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[cross-post from the VCIR Winter blog] There’s a nice article up on Rocky Radar that highlights VCIR Winter. One of my favorite excerpts is below. Venture Capital in the Rockies was designed by the organizers to cater to a diverse audience. For CEOs, there is plentiful networking time and a chance to experience novel technologies. For venture capitalists there is an occasion to catch up with colleagues and “see some opportunities not on the radar screen of Sand Hill Road.” And for the entrepreneurs there are the eyeballs of over a hundred investors in attendance, as well as the chance to mingle with other companies and service providers. But let’s not forget the snow. The Colorado mountains are having one…

Some of you know that I’m chairing the annual Venture Capital in the Rockies conference this year (now called VCIR Winter).  VCIR is put on annually by the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association and brings together a national group of venture capitalists for presentations by 22 rocky mountain companies that are currently seeking capital.  This year’s conference will be held March 3rd through 5th up at the Hyatt in Beaver Creek (hey – we play to our strengths and the skiing up there is fantastic!).  Being the conference chair has been a pretty involving job (certainly more than I thought I was signing up for – especially in a down economy with sponsorship budgets tight) but also a very rewarding…

We were talking today at our regular Monday partner lunch about accessibility and openness. At Foundry we strive to be transparent and available – from our various blogs (the Foundry blog; plus each of our personal blogs -  Jason, Ryan, Brad as well as this one) to direct email addresses on our website. While in many ways venture capital has been somewhat of a mystery to most people, we’re hoping to provide a little transparency into our daily lives, into the mechanisms we use to evaluate companies and into how VCs think about investing in and growing companies. With that as a backdrop, I wanted to remind readers that I love hearing from you. Comments to blog posts are great,…

At Foundry, we’re trying not just to respond to the conversation, or even to simply be a part of it.  We’re looking to help form and shape the conversation around technology areas that we care deeply about.  Maybe this sounds cheesy, but it’s absolutely true.  My partners and I are technology geeks first and foremost. To that end we’ve been lucky enough to team up with Eric Norlin to work on a few conferences that bring together thought leaders in the technology industry.  I’ve written about Defrag several times – a conference that we’ve helped Eric create here in Denver in the past two years that has focused on leveraging technology to better organize, interpret and consume disparate information (thus…

I just returned from a full weeks vacation "off-grid", by which I mean that I neither checked voicemail or email, took any work related calls, etc. I was reachable, but made it pretty clear that this was for emergencies only. No nightly checks of my email, no popping upstairs for a quick conference call, no calling into the office "just to check in".  Having zero willpower when it comes to this sort of thing I aided my quest to be off-line by leaving the laptop at home and turning off the data feed to my cell phone (I couldn’t imagine resisting the temptation of taking a peek at the hundreds of emails that were piling up if I saw them…

I really do try to stay away from politics in this space (with the somewhat recent exception of my post on attending the Democratic Convention, although even that post didn’t discuss policy).  However I can’t seem to hold myself back this time.  I’m completely frustrated with some of the rhetoric coming out of the Republican party.  Specifically the notion that there is a single "right" point of view on any given issue and that if you disagree with the Republican position, you’re simply not a real American.  It’s part of the view Bush laid out several years ago that you’re either "for us or against us" and precludes the possibility of any real conversation or debate.  It’s complete bullshit.  I…

I can’t state it more simply or directly than the title to this post – you should be coming to the Defrag conference (www.defragcon.com).  Foundry started Defrag with conference veteran Eric Norlin to bring together a group of technologists to talk about the challenges around increasing fragmentation of data online and the tools and technologies that are being developed to make sense out of this data mess. We strongly believe that rather than sitting on the sideline watching and listening to the conversation taking place within the markets we care about that we should be actively facilitating and participating in that discussion (you’ll hear more about a new conference we’re working on withe Eric soon). With industry thought leaders such…

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While I’m a fan of politics (and my wife and I are active supporters of causes and candidates we believe in), I’ve never been particularly "political" and generally don’t find myself at political speeches, rallies, etc.  But last night when I had the chance to head over to the Democratic National Convention being held here in Denver, I figured that it was something worth seeing in person. I wasn’t disappointed – it really was an amazing scene. I managed a tour of the press area courtesy of VC Adventure reader Elliot S., who was there working for NBC (broadcasting live over their temporary DS3 set up specifically for the convention). It was pretty unbelievable to imagine what needed to happen…

I’ve been mulling over a few ideas in search advertising. Curious if anyone out there has come across any companies innovating in the search value chain (I’m thinking about things like Yield and Clickable).