Mark Collier

So many other “I’m leaving Yahoo.. sniff” blog posts have been written, I’ll try to keep your interest with things like all nighters in London or the occasional french castle.

But first… it’s true that when I joined the Yahoo! Music team in 2004 I had never seen a more talented collection of people anywhere in the world. Yeah, we made about a million mistakes, but I gained a ton of experience and life long friends out of it. Looking at you SteveO, Big Mike, Spiegs, Roberto, JT, Walker, strauss, Howie, Albert, Traci, Shannon, even my token Laker fan friend Matt New… that’s about 5% of the amazing folks (to the rest: don’t hate, and visit me in Austin .

I lost track of the number of once in a life time experiences but a few come to mind like going to the Grammy’s (for the record, I hate the grammy’s but WTF it was cool), watching Karin Gilford eat 3X her weight in BBQ at Salt Lick (still not sure how), two trips to london with spiegs and traci, seeing the look on ventura’s face when we showed up for our 8am train to Paris still out with Traci from the night before [redacted], staying in a castle with Albert & Spiegs for the music festival in Bourges, France… Cannes for MIDEM with Walker during the Obama inauguration (despite deathly food poisoning thanks to one shellfish below)… It’s all rather ridiculous, really… I’m a very lucky S.O.B. I know it.

Cannes, France. Which one of you made me ill?

Lest you think it was all cristal and rock stars, I actually put out some work product like signing our largest distribution deal for the Yahoo! Music Engine (Dell), and successfully executing a (somewhat) graceful exit from the client software business and into the social app/widget distribution game with deals with folks like RockYou, Bebo, Piczo, and Skyrock (they are based in Paris — see it was all for business I tell you!). But I will definitely remember the people, events, and places the most.

So, after 5 years at Yahoo!, including a magical 3 weeks and 1 day at Musicmatch before we were acquired, I have decided to move to the other end of the web where I can let my inner geek sing playing with cloud computing all day: Rackspace.

Rackspace is best known as the biggest “managed web hosting” company around, helping thousands of businesses focus on what they do best without worrying about buying servers and managing them day to day to keep their business running on the web.

But what really interested me was a new type of business infrastructure that has gotten a fair amount of press (creating some confusion in the process) called “cloud computing”. Everyone has a different definition, but at the core it’s still about making it easy to run your business on the web without worrying about how it happens behind the scenes.

If “managed web hosting” was about picking up the phone to have someone else set up your server in a matter of days (or hours) instead of doing it yourself, the promise of the cloud is radically simpler: clicking a button in a control panel and having a server up in running in seconds. Even better, having new servers brought online automatically the moment Oprah pimps out your new thing and millions of people rush to buy it. *having enough chicken is up to you.

If that sounds like a commercial, you’ll have to excuse the enthusiasm, as I’ve recently binged on the corporate kool aid. Rackspace talks a lot about the culture, and in case you think this is just like every other company, consider this: “Rookie Orientation” is a week long! I’m about as cynical as they come, but even I left impressed. Ask me about Sugarbear.

All I can say is that somewhere along the way I fell out of love (just a tiny bit) with what technology could do in theory, and started to value what you can actually do with it in practice. No new development in the tech world has the potential to have a bigger impact across almost every business than this crazy thing called “the cloud.” Because as much as I may be fascinated by technology as a life long geek, I’m acutely aware that most of the time technology sucks.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

On an unrelated note, I just switched to MAC.

So… When given the opportunity to become a “Racker” as VP of Business Development, helping build bridges between companies to make this new cloud technology suck less and do more, all I could tell Lew was: Hell yeah.

In addition to doing BD work building partnerships, which I really loved doing at Yahoo!, I am also excited to do some Corporate Development (M&A).

The rest of the particulars are on linked in so just click here.
And remember that curtis said you should follow me on twitter here.

As I mentioned before, I joined the board of an amazing non-profit this year called the Austin Music Foundation. AMF supports the music community with a series of educational events, and every once in a while we get to put on an event just for fun — which also helps us raise a few bucks to support the mission.

To that end, spend the evening of August 9th with some of the coolest cats in Austin enjoying the amazing food of EL SOL Y LA LUNA and, naturally, the music of from David Garza and Suzanna Choffel. I’ve included the event details below along with a few of their songs. Tickets are $35 with all proceeds benefiting Austin Music Foundation’s educational programs, and can be purchased here.

Austin 360 has a blurb on the event here.

Hope to see you there!
@sparkycollier

Testing out this 8tracks music mix service.

UPDATE: After tweeting, posting to facebook, telling everyone I know verbally, filing a formal objection on Experian and — probably most importantly — contacting my mortgage broker (who does a ton of business with Wellsfargo and has high level contacts there) I received a response from Wellsfargo. They are agreeing to fix it! Kudos to them for taking my complaint seriously and for doing the right thing. They have now sent an update to all credit agencies to fix the previous error. This is a huge relief, as I did not intend to wait 7 years for this to go away. Obviously, I would have preferred not to go through this time wasting ordeal in the first place, but i am glad I got a positive (and fair) resolution.

[ORIGINAL POST BELOW]:

Dear Wellsfargo,

I have been a loyal customer for over 10 years – closer to 20 in fact. After I refinanced my mortgage in January of 2009 via a mortgage broker (capstar lending), I was actually delighted to learn that wellsfargo had purchased the loan. After all, I have been happy with your service for years. However, you really screwed up this time. Despite your assurances to the contrary, your screw up has now impacted my credit, and you need to fix it. now.

Here’s the deal:

I have never received a single statement, bill, payment coupon book, or anything that might facilitate making payments. Ever — to this day in June 2009! The first correspondence I received from you stated that I was 3 months past due with a handy pamphlet on how to avoid foreclosure. FORECLOSURE! Are you effing kidding me?

I immediately called (4 times in fact) and cleared up the issue (so I thought). I was told that in your records I was set up to receive electronic statements. However, 1) I was never sent any electronic communication from Wellsfargo regarding my mortgage (I checked again, including SPAM folders) 2) I never elected this option and 3) I was told by the 4th person I talked to that it was impossible for me to get my first statement electronically for a new refinance, as a matter of wellsfargo policy.

My guess is that the error in your system is rooted in the fact that I am also a wellsfargo checking (and saving) account customer, where I DO have online statements set up. When you bought my loan, it appears you linked the accounts (without my knowledge), which inherited the “online statements” setting, but that was impossible since the first bill (according to the 4th wellsfargo representative) must be a mailed, paper bill according to your own policy. After talking to you 4 times I logged in (to my old checking account) and attempted to view the online statement you claimed were beint “sent” to me, and was given the following error message: “This account is not currently eligible for online statements”. To document the absurdity of the situation I captured a screen shot and am hosting it here (account info masked for security):

Wellsfargo you screwed up, now fix it.

Mind you — this is 3 or 4 MONTHS after I was supposedly receiving electronic statements in lieu of paper statements. This error confirmed positively that I had never received any statements electronically – and as I have stated I never have (even to this day) received anything via u.s. mail.

After settling up on the 3 months of past due bills I was assured 1) I would receive a bill for the next month (due June 1st) after paying the 3 months past due — that never happened (I STILL have NEVER received a bill) and 2) that this incident — entirely Wellsfargo’s fault — would NOT be filed as a negative incident on my credit report. Obviously both of these statements by welslfargo have turned out to be false. At this point I have still not received a bill, though my account is now current (You are finally allowing me to access the site electronically and I am making electronic payments now).

Bottom line: The account would have never been past due if you had billed me a single time, ever, and as documented above I also did not have access to electronic statements. You also informed me that you didn’t have my phone number, which you obviously should have gotten from the company you purchased the loan from, as I never contracted directly with Wellsfargo for this home loan refinance (again, I used Capstar – a broker).

In summary, I request that Wellsfargo remove this negative credit reference from my file, and if you value my business as a customer of over 10 years with 4 accounts, issue an apology for wasting my valuable time with this nonsense.

Mark Collier

P.S. I am forced to document this here because the experian dispute path only allows 120 characters. Even Twitter gives you 140!!

A funny thing happened on the way to teaching this class introducing Austin musicians to Twitter… namely that I had to drive to San Antonio (at 7am) and back to Austin on the day of the presentation, and upon arriving back in Austin just before the talk I realized I’d left my Macbook in San Antonio. This is not nearly as romantic as leaving your heart in San Francisco. In fact, it totally sucked as I had no way to access the slides I’d prepared.

So, I just winged it which actually worked out just fine. I was really happy to meet some of the most interesting and creative folks in Austin and to do my part to help the Austin Music Foundation achieve it’s mission. If you search for AMFtwitter you’ll find many of the attendees and I’d encourage you to follow them and watch them kick ass for Austin Music!

I’ve embedded the slides below, as you can see these were really just my speaker notes and nothing special as far as fancy powerpoint goes. (read: they are damn ugly.) I’ve received a lot of requests for them, though, so I am adding them here as a reference. The talk was geared for people who had never used Twitter or were just getting started with it, to clear up a lot the confusion (RT@#WTF) that is leading a lot of people to give up before realizing the benefits.

I also am adding this video which I think gives a nice overview as well:

Please remember that the Austin Music Foundation really needs the support of the community to keep on truckin, so become a member or contact me about sponsorship opportunities anytime. And follow AMF on twitter! www.twitter.com/austinmusic

If you’d like to receive a beta invite to test out the AWE.SM URL shortening & analytic service I mentioned, just DM me (or send an @sparkycollier and I should get it). You can reach me at www.twitter.com/sparkycollier

Cheers,
Mark “Sparky” Collier

I recently joined the board of an amazing non-profit called the Austin Music Foundation. AMF “strengthens and connects the local music community with innovative programs that empower musicians and fuel Austin’s creative economy.”

Since I had some experience doing social media deals for Yahoo! Music (and Musicmatch before that), naturally the first thing I did was get AMF on Twitter, so follow them now at www.twitter.com/austinmusic

Now they want me to actually do stuff, starting with leading this session on connecting with fans on Twitter in 140 characters or less. The session is at the Hilton Garden Inn on June 1st at 7pm in downtown Austin. That’s in two weeks. Yikes.

Ok, after pondering the assignment with some trepidation I came to two important conclusions:
1) I’m completely qualified to lead this session for one reason: I play myself on Twitter, just like Ben Kweller. Class dismissed. Seriously, though, check out Ben’s twitter stream.

2) I’ve got an amazing network of friends that can help me gather some stories and stats to share, like my friend Ian Roger’s recent blog post I will faithfully rip off. READ IT.

So, if you’re an artist or manager that has a story to share about how twitter has helped you connect with fans, please leave a comment below or drop me a line at AMF at sparkycollier.otherinbox.com and help me create this pitch. Please. (Otherinbox is a cool Austin startup FYI). In the fine tradition of Fred Wilson I’m hoping to crowd source this pitch…

If you’re planning to attend please leave me a comment as well (including your twitter name — you ARE on twitter, right??) and what you’d like to get out of the session. If we can get a critical mass of participants I can get out of the way and let y’all help each other, which is exactly what twitter is all about!

Last, but not least, please read up on AMF and consider supporting our important mission! I’m also the chair of the sponsorship committee, so if your business would like to get involved hit me up!

Mark
P.S. I am no longer with Yahoo!, but that is for another blog post

Before: perfectly comfortable living on the beach in Venice with the other mentally disturbed homeless ex-investment banker artists.

After: Ready for the ACL 90’s reunion.

What’s next?

Update: Fu man chu is now in full effect.

ya hear?

Last summer (2008) I learned the sad news that my uncle, Jon Schlosser, had passed away. One sliver lining from my trip to New Mexico for his funeral was the opportunity to re-connect with my cousins, Claire and Steven.

Steven mentioned that he had been working on turning the old film home movies my Grammy (Schlosser) used to show when I was a kind into digital form. We discussed the difficulty of getting everything on line, with the limitations youtube has and the high cost of other options, given the large file sizes.

I offered to find a solution, and though it took me quite a while I finally found it: wordpress.com Matt has done it again, contributing an amazing resource to the web for next to nothing. I was able to get 15GB of storage for only $50/year. I actually stumbled onto this solution based on a comment Matt made on his blog. It took me about a week to get everything uploaded, now without further ado…

Can’t wait to hear the new album.  I love the single FIGHT and enjoyed this clip from a recent Letterman appearance.  For those who don’t know, in addition to being a really talented musician, he also had the wisdom to move to Austin and is active on twitter.

I’m also testing out the “suggest to Techmeme” code my friend Jonathan Strauss just released.

UPDATE: New Album courtesy of LALA. I still haven’t received my pre-order and pleas for a miracle MP3 have gone unanswered. Even the bay full of pirates is empty. Drat.

Suggest to ^?

I’ve been a smartphone guy (and overall gadget freak) for a long time, starting with a Treo 600 which was replaced by another 600 and another 600 (they kept breaking – it was an abusive relationship) and then a Treo 650 and another 650 (ditto). I was instantly hooked on the keyboard and the ability to install apps, despite the fact that the Treo series was the worst phone every made for that quaint activity called “making phone calls.”

I finally went Blackberry (8800) about 3 years ago and was amazed at how much better of a phone it was for calls, and the reliability / ruggedness was light years ahead (I’ve only replaced my blackberry once! with an 8820).

When the iPhone 3G came out I bought one and went cold turkey on the blackberry, putting it in a drawer. After 3 months of frustration I started carrying 2 devices: the iphone and the Blackberry 8820. This was kind of ridiculous, but you really do get the best of both worlds. Opening both when you take your seat before a flight lets everyone know: “I’m a serious dork, please don’t talk to me.” Score.

The iphone’s shortcomings have been chronicled to death, namely: sucky battery life, shite onscreen keyboard. But oddly enough I think a 3rd problem is even more frustrating: laggy input. This can strike at any time: opening/closing an app, minimizing a window, scrolling etc but it’s MOST frustrating when trying to type on the already maddening fake keyboard. A lot of people have suggested watching the large letters that pop up as you type to train your mind/fingers to adjust, but when they are frozen half of the time there is no rhythm and your mistakes compound. Typing is all about rhythm!

One can dream of a day when a firmware fix addresses this issue, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m sure Steve (or his replacement) will be touting the speed of the next gen iPhone and asking for more dough to fix a problem that shouldn’t have existed to begin with. But, if they do fix it with a firmware update I think I can live with the onscreen keyboard given how far ahead the device is on other fronts (i.e. incredibly application choices which are growing exponentially, amazing browser and touch screen input etc).

Which brings us to the issue they’re never going to fix with a firmware update (IMHO): Battery Life. I have determined, after extensive side by side comparisons, that 1 red bar (read: “almost out”) on the Blackberry 8820 is equivalent to a full charge on the iphone 3G. That’s ridiculous. As someone who travels almost every week, I can’t tell you the frustration of being lost in another city, calming reaching for the phone (solver of all problems) only to find out it’s dead.

So to take another stab at going “cold turkey” on the Blackberry I got this battery pack called the Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone 3G for Christmas from my mother in law. I was seriously stoked to try it out, which is saying something for a battery (or about my addiction? nah…).

After using this for the past couple of weeks, Blackberry in the drawer, I can say that it completely fixes the battery life issue — at least for my use. While I didn’t do any formal measurements, I’d say it at least triples the battery life. This sucker slips on the back of the phone, and definitely adds some heft but I think it feels a lot more solid now, like a Blackberry Bold. It more than doubles the thickness, but I was never drawn to the traditional apple sex appeal. I just want it to work.

Here are a few pics I took showing the relative size. Sorry for the crappy quality, I’m no Mick O

You can see that it stops just short of the top, leaving room for the camera and for easy access to the rocker switches on the side (volume). There are also blue LEDs on the back showing you the battery level. Overall it feels VERY solid. Highly recommended!