Open up your mind and say, ahh...

A federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments Friday morning about what to do with users’ files that were seized in the U.S. government’s January raid on file-sharing service Megaupload.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz, pictured) and six others who ran the site were indicted by The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in January. They are accused of making $175 million and causing $500 million in copyright infringement; if they’re found guilty, they’re looking at a maximum 20 years prison sentence.

Since the indictment, the fate of data stored on Megaupload has been up in the air. Initially, the plan was to erase the data as of Feb. 2. The 25 petabytes of data still exists, though it is stored on 1,100 servers owned by Carpathia and Cogent. Carpathia, which is said to be spending $9,000 a day to maintain that data, is asking the U.S. Federal Court in Northern Virginia to rule on the matter.

Though the government has copied “selected data” from the servers and insists the servers can now be wiped clean, the Electronic Frontier Foundation — a public advocacy group — is representing an Ohio man, Kyle Goodwin who thinks otherwise. Goodwin, the operator of OhioSportsNet, says he has legal, copyrighted material of high school sports games that had been stored on Megaupload. The Motion Picture Association of America also wants the data preserved as evidence in a potential civil case against Megaupload.

BONUS: The Strange and Epic Lifestyle of Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom

It’s inevitable that I will get the question. You’d think by now that I would learn to expect it…that I would prepare for it…or have a response that would be purely second nature. But I don’t. I’ve no standard answer that automatically inspires anyone in the moment to take action. And, to this day, I neither expect the question nor do I have a rehearsed or standard riposte committed to memory.

So what is “the question?”

The question faces those who see disruption all around them. They believe survival requires change and they aspire to fight for transformation. But, at some point in their quest to pursue a new course, a direction in which they deeply believe, they will ask reluctantly, even desperately, “How do I convince others to see what I see” or “how can I get those in control to recognize the importance of what’s happening around us so that we can move forward in the right direction?”

While my response in each moment always attempts to zero-in on the individual circumstance, the truest, most genuine answer that I can share is that…to bring about change does not take technology, it takes courage. And, this is why change is not a commodity. Change is not easy nor is it formulaic. But I can say this with the utmost conviction, change.is.inevitable and it is yours to define.

We live in disruptive times. As such, everything we know transcends into everything we once knew. How we communicate, connect, discover, learn and share is changing. New and emerging technology is becoming increasingly relentless and it is forcing evolution or complete transformation. And, it touches your personally and professionally. In our own way, we each are gravitating toward dissonance or disarray and it can be distressful. As students, parents, role models, employees, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, or some or all of the above, we will at some point collide with disruption. And in that moment, we will have a choice to make. We either fall down, choose to embrace change, or we will see the possibilities beyond what’s immediately apparent to pave the way toward a more meaningful outcome.

But again, it takes courage. It takes courage to see what others don’t or do what others won’t. It takes courage to push forward when pushed back.

Courage is the ability to do something that frightens one, yet it is the very thing that all leaders share. See, courage takes great strength to stand in the face of pain or inevitable grief and without it, your vision, no matter how brilliant or essential, is merely a masterpiece painted on a napkin—a promise that is never fully realized.

We stand today upon a foundation of uncertainty and apprehension. Everything is changing. What is constant however, is the absence of clarity, direction or answers. To tell you that there is an easy path toward transformation or that there are a series of “top 10 ways” to help you change the perspective of leadership or those around you is, well, misleading or a complete falsehood.

Contrary to popular belief, there are no rules for revolutionaries…just as there are no leaders who don’t continually strive to earn a position of leadership. It takes courage to be a change agent, to rise up and lead the way when others are filled with fear. It takes courage to walk in a different direction when others walk along a contrasting path. Most important, it takes courage to drive persistence to overcome resistance…to find comfort outside your comfort zone when the promise of reward is ambiguous. For, it is the vision to see where you need to go and the conviction to shepherd the march toward relevance that earns the greatest rewards of all, leadership, significance, and advocacy.

This is your time…

“Courage is grace under pressure.” – Ernest Hemingway

Via Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com

Since 2009, Hamburg photographers Andre Giesemann and Daniel Schulz have been waltzing into German nightclubs just before close, as the last few sots and pie-eyed candy kids trickle out, to snap pictures of what remains. And let us tell you, it’s downright apocalyptic.

Giesemann and Schulz photographed the last night of “Rechenzentrum,” before the building, an old East Berlin communications center, was torn down.

The absence of the sweaty masses coupled with all the crap strewn on the floors–bottles, cigarette butts, mysterious liquids that may or may not be someone’s regurgitated dinner–evoke the eerily quiet aftermath of some horrific blast. (An appropriate analogy for how a lot of club-goers feel the morning after.)

Giesemann and Schulz use a 4×5-inch large format camera, and have shot the series Vom Bleiben in Frankfurt am Main, Offenbach, and, of course, Berlin, where nightlife is something approaching organized religion. “We are interested in the marks and emptiness in these kinds of rooms,” Giesemann tells Co.Design. Though the clubs aren’t always as empty as he’d like: “Sometimes it’s funny when wasted people try to be a part of our pictures.”

To buy photographs from the Vom Bleiben project, go to www.schulzdaniel.com and www.andregiesemann.com.

Images courtesy of Andre Giesemann and Daniel Schulz; h/t Visual News

While interned in a World War I camp in England, a German fitness enthusiast named Joseph Pilates developed a series of strengthening exercises that even his injured comrades could perform from bed. To create muscular resistance, he jerry-rigged equipment out of what was on hand, including bedsprings, which became the basis for a prop that is now known as the “reformer.” As legend has it, when the 1918 influenza hit, all the inmates who followed Pilates’s regimen survived.

They were particularly interested in making an aesthetic statement.

Today, the Pilates method is taught in health clubs around the world and has earned a celebrity following for its power to strengthen abs (“the core”) and build long, sinewy muscles. And the reformer, the central piece of training equipment, still revolves around exposed springs surrounded by a structure resembling a bed frame–a look that can be intimidating for first-time users, according to Lynne Johnson, the marketing director at Balanced Body, a manufacturer of Pilates equipment. So to make its best-selling Allegro reformer friendlier, the Sacramento, California, company approached the brand-makeover masters at Ideo.

“They were particularly interested in making an aesthetic statement,” says David Webster, who leads Ideo’s global health and wellness practice. “If you look at the world of Pilates machines, the icon really still was the hospital bed that Joseph Pilates did a lot of experimentation on, and machines kind of looked like glorified version of that hospital bed with a bunch of generic hardware added to them.” For the Allegro 2, Balanced Body wanted to maintain all the functionality of while streamlining the machine, and they wanted it done with an aggressive timeline of eight weeks.

“The first thing that we did was hide the adjustment points,” says Jörg Student, Ideo’s lead designer on the project. The reformer has to be adjusted for body height as well as different exercises. “There’s just a bunch of visual clutter and knobs, and we wanted to resolve that,” Webster adds. Some of the finer details include a new foot bar that allows for a wider range of body sizes and that can be adjusted with a single hand, or even one’s feet. To make transitions between exercises smoother, the rope system is also easier to adjust, with a simple-to-use lever. Soft attachment points eliminate any clanking sounds from metal parts coming into contact with the metal frame. The result is an enhanced user experience at a slightly lower cost than the older model. “We eliminated a lot of parts, and we managed to do new things in clever ways,” Webster says.

The result is an enhanced user experience at a slightly lower cost.

Balanced Body hopes that the restyled Allegro, which the company claims is the “most successful reformer ever made,” appeals to an even broader audience of users in gyms, studios, and home settings. By objective measures, it looks decidedly less like a torture device, an improvement that its primogenitor would no doubt have appreciated. “If you look at the original machine that Joseph Pilates designed, you have one adjustment possibility, and it’s not very easy to do,” Student says. “He was a showman, a boxer, an exercise man. He wasn’t a designer.”

Photos courtesy Balanced Body

Everybody likes to be liked. And unless you’re the type of boss who revels in tyranny, it’s only natural to seek the favor of your underlings. But there’s a big difference between engaging with employees and fawning over them.

In an era when the virtues of a collegial and collaborative environment are widely espoused, there’s guilt associated with being a strong-handed boss. Managers are often afraid to pull rank for fear they’ll fall out of grace with their reports and spoil team camaraderie if they’re not nice. “So many leaders, supervisors, and bosses suffer from a nice-guy conflict,” says Bruce Tulgand, author of It’s Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need. “Managers are afraid that people will think they’re a jerk.”

Quite frankly, being nice is overrated. In fact, a 2011 study, “Do Nice Guys–and Gals–Really Finish Last?” posits that disagreeable people are more successful. The study, which appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, showed that disagreeable people (especially men) earn more money and are perceived as better leaders. The research has too often been used to draw the conclusion that being mean is a good thing, says study co-author Beth A. Livingston of Cornell University. Which isn’t necessarily the case. Rather, the lesson here is that some people could stand to be less nice.

“Disagreeableness is a multifaceted trait,” says Livingston. Less agreeable people are generally “people who don’t really care what you think.” Unconcerned with stepping on toes or being unpopular, they cut a clear path to the brass ring and make more decisive leaders–which is especially important because building consensus often doesn’t translate to success.

Let the performance be the arbiter—unless you’re running a commune.

One HR exec at a tech company tells the story of acquiring a startup with a culture that was so consensus-driven that they couldn’t decide on which features to cut in order to keep projects on schedule and budget. “Products were delayed, but according to them they had the ‘best culture’ in the world,” he says.

Less-agreeable people are also more likely to advocate for themselves and for others–a huge part of being a leader. A moderately disagreeable person might have the attitude, “I’m not going to step on people willy nilly, but I’m not going to let people step on me, either,” says Livingston.

Nice people tend to be too considerate and afraid to initiate structure, which can be trouble for a startup trying to establish itself as a legitimate business. Livingston cited Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg as a good example of someone who realized that if he wanted to continue as the creative, likable boss in flip flops, he needed to have a bad cop around to bust some heads. “He hired Sheryl Sandberg from Google, and she whipped everybody into shape. They were pretty chaotic before that.”

Even in these kindler, more collaborative times, someone has to set priorities, pull the plug on an unprofitable project, or fire someone who’s not pulling his weight. If the reins lay in your hands, here are some tips to help you tighten your hold without being labeled a meanie.

Don’t Be Weak
Many bosses are reluctant managers because they’re afraid to come off as jerks, says Tulgan. “Really, if employees think a boss is a jerk, it’s when they’re too weak.” Weakling managers don’t take the time to manage on a daily basis. They let small problems build up into big problems. They pretend to be friends, but when things go south they show their true colors. And the only time they own their authority is when they’re angry with someone. “Be brave enough to own your authority before things go wrong,” says Tulgan.

Work it Out
“Don’t fall for the myth of the natural leader,” says Tulgan. “If you want to be in good shape, you have to train every day.” Talk to people one-on-one, understand what their problems are, and remind them of how their role fits into the greater mission at hand. The big mistake that managers make, says Tulgan, is waiting until they have to give bad news or make a hard decision to start managing. They haven’t laid the groundwork. “If the only time you manage is when you have bad news, then every time they see you coming they’ll say ‘Oh no, here he comes.’”

Build Structure
Structure is not a dirty word to employees. In many cases, they crave it. Philadelphia-based knowledge network startup, Quewey, recently brought on a CEO and the organizational changes have been welcomed by the group. “We realized that we needed a pointed decision maker,” says Michael Magill, of Quewey’s business development and finance. “A lot of day-to-day decisions come up that don’t seem like big decisions, but they really mold your strategy. At a certain point, younger workers will begin to wonder who is responsible for managing the overall direction, message, and strategy of a business.” Magill says that having a defined leader has helped people understand their roles, set the founder’s vision in sight, streamline processes, and increase delegation. And projects that would have otherwise remained in the brainstorming stage actually see action.

Monitor Performance
Managers sometimes struggle with rewarding employees, fearing that others will feel passed over, like when giving out raises or offering a better office space. “Let the performance be the arbiter–unless you’re running a commune,” says Tulgan.  If you keep close track of each person’s performance and what’s going on with the team, decisions will be respected. Tulgan says that leaders need to also show employees that they will help them earn promotions and find success.

Separate Wheat From The Chaff
The same goes for firing someone who’s dragging down the team. If you’re talking with your team every day and making clear what takes priority and what should be back-burnered, reports will have a clear sense of what needs to be done and you’ll know who’s delivering and who’s not. And don’t assume chopping a few heads will be received poorly by the high-performers. Says Tulgan: “Usually what managers find is that employees say, ‘What took you so long?’” Low performers take up money that might otherwise be available for a raise, they undermine teamwork. Good workers recognize this.

Share Information
Some managers try to keep too much information too close to their chest. Then when the axe comes down, folks are shocked and angered–and you come off as mean and callous. By explaining the facts up front, you’ll save a lot of heartache. For example, “If we delay this project, none of us will see our annual bonus.” Employees will respond to your transparency and know what lays ahead.

Hold Yourself Responsible
Take ownership for bad news. If the news is a result of your own poor business decisions, take the blame, says Tulgan. “I’m gonna take a bullet, but we’re all gonna suffer.” If the news is based on a decision from above, don’t just blame it on the guys at corporate. “That undermines everybody’s confidence in the organization and the chain of command. Because that’s your source of authority, it weakens you.” Explain the business decisions that were made, and how it will affect the company.

Image: Flickr user Tambako The Jaguar

The food truck phenomenon has taken the country by storm. From New York to Los Angeles, the number, the variety, and the quality of food trucks are on the rise.

In 2011, the mobile food industry in the United States was estimated to be at $630 million. I think this sum dramatically underestimates the size of the industry. I believe that the mobile food industry in New York City alone is at least $450 million. The National Restaurant Association stated in 2011 that food trucks are the single fastest growing sector of the restaurant industry.

If you have any doubts, you can see this for yourself on the streets. Fans are queuing up across the country for tasty food from local trucks. According to an American Express survey, the percentage of respondents who had visited a food truck doubled, from 13 percent in August 2009 to 26 percent in July 2010.

From Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race (a cross-country food-truck trek) to the Cooking Channel’s Eat Street, media coverage on popular television shows reflects the food truck phenomenon. Zagat’s inclusion of food truck for the first time in its 2011 New York City Restaurants guide has helped make food trucks an integral part of contemporary city life.

The following interview is with Natasha Case of Coolhaus, the first gourmet branded truck with a national reach, on how she built her brand and her food-truck business. Coolhaus operates four trucks and a shop in Los Angeles, two trucks in Austin, two trucks and a cart in New York City, and two trucks in Miami. They also have a successful retail product that they sell in Whole Foods Market.

DAVID WEBER: What are the best and worst things about street vending?

NATASHA CASE: The best thing about street vending is the creativity and flexibility that food trucks allow. Food trucks allow entrepreneurs to breathe new life into old food concepts. They can take risks that brick-and-mortar restaurants cannot. Food trucks are on the cutting edge of innovation in hospitality. They are all about enthusiasm and adventure. The uncertainty is the hardest thing about food truck vending. The trucks are very prone to break down and we have repairs almost every week. It is challenging to stay on top of breakdowns. Having trucks that cannot vend puts a big strain on management and overhead. We just opened a brick-and-mortar shop in Los Angeles. The shop is much easier to oversee because everything is stable. Because they are remote, trucks need to rely on technology and honesty.

What was your biggest lesson after you started street vending?

We started April 2009. The first lesson we learned was how to manage production. When we were first selling we made both the cookie and the ice cream for our ice cream sandwiches. We knew we’d need a better means of production if we wanted to grow because we didn’t have the resources at our commissary in Pasadena. We went to co-packing at the start. We reached out to a number of co-packers for custom cookies and ice cream. We’ve built up great relationships for suppliers who can grow with us.

What is one thing you would recommend to someone thinking of opening a truck?

Take the time to do your research. There is an illusion that you can start with nothing and make a fortune. There is oversaturation in the market in Los Angeles. I see trucks opening who aren’t putting enough forethought into developing their business, their brand, and their clientele. Before an entrepreneur opens a truck they should ask themselves, am I different enough? Success on the road is about brand building.

How have your operations had to change in different markets?

As we’ve gone to more cities, the biggest change has been developing our corporate team. The primary change has been more management with specific expertise. We have an executive pastry chef who oversees our food production to be sure that things are being done properly. We now have opening teams who are specialists in the food industry and who have experience opening new markets to train the initial team in each city.

What is your process to open to new markets?

As we go to more cities we are learning the right questions to ask at the start of the process to discern what is different about each market. Over time you build up better intuition. We ask about health regulation codes as they pertain to our product right at the start. It’s also important to learn where municipal boundaries end. A suburb outside a city might seem tempting, but even though the demographics are good, the reason no one is vending there is because the regulations are different and don’t allow you to operate. Developing a start-up manual has improved our launch process. Even though the rules are different, most of what we do is the same each time. We’re planning to open in San Francisco this spring. People know us in San Francisco, so it will be easier than in Miami.

What market has been the hardest to operate in?

New York City is the craziest. The fact that you can be arrested for not having a mobile food-vending badge is unbelievable. Just take a moment to think about going to jail for making an ice cream sandwich. Where does that happen? Only in New York City. We are licensed by the NYC Deptartment of Parks to vend in Central Park, and the NYPD comes almost weekly to try and shut us down. New York City has extremely strict laws, and there is a lot more vendor-versus-vendor conflict in NYC, but because there are so many people, there is also more money to be made.

How long did you work the trucks until you hired more staff?

I left my other job a month after we started, so I was on the truck full time for a year. As we grew, I spent less time on the truck and more time developing the brand and managing the growth of the company.

What types of technology do you use to manage your business?

We use a POS system to see product mix. We originally set up the Paysaver POS just to use it for processing credit cards. Over time we started using more of the features, and having access to the product mix is very useful. In the store there are security cameras. We haven’t quite figured out how to do that on the truck yet. However, we use social media to keep tabs on our operations. We ask customers about their experiences and to send photos of their favorite sandwiches. We see photos posted on Twitter and feedback from Yelp. If the sandwich looks melted or doesn’t have the right proportions, we can follow up with the team that served it to ensure quality and consistency.

What incentives do you use?

We give bonuses to corporate staff for meeting financial goals. We give a commission for sales for private events. We do pay more than most trucks. We pay from $13 to $15 per hour in Los Angeles, and I think we get what we pay for. However, more than paying high wages or bonuses, we try to make our team feel like they are a part of something important and that what they do matters. It is very important that our team feels appreciated.

How did Coolhaus end up licensing the brand so early?

We were approached by people from Austin to license the Coolhaus brand. Our original plan was to go to New York because we were more familiar with the market. Austin was interesting because it was an opportunity to try a new market without taking the capital risk. The Austin trucks are now owned by Coolhaus again because the licensees moved on. However, it was a good experiment and it gave us the opportunity to grow at a time when we couldn’t have otherwise. Ultimately, the whole situation worked out well, but we probably tried to do too much too early. We could have let the company mature. At the point we did the Austin licensing deal we didn’t even have a lawyer. Managing a licensee or a franchise is hard to do unless you are in the franchise busi- ness. There is much more involved than you might expect.

What did you learn through the licensing process?

Trying to explain how to run a Coolhaus truck to someone on the other side of the country made us realize how much of the business was in our heads. It triggered us to write all our manuals. When we made the deal we weren’t working with the co-packer as we are now, and we didn’t have the ability to ship them our ice cream. They were producing their own ice cream to our specifications locally, but it was impossible to supervise the product. In general, it was a nightmare. If you are taking your brand national, having central hubs of production is essential. In every market we also have locally made items.

How has selling at Whole Foods Market helped your brand?

The transition from food trucks to wholesale was relatively seamless because we already had our co-packing relationships in place. It is becoming more important financially as the scope of the distribution of our products increases. At the beginning we were in three Whole Foods and it was almost more work than it was worth. We were putting so much time and effort into it for such limited revenue, it didn’t make much financial sense. However, there are some nonquantifiable aspects to having your product in Whole Foods. It shows the legitimacy of your product to your customers in that it meets the Whole Foods criteria of being natural, healthful, and sanitary. Now we are in 22 Whole Foods Markets in southern California and it really contributes to the business.

How is running a restaurant different from running a food truck?

The Coolhaus store was a way to capitalize on those customers in Los Angeles who don’t use Facebook or Twitter or don’t want to chase down a food truck. Startup costs are a lot more, but for us the profit margins are actually better. We use the store as our corporate headquarters and the base for all the Los Angeles food truck operations.

–Author David Weber is the cofounder of the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar and the founder and president of the NYC Food Truck Association. Excerpted with permission of the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., wiley.com, from The Food Truck Handbook: Start, Grow, and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business by David Weber (c) 2012 by David Weber.

Coolhaus Images: Flickr user Alex Thompson, Rickshaw Image: Flickr user Scott Beale

We couldn’t know that Ferdinand Porsche, the 911′s designer, would pass away even as we were getting entries in our call for designs inspired by 911. But perhaps it was a fitting tribute that we got over 400 entries, picking out details of the 911 that you’d have to be a true fan to notice. His designs inspired a fervor that few designers ever have. As the AP reported when the latest 911 was introduced: “The new version was mobbed and groped when it was unveiled in September at the Frankfurt auto show. Showgoers left the doors and roof smeared with fingerprints as they scrambled for a chance to sit behind the wheel.” All that, while remaining true to the lines and spirit that Porsche originally laid out. Ferdinand Porsche created a true design classic.

R.I.P. Ferdinand Porsche, 1935-2012. At work in 1968.

So I’ll admit that I was a bit terrified by the entire prospect of our Porsche Next Design Challenge. Initially, the plan was to have an invitational design competition: We’d invite only a few top designers whose work we trusted, and have them riff on products inspired by the 911. But that didn’t seem right. We figured: Who’d want to see a bunch of design hot shots get even more attention? It seemed a far better idea to engage you, our readers, and invite you to do the designing.

The only problem was that we had no idea what we’d get. Would the entries be embarrassing? Would there be anything good? It was a bit of a gamble. And one that I’m happy to say paid off, because the entries you guys submitted were superb. These ranged from a razor that looks like a Porsche’s gas pedal to a ski helmet inspired by the orange 911 pictured in our first post about the contest.

So here they are: The first 12 of the Top 25. We’ll announce the rest next week, and as I type this, our panel of judges–Dror Benshetrit, Jens Martin Skibsted, and Grant Larson, Porsche’s current chief exterior designer–is combing over those entries, to determine a Top 7, which we will announce soon. (The slides you see above are presented in no particular order.) After that, entrants will get a chance to refine their designs and then we’ll announce a winner. (The Top 7 will each receive $1,500. The winner will get a one-year lease on a 911 or $20,000.) Thank you to everyone who entered, and thank you for reading! Enjoy the work above.

Image of F.A. Porsche: Porsche via European Pressphoto Agency