It's far too early to talk about predictions for next year, but if I were starting the conversation about 2013 I'd say next year is all about three things: data, mobile and TV.

Imagine a chalkboard and long fingernails. Now imagine long fingernails scraping that chalkboard. Unpleasant? Yes! While that unpleasant feeling is rare due to today's scarcity of chalkboards, there is another behavior that instills an equally unpleasant feeling: frequent and improper use of the word "leverage."

One of the trickiest parts about being a startup founder is juggling multiple demands on your time and paying attention to what matters. Product must ship, clients need to be tended to and employees must get paid. Here's how I prioritize my activities each day:

Have you heard? The days of quality journalism are behind us. The Fourth Estate is in trouble. Newspapers are dying, and have been for some time. TV news has been overrun by phone hackers and idealogues. The need for speed is not only killing your company, it is destroying any standards of accuracy and integrity that remain, resulting in, for example, media outlets publishing reports on Supreme Court decisions before said Court has even finished reading said decision.

The beginning of autumn is an important time in the television industry. It's when all the broadcast networks launch their new shows and duke it out for ratings dominance in the key audience demographics. Behind the scenes, and on second screens, lots more is happening. Networks are embracing social media this year like never before, leveraging check-in tools like Get Glue, Likes on Facebook and social analytics from firms like Blue Fin Labs. But that's not all. This year, for the first time ever, the majority of networks launching and relaunching shows will be tracking the success of their TV …

When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I had "spare time." I'd dive deep into the ins and outs of my newest gadgets, and in a matter of hours I'd have the iPhone figured out, my Jam Box synced with every device, and all the software on my devices running the most recent version of whatever system was available. I'd have remote access to desktops (when that wasn't easy), my playlists would be synced with that weeks' new releases, and my TiVo would be almost empty because I was up-to-date on all the newest shows. Then... I had …

I watched the first 2012 presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I'm undecided over which was most painful to watch: the debate itself or the instant, snarky commentary about the debate on Twitter.

"Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore is a classic book about marketing and selling tech products. Since it was originally published in 1991, the book has sold over 300,000 copies and is often required reading in business school. The thrust of the book is that in order for a tech startup to build a large market, it must transition from selling to early adopters to more pragmatic customers. It sounds simple -- but think of all of the new ventures that get this wrong. Despite tons of funding and lots of marketing, most startups are unable to get much traction …

Question: What do YouTube, Wordpress, and Wix.com have in common? Answer: They all exist to reduce barriers to participation. Each one of them can be described by the Colbin Barrier Reduction Formula: "Thanks to Company X, anyone can Y."

Life is full of frustration, but how you deal with that frustration can be the difference between success and whatever else happens. Nothing gets me more frustrated than when someone tells me I can't do something. It's a very simple concept and one that every innovator in the world has used, whether consciously or not. It's a concept called solution-oriented thinking, or "make it happen" syndrome, which goes like this: Don't tell me we can't. Tell me what we need to do to make it happen!