David Beach's Blog

XOXO Festival - Notes From Day One

This is what I wrote in my notebook yesterday... Some of it only makes sense to me. 

XOXO DAY ONE

Studio Neat - Dan Provost & Tom Gerhardt

Glyph 

Cosmonaut

A cool looking animation app

Book about design.

Scratch your own itch - if you have a problem, someone else probably has it too.

Simplicity as a business goal.

Being tiny keeps things agile.

Focus ---> Profides time to focus on details

** Sell your own stuff

"1,000 true fans" - principle that says this is all you need to do well.

A fan is someone who can consistently relied upon to buy.

Directcness - Direct connection between makers and fans

** You can't please everyone.

CONSTRAINTS ARE LIBERATING

(find this quote about filmaking by Stanley Kubrick) - basically it's about Learning by doing.

Atoms are the new bits! - 3D printing

Keep core in house - outsource the rest. Meaning in house is your vision, your product, your code, your design. Outsource all the other crap.

MAKE IT IN AMERICA

Patents are over rated! (for us) = small company. Patents are a bet.

Retail is not necessary. - Warby Parker Glasses, Zappos, Dollar Shave Club

Tell a story. Show how the sausage gets made. This connects you with your customers and vice versa.

Instapaper dude - Personification. Connected to a human.

Prices are whole numbers. $20 not $19.99

** Opt in, not opt out - This is about trust and trying not to fool your customers. 

Under promise and over deliver

Deadlines are not a feature

The Gruber Effect. John Gruber - Daring Fireball

PASSION SHOUL BE THE MAIN MOTIVATOR

Teux Deux app

Work on something you are passionate about. 

R. Stevens

People seem to hate PayPal. 

IT Crowd Shirt

Sock it To me. 

ebook of 3,000 comics

Indie Game - The Movie

Steam, DVD, VHX, iTunes

- This talk was great, but then I started day dreaming about making a documentary about the music industry and where it is today and wher it is going. There seems to be a lot of confusion and insanity about how to survive as an independent musician or band or songwriter. 

World Of Goo

"Specialized Tool" (title of job for someone that works for a large company)

The story behind the product... this comes up again. People like to feel connected to your product and how its made. It's more real.

Indie Fund

Bre Pettis / MakerBot

I love this guy. 

"Let's help eachother"

Julia Nunes

YouTube didn't like her nose ring. (a statement on the comments on her videos)

Racord Label = "Just me and my mom."

(had a thought about using Etsy to sell Quagmire product (music and merch)

MetaFilter

Matt Haughey

1. Failure is the greatest teacher

"Pivot" (hates the word)

2. Money is the least interesting problem.

A money first mentality or strategy is not good. Money gets in the way.

(Find the post by Tim O'Reilly about "Stuff That Matters")

3. Success is fleeting. 

Don't rest on your laurels.

Keynote - Dan Harmon

What's a keynote address?

TV is dying.

Internet and connecting. Connect to people. 

Subtle masterbation joke.

Money ruins everything

Keep finding new ways to connect

Follow your bliss - Then keep following it.

You can find an audience by "staying put" (lost in a mall analogy)

Keep yelling or waving your hands in place until people find you.

 

--

Later at the screening of Heat Vision and Jack, Dan spoke about how to pitch a TV show to a network. But this applies to anything you're pitching. Talk about the thing that you are pitching like you are telling someone about your favorite TV show. What is so great about it, why do you love it? Show your enthusiasm. Show your passion. - This resonated with me. Often times I play down the idea or concept that I'm pitching out of insecurity. 

Donations Made "Stupid Easy" & Social with PoundDonate

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I have a bit of a commute and it always helps to put one on to make the drive more tolerable. I listen to them during my chemo infusions too. Mostly comedy podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron, Comedy Bang Bang, Pod F Tompkast, or Who Charted. There's also The Nerdist, Bullseye, Jordon Jesse Go, and Professor Blastoff. Then there's the music and public radio podcasts such as Sounds Opinions, All Songs Considered, RadioLab, and This American Life. Inevitably during these podcasts there is a request for some kind of donation to keep the lights on and the feed full. I'm all for it and have donated to several of them. But not all of them. Usually it requires, going to a website, finding the right area, filling some info out and providing my payment information. That's all fine and standard, but I always wished there was an easier way... a way that I could donate even while listening to the podcast when it's top of mind. I've even thought about coming up with a solution myself. 

Now I don't have to. PoundDonate has made a super simple little tool that makes donating to anyone with a Twitter ID as easy as pie or some other delicious pastry that falls into the easy category. 

There appears to be a few of these Twitter/Social donation services around. But they seem to be over-thinking things. PoundDonate proves that making something simple is not so simple (you can tell they worked hard on keeping friction as low as possible - and will continue to do so). All you do is tweet using a very simple syntax and the donation is in motion. This is from one of the founder''s (Michael Holzer) blog:

I just want it to be stupidly easy to give someone money. Not some horrific send money flow via PayPal either…STUPID EASY. You get me?

Enter www.pounddonate.com

Give money to non profits, friends, strangers, cats, dogs, anyone with a Twitter login and a PayPal account (Twitter and PayPal for now, we’re working on other platforms). Here’s the tweet syntax which makes it a bit easier to understand. #donate @thirdplacepro $1 

#verb = you can use donate, pay, or give
@recipient = twitter user you want to give some cashes to
$amount = kinda self explanatory right?

As soon as I saw this I donated $10 to the Bonnie J Addario Lung Cancer Foundation with this simple tweet:

That's it. PoundDonate does the rest. It tweets the foundation to let them know that they have a donation waiting and all they need to do is connect to their PayPal account to receive the money. 

With the election looming, there's a ton of talk about donations and making contributions to campaigns. Because the Citizens United ruling and all the money that SuperPacs can flow into the political river, competition for real people's money is at an all time high. Combine that with how much Twitter is now part of the political process, and perhaps there's a very real need for what PoundDonate is trying to do. 

At least it's "Stupid Easy" because... that's what's required to get people to act.

 

Health Insurance

I'm all ready to start my maintenance tomorrow, but now my insurance says that they won't cover both drugs that my docs intend to give me. The combination is new for this kind of treatment so there isn't enough data to support their support. Bah! They will pay for one drug or the other, but not both. At least not right now. It will go into arbitration. I think my case is a little different than most. I'm young, I'm otherwise healthy, I'm not showing any symptoms, there has been no metastasis and I'm in remission. This is different than most stage IV lung cancer situations. Think the opposite. I have a chance to live a lot longer than most people with this BS. I'm hoping the insurance company will see this as a good thing.

I offered to pay for the "cheaper" of the drugs out of pocket... but it costs $10,000 every three weeks. I get a 30% discount if I pay on time. So that's good. Ha ha ha! I still may try to find a way to do this if the arbitration doesn't go my way or if there's no other way to go, but I'm going to wait. For now I'm getting just the Avastin. 

Have I mentioned that cancer sucks? 

Right now, I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends next week, then jetting off to NYC for the weekend to master my friend Bab's album. For those that don't know, I'm starting Quagmire Records again to release Tim Alexander's music. Mastering this album is the first step.

Then I'm going to Kauai for great vacation with my family. Even my sister, her son, and my brother in-law will be coming out for a while. I'll post photos. Follow me on Instagram - @beach

I'm also just trying to stay in the moment. 

More Details About My Health

It's been another large gap between posts. I need to stop doing that. It might scare people. Here's where things stand since March. Has it really been since March? I realize that I'm not writing about the mobile space or Android vs. iOS, or ecommerce or mobile commerce, or even about social stuff... I know that this is personal, but it's what's going through my head right now. I hope to return to ramblings that nerds or business nerds would enjoy, but for now, cancer posts are what you get. 

I finished my rounds of chemo and Avastin in late March I think. Then I had to wait three weeks to get a PET scan to see how things were going. That was a torturous few weeks. Would it have worked? Would there be any progress? Would I need surgery? Would it have spread or grown more? I tried to remain calm, focused, and positive. But it's a super difficult thing to do. 

The PET Scan came back with good news and some curious news. The good news is that the tumors shrank and that there was no real evidence showing up in the scan of cancerous activity. No spread of course, but also that the tumors were akin to dead tissue or something. Nothing lit up. I then went to UCSF to visit Dr. Jablons about what my next steps might be. That was a circus and I won't go into it now, but I finally spoke to Dr. Jablons after he reviewed the scans and he said that surgery wasn't the best option right now and that I should do more chemo. That's the curious news. Basically he said, that things are looking better, but the cancer is probably still there microscopically and because the tumors were on the outer edge of my lung, in the Pleura, surgery is tricky. But I was responding well to the treatment, so I should keep doing that. Okay. No one said this was going to be easy. During this time, I turned 43. 

I was not looking forward to more chemo. I would need to have two more rounds. I also doubled up my efforts with my dietitian/nutritionist. She's great. Jocelyn over at Nourish in Santa Cruz. The first round in May went okay, but I could tell that it was taking a toll. Then three weeks ago I had my last infusion. This was the worst of them all. I just felt so run down and truly sick... for the first time I had an Idea of what it felt like to be dying... It was just a feeling, but it struck me that what I was feeling had something to do with death. And in reality it was true. The chemo coursing through my system was killing a part of me. Cells. Hopefully more cancer cells than anything else, but it's all a part of me. Before my first infusion this time, my Oncologist reiterated again, that yes things are looking good, but this is still very serious. He told me about the worst case scenario regarding my time... I won't say what he said, but it was sobering. But it was also the worst case scenario. I have a habit of beating worst case odds. Bottom line is that I have Stage IV Lung Cancer. Any time a cancer returns, it automatically gets classified as Stage IV, but there are lots of different flavors. So DO NOT Google Stage IV Lung Cancer. There are Stage IV Lung Cancer survivors and I intend to be one of them.

Again, I did not lose my hair. I still find this strange, but I am grateful. It did thin out a bit and it's more grey than before, but with my hair, it looks like highlights or something. 

So after my last infusion I needed to wait three weeks to get a CT scan to see where we are at after these last two rounds. "Scanxiety" was setting in again. I was very nervous before the scan... I had the CT on Thursday and within an hour my Oncologist called and said it's good news. No spread and the tumors have been "resolved". Which I believe means that they are gone. The next steps are for me to into chemo maintenance mode. This means I get Avastin and one kind of chemo (I forget what it's called) every three weeks for for two months or so. Not sure yet. But the good news is that it won't be the heavy duty chemo that makes me feel like hell. The side effects will be (hopefully) minor. I'll know more on Thursday when I see my Oncologist and get my infusion.

Bottom line is that things seem to be going in the right direction. And for a survivor that's the direction I need to be headed. 

Update: So much for weekly updates...

Hi there. My chemo regimin is complete. I had four infusions over 12 weeeks. It has been a different experience than the last time I went through this. The drugs may be stronger, but I haven't felt as poorly this time around. I even still have all my hair. Some fell out, but I never had to shave my hair. 

I feel pretty bad for about a week after each infusion, then I slowly feel close to normal. I'm tired and get winded easily, but it's not as intense as last time. I can only hope that this is a good thing.

The next step is for me to get a new PET scan to see how well the treatment worked. Then we'll see... I really don't have any idea what will happen and it's crazymaking to think about. I'm thinking positively that things have shrunk, reduced, or vanished. 

The worst part is not knowing. I'm not good at compartmentalizing, so my mind likes to go to all outcomes.

Bah! 

Right now, I feel good. Chemo side effects aside, I feel sharp, and normal and healthy. My blood work is good and all normal. I'm fighting it. 

I've been working more. And I'm looking at building an app to help cancer folks. A simple app to connect people with their support network (friends, family) and to help organize schedules and information in a very fun and positive way. 

For me, my friends and family have been great to include and the support I get is awesome. I'm also trying to laugh as much as possible. Laughing fights cancer. So I'm listening to lots of podcasts and trying to watch funny things and read The Onion everyday. Baseball helps too. From Isaac's little league to the Oakland A's, baseball is a good thing. 

Here are some of the podcasts I listen to:

• Comedy Bang Bang
• The Pod F. Tompkast
• The Smartest Man in the World by Greg Proops
• Superego
• Who Charted?
• WTF with Marc Maron
• Jordon, Jesse, Go
• Professor Blastoff
• Judge John Hodgeman
• Doug Loves ovies
• The Bugle
• How Did This Get Made
• The Nerdist
• Improv4Humans

You can find these by searching for them on iTunes. If you know of any others, let me know. Or anything else that's funny for that matter.

That's it for now. 

Fanatically Positive!

The Limousines - The Future (Video)

My friends in The Limousines keep making exceptional videos. Frankly I don't know how they do it. The opening shots of this new one called The Future, looks like it belongs on the big screen. The detail is pretty spectacular. I met these guys last year at SXSW. I had never heard of them, but was blown away by their live show and the energy that they put out. I'm fairly cynical when it comes to this kind of thing, but it was clear that they had something special. After the show, we started talking and it came to be that we had an unusal connection pertaining to parquay floors and a ghost. That's the way things go sometimes. Anyway Eric and Gio are awesome and you should check out this video - it's fairly dark and a little graphic, but it's got a bitchin' DeLorean. Do it. 

 

Follow:

@TheLimousines

Weekly Update

Perhaps I'll try a weekly update on the ins and outs of what's going on with me? That's what this is anyway.

I've been trying super hard to be positive. I was reading Rick Steve's Europe Through The Reach Around book (I think that's what it's called... either way it's good.) And he says something about how to approach travel.

"Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something's not to your liking, change your liking."

There's something about that I like. It's the determination in it that resonates with me. I'm not normally a overtly possitive person. The designer or product manager in me is always looking for problems. What isn't working. Things that could be better. Things to fix. It's easy for me to apply that to a product or service or thing I'm working on, it's not quite so easy to turn that focus on me. But if that's what I have to do, then that's what I'll do. 

This week, I've been hit hard with insomnia. I don't want to take a pill for it, just because I'm trying to reduce pills, but I may have to do something. If someone told me that they were experiencing insomnia, this is what I'd say to them. Go to bed without distractions. Breathe. And when you wake up write in a journal about all the stuff that's swirling in your head. Hand write it. Two or three pages. Just dump that crap out. And keep doing it. But have I done this? No... not yet. Let's see where I am next week. I'll let you know.

On Monday I'm gettting a little surgery. It's outpatient. They are going to put in a thing called a "port". It goes in my chest and connects to a big vein. This will make it easier for them to give me blood tests and infusions. My veins have always been difficult to find, but the chemo and all the poking doesn't help. This thing should. It's a simple surgery, but I'll be under for a little while. In and out. 

Then next Friday is my second infusion. That's the half way point. 

I should say that besides the lack of sleep, I'm feeling pretty normal, I had minimal queasiness and nothing ever came up. I was expecting the worst, but it was really mild compared to what I was told would happen. The drugs I'm getting are much stronger than last time, but so far so good. I still have my hair as well. No signs yet of it coming loose. A little ringing in the ears, but that's gone now. So this round wasn't too bad. However, if I remember correctly, it gets worse after each infusion. It builds up. I'll just be mindful of how I'm feeling.

I've been coughing a bit more the past two days. Just lots of clear stuff. But that may have nothing to do with this. Just part of my normal seasonal respitory and sinus issues. I'll speak to the doc about it when I see him next. 

Speaking of Rick Steves. I am looking at planning a trip to Europe or somewhere with the family for sometime this summer. I'm going to be "militanly optimistic" about that.

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin Oral History Video

I haven't seen this yet, but I'm going to post it here for all of us to enjoy at our leisure. Pitchfork has put together an oral history of one of the greatest albums ever recorded. At least in the last 25 years... but I'll argue ever. The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin. Check it out. 

The embed code that they provide messes up my template formatting, so just go to the site and take a gander.

 

 

My Cancer Has Returned...

I've been putting off talking about this. But I found out last month that my cancer has returned. The facts are that it is still local to my right lung and has not spread beyond that in any detectable way. I've spent the last month getting tested, I've been to UCSF, and last week had a biopsy to finally confirm everything. The plan is to attack it with chemo and a target drug designed to starve the tumors. There are about three tumors. One is bigger than the other two, but is still fairly small. About 3 centimeters. We caught it earlier than we normally would have because I was not supposed to get a CT scan until June. But I had one this check up just to check and hopefully ease my mind for the holidays. Unfortunately they found what they found, but fortunately they found it now. This is more serious than the first time. Recurrences are not ideal, but I'm hoping that it will respond to treatment. Surgery is still an option, but they want to see out the treatment works first. I'm also seeing a nutritionist and am trying to do everything possible to attack it. And not freak out. My doctor at UCSF said that there are several options and that I have "a lot of years left."

So that's where I'm at. I hopefully start treatment this week. You all know that I've never smoked in my life. Lung cancer has a stigma attached to it, and I don't want any part of it. The reality is that if you have lungs you can get lung cancer. That's it. I need to breathe now. 

Where To Write? The Value Of Words.

I used to write a lot. Especially here on this blog. I've even written about not writing here before... but this is different. I go back through the archives and read some of what I've written over the past half decade and sometimes can't recognize the author. I said that? I was sure fired up about stuff. Part of it is related to my memory loss/chemobrain, and perhaps I'm getting a little older, but mostly I think that there's a diminishing value of the written word and an over-abundance of outlets for written expression. There's nothing wrong with the latter, but it is the primary contributing factor for the former. 

When I used to get fired up-- angry, frustrated, excited, or otherwise-- I would hammer out a post. It could be about my work at Yahoo, product management, 12seconds, new sites or ideas, or my cancer. Twitter was mostly around during this time, but I used it as a way to promote my long form ramblings. But the script has flipped. I get fired up, tweet about it, and it gets out of my system. Then I forget about it. I write 140 characters and then lose steam. The thought is out there, but only a few dozen people may see it while it floats in my followers twitter feeds, then it sinks to the bottom and drowns. An ephemeral wisp of an idea that could have been something more fades into the ether... where does it go? Twitter does not archive anything...

Okay... I wrote the two paragraphs above sometime in August. I haven't written much in any form since that time. A lot has happened in my life between then and now. I will hopefully muster up the energy and the fire to write about it all. Here. I want to write more. I need to write more. I have a lot to say. I've even said that before. It seems that long form personal text in a blog or elsewhere has fallen out of fashion. What has Twitter or the general "status update" done? It's shortened our attention spans that much more. Mobile is another contributing factor. We "snack" on our phones for quick hits of information, validation, or communication. I don't want to sound like a dead Andy Rooney or some other curmugeon longing for days of yore; I'm just stating my thoughts at this time. 

The diminishing value of the written word can also be attributed to ebooks and the evil Kindle. Those that know me, know about my feelings for the Kindle. I want to punch it in the nuts. That doesn't mean I won't buy one some day, it just means that I won't be happy about it and I may try to find a way to punch it in the nuts. I don't need to get into it here and now, but ebooks aren't books. A book is a book. And because you can store a million of them on a thing that weighs less than a pound that can also play Angry Birds sort of proves my point. All hail Lord Bezos!

So where to write? I guess everywhere. But I intend to do most of it here.

I'm done with the writing for the day. I'm going to go drive home while listening to the Buzzcocks, then I may read aloud to my children "That Is All" by John Hodgman before they go to bed. It's a nice book with a glossy black cover. And it's filled with lots of words. I bought it at Powell's in Portland on my last visit.