recognition on the web. The former is pushing for an internet that remains similar in principle to the original internet communities which were based on anonymous experimentation and discovery. The latter is a contingency of believers of paramount personal integrity and developing new technologies to make the internet a more efficient and  relevant experience.

So what does this have to do with ad planning?

The early days of internet marketing were largely based off of mere arbitrage on advertising inventory. Finding success in this strategy is highly unlikely on any advertising platform today.  Over the past few years the tide has turned in online advertising from mass amounts of cheap traffic to smaller bits of high quality traffic. The most problematic area of the push for behavioral targeting is the data that makes assumptions about each user. Consumers are clumped into categories of likes and dislikes. How can a system that makes assumptions based upon your browser activity really grasp your human behavior. The answer is that they can not (yet) even come close. We are people, not behavioral data. As Joel Stein, the author of the TIME article pointed out, the data mining trackers are often wrong about our seemingly interesting lives. If you’d like to challenge the claims made by sales reps of behavioral targeting agencies, test them for yourself. Does their data on your own profile match what they are selling?

In a browser filled with ads that often seem eerily creepy due to the awkward ad servings, many users have reported that they feel their privacy is being invaded. The result is a browsing experience that displays ads completely irrelevant to the content displayed on the page, and thus even more distracting. So how can advertisers combat this psychological user experience battle? A number of options still remain the core producers of quality traffic.

• Paid search:  The best performing form of online advertising, even since the inception of Google Adwords.
  • Why? Consumers are actively seeking to buy your product or service.
• Contextual ads:  The text ads are highly relevant to the content on the page.
  • Why? The visitors clicking on your ad are already interested in learning more about your product.

There is one segment of behavioral targeting that does consistently outperform almost every form of internet advertising: Re-targeting. The real substance of behavioral marketing follows the notion that an advertiser can more efficiently reach more customers by marketing to people who have proven to partake in activity related to the product or service being advertised. In the most direct relationship between advertiser and customer, this means that the customer has previously visited the advertiser’s website.

98% of visitors to any given eCommerce site do not convert. Re-targeting aims to capture a significant chunk of the remaining 98% of users and convert them through a targeted sales funnel. Industry statistics have shown that re-targeting outperforms traditional media buying by 10x.  The cost of re-targeting inventory may only be 2-3x cost of traditional behavioral inventory, but the cost is well worth the reward.

In the universe of behavioral marketing strategies, retargeting is a great way to cost efficiently capitalize on each and every site visitor. Your search marketing, banner ads and offline efforts will do some of the work, while retargeting will finish the job– converting browsers into buyers, buyers into repeat buyers and repeat buyers into life-long, loyal customers. – imediaconnection

– Learn more about interest based advertising and the companies tailoring ads based on your browsing activity.

I recently spoke about the process of securing funding and publicity for feature films with one of the producers being nominated for an Oscar at tonight’s Academy Awards. Mitchell Block, a professor at USC,  produced the Oscar nominated short subject documentary Poster Girl with a more logical approach to the business of film than most typical starving artists. Block explained that the commonly perceived “normal” approach to producing a film is to complete it though post-production first, then hope to secure financial backing from the film companies present at one of the various world-renown film festivals. While the majority of highly capable film students and artists take this approach to creating their films, Block emphasized the backwardness flawing this course of action due to the unprobable success rate.

Instead, Mr. Block highlighted his extensive portfolio of various short documentaries as a model for which other budding producers should follow. Block said that every time he creates a new feature film, his first objective is to secure the financial backing from a film studio. In the case of Poster Girl, he leveraged his film industry contacts to submit a shortened and unedited clip of the documentary to HBO, who promptly funded the project. Thus, Poster Girl had received the necessary support from HBO to ensure the proper financial and publicity resources to promote the film once post-production was complete.

This exploration of the film industry with Mr. Block gave me the revelation that startup companies often go through a similar process. Essentially there are a bunch of ramen-eating hackers building their ideas in anticipation that during a “demo day” or launch conference so-to-speak, investors will be lining up at their table with a newly inked check in hand. I view these “demo days” as the film festivals which leave many talented visionaries out of touch with any potential in their product. Instead of spending weeks or months developing a minimum viable product, the hackers should put on their top-shelf thrift shop suit and sell their idea to investors.

With the necessary idea-validation and support from venture capitalists, hackers and founders can then focus on building their vision rather than winning attention at a tech meetup. There is undoubted merit in the application process to events such as TechCrunch Disrupt and Launch Conference, but the future success of all companies on stage is rare. Startup accelerators such as Y Combinator realize this methodology produces stronger startups on average because they are only buying into the ideas that they know will work, and especially sell for a high valuation on their own demo day.

Have you ever noticed the moment when technological change becomes so rapid that it turns a spark into a blazing trail of sharing? This is the precise moment of viral media which makes it so attractive.

Last week I attended an event on the subject of viral media and marketing that brought together some of the brightest minds working in technology from the New York area. Me and my classmates Herwig Konings ’11 and David Merfield ’11 first became attracted to the event hosted at New York University because of the highly relevant topic of viral media which often proposes unbounded questions such as: What makes something go viral? And furthermore: Can ideas and products be engineered to go viral?

The honest truth is that viral media is not something that was created on internet. The earliest forms of viral concepts and ideas started with the advent of Christianity and Islam more than a century ago. Most recently the products and ideas that have experienced benefits of the viral loop have become household names such as Ponzi Schemes, Tupperware, or Livestrong bracelets. Viral marketing efforts offline continue to boost the sales of many common products, but today the most common form of viral media takes place on the internet due to its potentially instant worldwide reach.

Thousands of popular items have experienced viral growth on the internet in the past decade and perhaps the most common category for these items is bored-at-work humor. When there is a simple thing that ordinary people think is funny, many people feel compelled to share the humorous item. For this type of viral media, the content must be free, and the website must integrate well with social services to promote easy distribution. Beyond this merely humorous content that is commonly taking advantage of viral networks on a daily basis, there have been a few internet success stories built upon viral expansion.

Jonah Peretti, a co-founder of The Huffington Post and now CEO of Buzz Feed, has had his finger on the pulse of viral media for the past decade. Jonah mentioned the example of YouTube which earned its core growth from Myspace users who wanted to share videos. After Myspace users defaulted to YouTube as their video sharing service, YouTube became adopted by the majority  of internet users. The most widespread viral expansion of an internet service is Facebook. Without a doubt, Facebook’s hockey stick growth occured due to their first initial users at Harvard and Stanford who realized that they were using a service that they actually cared about. In essence, Facebook created a user experience that gets better the more you and your friends share.

As you might be able to tell by now, there isn’t a secret forumla that creates viral media. For my best explanation on how to deliberately engineer a product or idea to go viral, I would encourage trendsetters to focus on a healthy balance of intensive and extensive growth. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, explains intensive growth as the process of hard work to drive innovations and extensive growth is the process of scaling to exponential growth. If you have the guts to build a product that embraces the challenge of intensive and extensive growth, then its likely you will experience the fortuitous results of viral media.

Special thank you to Graham Lawlor, founder of Ultra Light Startups and organizer of the event Engineering Viral Media.

Early last December I published a collection of rather difficult questions asked by certain college supplements. To my surprise, I saw an unusual increase in organic traffic referred to my post regarding these obscure questions.

A few observations I’m taking away from this unexpected traffic:

• The two spikes in traffic occurred just before the application deadlines on January 1st and January 15th. I think its logical to associate these procrastinators as people who would be more likely to search the question on Google.
• Of the 12 questions posted, the most popular incoming search was “The Admission Committee members would laugh if they knew I…”, which was asked on the supplement for Pepperdine.
• In a close 2nd place was the question proposed by Wake Forest: “What final Jeopardy category would ensure your victory?”
• By combining the stats from the second Wake Forest question I posted, the Wake Forest supplement referred more traffic than any of the other college supplements. (About 3-4% of the total applicant pool at Wake Forest this year has visited my blog in the last two months.)

My blog is just one of 10 different websites on the first page of Google that is receiving traffic for these college application questions. The trend is much more widespread than the visitors to my blog. Beyond what the statistical vicissitudes indicate, I think this growing trend is revealing a shift in how students react to critical analysis.

For this small sampling of just over 1,000 applicants visiting my blog, there is a present shift of mindset from relying on personal thoughts to relying on the power of Google. All too often over the course of my high school career I’ve listened to my peers cite their research by listing “Google” or “Wikipedia” as their primary source. Many kids growing up in the internet age are now first turning to Google when they are prompted to find an answer that they should be creating themselves. Instead of students taking information based on legitimate credibility, students perceive that Google has already done this work for them by ranking website sources according to its relevance.

What I’m trying to emphasize is the increasing lack of critical thinking instigated by easy access to information that can be readily searched for on the internet. The expectation that a Google search will be able to accurately predict your opinion on topics such as personal strengths or world issues is outrageous. Fortunately the questions asked by college supplements encourage a self reflection, often forcing applicants to express their true thoughts and character. Perhaps these sometimes part philosophical and part personal questions should be asked more often in the classroom.

I hardly ever give full write-ups on specific companies, but Airbnb is an exception because of their sustained growth and disruptive offerings. Take a look:

In the past year the market for short-term property rentals listed on Airbnb has grown exponentially. On any given night throughout the year, there are over 2,000 reservations booked each night in property locations around the world. One of Airbnb’s leading advantages is the company’s reach in more than 8,000 cities and over 160 countries. As existing customers continue to boast the renters ability to extract “more value for less price”, it’s certain that the company will reach its target of 1,000,000 reservations in 2011.

Founder & CEO Brian Chesky makes it clear in the recent TV interview that the company is positioning itself for long-term growth in the market for short-term rentals. Chesky compares Airbnb to eBay: He notes that eBay made a billion dollar industry from selling things in your house; he wants to create a billion dollar industry by selling the house. Airbnb takes their 6-12% cut in a pricing style similar to eBay’s transaction success fee.

There is certain indication that Airbnb has the leverage in existing markets to soon become a major competitor offering a hybrid product in-between hotels and vacation rentals. Easy to use functionality and a trusted review system are at the core of Airbnb’s continued success. This is confirmed by the standard protocol of Airbnb’s search system which lists the most recommended listings first. The process of listing your rental is as simple as creating an account and adding a description to your listing. Additional tools such as a built in Craigslist posting tool help drive additional traffic to the listings. In fact, the excellent UI is even a nomination for “Best Design” by The Crunchies.

I believe that Airbnb is really just at the tip of the ice-berg right now. Their enormous value proposition offered to every property owner with unused space around the world is just beginning to gain traction in many international destinations (“Airbnb London” and “Airbnb Paris” are breakout searches on Google). Many travelers see the benefit of becoming immersed in the destination itself with local people as something that does not compare to the homogeneous quality of a hotel room. Several substitutes have risen in the wake of Airbnb’s success, but my guess is that hardly any of them can compete with growth similar to Airbnb.

Here’s to the year of the air bed!

Happy new year! Welcome to 2011, this year the tools and services we use on the internet will enrich our lives in ways we didn’t know were possible only a few short years ago. The strength and power of computers has grown significantly over the past decade. The internet has grown to dominate the personal and professional lives of those who use it regularly. Growing in parallel with this technological revolution is the perception that human intelligence is less robust than artificial intelligence. I strongly believe that opportunities for innovation on the internet lie in the human sphere.

The notion of artificial intelligence is hardly new but it has also rarely been implemented successfully online. The primary manifestation of the failure of artificial intelligence on the internet has been its lack of widespread adoption. A few companies, notably Pandora and Netflix, have struggled to produce an accurate and profitable customer recommendation system through the use of artificial intelligence. Just think how many times ‘Sex and the City 4’ has appeared in your Netflix recommended box. The old proverb, “Man must be smarter than the tools he operates” stands true. Merely gathering more data has failed to make computers more compatible with our emotionally-driven lives.

Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the Y-Combinator Startup School 2010 about our limited knowledge of the human brain. As he explained, medical research has yet to uncover the many mysteries of human thought processes. For example, doctors have only speculated on the origins of our dreams and their possible influences on our thoughts. If we humans are not truly aware of what causes the thoughts in our head and the decisions we make, how can we expect a computer to predict the outcomes of equivalent thoughts and reactions? Consider a dating site; how can computers match us with an ideal spouse when we do not truly know how or what we find attractive? We do not yet have the answer to that question. Instead, I feel that we should ask how the internet can meet, not simply interpret, the needs of an interconnected global population. One area in particular that has yet to be exploited is education. In the age of widespread communication through internet connections, video technology can be leveraged to teach knowledge-based courses online and empower internet users in the earliest stages of their academic careers. By taking an alternative approach to the implementation of technology, modern educators can use the internet to improve the quality and distribution of education.

Now you may ask: Where could I possibly be going with all of this, especially if your aim is to create disruptive technology? Essentially, I feel that there is an abundance of opportunity to meet the needs of an interconnected population. Even among the established industries, there are opportunities for disruption that even the smartest computers could not identify. The next generation of the web will require future-focused disruptors with an entrepreneurial drive to build relevant and useful technology. By encouraging entrepreneurship through the sciences in high school and college, students will be more adept to take on the challenge of advancing the capabilities of technology.

Also published on HunSchool.TV. Edited by David Merfield.