Ben Casnocha: The Blog

How Pure is Your Model?

Will Price today touches on one of the toughest challenges any software company faces which is how loyal you stay to your delivery model. At Comcate we deliver (almost) exclusively software-as-service, but as Will mentions, we have occasionally committed "unnatural acts" to close a deal. Similarly, when a client requests custom development, we try to estimate the general applicability of the development (ie whether we could upsell the new functionality to other clients). If the general applicability is low or not on our product roadmap, we try to avoid taking on "bad revenue" business. Will concludes that "good revenue which reinforces efficiencies and scalability trumps absolutely higher revenue" and that "purity is a virtue worth aspiring to." Easier said than done... As Comcate has matured we have earned the luxury of distinguishing good and bad revenue!

The Emergence of Boutique American Cities

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas has a great article (reg required) on the changing role of cities in America. Joel Kotkin argues America now consists of "boutique" cities -- Boston, San Francisco, and New York City -- which house educated, elite, and wealthy residents at the exclusion of most everyone else. In boutique cities the debate is over where to put the next sushi bar, or if one neighborhood has too many coffee shops, or how condos should be regulated...not how to solve the affordable housing problem.

Spatially, the boutique city can be found in certain locations–Manhattan, Chicago’s "Gold Coast," much of San Francisco, Seattle, and West Los Angeles–but it can best be viewed as an interconnected archipelago of interrelated elite communities. Its fundamental economic power lies not so much in the efficiency of place but in harnessing the influence of the media and financial elites. It depends also on the energies of a steady stream of young, educated workers and legions of poorly paid, often immigrant, service workers.

Boutique cities comprise of the elite and the poor who take care of the kitchens. It's hard to be a middle class person in San Francisco, one reason why San Francisco's population is now shrinking and why there are more dogs than kids here. Of course some see this as a good thing -- high culture reigns, artists flourish, geeks create million-dollar companies, and every other person you meet has a college degree (SF is the second "smartest" big city).

What boutique cities leave behind, however, is the "incubation of social mobility" that metropolises historically have provided. Houston, Charlotte, Orlando, Phoenix, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis: all these cities are now better "aspirational cities" for middle class people. The problem is they're all trying (and failing) to become boutique cities by introducing slick cultural ammenities.

Kotkin concludes by asking what the role of cities should be in the 21st century. Are cities as relevant now that an entrepreneur in Bloomington is just as connected to the global economy via the Internet as an entrepreneur in San Jose? Are some cities better served as city-states (Shanghai, London, New York)? Will cities ever return to their roots of being home to a socioeconomically diverse citizenry or will a bifurcation of boutique and aspirational cities continue?

All good questions. But for the moment I gotta get back to fighting for a third sushi bar and fourth coffee shop in my little San Franciso neighborhood!

My College Admissions Decision: Claremont McKenna College

In fall '07 I will start at Claremont McKenna College!

What is Claremont McKenna College?
CMC is a small, liberal arts college in Southern California. Statistically, it is one of the most selective colleges in the country and, with Pomona College, represents the west coast in the top tier of liberal arts colleges. But the beauty of CMC is its qualitative characteristics.

Unlike many elite liberal arts colleges which all blend together, CMC is distinctive. It has carved out a niche in higher education and, frankly, dominates it. Claremont is all about leadership, government, business, and public policy. The College embraces "life entrepreneurship" more than any other school I visited.

Why Did I Choose Claremont?

First, I believe in the liberal arts college model. Second, the College's mission fits my life mission perfectly. Third, I love California. Fourth, my Dad had a great experience at CMC. Finally, I had a good visit -- the students I stayed with were impressive. My host was an undergraduate doing deep research on the WTO and Taiwan (he chose CMC over UC Berkeley for its economics program), his good friend was involved in political life (he chose CMC over Georgetown for its personalized approach within the famous government department). Also during my visit, the professor of a class I audited asked me if I wanted to have lunch afterwards. She cared.

The Consortia -- Claremont McKenna is literally across the street from Pomona College, Pitzer College, Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont Graduate University, and a variety of research institutes. All the colleges share resources which means students can take classes at any of the colleges. This means CMC, for example, can have a government department of 40 professors -- an insane number given the 2,000 students at the school -- and not offer any arts or engineering. Students who want art and engineering take their classes at Pomona or Harvey Mudd (arguably the best liberal arts college in the country for engineering students). Moreover, while you receive the personal attention of a liberal arts education, you are in a town with over 6,000 students, faculty and staff of 3,300, and 2,500 total courses. The Claremont Colleges is perhaps the only place in the country where you can get the best of both worlds in such close proximity -- personal attention on the one hand, and the resources and feeling of a university on the other.

Curricular Focus -- Among the top 10 liberal arts colleges there is little to distinguish a college like Swarthmore from Amherst, or Carlton from Pomona. CMC has taken a different approach. They have branded themselves as a school devoted to educating leaders. The Kravis Leadership Institute, the Drucker School of Business, and a variety of other programs on campus promote a theme of leadership, business, exploration, and impact.

Peter Drucker -- Perhaps the greatest management thinker of our time, Peter Drucker taught at Claremont for the last 40 years of his life. Hence the Drucker School of Business; not a terribly prestigious business school, but an energetic one, with expert faculty, research output, and high level business courses.

The Government Department -- After Harry Jaffa, a protege of Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, went to Claremont and founded his "Sousa" school of Straussianism, the Claremont government department has attained national profile. As the chair of the dept wrote to me, "CMC's government department is the largest and wisest of any liberal arts college in the country." One Government major actually dropped out of CMC a couple years ago to be George W. Bush's personal secretary (he's now going to be the first HBS student who doesn't have an undergrad degree).

Faculty -- You probably haven't heard of many of Claremont's professors. After all, they focus on teaching undergraduates, not appearing on CNN. This is fine by me -- I want a professor who I can have dinner with! That said, there are a couple people on-campus who fire me up by name alone. David Foster Wallace, one of the best American writers in his generation, teaches at Pomona. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience, one of my all time favorite books and a landmark in positive psychology, teaches at Claremont Graduate University. A friend from my high school is a freshman at CMC and his government professor is Charles Kesler, the famous head of the Claremont Institute and editor of the Claremont Review of Books, a conservative counterweight to the New York Review of Books. His economics professor served in an advisory capacity to the current Bush administration. (The faculty and student political split is 50/50 liberal and conservative.)

Athenaeum -- CMC hosts guest speakers for lunch and dinner four days a week, every single week of the academic year. Definitely the most guest speakers in an organized fashion than any other liberal arts college, and probably most large universities too. Top speakers -- Janet Reno, George Will, etc -- are invited for dinner inside the Athenaeum dining room. You must make reservations, wear nice clothes, and not only listen to the speaker but discuss the relevant issue at your table. This is one of CMC's shining points and given my propensity to meet new people and discuss all sorts of issues, it suits me perfectly.

Los Angeles -- Even as a San Franciscan I can admit that Los Angeles is a tremendous city. My company Comcate works with many cities in LA County, including a big contract with the City of Pomona, CA. Claremont is an hour east of LA.

    • Weather -- Incredible weather. BBQs and sandals. I'm told Claremont is sheltered a bit from the smog.
    • Platform -- Great city for me to operate on. Tons of interesting people and companies.
    • VC/Entrepreneurship -- Southern California may soon eclipse Boston as the #2 most active VC region in the country, behind Silicon Valley
    • Brains -- UCLA, USC, Occidental, California Institute of Technology, and the Claremont Colleges all make Los Angeles full of bright students.
    • In-N-Out Burger -- SoCal is home to the original In-N-Out Burger location, and there are two in the City of Pomona alone.

Networking -- Because so many CMC grads go into business or the professions, the network of CMC alumni is incredible for a small college. I'm not even at the college yet and I've already tapped into it.  Every day I find someone new who's a CMC alum -- Patrick Lencioni, author of the popular business fable books, or Jonathan Rosenberg, one of the top Google executives.

Henry Kravis - Kravis is one of the most successful investment banker in U.S. history, with a legacy that will stand alongside J.P. Morgan as one of the titans in American finance, says Achievement.org. Kravis, a CMC alumnus, is perhaps Claremont's most notable patron. I hope to develop a relationship with him while I'm there.

If you don't know much about Claremont, don't worry, that will change over the next five years!

Book Review: The Starfish and the Spider

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom has the potential to be the hot business book of the fall.

Full disclosure, I had a great lunch with co-author Ori a few weeks ago and I'm a fan. He sent me an advance copy of the book. It hits bookstores October 5th.

The premise of the book is straightforward: Cut the head off a spider and it dies. Cut off a Starfish's leg and it grows a new one. Decentralized organizations -- Skype, Wikipedia, Cragslist -- can endure because they rely on the power of peer relationships.

This thesis won't strike anyone who's been swimming in the peer to peer production / blogging / user generated content world as incredibly profound, but Ori and Rod have done a great job at organizing examples, contrasting rigid hierarchal organizations with decentralized ones, and offering ten concluding rules to remember in a "starfish world." They have provided a good framework for talking about these topics.

The absence of value judgments / interpretation is the only part that left me wanting. There are times when I wanted Ori and Rod to express an opinion about the goodness of the starfish model. They start to walk in this direction when discussing file sharing and the music industry, but in the end back away and say maybe labels should focus just on auxiliary revenue streams such as concerts. They also don't discuss the other side to the Wikipedia revolution, or what Jaron Lanier calls "Digital Maoism: The Hazards of New Online Collectivism."

But those kinds of discussions probably extend beyond the purview of this book. Starfish and the Spider is focused, engagingly written, and makes important points about what kinds of movements will survive in the 21st century. I recommend it. Congrats Ori!

Tyler Cowen on My College Process

One of my intellectual heroes, Tyler Cowen, a professor and "Economic Scene" columnist in the New York Times, has some kind words and observations on my college admissions experiences on his must-read blog. Thanks, Tyler.

Tyler's breadth of interests makes him one of the most provocative public intellectuals. Here's my review of his book Creative Destruction, here's a long debate I hosted on independent book stores based on one of Tyler's articles, here are my notes from Tyler's talk in Zurich this past summer.

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College Admissions Decision: Part V: Decision Time

See Parts I , II , III ,and IV in my series revealing where I'll be going to college.

In the time between January 1 and April 1, when you hear back from schools, I reflected on what I'd want out of four years of college. Some things that came to mind included: a) study topics I can't study anywhere else, b) form close relationships with brilliant teachers, c) form close relationships with students who can be friends for life, and maybe business partners, and d) increase my exposure to randomness.

On April 1st I got a handful of thick envelopes, and some thin ones too. The responses were all over the map, as predicted. Neither my counselor nor I knew what to expect, given my unique file. It all depended on how much the school appreciated what I did with my time the first two years of high school.

I was thrilled to receive acceptances at colleges which excited me, and in mid April took a trip to visit three schools: one in east Chicago, upstate New York, and east Los Angeles county. After returning from my three visits, I returned to San Francisco with a smile.

When I told my Jon, my counselor, where I'd decided to go, he answered with a grin, "Listen Ben, I don't tell anyone this, but I'm going to tell you. Usually I say there's no such thing as a perfect fit, but in this case I'm wrong. This is a perfect fit for you."

All around me my friends were hearing good news and bad news. Some people got screwed, some people got lucky, some people got what they deserved. Some people treated it as a pivotal turning point in their life; others, like me, treated it as another meaningful event nestled in a mosaic of cool, interesting twists and turns.

Since I had decided to attend a college that intrigued me, I now had to decide about deferral. The notion of Real Life University always intrigued me – especially the travel component – so I decided to defer my admission for one year so I could travel, work, and publish my book.

Tomorrow: Where I'm going and why

Quote of the Day

"War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography." -Ambrose Bierce

College Admissions Decision Part IV: Visiting Colleges and Writing My Application

See Parts I and II and III in my series revealing where I'll be going to college.

I tried to improve my grades. The fall of my senior year I earned a 3.97 GPA, bumping my cumulative GPA to a 2.99.

Heartened by my improvement, I visited a range of colleges. I visited liberal arts colleges. These kinds of schools are the gem of United States higher ed. Private liberal arts colleges only serve undergraduates, are committed to a broad base of learning, and boast a high student to faculty ratio. My whole family has been educated in liberal arts colleges (Smith, Claremont, Amherst, and Middlebury) and all had tremendous experiences. I also visited large research universities. In a large university there are more resources, more people, more organizations, and more happening, but less face time with professors, a less personal atmosphere, and sometimes overwhelming living situations.

I did not look at undergraduate business programs. I have many real world business experiences and, besides accounting, classroom work wouldn't enrich it much I think.

I did consider the overall entrepreneurial culture of a college campus. I want to be around kids who dream big and aren't ashamed of to say it. I considered how passionately students took to the "life of the mind". I talked to professors, studied their programs, and pondered their probable availability for one-on-one dinners and their ability to awaken a classroom. I considered the location and weather of the college. Having lived in San Francisco my whole life, I haven't seen snow for more than a few days at a time. I like moderate-to-warm weather. Finally, I considered the college's alumni network – its vibrancy and distribution of careers.

In my application I had 500 words to tell the college about myself. My personal "character" is where I had to shine, given my poor grades. I wrote an essay about "life entrepreneurship," using a Joan Didion quote as a jumping off point. I had immense difficulty crafting an essay that would communicate my four crazy years of high school / Silicon Valley. My (private) attitude was, "Some college admissions people will get it, some won't, and that's how it goes."

Some schools, especially small colleges, still do personal interviews. At every school but one where I interviewed, I got in. Given my experience a) interviewing candidates at my own company, b) interacting with adults, c) communicating a sales pitch, I always kicked butt in my interviews.

Throughout all this I talked to adult friends and school peers. I learned early on that books and articles about higher education were fairly useful while the random anecdote by an bachelor-toting adult was usually not. This, of course, is the fascinating influence: everyone who's gone to college (about 27% of America) seems to have an opinion about colleges and admissions. The problem is the world's changed. Also, as time passes, cognitive dissonance does wonders. College grads think about those four, long, incredibly expensive years in a way that's kind on the brain. Sometimes they repeat nice-sounding catch phrases like, "College is all about learning how to think" or "It's not about the college you go to, it's about what you get out of it." (There's some truth in both.) But – but! – all this being said, several adult friends really illuminated this time in my life with characteristic wit, hindsight, and humor, and I appreciate that.

On January 1st I submitted my applications online to a dozen schools and hoped for the best!

College Admissions Decision Part III: Assessing My File

See Parts I and II in my series revealing where I'll be going to college.

Amidst the onslaught of documents is a particularly important one: your transcript to-date. For students at UHS, my high school, this can always been a damning moment. UHS is a hard school. Most of the courses are upper level college classes. The students are bright and hard-working. Formerly stand-out students become simply average after enrolling at UHS.

My college counselor, Jon, showed me my cumulative GPA through my fall semester junior year: 2.67 out of 4.0. It wasn't pretty, even considering the usual bump up most colleges give to students from UHS in consideration of the academic rigor. My PSAT scores – a predicator of SAT results – were good not great.

Jon and I spoke about the process and my prospects. We talked about my entrepreneurship but more important, my intellectual interests and activities. Jon, a former professor and associate director of admissions at Stanford, was a smart and funny guy, and we had to work hard to stay focused on college stuff, given our propensity to meander off-topic. Finally, he cut to the chase:

"Ben, I want you to know something. A lot of schools like to talk about wanting kids who show intellectual drive, who are well-balanced, to have passion for the activities they pursue. Unfortunately, a lot of this is window dressing. I'm going to be blunt. Your numbers will hurt the averages of these schools and hurt their rankings. They really need to be convinced that you're special, and it's hard to articulate what you've done in such short space and to people not versed in business, blogging, whatever. What you've done the past few years seems mighty impressive, but much harder to boil down than fantastic artwork or an amazing piano recording. And your numbers, frankly put, show an inability to master academic work. So I want you to know that you're facing an uphill battle."

I responded: "I understand. I've made choices and they have consequences."

He smiled, relieved I wasn't going to be one of those students who would only apply to a handful of name-brand colleges, or who'd self-righteously assume his talents were delivered from heaven and self-evident.

Even though I was kind of disappointed my real world entrepreneurial experiences wouldn't have as much mileage in my college admissions as they could have, I still had a huge advantage over most applicants: I attended a private high school, I had the resources to apply and personally visit a dozen schools, and had college educated parents who would support me emotionally and financially.

•••

When I think about my academic struggles, I don't feel sorry for myself (ok - sometimes I do, when I'm forced to slave through multiple choice tests, which I undoubtedly bomb). Let's face it: I got my ass kicked. But. I'm still happy, and I'm still dreaming, and who knows...maybe I'll move a mountain someday.

See this old New Yorker article which I blogged:

"In 1981, two professors...began following the lives of eighty-one high-school valedictorians...According to Arnold’s 1995 book “Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians,” these students continued to distinguish themselves academically in college; a little less than sixty per cent pursued graduate studies. By their early thirties, most were “working in high-level, prestigious, secure professions”—they were lawyers, accountants, professors, doctors, engineers. Arnold totted up fifteen Ph.D.s, six law degrees, three medical degrees, and twenty-two master’s degrees in her group. The valedictorians got divorced at a lower rate than did the population at large, were less likely to use alcohol and drugs, and tended to be active in their communities.

At the same time, Arnold, who stays in touch with her cohort, has found that few of the valedictorians seem destined for intellectual eminence or for creative work outside of familiar career paths. Dedicated to the well-rounded ideal—to be a valedictorian, after all, you must excel in classes that don’t interest you or are poorly taught—the valedictorians had “used their strong work ethic to pursue multiple academic and extracurricular interests. None was obsessed with a single talent area to which he or she subordinated school and social involvement.” This marks a difference, Arnold said, from what we know about many eminent achievers, who tend to evince an early passion for a particular field. For these people, Arnold writes, a “powerful early interest evolves into lifelong, intensive, even obsessive involvement in the talent area.” She goes on, “Exceptional adult achievers often recall formal schooling as a disliked distraction.” Valedictorians, by contrast, conformed to the expectations of school and carefully chose careers that were likely to be socially and financially secure: “As a rule, valedictorians relegated their early interests to hobbies, second majors, or regretted dead ends. The serious athletes among the valedictorians never pursued sports occupations. Most of the high school musicians hung up their instruments during college."

Chris Yeh goes on to say:

In other words, while valedictorians do well, most of those who are most successful in life were definitely not valedictorians. Let me emphasize one line from the quote above: Exceptional adult achievers often recall formal schooling as a disliked distraction.

School isn't like real life. In fact, it's about as far from real life as can be imagined. The lessons that let you be successful in school (follow the rules, work hard, know the right answers) are completely the opposite of those that help you become a successful entrepreneur (change the rules, work smart, know the right questions).

If You Ask Me What I've Come to Do in This World, I Will Reply: I'm Here to Live My Life Out Loud

Or so said Emile Zola, among many other fabulous quotes in this Tom Peters PowerPoint. Another gem:

"The object of life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, 'Holy Shit, What a Ride!!!’ —Mavis Leyrer

Conflict Here, Conflict There, Conflict Everywhere

Why do we find conflict so entertaining?

How is it that Jerry Springer could create a TV show that is premised on people arguing with each other?

Why is it that I'm so enamored with the Lee Siegel (New Republic) / Ezra Klein (American Prospect) battle? (Siegel: "There's this awful suck-up named Ezra Klein--his "writing" is sweaty with panting obsequious ambition...")

Or how about Tom Peters and Peter Drucker beef? (Peters: "I participated in a Drucker tribute a few weeks after his death...I was supposed to open with 5 minutes of laudatory remarks...I've seldom worked so hard on a thing—but in the end I couldn't pull it off")

Even in books, conflict makes the day, such as when Michael Wolff says to Jon Rubin in Burnrate:

No. Fuck you. No accommodation. No nothing. I'll bury this company. I'll bury you. I'll bury anything else you're trying to do in a firestorm of publicity and litigation. I want you out of my company. You're a lightweight and a snot nose. Get out of my company. The longer you stay, the more money and pain it will cost you.

•••

In his latest fable Death by Meeting, Patrick Lencioni declares conflict and drama as integral to effective meetings. I tend to agree -- fruitful discussion emerges from varying points of view. Conflict can be both entertaining and productive. Here's to the devil's advocate.

The problem is some people shy away from conflict. Some workplaces stifle it. In my view, if there's no conflict, what's being discussed is probably not very important.

College Admissions Decision: Part II: Does College Make Sense for Me?

Back when I was a young freshman in high school, spending 20 hours a week on my company, a few city managers to whom I was pitching my product asked whether I was going to college. I hadn't given it a second of thought. "Of course," I responded. Everyone in my immediate family had gone to college. My Mom's side of the family tree is full of academics.

Some thought this was a good idea ("There's so much to learn" or "The social life is amazing"). Some thought this was a bad idea ("It will hold you back, you need something better, and different")

I didn't ask myself this question until my junior year in high school. I had been successful in the "real world" with my entrepreneurship. I had developed a curiosity about why the world works as it does that demanded different skills than the traditional classroom. My grades in school were poor -- in part due to my intensive commitment to my company, in part because I wasn't good at scoring high on tests (both the testing and recall). The kind of intellectual exposure I encountered in the business world -- smart, high energy folks who challenged my ideas and provided new ways of thinking -- seemed absent in the classroom. Despite top notch teachers and impressive students, so many of my classes in high school couldn't engage me (or I couldn't engage them). I wasn't "above" the classes; our styles didn't mesh.

For a long time I was simply ambivalent about whether college was in my future. I remember a reporter asked me this question and I said, "Yes" and then a second later added, "If it makes sense with where I'm going."

Then I met marketing author Seth Godin in New York and discussed where I was in the college process. He posed an idea I call "Real Life University." Seth questioned whether four years in a place that teaches how to be normal filled with students who are looking for a degree helps me. He wondered aloud whether two years on the road traveling in different cultures, and two years reading books and meeting mentors, would be a better experience.

From that point forward my opinion on the matter became clear: I want to spend four years of my life learning. I don't want to graduate from high school and just start more businesses. After all, business is only kind of interesting. I want to learn. I want to explore.

"Real Life University" – four years of reading and exploration, guided by a "board of trustees" of advisors and mentors – became a real idea I refined and held in my back pocket.

I wanted to give myself options. I would pursue the traditional college admissions process and see what happens. If none of my college options suits my fancy, I thought to myself, I can always do Real Life U. 

College Admissions Decision: Part 1 of 6

An unmeritocracy at best, profoundly corrupt at worst, was how Malcolm Gladwell described the college admissions process in America nowadays in a New Yorker piece in the spring.

"Not so much palaces of learning as bastions of privilege and hypocrisy," said The Economist recently on U.S. higher ed.

With the insane mass media attention on the college admissions process, it was a little surreal for me to enter the fray in spring '05. Given my tendency to both participate in something and analyze it dispassionately at the same time, for the past two years I've been a saddened "victim" on the one hand and an amused commentator on the other.

Over the next week I will describe my experience.

Part 2: Does College Make Sense For Me?

Monday: "Thinking about Real-Life University"

Part 3: Visiting colleges, thinking about fit, and writing applications

Tuesday: "Telling the Ben story in 500 words"

Part 4: Thick and thin envelopes

Wednesday: "Visiting three colleges in April"

Part 5: The decision and deferral

Thursday: "Ben, I always tell people there's no such thing as a perfect fit. This is an exception. This school is a perfect fit."

Part 6: A Major Announcement

Friday: Where I'll be spending four years of my life

What Should My Book Be Titled?

I am in the final writing stages of my book. It's about my entrepreneurship (founding Comcate). It's a business book, geared to young entrepreneurs and adult businesspeople. In addition to my story, it includes lessons, boxes, and guest excerpts -- also known as take aways -- which allow the reader to start realizing his or her own dreams by seeing the world through the prism of entrepreneurship. More on my book, soon.

The current working title is:

My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley

Do you have any better ideas or suggested modifications? Although I don't control the title, I do have some input, and I'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks.

If People Like You, They'll Follow You

"We will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we will like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel." - From A Leader's Legacy by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner

I've been thinking about likability a lot recently. It's huge. Being likable is not the same thing as being smart, extroverted, or funny.

The "liking principle" is part of Cialdini's principles of persuasion and for good reason. When people like you, it's easier to influence them.

I've thought about how I can become more likable at a tactical level. One theory I have is we don't like people who intimidate us. Because of my physical stature and occasional tendency to use academic (read: pretentious) prose, and because of my eclectic interests and activities, I'm sometimes said to be intimidating. To combat this I have recently begun to use more informal language in my everyday talk and have kept an "open posture" (open palms, feet pointed out, and shoulders slightly curved in). At the end of the day, I'm me -- deal with it! -- but I don't think it hurts to think about the components for successful leadership.

The thought that it's better to be feared than to be loved, I think, is bullshit.

How do you think about likability?