For the past few months, people have been pestering the hell out of me about Twitter. “What do you mean you aren’t using Twitter?! Oh man, you’re really missing out!” Well, I finally had some time today to join Twitter and take a look at it. I was underwhelmed, to say the least. Aside from aesthetically looking like something a 12 year old cobbled up, the entire tool seems utterly pointless to me.

Am I getting old? Of course! But according to Pew Internet’s latest survey, I am considered an omnivore, or in the top 8% of digitally connected people in the country. You can try your luck here.

Do I really need to know what all of my friends and colleagues are doing at any given moment of the day? No.

Do I really need to know that 15 minutes ago, Jimmy heated up a bowl of Mac ‘n Cheese in the microwave? Or on a professional side, do I really give a **** if Sally is taking a break in the breakroom, or reading her emails, or “frustrated at the world?” Save for my young daughter, I have no desire to know what anyone is doing 24 hours a day.

Later in the day, I happened to be exchanging emails with a young entrepreneur who reached out to me for help (poor bastard.) His play was to create a “better Twitter.” I asked him what his revenue model was, what pain he was solving for customers, how he was going to differentiate himself from Twitter, and what his barriers to entry would be (both before and after.) His responses were hollow at best.

Here’s a novel idea. Unless your business idea solves a painpoint for someone, or otherwise introduces an efficiency into their lives or business, it is most likely a novelty. And while they may be easily bootstrapped, novelties are rarely venture-backable. Can Twitter turn into some huge ridiculous cash cow? Of course. Anything is possible. But possible does not equal probable. And while the original novelty may attain some degree of success, knock-offs of novelties have a much harder road.

My advice? If you really want to be a successful entrepreneur, stop worrying about creating mindless tools to keep track of everything your friends are doing, and start solving real problems. If you aren’t aware of any problems in the world that need solving, go work in any arbitrary industry for a year or two and take copious notes.

Cheers.

Rest in peace, Coach Eddie Robinson. What was even more impressive than your lifetime record of 408-165-15 at Grambling State University was your ability to turn a group of average athletes into a consistent, competitive force.

Here is a great team building story from 1944-45, when Coach Robinson coached at Grambling High School:

A daddy pulled my best running backs off our team and said they couldn’t play anymore because they had to pick cotton. So I got all the boys on the team, we packed up and went out there to pick the cotton, then went on to win the championship.

Cheers.

It is no secret that a good grasp of mathematics is an important asset for any businessperson. With the early stage entrepreneur, I think it is even more critical.

Researchers estimate that between 50 percent and 80 percent of U.S. adults, and probably a similar share of children, suffer from some form of math anxiety. That fear translates into subpar performance of children, experts say. Researchers ranked American students 24th out of 29 industrialized countries in math literacy. Nice.

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A bit of real-life humor this morning. An associate of mine recently sent me an email, referring to a meeting he had with a business planning consultant.

Enjoy this excerpt.

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A game of “tag” has been going on within the Blogosphere where the tagged person lists five things about themselves that are not generally known and then tags five more people to do the same. I have been “tagged” by fellow tech blogger Mike Shaffner, who runs the “Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms” blog (great name, Mike!).

I don’t normally post these sorts of things, as I make a serious effort to keep my writings of a purely professional nature (per my very first blog post). Nevertheless, I thought this might be a fun departure. I guess I’m in a weird anti-me mood today.

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On Wednesday, January 17th, 2007, I’ll be speaking at the monthly meeting of Team Ivy, a professional networking group for Atlanta alumni from the Ivies, seven sister schools, and other quality schools.

The title of the presentation will be “Building Atlanta’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.” In it, I’ll share some of my thoughts on how entrepreneurs and investors together can collectively build a better startup culture here in Georgia.

I believe the meeting is only open to Team Ivy members and associates, but I will be posting these same thoughts in a blog post here soon.

It should be a lot of fun, and I hope to see you there!

Cheers.

With the jolly fat man in red scheduled to visit tomorrow night, I have the holidays on my mind. We were listening to some holiday music today and this line from the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” caught my ear (note the line in bold):

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