Relationship Cluelessness Celebration Day


What’s wrong with this picture? Or maybe I should ask how many different things are wrong with it?

Spouse 2.0 Day

I read about Spouse 2.0 day in the New York Times. No, it’s not a joke. The Times says:

To celebrate, founders are asked to buy their significant others a gift, then post to their blogs or Twitter streams about it, using the “Spouse 2.0” tag. The stories will be collected on the project’s Web site.

And it gets even better … the piece quotes one of the founders saying:

… leaving the blackberry outside the bedroom is an option on Spouse 2.0 Day.

Is it just me, or is this hilarious? Show her you really love her by putting it into a 140-character text on twitter. So does a blog post mean more love than a tweet on twitter? And don’t forget to tag your post with the Spouse 2.0 tag. And maybe even — just an option — turn off the blackberry. What a great idea!

And of course in this imaginary world of startup geeks, all spouses are wives (look at the font and color), and the wives run the “other” startup, which is presumably the real world, like home and children. No stereotypes here, right? No women running startups, or husbands running homes and children of course, and no working couples sharing the work and the children. It boggles the mind.

And speaking of stereotypes, where does it say that all web 2.0 startup people are clueless about everything else? I didn’t get that email. It was probably spam.

I knew an emergency room doctor who told me he once treated a man injured on Valentine’s day by having been bashed over the head by his wife with the vacuum cleaner he’d given her as a present. And I once heard a supposed parenting expert advise parents to turn the television sound lower during family dinner. What those two anecdotes have in common with spouse 2.0 day is called CDD: clue deficit disorder.

If you’re tempted even for a split second to take spouse 2.0 day seriously, then you’re suffering from CDD. Wake up.

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Tim Berry, Entrepreneur and Founder of Palo Alto Software, bplans.com and Borland International About the Author: Tim Berry is president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and co-founder of Borland International. He is also the author of books and software on business planning including Business Plan Pro and The Plan-as-You-Go Business Plan; and a Stanford MBA. His business plan coaching site is at bplanscoaching.com. His blog is Planning Startups Stories.

10 Comments ▼

Tim Berry Tim Berry is Founder and Chairman of Palo Alto Software, Founder of Bplans, Co-Founder of Borland International, Stanford MBA, and co-founder of Have Presence. He is the author of several books and thousands of articles on business planning, small business, social media and startup business.

10 Reactions
  1. Tim,

    Let the market decide. I am romantic realist, so I will not follow the nerdy “Spouse 2.0 Day”. I have to find the right one first… 🙂 I recommend you to read my post, Bill Gates at a Wedding in Gothenburg, and follow the links to to Leanne Bell’s site, And they lived happily ever after… and Allan Wills’s new site, AreYouMyPartner.com.

    All the Best,

    Martin Lindeskog – American in Spirit.
    Gothenburg, Sweden.

  2. Wow, this is actually sad. Are there people out there that consider their day-to-day life “the other startup?” I could care less about a tweet on Twitter or a blog post as a show of appreciation. What is that going to accomplish for your significant other?

    And leaving the Blackberry outside the bedroom is something to be considered special? I feel for their wives . . .

    Here’s something their spouses would REALLY appreciate . . . maybe you staying home for a day with the wife and kids – and leaving the Blackberry out in the car – period.

    And given the pink color, I guess these guys don’t think that there are ANY women out there behind a startup . . . so for you fellas married to ambitious, entrepreneurial women – sorry guys, Spouse 2.0 day doesn’t apply to you. . .

  3. Where can I get this upgrade?

    I’m still running Spouse 1.0…

  4. Thanks Tim – we women running businesses, and spouses and households, and children and our own lives and a million other things salute you. But, we still love these guys. I will have to admit that I’m the tech geek in my family. So when my husband sent me a text message the other day – I melted.

  5. OOps.. I’m sorry, I accidentally hit the enter key.

    Anyway, Tim — at the very first place, what really is this Spouse 2.0? Is it an organization for small business owners and stuff like that?

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  7. For women running the household “startup”, they simply don’t have time to care that their spouse tweeted in their honor. Women care more about your interactions with them in person and not that you blog or tweet about them. As far as the Blackberry, it should always be left out of the bedroom.

  8. Hi Luz, re your question, all I know is what I read in the NY Times and saw at the website at http://www.spouse2.com. My guess is that it’s a group of people that got together and decided to promote this idea. Tim.

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