Christian Renaud's Blog

My Very First-est Editorial Submission

Tej and I submitted this to the Register just now re: SOPA/PIPA.  What a horribly misguided piece of proposed legislation.....

"Our elected leaders are always promising to put Americans back to work and create jobs.  However, Congress is now considering legislation that would stifle innovation and impede expansion of the economy. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate promise to have irreversible effects on the ability of tech startups to grow and expand.
 
In addition to giving the government unprecedented new powers, this legislation would create a new “private right of action,” allowing trial lawyers to file baseless suits against web-based companies.  Because of the lack of due process under this legislation, a website can be effectively removed from the internet, allowing online trolls or unscrupulous competitors to make a site go dark without even being notified.

Imagine a tiny startup company, chasing a great idea and operating with two people in a garage (or a shared workspace like ours). That company can’t afford a lawyer to defend against even one of those lawsuits.  In fact, in the regulatory environment created under this legislation, that company probably wouldn’t even exist in the first place. Who would invest, knowing most of the money would go to legal fees rather than improving the product?

Each one of the big tech companies like Google and Facebook started small, and needed that crucial seed capital.  Will the next Twitter never exist under SOPA and PIPA? Could the next Groupon have been based on Des Moines’ “Silicon Sixth?”

We cannot afford to have Iowa-based tech companies stopped in their tracks by Washington politicians. Please join me in calling on Senator Grassley, Congressman King, and Congressman Latham to vote no on this harmful legislation."

Are Iowans Risk Averse?

Tomorrow morning, I have the opportunity to be one of the panelists for the Des Moines Business Record's Power Breakfast series.  The topic of this month's breakfast is "Are Iowans Risk Averse?" 

When I mention this to peers and other colleagues, they all laugh and say "This will be a short talk, just say 'Yes', get up and walk out."  

If you would have asked me a month ago when the Business Publications team approached me to participate on the panel, that would have been my exact response, and my attitude and feedback was negative-bordering-on-sociopathy at our prep-meeting two weeks ago.  I have so much pent up frustration surrounding the rate of change in the Des Moines Metro (MSA), as well as the rest of the State, that it's easy for me to slip into anger and hostility about all the things we aren't doing.

But are Iowans really risk averse?  No.

"What do you do again?"

This is an attempt at proactively answering a question I hear frequently from new business contacts, as well as friends, and even immediate family.  I may just permalink this on my business card and email signature to make things easier, given all the balls I have in the air at any point.

First and foremost, I've really been enjoying the slow(er)-time during development of my two startups to spend time with my beautiful wife, perfect daughters, furry felines, and our new dog Hank.  That has fed the soul in so many ways that were so overdue after working 100+ hour weeks for the last 20+ years.

Second, yes, I have two startups.  The first is one that I have disclosed previously, The Athena Project. The short version is that Athena is about applied knowledge in the form of an educational massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) for school children.  I've been working on this one off/on for over a decade and I believe that we've reached an inflection point between gaming technology and outright hostility towards conventional teaching modalities that it may at last have fertile ground to grow. 

The second startup I have to still be a little guarded about as it's awaiting some final legal approvals, but it's in my old arena of collaboration technology.  I think this one is going to be a game changer and it's consuming the lion's share of my time.  The 'teaser' webpage is here.

When I'm not working on those two offspring, one of my own offspring started her own company this summer named Stork.ly, which is a baby-supply delivery service for new parents.  It's all her, with our logistical (read: "Transportation and angel funding") support, and it's been a great applied educational experience for her.

In the 'old habits die hard' category, I am evidently also regressing to my Cisco days of Technology Center with the plans behind StartupCity Des Moines, a technology startup incubator.  Tej Dhawan and I have been working on this for nine months and we are getting close to launching it in a physical location downtown soon.  Tej and I probably spend a good 20-25 hours a week mentoring startups without the benefit of a fixed physical location, so we're looking forward to getting many of these startups together with one another for their natural synergies.

Finally, I am on the boards of directors of two non-profit organizations, the Technology Association of Iowa, as well as the Des Moines Social Club.  Recently I was able to step back from my old role on the board of Des Moines Metro Opera, as it was time to clear the path for fresh blood and ideas.

There are also a million other things that I am actively working on, as usual, but that's about as current a 'status update' as I can capture for the balls that I am juggling.

Shoot self in foot, quickly reload, shoot other foot

By now many of you have read that my old alma mater, Cisco, has laid off more than 4,000 employees and is shedding businesses right and left in an effort to assuage investors.

This is a mistake.

Don't get me wrong, I can think of about 5,000 people off the top of my head who need the axe at Cisco, but those aren't the ones being axed.  They are the ones doing the axe-ing.  And please don't misinterpret this as 'I hate executives', as there are good and bad executives just as there are good and bad marketeers, salespeople  and engineers. 

The mistake is that they are repeating their error of the dot-com crash of 2001 and contracting when they should be expanding. They are cutting down the new growth areas in their infancy, thereby hobbling their future growth potential and damaging themselves more in the long term.  They are retreating to a conservative posture of their core, cash-cow, mature (read: Geriatric) businesses that have no rapid growth potential.  They had market dominance and cash on hand during the last downturn, and could have purchased key technologies and companies until the DOJ red carded them for a market monopoly.

This is the bigger problem.  Investors want consistent quarterly results and linearity in a non-linear market.  This gives no latitude for executives who need to rapidly innovate, as rapid innovation introduces large upswings or downswings depending on success.  Investors hate swings, but they are an inevitable byproduct of market maturity.  They want a clear, linear path to RoI.  That's the Indy 500, driving  circles consistently over and over.  Unfortunately, Innovation is the Rubicon, off road and harsh.

Innovation Occlusion

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to work in cardiovascular research and development.  Among the many projects I worked on, one was a coronary-artery bypass graft for situations when an individual's primary coronary arteries would become occluded, or plugged, with plaque.  This is called vascular occlusion, and will kill you if not caught early.

We have innovation occlusion in this country, and we did it to ourselves.

Here are two examples from last week alone:

First: The United States House of Representatives passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, now in front of the Senate and headed quickly to the willing signature of the President.  For those of you not monitoring it, the Act changes the current patent approval system from 'first to invent' to 'first to file'

Rant

(Those of you who are still forming opinions of me should probably skip this post)

Over breakfast this morning, my eldest daughter and I were speaking about her recent biography presentation on Beethoven for school. In passing, she said that her teacher had stated unequivocally that Wikipedia was an unacceptable source "because anyone can get on to Wikipedia and just make stuff up."  I talked myself into a knot trying to explain the difference between learning and formal education, and the difference between doing an assignment for school to learn the material, versus pandering to the instructors biases/beliefs for a grade objective.

Never mind the countless studies that prove the increasing viability and equivalency of Wikipedia as a source, or (more often) a source of sources.  The teacher was saying that his opinion was fact, and that Wikipedia should be (wholesale) disregarded as a source. I am not a Wikipedia-lover, nor hater, but the bias-as-fact statement was what I took issue with.

I would have let it go, and just deprogrammed her at breakfast and thought no more of it, but I made the mistake of asking her what site he recommended she use instead of Wikipedia as a source.

It is an individual, faith-based, learning site that also had a small area for biographies of some famous people. The biography was sandwiched in-between all sorts of rhetoric about the religious beliefs of the site author.

For the record, I have no problem with people of faith, or people being proud of their faith in public.  I do take issue with the not-even-remotely-subtle direction of my children to a particular faith-based site by their schoolteacher in a secular setting. My children could be of a different faith, or no faith, and this could confuse them at this early age.

Given the nearly-infinite quantity of primary sources other than Wikipedia, why choose this one above all others?

I am now presented with two choices:

1) Discuss my issues with the teacher, potentially raise their ire and defense mechanisms, and potentially see my child suffer indirectly as a result, or

2) Make sure that my eldest, now that she is learning Algebra, comes in with some equally faith-based sites from the Middle East (the birthplace of Algebra, ancient Babylon) to support her homework.  This will point out by demonstration the bias inherent in their Beethoven-biography reference-site selection.

Or am I overreacting?

Palisade Systems- Denouement

Today I announced to the team at Palisade Systems that I was stepping down as CEO and Chairman of the Board.  I've had a number of conversations over the last months with the Board of Directors of Palisade on the direction the company should take and the strategy to get there.  Ultimately,  leadership in any company works for the Board, and the Board is the elected group representing the investors. It is not uncommon for the Board and the operational leadership to differ in direction, which is exactly the situation here.  My direction and strategy and the Board's opinion ultimately differ, so the best course of action for the company and investors is to step aside and allow them to put in a leader that will be able to execute on their vision. I will be helping in the transition to the new leadership to ensure continuity.

I very much enjoyed the time I spent at Palisade Systems and am proud to have been part of the history of the great company that it is.  I am confident that the company will ultimately be even more successful in the future.

I've already been asked repeatedly where I am going from here, professionally.  The honest answer right now is 'I haven't decided yet'.  I'm going to take as much time as necessary to get some perspective and then decide on my next chapter.  I'll be sure to post something when I have decided.

"You crazy kids and your (fill in blank)!"

"Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is."

I have been thinking about this quote quite a bit recently after receiving two emails from local colleagues asking me for my opinion of Scott Kubie's recent blogpost for BitMethod, How to Write a Fucking Blogpost.  The two colleagues were offended by the blue nature of the language used in his post, and they commented that they thought it was unprofessional and immature.  I personally found the post amusing and the points well made (Disclaimer- I am profane in extremis), but can understand where others will let his style and language distract from the substance of his post.

I regularly read BitMethod's blog, and they don't shy away from controversy.  This will be an interesting case for their team, who regularly interact across the broad spectrum of Des Moines' business ecosystem. They will receive support from some of their colleagues, and controversy and criticism from others depending on the individuals and their own personal values.

During my TEDxDesMoines talk about the Workplace in 2020, I spoke about potential generational and value conflicts like this as the composition of the workforce frequently spans forty years or more.  We touched on this again at the recent Ignite Des Moines Power Breakfast when I spoke about the culture clashes that will occur as a result of the activities of risk-taking entrepreneurial mavericks and those who represent the entrenched business community they will disrupt.  As I spoke briefly at the breakfast about the need to develop Des Moines' entrepreneurial ecosystem and encourage more risk taking, there were a few people nodding and leaning forward in agreement, however there were many more leaning back with arms-crossed for whom the topic of my presentation was anathema.

I want to be clear in stating that this is about individuals, and not generations.  This is not as simple as age or gender, but based on the individual's values and culture. And I am not saying profanity-tolerance and risk-taking and entrepreneurial zest are all facets of the same personality or value system.  They are individual and nuanced like all human emotions and values.

For example, I myself recently received an note from a local colleague who thought I posted the wrong graphic on my Tumblr, as he considered it pornographic.  If you guessed that this was from someone my father's age, you would have guessed wrong......it was a gentleman nearly twenty years my junior.  He and I, like BitMethod and those that will disagree with Scott's post, will need to work through these cultural and values differences and not let them get in the way of getting work done.

As for the quote at the top of this blogpost, it's a clear indicator that this bemoaning of current conditions and values is not remotely new.  The source of the quote was Gaius Valerius Catullus, somewhere between 84BC and 54BC.

Oh yeah, I have a blog.....

Since this blog is the top thing that arrives on a Google search for my name, it probably bears updating more than every six months or so, as has been my habit of late.

Apologies for the disappearing act for those hardy souls that were/are regular readers of my blog.  For those of you who follow me on twitter (xianrenaud), you already know that the role of CEO of Palisade Systems is time-demanding at a level that I hadn't experienced since the late 1990s at Cisco during the dot.bomb days.  That, combined with my ever-present extra-curricular activities (I never met a board of directors that I didn't join, it seems) keeps my schedule very, very full.

That said, I am rehabituating the blog muscle to some exercise.  Expect more frequent postings in the near future.

TEDxDesMoines- Come on Down!

[sound of Christian blowing the dust off of his blog]

The team at Foundry Coworking have kicked off Des Moines' own TEDx conference, listed here.

I'll be speaking mid-day there this Sunday about the workforce, and workplace, of 2020 and what we can expect to see.  For those of you who have been in prior presentations of mine at NDU or at the ISU ETC conference, this is one area you will remember I am passionate about and now have an opportunity to double-click on this specific aspect of the workplace/workspace transition that is underway.

I hope to see you there!