I find this gem of an interview inspirational on several fronts.

First, for all the hype around Steve Jobs being a control freak, it’s clear that he understands the limits of his expertise. This is sometimes a difficult concept for anyone to get, but our beloved icon of technology and design knows how to gently take his ego out of the equation. It’s an astonishing Zen moment!

Second, it shows the self-confidence a designer must have to be able to do his best work. Even Paul Rand is asked to come up with a dessert tray of logo options for the client to take his pick from. But, as Steve Jobs describes, Paul Rand respectfully declines to work that way. Rather, he stands by his logo as the best business solution he can deliver.

If the client isn’t satisfied with his work, Paul Rand suggests they ask another designer for a different solution. He doesn’t “rework” his solution. That takes guts. And, as Steve Jobs notes, it also takes a real clarity about design as a business solution, rather than design as decoration.

It takes guts and clarity because clients are often highly influenced by their personal likes and dislikes. And, like all of us, they can be pretty attached to those preferences and aversions. If a designer tries to jerry-rig a logo within the parameters of personal color or design experiences, without the clarity of focusing on the goal of a business solution, the logo ends up being ineffectual. And nobody wins – not the client, and not the designer.

The risk of getting a patchwork logo increases if a designer brings the client into the creative decision-making process too early. By showing a range of sketches of possible design directions in an effort to give the client a sense of “choice,” the designer runs the risk of presenting logos that, at the end of the day, are not good business solutions. It might make clients feel good, but it really doesn’t serve their long-term business goals.

So, does this mean that clients shouldn’t participate in the logo design process? Absolutely not! Their customer insight and market knowledge hold the “secret sauce” for a successful logo.

The designer needs to tap into the client’s expertise early on, and the conversation needs to be an extensive deep dive. A superficial hour or two discussion with key decision makers isn’t sufficient. A good block of time, a half day at least, needs to be devoted to this mind meld. On top of hours of market and design research the designer does on his own.

So, with our next logo project, we’re going to do the very best we can to provide our single, best solution to the business problem, and then invest more time and resources in presenting this solution in a way that the client gets it. My sense is that in this way, everyone will win.

Step One: Figure out the one single most important message of your presentation. Figure out the point of your talk. Get that one message figured out, and then let that drive all your content. Willie Nelson famously sang, “you can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say.”  Well, if your talk doesn’t have one single overriding theme you’re trying to make, you’re probably not going to have sufficient focus to make an effective presentation.

Let’s say you’re a Doctor giving a talk to other colleagues at your hospital about a new medicine that’s come on the market. To make an effective presentation, you’ve got to take a stand on this medicine. You’ve got to say whether your colleagues should use it on patients, or not. Wishy-washy is not going to cut it. Just presenting a bunch of abstract data about the medicine will not make a good presentation. You’ve got to make a point, and build your talk around supporting that point.

If you’re doing a sales presentation, it seems like the point of the presentation would be obvious: to sell the product. But, having seen quite a few sales presentations over the years, I can tell you that not all of them succeed in making this point. But, you clearly want to make the point that you believe this is a good product to buy, and you will present information that supports that view.

Pick the one point you’re really trying to make. Stick to it, and drive all the content to re-inforce that point.

Step Two: Connect with your audience. Now, you’ve probably seen this advice before, and the obvious question is, “how do I connect with the audience. For God’s sake, how in the world do I do that?”  To connect with the audience is simple: look them right in the eye. Don’t get stuck staring at your notes all through your talk. Don’t stare at the ceiling, or the back of the auditorium, or at one person in the front row. All through your talk, you should look directly at each of the individuals in your audience, square in the face. Look at one person for a moment or two, then move on to another. You connect with people by looking them in the eye.

Step Three: Keep it moving! Move right along. It’s a big, big help if you can get out from behind the lectern, and actually walk in and among the audience. Walk around among the audience. If you’re on a stage, and can’t really get down to the audience, at least move around on the stage. Because, if you move around, the audience will naturally look to follow you, and this will help keep them attentive. And, if you are in and among them, it will be easier for you to make eye contact with them, and really connect.

Step Four: Keep it short. Shorter presentations are almost always more effective, and have more impact on the audience. Make your point, provide good solid support for it, maybe toss in a memorable anecdote, and then stop, and take questions. Let’s say you’ve been allotted 20 minutes. Your presentation should actually be 5 to 10 minutes, with the rest left for questions from the audience. Getting questions from the audience, that you respond to in a thoughtful way, will help you further connect with the audience. In fact, don’t try to cover every single solitary point about your topic in your talk. This will make your talk too long, and it will eliminate any questions at the end. Questions are engaging for you and your audience, so don’t try to avoid them.

Step Five: Have beautiful Powerpoint slides, and not too many of them. Don’t put too much text on the slides. If the audience can read your talk off the slides, they really don’t need you, do they? They won’t connect with you if they can just read things off the slides. And chances are, they can read faster than you talk, so if you have too much text, it will make your presence annoying. Have 4 or 5 words on a slide, maximum! The slides should just show the key highlights of what you are saying. The detailed content should be in what you say.

And get good slides, so people like looking at them. Get a good designer to make them for you, so they look really outstanding. This will create a great impression on the audience, and it will make your slides, and your presentation, memorable.

Follow these five steps, and you’ll be well on your way to improving your presentations!

Or phone 734-474-0551. We’d be happy to talk with you!

Or phone (734) 474-0551, for even faster service!

But there’s a catch. This very popularity of WordPress makes it an appealing target for hackers, spammers, bots, and other criminals of the Web demimonde. In short, WordPress can be vulnerable to security breaches. So it’s important, when installing and using a WordPress site, to follow some sensible procedures.

In order to understand some of the security issues with a WordPress site, it’s helpful to understand a bit about how one of these sites works. A WordPress site is built on a PHP/MySQL platform. PHP is a server-side scripting language, and MySQL is a database program. So, there are two sets of files which control what shows up on the WordPress site: the PHP files which control all the functionality and the visual appearance and styles, and the separate MySQL files, which hold all the content. Every single article, comment, image, blog post, or anything else that’s ever created for the WordPress site is stored in this MySQL database.

Because all the content for a WordPress site is stored in this database, it is vitally important that it be protected from attack, and backed up regularly to protect it against system and operator error.

Thankfully, backing up the database almost couldn’t be easier: there are plug-ins for that. Just follow the install and use directions for the plug-in you choose, and you should be all set in this department. Here are links to a couple of the more popular ones:

Bei Fen

DBC Backup

WP-DB-Backup

I use this last one, and it works smoothly and very conveniently: it emails me a complete backup of my database every week.

WordPress is open source code, and this can make it easier for malicious hackers to find vulnerabilities. Older versions of WordPress are much more vulnerable; also, if a hacker knows which version is running, he has a head start on cracking your site. So, always update your WordPress site to the latest version on offer. This is a simple procedure, and takes only a few minutes. (Of course, backup your database up before updating!) Also, don’t display the WordPress version number you’re running anywhere on your site! Many themes, by default, automatically display the WordPress version number, and you need to take a moment to go in to remove this code. The procedure is relatively simple: just open your theme’s header.php file. Look for code similar to this, and remove it:

<meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress <?php bloginfo(‘version’); ?>” />

That should help substantially.

Another common trouble spot is the username and password. If these are too simple, a bot can crack them in no time, and run crazy on your WordPress site. For instance, if you’re like most people, you’ve probably set up your WordPress site with yourself as the administrator, and you also write many of the articles. Thus, each article you post has your site administrator’s username right on it. And, if a bot knows the username, it’s halfway to cracking your site!

It’s best to set up an entirely separate administrator account, with an extremely obscure username, and a virtually impenetrable password. This provides the most protection against hackers. A good, strong username for the administrator account would probably look like complete gobbledygook, for instance, “pamtimIamowat.” Usernames that are obscure, but relatively easy to remember, can be generated by remembering a line from a song, and using the first letter of each word to form an anagram (“PamtimIamowat” comes from the first line of The Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil”). Also, use a strong, long password, as explained in this helpful article. Keeping the bots out of your administrator account is vital to WordPress security. Take a few minutes to harden this account!

These few, simple steps, will do an enormous amount to help with WordPress security. Keeping your version information secret, and your username and password obscure and difficult will help enormously, and eliminate the most common vulnerabilities. And, if you regularly and routinely backup your database, even if you are hacked, you can recover completely. But, of course, that’s a huge hassle that’s best avoided, and for further information on the subject, these articles are very helpful:

12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress

and

Hardening WordPress

Building bridges with Silicon Valley to support Michigan’s innovation-based companies was the theme of the 20-minute chat. Will post link when it’s available.

Helen Ross, Amanda Ross and Lucy Ann Lance after talking on The Business Insider's Tech Tuesday

Took the opportunity for an impromptu “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” Our daughter Helen is an entrepreneur herself, so introducing her to Lucy Ann was a real treat!

Some of you may know that Chuck Salley co-founded Ann Arbor’s IT Zone and helped start SPARK’s Entrepreneur Boot Camp.

Lunch at Tamarine. From left: Chuck Salley; Jason Bordainick, non-Michigan auction winner & CEO Off Campus Partners; Scott Hanson; Amanda Ross; Peter Scott; Tim Draper; Mahendra Ramsinghani.

Conversation started off casually about Draper’s daughter Jesse and her hilarious — and informative — web show Valley Girl, and moved to a slightly more serious topic:  the moral and political implications of DFJ investing in Weed.com, an online medical marijuana finder. Draper is crazy about the founder, but isn’t sure that’s sufficient in this case. He’s still mulling this one over.

Each CEO had a chance to present his company, and Draper pressed for details about differentiation from competitors, especially when talking with Peter Scott about Current Motor’s EV motorcycles and scooters. Draper seems to have ridden on or driven every electric vehicle ever manufactured — and loved every second of it! Something tells me he’s a Kinesthetic Learner.  His investing mantra, though, was pretty straight forward: What do your investors get out of it?  Starting up may be what drives the entrepreneur, but exiting is what gets a VC up early every morning.

At the end of the meal, Draper discreetly asked Scott Hanson, CEO of Ambiq Micro, outside for a private chat. Scott came back all smiles, but his lips were sealed…. What was that all about??

Fortunately, as his driver for the day, I was privy to the breaking news: Hanson’s company, Ambiq Micro, won the DFJ – Cisco Global Business Plan Competition that he had presented at just the day before! Top secret stuff, as Fox News and The New York Times had exclusives.

Right after our lunch we had a meeting with business attorney Roger Royse (more in the next entry), during which I’m proud to say I didn’t spill the beans. When that wrapped up, I whisked Scott over to DFJ headquarters on Sandhill Road for his photo op with the trophy and check for $250,000. The next morning, Scott was up early for an interview on Fox Business.

Tim Draper and Scott Hanson holding the check for $250,000 investment in Ambiq Micro

Our Michigan Mission was off to a good start!

Royse was able to suggest some Bay Area funding sources for the two cleantech companies on our team — Current Motor Company and NextCAT — as well as give us the names of other Bay Area organizations that have “open mic” nights for companies looking for investment partners, both VC and Angel, for future visits.

Chuck did a great job representing Michigan at the VC Taskforce event. His experience coaching at SPARK’s Entrepreneur Boot Camp really showed. Clear, concise and convincing! Each of the VCs on the panel understood NextCAT’s value proposition immediately.

Chuck Salley discussing his company with Andrew Chung, principal Lightspeed Venture Partners

All were impressed with the depth of Chuck’s understanding of the biofuel economic landscape, and were actively discussing the company during post-presentation networking.

Another highlight: Peter Scott, CEO of Current Motor Company, and Shannon Wentworth, CMC’s VP of Marketing, are preparing to present at an upcoming VC Taskforce Angel Pitch night they learned about at the event. We wish them luck!

Lunch at San Francisco home of John Hummer. From left, front: Mahendra Ramsinghani; Peter Scott; Yuliya Singo, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year; Frank Caufield; Amanda Ross; Chuck Salley; Back row: John Hummer; Scott Hanson.

What struck me most about the conversation was how the power of luck and persistence in the face of challenge showed itself in the business careers of both John Hummer and Frank Caufield. Hummer’s story was particularly dramatic.

John Hummer shared with us that when he left professional basketball in 1980, it wasn’t of his own choosing. An injury forced an end to his sports career years before it could run its natural course. After some soul searching, he went to Stanford Business School and earned his MBA. You’d think it would be pretty easy for him to land the position of his dreams, but it wasn’t.

He interviewed at five venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and was politely turned down at each. No one wanted an English major — even one from Princeton with an MBA from Stanford! He went back to the east coast, despairing of creating the life he wanted.

Then the phone rang. The secretary at one of the firms he had interviewed had given his number to someone looking for a Junior Partner at a different VC firm. Not exactly his dream job. And to be honest, at 7 feet tall, it’s hard to imagine John Hummer “junior” anything.  So, he turned it down. Then he changed his mind, called back and took the offer. He learned what he could, and five years later, he moved on. Or tried to…

Again he went out knocking on doors to get into a larger VC firm. Again no one let him in. Even with five year’s experience! So, like all good entrepreneurs, he hired himself. He had a great partner, Ann Winblad, but it was hell raising their first fund.

The result? There were 18 companies in Hummer’s Year One portfolio. Seventeen made money. That’s an unheard of track record in venture investing! Hummer Winblad has continued their strong returns by focusing on what they know and are passionate about — software. They look almost exclusively for disruptive software companies. Incremental isn’t one of Hummer Winblad’s buckets.

When they started their firm, hardware was the rage. Intel and Motorola were the big companies. By investing in software exclusively Hummer Winblad itself was disruptive.

I’ve always imagined the venture business as being closer to the banking world than to the start up world.  But ‘disruptive’ usually describes the technology of a successful startup. Moreover, although it doesn’t get talked about very often, a venture capitalist carries the burden of raising a fund, not unlike the search for investors that occupies a great deal of time for a CEO of an early stage company.  It seems to me that John’s challenges and resilience fit an entrepreneur’s profile more than that of a banker.

When the lunch was over and the Michigan group was outside getting in our cars, there was just such an energy! Everyone was laughing and smiling, actually kind of amazed at what we’d just experienced.  More like we’d met a kindred spirit, than a Valley legend.