Matt Bernier

So, when I built ProbableFollow.com it was perfectly clear to me why I was building it.  It seems that maybe I live in my own little bubble where flowers bloom, the sun rises every day, and as I skip and whistle through the forest while all the wonderful animals harmonize with me. It turns out that my idea has caused some controversy and some very confused tweeple.  Some people seem to think that I am making a statement and pushing my non-twitter-purist ideals on them because they have a low follow back probability.  Some people seem to think that I am aggrandizing those that follow everyone back, just because I put the 98%+ crowd on the homepage. So, I will… » Read More

Since Startup Weekend, I have noticed the impact that having that many top-notch people around in one place has had on those same top-notch people. Many different blog posts, tweets and general conversation has come out of this weekend.  So I am going to do my best to aggregate some of that information here. Twitter Posts #swb09 LilBiker’s Startup Weekend Boulder 3 (note: Neal and I are in the picture towards the bottom of the article!) LilBiker’s Flickr Set of Startup Weekend Photos Presentation Video of all of the Startup Weekend Ideas. The Official Startup Weekend Boulder 3 Page Startup Weekend’s Idea Fuel (Illegal Pete’s) —- If there are any other links that I am missing, please tell me and… » Read More

Truth be told, I was not going to go to StartupWeekend-Boulder last weekend.  I was going to go camping with my Fiance.  However, the weather worked out so that was a bad idea (wet tents and apartment life mean lots of mold).  Not only that, but my friend Jason was all over me about StartupWeekend.  At one point he seriously said, You MUST go if you are serious about startups. My first reaction to this was that Jason was just being obsessive. Turns out, my gut reaction was way wrong.  I thanked Jason probably three different times for harrassing me (about 12 emails… seriously) to go. Why did I thank Jason?  Because, not only did I go, I pitched an… » Read More

I haven’t written a blog post in a long time, but someone suggested I tell this story. I have a bunch of stuff I need to sell, so I figured Craig’s List was the place to go.  Things like, a 5DVD change, a Vacuum, a desk, and some movies.  Simple, easy, 5 minute transactions.  “Here’s your stuff, thank you for the money”.  Seriously, this is what every transaction I have ever been a part of has consisted of. This however has not been the case for the last 3 days. I posted the items on Sunday night and sold some of the movies right away, like within an hour.  I didn’t hear anything else until the next day. This is… » Read More

Yes, I have heard it more times than I can count: How many projects do you have? The answer is, too many, of course!  When you are a person like me, your mind is constantly racing and you see ideas and opportunity everywhere.  Or at least I like to think that it is that…and not just insanity. I started a new project recently, called My City Headlines. The idea behind the project is to aggregate specific city’s news in one place.  This provides people with a single location to get their local news without having to search multiple sites. I am inspired by Guy Kawasaki’s AllTop.com.  They pick a subject, any subject, and find the top news/blog sites on that… » Read More

I was setting up Genius in Itunes tonight and I got to the form below, and didnt fill out the second input because it looked like they wanted AOL credentials.  Then, when the error came up, the red arrow and the blue triangle point to the same place, kind of confusing. Now, I know that if I would have just paid more attention, I would have gotten this from the start.  Even so, I sometimes stop paying attention and hope that the interface will be intuitive enough that I can just use it without thinking. I know, lame right?  Not necessarily, I have found that this is a good way to test out user functionality. If you have to stop… » Read More

This post is a continuation of my post about managing my tasks, projects, and responsibilities.  There are links to the other posts at the bottom of this post. Lists In Notepads Recently, I found myself writing everything down in a notepad.  I was writing all of my personal to do items as well as my client and work to do items in the one list.  I quickly realized that it was getting to be too much in one list and maybe even too much for a single notepad. My solution was to run to Target and get some new stronger notepads that will withstand the wear and tear of being transported in my backpack to and from work and all… » Read More

My theory is that there is a logarithmic curve of the possibility of originality vs. the total number of ideas.  As the number of ideas progresses, the possibiility of originality goes towards zero.  As technology and science mature, and there are more people on the earth the idea curve moves faster from one idea to another. Sometimes a person is extremely lucky, the stumble upon an idea or a problem and recognize a need without any sort of past struggle with originality.  Typically however, an average idea starts out behind the curve, where originality is negligible.  As a person who generates ideas, an idea person, generates more ideas they learn from their past unoriginal ideas.  They start to pay attention… » Read More