As I started planning this post, I read over my notes from the last day of the expo, expecting to write a similar summary to the one I wrote on day 2. But I started boring myself, and I don’t do bored. Instead I decided to take a step back and look at Web2Expo from a more generalized position, forget the specifics. If you want to see the keynotes check out http://web2expo.blip.tv/.

So what did I notice when I took a step back? I noticed a massive progression towards exactly the type of localization of web communities and software that I wrote about in my post “When Bigger Isn’t Better“. Anyone who walked the floor of Web2Expo was overwhelmed with salesmen pitching their platform as a service model. At first all I could think was market dilution but then it hit me. With the growth in numbers of platforms for cloud software, comes massive if not exponential growth of the communities and applications that can be developed and deployed. The more communities and the more applications we see on these platforms, the more localized and niche-specific all of these applications become.

I made the prediction in previous posts that as the internet revolutionizes itself for what some are already deeming “Web 3.0″, we will see an influx of personalized applications tailored for more and more specific needs of the customer. The days of gargantuan all-encompassing web communities and applications are over, and I couldn’t help but feel this was the theme of Web2Expo.

Booth after booth that I visited on the show room displayed how their product met the specific needs of a specific client, and they were never shy on displaying their minute differences from the booth 5 feet down the isle. The sponsored sessions I sat in on constantly brought up concepts like bootstrapping, failing cheap, finding your niche, and simplifying your business model. All of these concepts lead to smaller more specific applications that are able to meet the needs of a customer far more efficiently than previous all-encompassing applications.

The web 3.0 wave if you will, is just gathering its force, and I cannot wait to see its crest. Expect higher quality more useful and efficient software than we have ever seen before. Now the question is, who will surf the wave and who will get lost to the undertow.

The Devnuts team invaded Web2Expo in NYC yesterday. We got a chance to meet a lot of cool people and see a ton of really cool products. We registered for the “Expo Hall Only” pass, aka the free one, which we were reminded of quite harshly as we tried to enter a conference by 37 signals that was outside our track.

After our rejection we headed down to the “Sponsored Sessions”. The sponsored sessions are conferences offered by various sponsoring companies open to anyone. When I first read about the sessions I figured they would just be bloated advertisements disguised as conferences with free giveaways. Boy was I wrong. We’ve been able to catch 2 sponsored sessions thus far and I was overwhelmed with the amount of great ideas and information we’ve received.

Seven Habbits of a Successful SaaS company

The first session we attended yesterday morning was Seven Habbits of a Succesful SaaS company hosted by Mark Trang and Kirk Krappe. Mark is with Sales Force and Kirk with Apttus. They both have a ton of experience in traditional software development so hearing their perspective on the switch to software as a service and everything related was very fulfilling.

Their talk covered topics such as developing your software as a service business model, customer success (customer satisfaction), customer retention, and growth. I have requested the slide show from Mark and I will share it when I get my hands on it.

Measuring ROI around Web 2.0

The second talk we heard this morning was Measuring ROI around Web 2.0. This was the session I was really looking forward to hearing because I’ve always tended to have my hands more in the business side of our operations than the development side, and the idea of accurately valuating our communities and applications is baffling to me. The talk was held by Dave Carter of Awareness Networks. Dave was really accurate and detailed with his concepts and lessons so I learned a ton. I plan on writing a followup post on this topic so I’ll be brief with my summary. Dave covered a variety of topics including Measurement Tactics for your web 2.0 company, knowledge management, and acting on the data you collect.

Overall the conference was extremely educational. His points were backed by years of experience and painted with real life examples. Check back for more on what he spoke about shortly.

The Expo Hall

Entrance to the Expo Hall

After spending the morning attending the sponsored sessions we hit the Expo Floor. The expo floor is full of a ton of booths showcasing everything from new development platforms, social communities, collaboration applications, to Microsoft Surface and O’Reilly reading materials.

Platform as a Service seems to be the running theme, talk about a bloated market… more than half of the booths here must be showing off their new platform. One company in particular caught my eye, http://www.octopz.com/. I got a chance to interview the guy running the booth, I’ll post the video as soon as I get a chance to edit through it.

The Mobile Business Expo is also being held here in the Javits Convention Center, which is really cool because we’ve got to see a ton of cool mobile technology. I even got a chance to play with the BlackBerry Bold and the new BlackBerry flip phone. Can you say AJAX Enabled mobile-browsing??

Ajax Enabled Mobile Browsing!

The Keynotes

Well we accidentally overslept the Keynotes today, oops. So no update on Thursday’s keynotes, but yesterday we got a chance to sit in on the keynote and it was a great time. We got there a bit late and missed the history of New York’s web industry. In all honestly we were really only looking forward to hearing Jason Fried from 37 Signals speak.

We arrived just in time for Deborah Schultz’s keynote on the “Death of the Grand Gesture”. Her speech was long and drawn out, and it took her forever to get to the point, which was very evidently turning the people around me off. But once she got to her point I was very intrigued, her concept was very interesting. The concept is that from a marketing standpoint the “Grand Gesture” has become a tool most often used ineffectively. Too often businesses use the grand gesture of something like SuperBowl Ads but forget the ongoing small personal efforts required to maintain customer base. She made it clear that one gets lost without the other, and one without the other is ineffective.

Deborah Schultz during the Keynotes

Once Deborah finished Jason Fried made an “interesting” appearance. You had to be there to understand, but don’t worry you didn’t miss much, just an F bomb or too. Jason’s theme for his keynote was “saying no to the customer”. He stated, “Your product isn’t good because it has everything, you need to learn to say no, be a curator, keep things simple”. He went on about how you need to curate your piece of software and keep specific regulation on the growth of your software to avoid becoming bloated or losing your specialty.

He also suggested that you attach cost to as many things within your company as possible. Costs beyond just monetary such as time and things that aren’t getting done. So when your employee comes to you and says “We gotta have text message alerts”, assign a value to that task. How much time is it going to take, what aren’t you going to be working on because you’re working on the alerts, and how much is it going to cost? Assigning these values allows you to prioritize more efficiently. This is something we at Devnuts have been implementing at every corner. It is really a great tool for properly organizing your efforts.

After Jason finished I bounced out of the keynotes early, but as I went to leave the conference hall I made eye contact with a familiar face. A tall slender, almost celebrity like appearance with a face I knew I recognized. After a second’s glance I realized it was Jay Adelson. He was just chilling in the back of the hall watching the keynotes like any of us. Its odd to me how I know he’s just another nerd just like me and yet I can’t help but look at him as a celebrity. Regardless I thought it was pretty cool that I got to see him in person.

Ok back to the expo floor for a bit, I’ll have another update shortly.

In the past year I have undergone a massive lifestyle change from the immature habits developed over 4 years of high school to a much more stable and healthy lifestyle. At the center of this change is my physical health. This past January I decided I wasn’t gonna fall into the abyss of averageness in America by continuing my unhealthy living habits. I decided I want to live long, as long as i possibly can. 52 pounds less fat and 8% less bodyfat and I realized I couldn’t have made a more important decision for myself.

What began as a quest for physical fitness has led me to the most productive, content position of my entire life. Let me begin by giving you a brief rundown of what led me to my decision. Throughout high school I played a lot of sports, and trained for college soccer since middle school. My athleticism covered up my unhealthy living decisions so it was hard for me to see the consequences of my decisions. It was not until my sophomore year of college that the consequences caught up.

I played 1 year of division 1 soccer after high school and then left the team to follow by passion for entrepreneurship. During that year of training in a D1 environment I learned more about fitness and healthy eating than I could have ever imagined, but when I left the team I was left with a wealth of knowledge and a lack of ambition and commitment to use that knowledge. It took 5 months of doing nothing and putting on weight to realize I needed a change.

From March 08 to August 08
210lbs and 18% body fat to 165lbs and 10% body fat

Eating

The first change I made was the way I was eating. This may be the hardest change for most people, but for whatever reason I found the change easy. After a period of meditation on the types of food I was actually putting in my body the change seemed mandatory. The thought of all the chemicals and unnatural concoctions I had been ingesting disgusted me. It was very easy for me to replace the bag of chips with a bowl of fruit, the eggos and pancakes for granola, yogurt, and fruit, the pizza and french fries for a steak, whole grain rice, and grilled veggies. I understand that this shift might not be so easy for most people, but give it a try for a week or two and just try and tell me you don’t feel wonders better.

1. Eat as natural as possible. Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup and any ingredients you can barely read/pronounce. The closer to the ground your food, the better. Stick to fruits, veggies, and organic meats as much as possible.

2. Limit the size of your portions by increasing the number of portions. I keep hearing that this is very difficult for most people, but if you can try to increase the number of portions you eat throughout the day in exchange for the portion size. 6 small meals throughout the day is far better for your metabolism than 3 large meals. Think of your metabolism like a fire, you need to keep feeding it small portions, if you give it to big a portion it’ll go out.

3. Try to maintain a protein:carb ratio of 3 or 4:1. I stick to about 160 grams of protein and 60 grams of carb per day.

4. CHEAT! Give yourself weekends off at the beginning of your diet. Move to 1 day a week off as soon as you can. When I say off I mean off, eat whatever you want and however much you want. Sunday is my off day, and you’ll see me grabbing every Snickers ice cream bar, ChocoTaco, and bag of Doritos I can find. By the end of the day I’m disgusted and for the rest of the week I can’t even think about junk food. (I’ve heard rumors that it is good training for your metabolism as well.)

Fitness

Fitness came considerably easy for me because previous to my weight-gain I had always been active and athletic. My “muscle memory” let me get back into workouts and training techniques that may not work for someone else in a similar position, so I’ll avoid the specifics of my workouts for now. The important part is that I did SOMETHING. My first few weeks of working out were simple 3 day-a-week workouts in the gym. Nothing too intense, nothing that I dreaded going to, just enough to get me back into the mindset of being in shape.

The crucial element to all of my workouts is the Core Workout. I first learned about proper core development tactics while training in college soccer when a trainer introduced me to “Core Performance“.

Core Performance is a must-have for ANYONE interested in being more fit and/or healthy. A strong core is what distinguishes a good athlete from a phenomenal athlete. A strong core will help you to overcome aches and pains caused by muscle compensation such as back pains from sitting at a desk or in a car all day.

1. DO SOMETHING. Find something active that you can actually enjoy and do it often, beit running, jogging, walking, or playing a sport.

2. Get yourself to a level where you can increase your fitness level. Once you are at a point where true training isn’t so bad, its easy to get yourself fit.

3. Embrace CORE Fitness. Core training will make life better. Visit www.coreperformance.com for more information.

What is your goal?

Do you wish to simply be healthier and live longer? Do you wish to be more athletic? Do you wish to compete in an athletic event? Do you want to lose weight and/or build muscle?

The answer to these questions will each take you down a unique road to change, but the core values will remain consistent throughout.

- Fitness is a lifestyle decision, not a temporary solution
- Healthy eating is a lifestyle decision, not a temporary solution
- A lot of wrong fitness training is worse than very little correct fitness training
- Maintaining a healthy lifestyle does not require a lot of time
- Healthy living is not limited to physical fitness or eating habbit, healthy living is just as much about mental health as it is physical health, though often physical health brings with it a healthy mind

I know this post is a bit jumbled, and may not be the most useful, but its a start. I plan on continuing to write about my fitness and lifestyle lessons so stay tuned for more.