Anyways, my role as more of an observer than a participant in the creation of Common Cycles has been an interesting chance to think about the bike industry in general and what I was actually doing in it. Something I realized:

Passion isn’t special. Humility is.

When you tell someone that you’re a cyclist and work in the bicycle industry, the usual response is something like, “It must be amazing to have your work also be your passion.” And, of course, that’s true.

But it’s also true that plenty of people are just as passionate about building websites or simply making big piles of money as I am about cycling. And to be honest, there are times where cycling and I feel less like hot-blooded newlyweds and more like an old married couple. Point being, an alignment of passion and profession isn’t unique to the bike industry.

But there is something that – at least in my experience – seems to be pretty unusual. I can’t recall every meeting anyone in the bike industry who took their good luck for granted. And, to be sure, it is by luck that we’re doing what we’re doing, as opposed to marketing for insurance companies, designing office furniture, etc. I’ve never worked with anyone in the bike industry with an attitude like, “I’m smart and creative, so I deserve this.”

This really clicked for me at SXSW, riding with my former KGSN colleague Ian Dille, on pause from the frenzy of advertising and tech startup egos. And so far, working at COMMON has been a lot like riding with bike industry friends. As successful as they’ve been elsewhere, John, Rob, and Alex have an ingrained attitude of “we’re all lucky to be here.” Maybe it’s only natural that COMMON’s first venture will be a bike company.

Afterword

I know some folks are skeptical about Common Cycles. But there are a couple things to keep in mind. One, it’s not just about starting a bike company. Alabamboo is a broader initiative to create sustainable jobs in one of the poorest parts of the country, and bicycles are one of many things that can be made out of bamboo. Also, this initial venture is intended to be a template for future entrepreneurs to come with their own ideas to launch under the central brand – which doesn’t actually own Common Cycles or any other company bearing the COMMON name.

Welcome to the FearLess Cottage. As alluded to in my last post with the Vimeo-Facebook embed form, I’ve started an internship here where I’ll be helping Alex & Ana Bogusky, Rob Schuham and some other really smart, really nice folks to launch COMMON. The concept, briefly, is to build a socially and environmentally sustainable brand that can launch any number of independent, loosely connected ventures. Here’s more:

My specific project is to map and build a site for COMMON that will encourage community members to share ideas for new ventures, form teams, and move forward through COMMON’s incubator process. The project – and COMMON itself – is constantly evolving, and I’ll keep you posted. If you’re interested in joining the COMMON community, you can (and should) sign up here. Seriously, do it now.

In the midst of getting rolling with all this, I took my maiden voyage to SXSW Interactive as part of Boulder Digital Works’ 20+-member delegation. The scale of the event was a bit overwhelming; the 11am time slot on Tuesday had about forty different offerings. Not surprisingly, the highlights of my trip all happened away from the throngs at the convention center.

• Dropping in on the SoDA Meetup
• Seeing Zombies Vs Hippies in print in PSFK’s Future of Mobile Tagging book
• Some good bike riding, featuring Hill Country gas station tacos

Thanks to my Austin hosts Ian Dille and David Wenger, plus Peter Yesawich Jr for their hospitality!

The Journalist.

The Director.

The Rider.

• PSFK
• Creativity Online
• Agency Spy
• The Denver Egotist
  

• BuddyPress Inspiration
• WPMU.org
• @pgibbs (BuddyPress core development team)

But I’m in two minds about the accolades. On the one hand, it’s flattering when your work is praised in publications that you’ve looked to for inspiration. Then again, the positive reviews in the ad press fit quite nicely with the meme that the ad industry as a whole is more interested in giving itself awards for “creativity” than in meeting its clients’ business objectives. Even I have a hard time talking about Zombies Vs. Hippies without admitting that not very many people actually played the game – although our problems were due mainly to unfortunate timing and a surprisingly small number of students with compatible smartphones.

But that wasn’t really the point of this project. Essentially, it was an elaborate usability test for Microsoft to learn how Tag could be used in a campus setting. Sure, it would have been great to have thousands of kids playing our game. But even though that didn’t happen, we know why it didn’t happen and we know what needs to be different in future implementations. In that sense, the project was definitely a success.

Along the way, we learned a few things about 2d barcodes (i.e. Tags & QR Codes) in general. Basically, there’s probably not much substance behind their being this marketing flavor-of-the-month. As anyone who’s ever worked in retail can tell you, there’s nothing inherently cool about scanning barcodes. The reason stores uses them is that they’re faster and more accurate than having employees manually type in SKUs at the register – i.e. they’re a more efficient way of doing something that you have to do anyway.

No one wants to download an app, install it, and scan a barcode for its own sake. (At least, that’s what we found with CU students.) In fact, those extra steps can actually turn people off, especially if what you’re asking them to do could be accomplished just as well by typing a short landing URL into their browser. So make something that people want, and make it accessible in the easiest, most intuitive way possible. If that happens to be a 2d barcode, that’s what people will use. Otherwise, they’ll use something else.

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