The following appeared in Buffalo Rising

Over the last several years, I’ve read, and frequently participated in, the debates that have occurred here about sprawl, parking, and the other hot button issues discussed on Buffalo Rising. Through even the most contentious threads, I’ve never doubted that there was a greater commonality among all of us, than the sum of all our differences on those lesser issues. Perhaps more than any one group, the readers here have always heard the faint whisper of a pulse belonging to a city that wouldn’t die.

Today the pulse is more recognizable, even difficult to deny, as cranes and other signs of rebirth dot our once, and possibly future, great city.

If you remain a doubter, that’s alright, just give us another year or two and stop back, but it’s probably best if you stop reading now. This isn’t for the non-believer.

It could be argued that the project introduced here would be more appropriately announced in a business paper, or on a tech website. Some of the projects ideas are new for both, and that would make sense.

However, over the next five to seven years, the success or failure of this project will be more correlated to the level of involvement of this group (the readers of Buffalo Rising, the ex-pat network, or those similarly minded) than the readers of those other papers, or sites.

Out of respect to your importance to the project, it’s introduced here, first.

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While at UB, I liked my classes, but I loved the pool tables in the student union. When I want to learn or improve, I turn to books. In this case, it was a book by Steve Mizerak, the best known pool hustler of all time. While it taught me about how to apply the proper English to the cue ball, it had some unexpected lessons about how to put yourself in the best position to win.

The phrase that comes back to me time and again from that book is, “it’s not the game you play, but the game you make.” It’s similar, but a bit more street smart than Peter Drucker’s management dictum, “doing the right thing is more important than doing things right.”

The last 25 years, I’ve worked in the tech field (all in WNY). Over the last few years, I’ve been the IT Director at a successful internet company. As a software developer I’m aware of the difficulties that currently surround bringing a new concept from idea to successful website. I’ve studied the accepted ‘new’ business model generation concepts, the lean startup, and the various incubators around the country, the most well known being Ycombinator.

Being a hockey town, I’ll use the Gretzky phrase, “you skate where the puck is going to be”. Tomorrow’s IT successes will be based on a more commoditized technology, less dependent on the University environment that built Boston or Silicon Valley’s successful startup environment, and more dependent on a collaborative network that can envision, refine, and build the applications that will find a receptive audience. We can do that here, starting today, by creating a new business model that doesn’t yet exist any where else.

One of the first things you’ll notice about 36in36, is that 36% of ownership will be distributed to 360 individuals (you!). These people will play various roles (about an hour per week, if that much). The next 36% of ownership will go to those that submit the ideas that become the websites we build (originators of accepted ideas receive more than this (a significant percentage of the profit of their specific site), but they do participate in the success of the other 35 sites as well). We have about six sites currently in process.

There are other opportunities for people that may not want to commit to being one of the 360 ‘ambassadors’, for more information, check out the website (www.36in36.com).

Our city was built on a canal that moved products to market more easily than any alternative. It was a simple, but wildly successful idea then, and the foundation of 36in36 today.

We address the accepted difficulties that developers have in bringing products to market. While this doesn’t ensure that our sites will be 100% successful (10% might be a more realistic goal), we feel confident that we can remove some of the risk and cost that exists with the current inefficient process of moving a technology related idea into the marketplace.

By bringing a portfolio of sites to market, we can focus on sites that may not be large enough to justify a venture capital investment, but have a smaller targeted audience that may have a more predictable pattern of behavior.

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As Emerson closes his essay ‘Experience’, he uses the phrase ‘up again, old heart’. It seems appropriate for our fair city, as we emerge from both a winter, and an economic slumber that have lasted far too long. The pulse grows stronger, even quickening, but some final vindication may yet be years away. Each of us will measure that in our own way. Your interest may be more green space, or no more needless demolitions. Mine is a day when we have a position for every new graduate that wants to call Buffalo home.

None of our visions for our city will be accomplished without risk, effort, and hard work. Effort and hard work have never been a problem for us. As children of the assembly line, we need to break away from the old business models that no longer play to our strength. We can individually wallow in a malaise that says one group or another treated us unfairly, and let tomorrows jobs grow roots in more receptive soil. We can wait, and hope for a large employer to come to town. We can wait for word from the government that some new program will solve all our ills.

But that same ear that heard the pulse of a city that wouldn’t die, will detect the false claim that anything but good ideas, hard work, or true innovation, will bring us real economic growth. Mimicking what’s worked elsewhere just creates a lower margin alternative, putting us in second place before we’ve even played a game. We hold onto the old buildings that our more independent forefathers built, but seem to lack the independent nature, ingenuity, or even the belief in our own abilities, that led to the profit that allowed those buildings to be built.

Most of us can look to our family history, and see some trace of where the Erie Canal, or later the Steel Industry, or the auto industry put food on our family’s plate, so that we could comfortably call Buffalo home. We know what our great-grandparents, or grandparents did to build our community. The open question remains, what will our great grandchildren know of our city? Will they understand a lake effect snow storm because they’ve felt the fresh snow melt on their face, or will they just read about a distant city that never really capitalized on the population bubble that slowly dissipated after the death of the Canal.

The greatest tribute we can pay our ancestors and city’s history, is to ensure that future generations have the economic opportunity to call Buffalo home. Our grandparents did that for some of us. We should do that for all our grandchildren. 36in36 may not be the vehicle that creates those jobs, but if it begins a private sector conversation that leads us remotely in that direction, I’ll consider it a success. With your help, we can make it more than that.