Úll 2015

It doesn’t take much for me to experience conference burnout. That feeling where being removed from your family, work, and life can no longer be validated by the snippets of information that may make a difference along with the constant mental jockeying to hopefully make a connection to favorably impact your business or personal life. Conferences can be exhausting. Knowing where to be, trying to get to the “right” sessions and hoping you are gaining value. And no, I don’t attend conferences to party and escape as being a small business owner, funds are just too precious.

I’ve heard many times that a services company can not make great products and that a products company can never be great at providing services. I disagree.

We didn’t set out originally to be a services company. In fact, we started our company making our own product with a plan to make more of our own products. A true “Product” company. Given the constraints of our capabilities at the time, our first product was awesome. It was something that we were extremely proud of and it gave us for the first time that rush of creating something of your own…

Last month, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Úll Conference in Ireland. In short, the Úll Conference was the best conference I’ve ever attended.

What made the conference so great? Below are just a few of the reasons that left such a positive memory for me.

Ireland.
Yes, the conference is in Ireland and yes, that is partly what makes this event so special. After an all night flight, I caught a bus in Dublin for a two hour ride to Kilkenny to stay at the picturesque estate known as Lyrath. …

“Don’t you want to coach Will?”

I can still hear those words and remember taking a moment to think carefully before I responded. The truth was that I had always dreamed of coaching my own kid and the team he would be on, just not necessarily at this age.

“I love coaching Will. I’m just not sure I can handle coaching ten six and seven year olds.”

“Well… I signed us up, so I hope you’ll help out. It’ll be fun. Something we can do together.”

The main concern in my head was what could you actually teach a team…

Illusions are distortions of the senses, revealing how the brain interprets a sensory stimulation that is actually different from reality. “Erroneous intuitions” are typically related to illusions of attention, memory, confidence, knowledge, cause and potential. The Invisible Gorilla, an enlightening book by Chabris and Simons, really is a must read for anybody who wants to better understand some of the most common illusions our brains make. It made me stop for a bit and think about some of the things I’ve learned the past five years from running a software company as well as the decade before in being in…

This year my wife and I will have been married for 14 years and I can honestly say the most gut-wrenching moments of our time together has stemmed from the desire to have and raise children. You often read from the view of the wife about being in this situation. I felt like it was time to share from a husbands point of view.

My wife and I have always wanted a family. Four kids always seemed like the number that made sense. Nice and balanced… not to large (I came from a family of 9) and not too small…

We all go through the frustrations of hearing the word “No” in life and dealing with the rejections associated with them. Hopes and dreams seem dashed and mild forms of depression are tied to these moments. I wonder though how often do we stop and think about the good things that come out of these moments.

A no can change your heart.
I remember it was a few months after graduating from college and I had put in my first application to work as a designer/web developer for a small commercial shop near Virginia Beach. I had a few small sites…