I love music.  You may not like their style, but one of my favorite bands is Dave Matthews Band.  I’ve been to quite a few shows in the last 5 years, 21 shows to be exact… yep I know that’s a little nuts but this band has it down… 21 shows is nothing in this community.  Most veterans have been to over 100 shows.

I think the thing I like most about the band is the improvisation, and the mix of real, unique talent .. and seeing it all come together as one sound.

Forming the Band, Forming the Startup

Launching a startup is just like being in a band.  Most people go at their big ideas with close friends of theirs, and most bands are formed around close friends.  You might have the skill of being a great programmer, and your friend might be a guy who is obsessed with numbers. Dave likes to write songs, Carter is one of the most talented drummers alive.  Everyone brings a trade and a tangible skill to the table.

The Songwriter & Visionary

Bands need leaders, and startups need leaders.  Leaders need to be humble, open, and enthusiastic… among other really important things. Sometimes band members, or team members, can’t maintain the vision when times get rough.  People forget the vision… the reason they started making music in the first place. It’s the leader’s job to keep everyone aligned and moving forward.  But at the same time, everyone on the team is a leader in his or her own way.  It’s important to be always giving up the reigns and letting things happen.

Synergy & Improvisation

I’d like to leave you with a snippet from a show in 2008 – one of my favorite jams from DMB of all time.  It’s from a song called Crush, and in it a few of the band members go back and forth to create a really emotional piece of music.  Keep in mind that everything they do is improvisation - one band member working and feeding off another.  It’s not rehearsed down to specific notes or decided in advance.

I like to think that startups get work done and make progress in the same way this band is jamming away.  There’s so much excitement, emotion, and passion for music, here.  The same thing can be achieved in a startup.

This jam starts with Rawshawn Ross (trumpet), then Leroi Moore (sax) and Tim Reynolds (electric) duke it out… with some Carter drum soloing in there as well.

If you can’t get this to play you can download the mp3 here: http://www.propellingsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/dmbcrush.mp3

Note: this is a legal bootleg from the show, so the quality isn’t that great.  I’ll post the legit version on here when I find it on Grooveshark!

It’s sweet.  But until Foxmarks (now XMarks) supports Chrome… I’ll never switch.  I use more than one computer… and I need my bookmarks to sync.  I also like to sync my passwords.

XMarks – please support Google Chrome!

I’m finding that the most successful people in life have one big thing: passion.  You can be a painter, a web developer, a musicion or a farmer.  The bottom line is that if you are not passionate about your cause then you are not going to be successful.

Steve Keen is passionate about spreading art.  He thinks that everyday people are just as entitled to enjoying art as millionares.  I admire Steve Keene’e worth ethic.  He works long shifts.  He must love it.  He listens to the radio and listens to music and gets to do what he loves to do: paint.

Please take 15 minutes now to watch one of the most inspriring and artistic videos on the web.  Trust me, it’s worth your time.

That’s all.  Go Steve.

-Alex

Over 36,000 Sold (1998) from Brett Vapnek on Vimeo.

I’ve tried about 10 times to start a blog.  Each time I always run out of time to work on it, I get way to many spam messages… ehh whatever.

Now I’m going to do it.  This blog is mainly going to be about Flex, Flash, amf-php, and the web.  I’m also going to talk about entreprenuership, (dealing with) people, and whatever else is on my mind.

Here’s what’s on the table for my first two blog posts:

1.  amf-php authentication sample application

I told some people in the amf-php community that I’d post my sample application online.  That was July.  Well now I’m really going to do it!  Coming by Friday 11/28/08.

2.  using svn to auto-publish to your dev server, and backup your database…

This is a neat trick we use in-house to manage multiple-team-member web projects.  This trick is thanks to Tom Petr at Schedr (www.schedr.com).  I’ll do this in January.