Coyote Bliss

In Mid September 2014, I assisted in running Startup Weekend Kids. It is a morning long event during Startup Weekend Tucson to give kids a really great introduction into the world of the business startup company. I think it is also an introduction to some key business concepts in general.

It is an excellent program. Kids think of a business idea (usually an invention of some sort, but it could be any product or service) as soon as they arrive. They give a pitch to the group, and then work most of the time creating a poster presentation, in which they must think about things like what their prototype will look like, what materials they will need and setting a price. They also think of who their customers may be and are encouraged to interview potential customers. Often the interviewees are the adult Startup Weekend attendees, who find the mini-me’s just darn cute.

The kids’ business ideas are sometimes a rather ambitious pie-in-the-sky invention (my all time favorite was the jet pack), but sometimes they are quite possible, like this year’s basketball hoop laundry hamper, or the cat shelter yard sale donation web site. The kids are not given too much time to worry about the idea really. The effort comes later in experiencing the whole startup process.

The kids range in age from 5 to 15. Parents are highly encouraged to attend with the kids. Why? Because it’s a tough program! However, it is well worth the effort and rich in experiential rewards.

My son also participated. This was his second time through the workshop. I remember the first time through being a bit challenging for him, but fun in the end. The second time was the same way.

I am writing about Startup Weekend Kids because during the event I noticed how just about every kid had a little meltdown or hit a challenge-wall at some point. The energy in the room the whole time was super charged, made more electric by all of the excitement from the adults upstairs doing Startup Weekend Tucson. This energy made the room feel very optimistic yet made kids rather sensitive to these roadblocks. I think it came from the old belief that the idea is all that you need for a business to be successful. The challenging reality of the process, even on a 4 hour long micro scale, was a surprise to everyone and hit them at different points.

The following are common meltdown points I noticed. Now, adults, before you feel all superior and charmed by this list of children’s little meltdowns, let me explain that my reason for writing this is that I have seen adults have the EXACT same meltdowns either at previous work projects or during my experience at Startup Weekend Tucson. I’ve certainly experienced a few of these freak outs myself. Though, no, I did not have a tantrum you could hear or see.

Here they are:

1. The prototype. After a kid has just pitched his/her most awesome invention ever to the group and gotten applause, they realize they would like to draw or construct some sort of visual representation of the amazing gizmo, to realize they don’t really have a good idea what it will look like. After a few failed attempts with pen and paper or maybe just the THOUGHT of picking up pen and paper: Meltdown!

I think that some people need to draw or sculpt to understand their own idea in its entirety. That concrete reality is very helpful to them. I am this way. But I think others need to talk it out. Perhaps they are used to going through the world in more of an abstract way. I wonder if some of these meltdowns are caused by differences in the way we naturally interface with our world, visual or kinesthetic, verses aural. I also wonder if sometimes this is a developmental roadblock. Perhaps the child has not drawn a lot, but would be fine at it if they tried it, so they don’t know if it will be helpful or not. Oh, the anxiety of the new and untried! But, its the fun part if we embrace it I think.

All in all though, I saw this meltdown just a few times.

2. Define the Customer. After a kid has their idea well understood and defined, they think they are done. Then their accompanying adult or Startup Weekend Kids moderator mentions they need to define their customers. And the kid says, “The what now?” To tell the truth, I think this is where most of us as adults also freak out. Me included, during my startup experience! Our idea, our baby might enter the world and be judged by others. Will it be ripped apart? Will it be sued for some reason we could not have possibly foretold? Will someone say it is just dumb? Ahhhh! Customers???!!

In addition, potential customers are not always who we think they are. They could be just like us, but they could also be nothing at all like us, which is hard to understand because perhaps we just can’t fathom this type of customer. We flounder and freak out because maybe this idea is only good for a small number of people. Or maybe it could be used for unintended purposes by others. Oh, the anxiety of the unknown! But, I suppose it is a fun part as well…if we embrace it.

My son hit a wall at this point this year right here. In fact, he was ready to scream at me a few times. I had to talk him into taking a walk outside just to let some energy out and talk a bit. It was hard on both of us as I didn’t know the right things to say except that I understood that it was hard and that I thought he had a good idea and to encourage him to think outside of himself a little bit. However, I think this is something that cannot be cultivated with one talk. Looking back, I think the encouragement was all I could do. Perhaps next year at Startup Weekend Kids it will be easier for him. But there was only so much encouragement I could give. I could not live this lesson for him.

He did think of some possible customers in the end, grudgingly.

3. Writing the Survey. Then it is time to interview customers and do some good ol’ market research. They need to write a survey. This requires a kid to think about the problem that their business idea solves in addition to the customers they believe the idea is serving. These questions require a kid to realize that they do NOT know the answers. Everything that they were working on up until this point was based on a gut feeling, an intuition, that this is a good idea to them because of X, Y and Z. But none of that matters in a survey. You can’t convince people by presentation in a survey. You have to let the people speak for themselves.

Writing a survey requires some really intense critical thinking.  And WOW!  Does it ever. What are you really trying to find out? Maybe you will find out you were wrong all along, your idea is really is dumb to others. So I saw a lot of kids freaking out here too. It is a really tough turn. Talk about the anxiety of the unknown. But if we embrace it…

And of course, your idea will sound dumb to others. But so what? How many others? How many people love it? That will re-fuel your energy and excitement. But I digress.

I had to talk my son through this part. I don’t think he was ready to turn the corner on his own. I gave him a framework, suggested he ask his interviewees how old they are and what  problems they have with cleaning up Legos (my son’s business idea was a maker bot that could make lost Legos). I really led him through it. It is a tough concept.

4. The last freak out point is often going out and taking the survey. Kids are shy. Adults are often the same way. I think it gets easier for everyone with practice but it is rare to a have a person that just leaps in front of a total stranger with strong confidence and says, “Can I ask you a few questions about my awesome business idea?” I’ve met one or two people like this, but really, it is rare.

It helped for the adults to go with the kids. However, I had to argue with my son a bit that he was going to be the one asking the questions. He did ask the questions though. We started with his friends to make it easier. In the end, he warmed up. But hey, there were a number of kids who would have rather hid behind their adult helpers than talk to a stranger.

So, by the end of those freak out points, kids had enough information to make a presentation on a foam board with what they learned. And they really learned some great concrete stuff. That concrete stuff was hard won! They were proud. Their adults were proud, and a little tired. But happy.

So in the end…

The poster presentations were a breeze in contrast to all of the other stuff. Almost all of the kids who were shy to make their original pitch were fine to make the final presentation. By then, they’d been through so much that morning that the presentations were really exciting, easy and fun.

The energy crackled. The kids got applause. They totally deserved it.

Can’t wait till next year, Startup Tucson!

Tucson DIY will be running Startup Tucson Kids next year as well. Check us out here!

Writing songs this month has been awesome. It has been freeing to put my thoughts and words into a tune. I’ve needed to share some of these thoughts for a very long time and they have been leaping out into existence in unexpectedly lovely ways. I have a few snarky songs, a metaphysical song, some poetry, and a perky one I’m working on for Breast Cancer Awareness month. That one is going to be fun, hee hee!

However, I’ve been avoiding the classic, much done and much revered love song. Yep, I’ll admit it. Avoiding.

If you asked me a year ago why I’ve never written a love song, I would have said that the abundance of romantic love songs that exist as compared to other songs has raises my hackles. I would say, Yes, romantic love is a huge part of the human experience, but really, aren’t there enough of them out there?  I would say, There need to be more songs about food, or nature, or taking a long hike. There need to be more songs about telling someone to take a hike. I would say there needs to be more artists sharing goltrai, geantrai and suantrai, the Celtic tradition of a bardic performance – songs to make you laugh, songs to make you cry, and songs to make you fall asleep. Bring ’em back, I’d say. (I still say that.)

I would say, there need to be more great artists like Weird Al Yankovic and Spike Jones who were able to make a musical career out of basically NO romantic love songs at all. Those guys are/were GENIUSES!

Love songs? Piffle!

But, since last year, I have been doing some major work on being authentic and telling my insecurities to go jump in a lake.

The truth is, while it is true that I love every sort of song, I am a die hard romantic. I am someone who is a sucker for the schmaltz. I cry ALL the time at movies, even movies where I already know my emotions are being manipulated (any Disney film). I love Shakesperean comic romance and awkward nerdmance. I love big sweeping Austenesque stories or a Nicholas Sparks novel. I love horribly depressing Celtic slow airs and coquettish Italian art songs. I love Leonard Cohen, The Smiths and Edith Piaf.

Come on! It would be foolish of me not to write love songs because it would be refusing to share a big part of who I am.

I realized the other day that part of the reason I was avoiding writing love songs wasn’t so much because I don’t want to write them, its just that I am realizing that often writing them will be rather painful. Or a pain in the patoot. Likely both.

I think that to actually be able to access the spirit necessary to write a great romantic love song, there must be some drama to write about. However, it is a challenge to draw on those memories because the dramatic times in our lives are often fraught with feelings of being overwhelmed. Its tough to recall a big baffle of images all tumbled together in a pile of egads. It is the landing, the end of the turmoil, that is easier to remember as things don’t happen so quickly and painfully.

Also, that stuff is so personal and it feels weird to share it openly.

I think therein lies the gift of an genuine love song. The song writer is unearthing some mighty touchy stuff to come to light with a whole heap of strangers. But aren’t you glad that that artist wrote that song for you to sing along to in the car, to help you emote when you are tired, or to remind you of a good memory? I am!

Here is one of my favorites these days, The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields:

So, here’s to taking writing genuine love songs for a spin.

It might be a train wreck a few times but I know it will be worth it.

Flying Solo

For the first time in 7 years, I am flying on a plane without a child.

If you have never flown with little kids before, let me assure you, the experience of flying with and flying without them is night-and-day. Flying with little kids requires a lot of physical strength and stamina as well as mental acuity and patience. For safety, tiny kids must fly with a carseat, which I must lug throughout the airport while I either carry my child or walk very slowly with them. During the flight, I must be aware of their comfort, make sure they have activities and snacks, and make sure they aren’t driving the people in the seats near them crazy with the kicking of the seats or the loud complaining. There isn’t much time to relax and enjoy the flight at this point.

Of course, the flights have gotten better and better as the kids have grown. But still, the opportunity to travel without them is really a treat. For example, we are going on a Hawaii trip next month as my husband is traveling for a conference. When we were debating whether we should make a vacation out of the conference and have me go along, the thing that put me over the edge to say YES was the dream of flying on a long flight next to my husband, with nothing to do but read a kindle book or tap tap tap on my laptop.

Visiting one of the most beautiful places on earth…sounds great! 12 hours next to hubby with no demands…sounds awesome!

Arizona Sky

The clear skies of Tucson make me think of flight quite often. When I first moved to Tucson, I felt like every day was the best summer day of the year. Growing up in the Midwest, a spate of clear days were something to be treasured. I often went a week or two with weather obscuring the sun, rain, snow, hail, or just pesky clouds determined to make Earth creatures a little more melancholy that day. Welcome to Sunny Tucson, as the postcards say, and it does still have quite an “up” effect on my overall mood, especially in February. The robin’s egg blue and shiny sun cannot be beat, at least for me.

The clear skies are also good for airplanes, in which we have so many. I live just a few miles from the Davis-Montham Air Force Base and also, the Boneyard, where many of our  retired Air Force planes reside.

I see so many Air Force jets practicing astounding fancy moves over the city. There is an annual Air Show where pilots show off their daring dos, and it really is inspiring to see five jets screaming throughout the sky straight up. I mean, what kind of a person DOES that? These guys are amazing! Both the crazy acts of flying and the character of the pilots gives my day even more of an “up”.

The songs, Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd and Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters are constantly going through my mind during Air Show time.

Up In The Air

So many things around me are changing.

The House

I am heading to my parents’ home today in Milwaukee to help them move. For years they planned on moving from their north side ranch house in which they lived for over forty years to my mother’s inherited house from my grandmother in Mequon. The Mequon house is the home in which she grew up and just a few miles from the Milwaukee home.

I’m not sure why it took them so long to move from one house to the next. Their original plan was to move to the Mequon house after I graduated from high school twenty years ago. Maybe it is that moving from the Milwaukee house seems like such a big task; the Milwaukee house is the house that my mother and my father chose to buy together while the Mequon house is the house that chose them through an inheritance.

The Mequon house has been waiting a long time for their prodigal owners to return. It was built in the 1937 by my great grandparents. When my great grandfather passed away, my great grandmother asked my grandfather and his family to move in, else she sell the house. It was just after the second world war, and though jobs were hard to find, my grandfather sold their home in Indianapolis and moved the family. My mother was born just days after they moved into the Mequon house. Since my mother inherited the house, several families have rented it from them.

The house has been “up in the air” since the last family moved out over ten years ago. I am hoping it finds itself resting with the good company of my parents soon and that my visit to help with the move will make it so.

Second Grade

School’s out today for my son: the last day of 1st grade. He will be going to a different school next year. As an epilogue to an earlier post I wrote about choosing schools and commutes, I decided to send my son to a new charter school just up the road from my home. A friend of mine was on the planning committee for the school and suggested it. The philosophy behind the school is to promote critical thinking and learning through exploration while sticking to the typical Vail school system’s curriculum. I have a good feeling about it. The principal has a background in special education and has an excellent reputation after being a beloved principal at another Vail school. I think he might be an out of the box thinker. He is certainly interested in getting to know parents and is easy to talk to.

But it is a change. I am hoping my son will enjoy the change but we must wait until July to see how this new school works for him and for our family.

Pre-School

My daughter will be beginning pre-school in September and will be graduating from being “the baby” to being a little girl. She will be attending the co-op school that my son enjoyed and I know that it will be a good place for her. I look forward to seeing what she thinks of the new schedule of going to school and playing with friends and being away from me.

The co-op school is parent run and I volunteered to be on the board this year. I’m looking forward to serving on the board but a little nervous as sometimes the board must make difficult decisions.

Graduation

And then there is my brother. For the last six years he has worked so hard at getting his degree. He moved from Chicago to Tucson after the loss of a close friend to suicide. Wanting to move on with his life, he lived with us for two years and now lives on his own while studying at the University of Arizona. He has struggled here for years as his stay in Tucson has sometimes been a good one but has sometimes been particularly difficult for him. He is working so hard and quite determined.

He met a wonderful woman last year, or rather, re-connected with a friend from Chicago days and a lovely romance ensued. He is looking forward to the day when he moves to Florida, where she currently resides. We are all hoping and praying for him to finish the degree he has worked so hard to achieve this summer. I personally have a good feeling about where he is right now.

The End

But I want to end these stories in an authentic way in this article. All four stories, my parents and the house, my son and his school, my daughter and her school and my brother and his degree are all still authoring. The endings are still up in the air.

I have a good feeling about how they are going to end, but really, it is all up to them, the major players.