Getting Your Timing Right

Yesterday a friend came to visit me...someone I have known practically all my life. Every so often we do a check-in. He commented that I (and also Haviva) are usually a few years or more ahead of the curve... Now he was saying this both as an observation and to some degree a compliment. But reminded me how important it is in start-up life to get timing right. Being the "first" to do something is not always the best practice. When I started in the world of VoIP, most consumers barely had a PC, internet connectivity was a new thing and far from what we enoy today, and most important, most people did not have speakers or a microphone attached to their PC...so obviously voice over internet in 1996 was a bit challenging in the consumer market. Things change fast -- by 2003, when Skype launched, there was a critical mass of people with broadband internet, speakers and microphones were standard. The timing was right. In 2006 I funded a cross-platform app store for mobile apps. The iphone and AppStore did not yet exist. Mobile devices were a huge pain in the neck, with hundreds of variations of operating systems. We did not succeed. A very short while later the iphone launched, and was successful to some degree because of the AppStore. In politics works the same. If you "launch" your political movement before the stars are aligned you will not succeed...I remember the many years that Women of the Wall struggled to get attention...now a front page story and the Prime Minister leading the way to a radical reshuffling of how the Jewish world will relate to the Western Wall. When I became a vegan over ten years ago soy milk was not even thought about, today at every Aroma or Starbucks it is the choice of many. And I was so pleased to see at an Aroma in Haifa yesterday that they now have vegan pastries! Vegan has become cool! Of course, being way ahead of the trend for healthy eating has obvious benefits to me on a personal level -- launching a product too far ahead of the curve usually does not yield good results. All in all, living beyond the bleeding edge works for me personally, but when I am managing or investing in a start-up these days I give a lot of thought to timing -- and hopefully will get it right more often than not!

Remember, forget, Remember. Repeat.

My day so far -- started (after getting kids to school/nursery) with early morning meeting at the winery on marketing strategy, spinning out potentially [yet another] start-up inspired by problems discovered in wine industry. Then got into my electric car, drove to Tel Aviv for UI (User Interface) meetings with my Zula team. Later I am due to participate in comensation committtee meeting of NoProblem Baord of Directors, then back home to Hanaton, later tonight community meeting...

Bottom line, a life full of life, of innovation, of newness, of planning for tomorrow. Not a lot of time for remembering or dwelling on the past.

But on Highway 6 this morning I stopped along with millions of other Israelis as we heard the siren calling the country to attention. For two minutes we stopped, and we remembered. Of course there are those who participated in longer ceremonies today, as we commerate Holocaust Rememberance Day. But many, if not most Israelis are busy. We have way too many holidays and commemeration days as it is, last week Passover, next week Israel Memorial Day and immediately after Independence Day. Few weeks later Shavuot.

So how in 2013 with all of our instant everything, do we deal with the commandment to remember?

I think by putting our brains on a cycle. We remember, for a moment, sometimes for more, and then we forget. Because as I stood there for two minutes (length of average YouTube posting), I said to myself that if I remembered all the time, I could not function. I would simply be overwhelmed, by both the horrors and wonders of the past.

We are a people of the book -- for thousands of years the main way of memorializing -- of making sure that we do not forget. What does a book look like in 2013? 2014? How will we remember?

I don't have any answers, but I do know that somehow we need to keep on with our cycle of Remember/Forget/Remember...repeat. Alway searching for the balance of memory and action, of tradition and modernity.

I conclude with the call that has echoed for decades: Never Again. Some things should not be repeated.