I created this page to explain the "backstory" behind BWIA News Blog, BWIA News Newsletter, BWIA News Magazine, and the BWIA News series of books. It was most recently updated on May 1, 2012.
Of course there's a obligatory (and, of course, laughably dated AND out-of-date) About Steve Stroh page. I'll be working on this too.
Inspirations, debts owed
- My most profound influence in writing clear, interesting, at-least-mildly-entertaining, in-depth technological content is David Isenberg's Smart Letter newsletter*.
- Other great blogs, newsletters, overall writing that I want to be as good, readable, and approachable as: Andy Abramson, Mark Anderson, Dave Burstein, Robert X. Cringely, Tom Evslin, Martin Geddes*, Jerry Pournelle (tech writing, not his fiction), and Brough Turner. * Back when they were still actively doing long-form writing.
- I wish I could be, but don't really expect to be as good as Harold Feld (he's the master policy wonk of wireless) and Michael Marcus (he's the master technology wonk of wireless); I'm in total awe of both of these guys in their respective fields. I'm also in general awe of the amazing writing skill of Thomas Friedman, Don Lancaster, David Pogue, Clay Shirky, and Joel Spolsky.
- My most profound anti-influence... what I most don't want to be resemble in any way, shape, or fashion, are two websites relating to wireless. One is blatant and unashamed plagarism being presented as original writing. The other one is even more laughable, taking press releases and adding an authorship line and presenting it as a story. This latter site is so blatant and bad... it's actually funny. Fortunately this second site appears dead as of late 2010. Thank you S, and R, resepectively for reminding me that one should really have standards... or not do it.
Don Lancaster (see above) told this story... which has resonated with me for more than a decade now since I read it:
Many years ago, I was at a rock concert. The opening act was a single flute player standing solo in front of the closed stage curtains. His job was to warm up the audience for the high priced talent that was to follow. He was good.
But as he went along, the musical vibes got stranger and stranger, then totally bizarre. He was playing chords on his flute. Combined with utterly unbelievable riffs. Much of the audience got impatient and bored at what seemed like a bunch of gawd-awful squawks.
Then I happened to notice a friend beside me who had both been in and taught concert band. He was literally on the edge of his seat. He turned to me and slowly said "you … can’t … do … that … with … a … flute".
Of the thousands and thousands of people in the theater audience, at most only five realized they were witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime performance of the absolute mastery of a difficult and demanding instrument.
Always play for those five.
I think of those who are willing to go to the trouble of reading my stuff, which is a niche of a niche of technology, as "those five". You had to go out of your way to find me, and you had to really care about Broadband Wireless Internet Access to be reading what I have to say about it, so I'll try always to "play well" for you.
Seth Godin (that's Saint Seth... the guy inspires me practically daily) says something similar, that resonates equally with me. He calls it "Tribes". He explains it in a video and a book). In the video, he explains:
Tribes are a simple concept that goes back 50,000 years. It's about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it's something that people have wanted forever. Lots of people are used to having a spiritual tribe or a church tribe... having a work tribe... having a community tribe. But now, thanks to the Internet, thanks to the explosion of mass media, thanks to a lot of other things that are bubbling through our society around the world... tribes are everywhere.
You should watch the video. Godin goes on to explain some various tribes. But it's not just about finding the other true believers... it's about coalescing the tribe into something greater.
If I could find and simply join the tribe of Broadband Wireless Internet Access fanatics... those that are rabidly interested in...
- The technology of BWIA... how do they do that?
- The business models of the companies, the service providers, the entire ecosystem of BWIA
- How BWIA radically disrupts the incumbents
If I could find that tribe, I'd just join up and be part of it. But I don't think it exists, at least not the exact tribe I want to be part of. There are tribes that for parts of what I see as BWIA - WISPs are a perfect example, but BWIA is a lot bigger than WISPs. So, if my writing ends up forming a tribe about BWIA... so be it.
Agi Lurtz Wisdom is where you find it, and I found this profound wisdom from the words of a woman who has founded a number of businesses:
You must love your idea,
Be passionate about it,
Know you are the ONLY one that should carry this idea through,
Believe you can do the very best job possible, second to none and
Know in your heart that it is the right thing to do,
It should make a positive difference in the world and
Should never, never be done solely for the sake of money.
As soon as I read that article, I knew she was right. There just isn't anyone else out there that can do what it is I want to do - write from authority, knowledge, experience, and depth about Broadband Wireless Internet Access... and write about it a lot.
This simple quote from Sir Jonathan (Jony) Ive, of Apple really resonated with me, and "plays well" with the above wisdom:
Q: What are your goals when setting out to build a new product?
A: Our goals are very simple - to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.
Yep. If you can't do it better, then you shouldn't do it. I think that applies well to my motivations. I've often related the story of reading Boardwatch Magazine, and being fascinated by the new Internet technology being discussed, in both the ads and the editorial content. But I was frustrated that they weren't talking at all about this cool new wireless Internet equipment and technology. So I wrote to them suggesting that they cover it... and their response to me was "start writing". They couldn't do it, and I could ("... something that is better...).
Lastly, with the death of Steve Jobs in October, 2011, which affected me to surprising degree, his 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University offered a lot of wisdom. But this really jumped out at me, and was especially poignant:
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Friends and supporters
(More than I can remember or name, but I'll keep trying.)
Incredible Thanks to my wife Tina and daughter Merideth!
Michael R. Anderson (KB9YIQ); Ken DiPietro; Larry Gadallah (VE6VQ/W7); David Isenberg; Craig Jensen; Greg Jones (WD5IVD); Angela Kendall; Andrew Kreig; Matt Larsen; Patrick Leary; Steve Monsey (N0FPF), Marlon Schafer, John Scrivner, Jim Sutton, Bill Vodall (WA7NWP)... to be continued.
Business Model
When I was writing previously, the sophistication of my business model was, to be charitable, "poor". I'll just leave it at that. I enjoyed writing, was good at it, my readers fround my stuff to be useful, readable, and actionable... but I didn't generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining.
I spent much time soul searching. Despite having walked away from full-time writing, I concluded that I'd been permanently infected with a love of writing. This condition is... while not terminal, apparently chronic. It can be managed, but not cured... by writing. I'm a pretty good writer, but a poor businessperson. If I was ever to resume writing as a vocation, I had to develop a real business model. Fortunately, all that stuff you've been reading about how the tools for starting a business have all gotten exponentially cheaper and better were also true for my paritcular "business". In my case:
Website / Blog Platform / Podcast Hosting: Squarespace. One of the main benefits is a clean migration path from TypePad which has become pretty dated.
Email newsletter: letter.ly, MailChimp (they have a not-well-known paid subscription capability) and TinyLetter (recently acquired by MailChimp, but apparently being largely left alone).
Magazine: MagCloud. What a great idea, and it's apparently going well for them.
Books: Amazon's CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing. There's also Lulu.com (I've heard various things pro and con about them) and of course Apple's and Barnes & Noble's "publish directly with us" programs, which seem like non-starters for the kind of material I plan to publish. There's also a lot... a LOT of other routes to self-publishing, but they pretty much pale in comparison to CreateSpace.
Podcasting: BlogTalkRadio, PodBean, and others I haven't investigated yet. Podcasting has gotten a lot saner from the last time I did it. While it can be as easy as turnkey "you and a your interview subject call in", and it's posted and hosted. In reality, I'll want a lot more control, like sourcing the ads, the voiceovers, etc. My buddy Jim Sutton used commercial production values for the old Wireless Tech Radio, which I now own (and, in fairness, have neglected terribly, but not forever) and any podcasting I do, I want to live up to the standard Jim set.
What the email, magazine, book, and podcast (mostly) options above have in common is that I just send off the material... and I get revenue back (in various ways). The critical differentiator I have from a lot of other writers is that I've already established myself with my subject matter. I'm not trying to break into my field - just introduce a new product, and that's a LOT easier than elbowing your way into a field as a new entrant.
Blogging In General / Social Media: First, it's my belief that for an individual (like me) it's nearly impossible to achieve a reasonable income solely by creating content to be published on a blog / website. While I believe that such a thing is possible... it can only be done at the cost of spamming your readers to death with advertising and other crapware on the site. Bleh... I quickly grow tired of such sites. If you try to address all the other ways that your content can be read (such as RSS) and start putting ads there, you'll quickly be worked around (as I've done for some RSS feeds that I read that have really obnoxious ads in every post).
Similarly, there's no direct business model (as in reasonable amounts of income) for an individual to publish unique content via social media - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Blogs and social media are great... wonderful... in fact, essential ancillary methods to establish yourself and "show the flag" when your primary revenue comes from another source - books, appearances, consulting, etc.. There's even a case to be made for using social media as part of your customer support system if you're a company.
But for me... other than "showing the flag" with a blog presence, presence on LinkedIn (which is where the majority of my professional contacts seem to have congregated), and sharing pointers to interesting developments amongst a carefully curated set of contacts on Twitter, I won't be doing much on the BWIA News blog and social media. (I have a special bleh for Facebook - a story for another time).
So... How Will All This Work?
I envision all of this as an integrated model:
- Weekly email newsletter - multiple, short, topical articles. Text only, no graphics or advertisements. Paid subscriptions.
- Monthly magazine - Totally unique content, multiple, longer articles about vendors, service providers, technology, and anything else I think is relevant to the "big picture" of Broadband Wireless Internet Access. Includes text, graphics, and photos. Delivered as hardcopy or PDF. Paid subscriptions or individual issue.
- Books - initially, primarily Print-On-Demand (POD) hardcopy. Depending on how my books are received, I may expand into ebooks. Books will be everything from a ten-page monograph focused on a single subject such as "Broadband Wireless Internet Options For 1 Gbps Links" or as broad as "Wireless Internet Service Provider Business Models".
- While as a "product", podcasts will follow in the sequence of first get the newsletter established, then the magazine, then the books, then the podcast, once I'm to that point, the podcast will come first in the production model. I'll interview interesting people and record that interview, release it as a podcast, then use the interview as fodder for newsletter, magazine, and books.
The Mission
A business without a mission is just graping greedily for revenue - whatever one can think of that will generate reasonable amounts of revenue. But, as evidenced above, "grasping greedily for revenue" wasn't (somewhat to my detriment) at the top of my priority list.
There's a "backstory to the backstory" inherent in whatever I do in covering BWIA... that
Affordable Access To The Broadband Internet Can Profoundly Change People's Lives
One amazing example of this is Kahn Academy. KA couldn't exist without Broadband Internet, and would not have an audience without affordable Broadband Internet. Wikipedia, Amazon, Craigslist...there are a million other examples of profound change in people's lives as a result of affordable Broadband Internet.
But Broadband Internet is not always affordable, or accessable, especially in circumstances where there isn't adequate, existing infrastructure - developing countries, remote / rural areas, even unique situations like ships at sea. While Broadband Internet Access can largely be taken for granted within the US and most other developed countries - cable television (cable modem), telephone / Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), geosynchronous satellite, and even wireless telephony (1xEV-DO, HSxPA), and mobile BWIA (LTE, Mobile WiMAX) is widely... but not universally... available. BWIA is an incredibly viable solution for those situations. But BWIA, especially fixed-infrastructure BWIA, is not widely known, much less widely understood. Thus...
My mission for BWIA News Blog, BWIA News Newsletter, BWIA News Magazine, and the BWIA News series of books:
- Provide excellent coverage of the "big picture" of Broadband Wireless Internet Access - in all its forms, from continental satellite coverage to Wi-Fi Hotspots, and everthing in between.
- Provide in-depth coverage of the technology, companies, and business models from a technologically-savvy, but readable perspective. You don't have to be a wireless expert to read my stuff, but you will have to be comfortable with technology.
- Tell the stories of small, obscure, not-well-known technologies, vendors, service providers, and others related to BWIA.
A few examples:
- Explaining that wireless telephony BWIA is not the only way to go - it's possible to construct private infrastructure to provide BWIA... including mobile (which is widely regarded as heresy).
- Highlighting the incredibly underappreciated role of Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) in providing Broadband Internet Access in rural areas.
- Telling the story better than the popular blogs and especially the national news outlets who almost always laughably get it wrong when it comes to wireless technology, especially latching on to some wireless-related development with no context, and ends up drawing the wrong conclusions from the wireless-related development.
A Few Notes (Background)
Amateur Radio Amateur (Ham) Radio has been incredibly formative to me, and was a large part of the technology background that I had when I began writing about BWIA. I'm not nearly as active as I used to be, but I'm actively working to fix that.
BWIA - Broadband Wireless Internet Access Others say Broadband Wireless Access... Or just Broadband Wireless, or even Wireless Broadband. In my writing I like to convey very specifically what it is I'm discussing and describing, so I say Broadband (as opposed to "narrowband" [slow]), Wireless (as opposed to wired / wireline), Internet (there's all kinds of "private", non-Internet telecommunications, but to me, by far the most interesting stuff is happening on the Internet), Access (generally... as in public access, such as services provided by Internet Service Providers to the public; as opposed to military, government, enterprise).
Where Am I? I (quite happily... gratefully!) live, work, and play near in the beautiful Pacific Northwest USA, specifically near Redmond, Washington (state) which is very close to Seattle, Washington. I often sprinkle references to technology-related events, stories, and sometimes even the weather (it doesn't always rain here - that's just what the locals tell the tourists that are tempted to move here) in the Seattle area, especially on the rare occasion that something notable relating to BWIA occurs. Yes, I'm in the heart of Microsoft country... and Clearwire country... and pretty close to the former AT&T Wireless (now "wireless by AT&T"?), Boeing's considerable presence in the Seattle area, T-Mobile, and lots of other tech companies. The Redmond / Seattle area is in the US Pacific Time Zone, and (irritatingly) subject to Daylight Savings Time; UTC/GMT -8 hours.
Down The Road...
What's coming down the road is a little difficult to know, and tell, but I can say that I'm excited.
Portions of this backstory were cadged and updated from Good Day, BWIA - Fine Print / FAQ.
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