Writing

Category : Personal Thoughts
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I haven’t written much on my blog lately. I have fifteen (or more) really good posts that I want to write. But I haven’t published much lately. I’ve been really busy, but that’s not the real reason why I haven’t written more.

The real reason is that its much harder to write now that it used to be. I used to be able to crank out a good blog post in 30 minutes. Now, I get started and nothing seems to flow. My main ideas are there, but they’re poorly expressed. I use too many words to get my point across. I reread what I’ve written and I realize it’s not as good as most of my older posts and I just delete it all and give up and work on something new. Or it just sounds dumb.

I’ve had a few periods like this over the past five and a half years of my blog, but they were mostly because of laziness, summer or work. This time is different. I didn’t figure it out until last week when a friend of mine sent me a few sentences to translate from spanish to english that he needed to use in marketing copy. I was happy to help.

I took a look at the first sentence and started to translate. My first crack was:

You’re invited to get to know our new b2b website, the new tool that will help us improve our sales process, give you more information about our products and create closer client relationships.

I finished, but knew two parts sounded wrong. Nobody says “get to know” or “give you more information.” I knew it was wrong. I sat there for five minutes wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to say it more clearly. I gave up and asked a friend from the states who fixed it for me. We ended up with:

You’re invited to explore our new b2b website, the new tool that will help us improve our sales process, deliver information about our products and create closer client relationships.

Much better. It dawned on me that my writing is worse because of spanish. So is my english. I say stuff in english that I know instantly isn’t right. Or just sounds funny. A while back, my Chilean friend and business partner Enrique and I had to give a short talk in english to 50 entrepreneurs. Enrique led off in english, then threw it over to me. I stumbled through my simple two minute talk. It was terrible. Enrique, a Chilean, clearly spoke better than me.

After our talk, we mingled with a few entrepreneurs. The first two were from Argentina and Mexico and we started out in spanish. After a few minutes, they asked where I was from, confused. They clearly knew I wasn’t a native speaker of spanish because my accent is still terrible. But they didn’t think I was a native english speaker either.

I’m out of practice and have been avoiding writing here because the finished product isn’t as good as it used to be. And it’s harder than it used to be. The goal of this post is to force myself to just keep writing and hopefully it’ll come back.

Have any of you struggled with this problem when learning a second language? If so, did you do anything that helped make it better? I’m frustrated here. I’ll take any ideas.

Travelogue: Chiloé

Category : Travel
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Chiloé is a large island in Chile’s south right near Puerto Montt. It’s got its own culture and was one of the last places in Chile I hadn’t been.

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Although LAN just added a new flight into Castro, I decided to fly into Puerto Montt to check out the city, then take the bus to Castro. I left on Friday, arrived into Puerto Montt, took the bus from the airport to the bus terminal and walked around the harbor. It’s clearly a port town, a bit run down near the bus station, but I had some good food. I’m not sure I’d spend much time there if I had more time in the south, but it was worth seeing. I got on the bus and settled into the four hour trek to Castro.

After about an hour, the bus reached the channel that separates Chiloe from mainland Chile. Apparently this straight has one of the strongest currents in the world, but I didn’t feel a thing on the ferry. I got into Castro late at night and walked from the bus station to Palafito del Mar, a newly renovated hotel built in a palafito, or house with stilts, right on the water. It might be a bit expensive if you book directly, but I found a discount on booking.com.

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Church in Castro

Chiloe’s economy is based on fishing, potatoes and timber. In the summer its overrun with tourists, but when I went in April, there were hardly any tourists. The first day was cloudy and windy, but I ventured out anyway going to Dalcahue where I checked out the local artesental market and ate a traditional curanto. Curanto is a mix of sausage, chicken, pork and just about every kind of seafood you can think of cooked in broth and served with two potato based starches. The sunday lunch style meal is cooked by digging a hole in the ground, heading up stones, putting in the food, then covering it with thick leaves and left to cook. Unfortunately I was there on a Saturday so I had curanto made in a pan, but it was incredibly good. The fresh seafood was a welcome chance from Santiago’s cuisine.

I spent the rest of the day taking buses between Chilotan towns, exploring coffee shops, old town squares and the famous wooden churches. Chilotan houses are generally built out of wood and so are the massive, brightly painted churches. Everything is slower, people are nice and happy to chat for a long time. The coffee shop on the main square, right near the church, in Dalcahue is a welcome suprise. The level of cuisine in Chiloé is so much better than in Santiago and the service is impecable.

At night, I ate at El Mercadito, a locally sourced restaurant owned by some Santiagino translants. The food was great and left me wanting so much more in Santiago. Seriously, if you took Chilotan service and food and brought it to Santiago, the place would be full all the time and I’d be there a few times per week. The closest comparison is a few restaurants and cafes in Barrio Italia in Santiago.

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I loved the arquitecture, the clean, crisp air, the incredible food and all of the people who are just happy to chat for as long as you’d like. I would have liked to stay longer, especially during the summer (outside of February) when the weather is nicer. But I could see spending a month there writing, hiking, eating good food and working on a new project.

Introducing Exosphere: The New Entrepreneurial Community in Santiago

Category : Entrepreneurship
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I’m excited to finally share Exosphere, a project I’ve been working on for the past few months. Located in the beautifully restored Palacio Concha, Exosphere is a community for entrepreneurs and creatives who want to take control of their lives and support themselves via their own projects. Whether you already have a business and want to use coworking, or just have an idea and need mentors or someone to share your day to day struggles, Exosphere is the place for you.

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Exosphere is special because it’s not just another coworking space, although you can use it that way. It’s special because of Exosphere founder Skinner Layne’s overarching vision. He wants to change education, entrepreneurship and at the base of it all, empower people achieve their dreams and break free from having to work for a big company their entire lives.

His vision is the following: most people have the potential ability to create their own business, but most lack the tools and the entrepreneurial push to actually get started and then have success. He believes that you can teach entrepreneurship. That people will have success if they have real community around them. People to share ideas. People to share failures. To keep them motivated. To share contacts. To find business partners. And foster success.

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I know it sounds like a massive goal, but I believe Skinner and his growing team can do it. I first met Skinner in 2010 when I first got to Santiago.  Skinner sent my business partner Jesse an email seeing if we wanted to meet another gringo who’d moved to Chile and we quickly became good friends, helping each other out with business challenges. When I first met Skinner, he was working on a ton of projects in parallel. About a year ago when he first got the idea for exosphere, I saw a change. He dropped all of his other projects. Our weekly meeting turned into brainstorming sessions about education, entrepreneurship, the future of work and empowering individuals. That’s when I knew he was onto something big. When he invited me to be on their board, I knew I had to do it.

Skinner’s persuaded his cofounders Antonio Manno and Amit Sonawane to come to Chile and a flood of foreign entrepreneurial talent has followed. The first entrepreneurs and mentors are already starting to work out of Exosphere. It’s opening as a coworking space this Friday. Foreigners are moving from multiple countries around the world just to be a part of Exosphere. Mentorship, community and entrepreneurial education will start next month.

Skinner, Antonio, Amit and the rest of Exosphere are trying to change the world. One life at a time. It’s going to be fun to watch them try. You can follow their progress on their Exosphere Blog, Facebook and read some of Skinner’s essays on his personal blog.

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If you’d like more information, please contact me. And if you’d like to go to the party, post a comment at the end of this blog.

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Public Radio International Interview About Startup Chile

Category : Startup Chile
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Public Radio International’s America Abroad interviewed me this week for a segment called Attracting Global Talent to Ireland and Chile (listen here). The program focuses on what the US can learn about foreign programs that are attracting immigrant entrepreneurs. The first part is about an Irish program called High Potential Startup Funding which gives entrepreneurs investment to create their business, while the second part is where I come in, talking about Startup Chile. My parts starts at about 9:15 of the program and my favorite quote is at 17:00.

In about minute 14, the program interviews Professor Veronique De Rugy from George Mason University who says government should stay out of entrepreneurship because they pick winners and create an uneven playing field. She cites examples like politicly connected Solyndra to pan programs like Ireland and Chile’s programs. I agree governments shouldn’t pick winners, but her examples are actually supporting Startup Chile.

Solyndra got $535m in guaranteed loans. The whole goal of Startup Chile is to not invest billons in loan guarantees, research parks and other investments that as De Rugy put it are “crappy investments,” but rather to invest in thousands of companies, change the ecosystem and attract smart foreigners to Chile.

For the Solyndra money, the US could have run Startup Chile for 130 years! Imagine empowering individual small entrepreneurs instead of big politicly connected companies. That’s not picking winners. As I said in the interview, “its one of the cheapest and most cost effective government programs out there” because nearly all of the money gets recycled into the Chilean economy.