I'm the founder and CTO of Kynetx. This series of articles relates my discoveries and feelings about starting a high-tech business. This is the twenty-ninth installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way---if so, please let me know!

A while back I was pointed to this TED video by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action. The talk is marvelous and is well worth watching. The line I like best: "[Martin Luther King] gave the 'I have a dream' speech, not the 'I have a plan' speech." Here's the primary point:

Every company can explain what they do. Most can explain how they do it, but few explain why. He says:

Let me give you an example. I use Apple because they're easy to understand and everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this. "We make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?" Neh. And that's how most of us communicate. That's how most marketing is done. That's how most sales are done. And that's how most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we're different or how we're better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that. Here's our new law firm. We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients. We always perform for our clients who do business with us. Here's our new car. It gets great gas mileage. It has leather seats. Buy our car. But it's uninspiring. \t

Here's how Apple actually communicates. "Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?" Totally different right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. All I did was reverse the order of information. What it proves to us is that people don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. \t

Based on this video, we've had some good discussions at Kynetx about why we do what we do. Here's what I've come up with after reading what others (including Doc Searls) had to say:

At Kynetx, we believe that:

• much of the promise of the Web remains unfulfilled,
• new patterns of Internet usage such as Twitter, RSS, Facebook, and so on point to an emerging real-time, "live" Web of events that is more fluid and dynamic than older, static, Web 2.0-style, interactive Web sites,
• people want to participate on the Web on their own terms and in their own context, and
• a Web comprised of a network of equals is more useful, powerful, and valuable than a Web of clients and servers with their one-sided services, terms and privacy policies

We see substantial evidence for that supports our belief in a developing new model of online interaction: RSS, river of news, pubsubhubbub, webhooks, Twitter, Twilio, and so on.

Because of our beliefs Kynetx espouses a new model for Web interactions based on events, endpoints, and rules that embraces the Live Web and moves beyond the client-server model. We have invented a programming language uniquely suited to this new model and a cloud-based rules-engine that integrate events, endpoints, and rules into a system that can be used to make the most of the Live Web.

So, why do you do what you do? Are others inspired by your belief in what you do?