Looking forward to Defrag
I’m really not a big fan of conferences. I go to a small number every year and like most people I find that for the most part, the best part of most conferences happens in the hallways and lobby where there’s a chance to connect with other attendees. The conference itself simply becomes the framework to support making those connections. Defrag, however, is a rare exception to this widely held view in the conference world – it’s a conference worth attending not only for the connections you’ll make in the hallway but also in the insight you’ll gain inside the presentation rooms. Organized as an interactive conversation, Defrag challenges attendees to become a part of the conversation through thought-provoking topics, an agenda that stresses audience involvement and through break-out sessions and other mechanisms that reinforce the participatory nature of the event. The high caliber of the conference attendees and intimate nature of the venue don’t hurt either. …
September 28, 2009· 2 min read
ESPRIT 2009
I’ve been involved with the Boulder ESPRIT Awards for the the last 8 years. ESPRIT is put on by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce to “celebrate entrepreneurship” in Boulder county. Each year ESPRIT honors a handful of entrepreneurs who embody the best attributes of the Boulder business community. This year is the 25th anniversary of the awards and the program will celebrate the last 25 years of innovation in Boulder valley and look forward to some of the people and programs that are serving as catalysts for innovation for the next 25 years. …
September 22, 2009· 2 min read
Your first 30 seconds
I receive a large number of “check out my new cool bright shiny web thing” emails. I’m amazed at how crappy the user experience is on many of these new tools. Sure – if I spent 20 minutes setting it up and clicking through a bunch of different layers of the application I might find out how great it is, but honestly, if the site doesn’t grab me in the first 30 to 60 seconds I typically close the browser tab and move on. …
September 17, 2009· 4 min read
The Hajj in 3 Minutes
In case you don’t have 12 hours to actually do the Colorado Hajj yourself, Walker has conveniently condensed the trip into a ~3 minute video. Enjoy!
June 30, 2009· 1 min read
The Times or the Journal?
In a reminder to both follow my own 10 minute rule advice and to be more careful blogging on 4 hours sleep, it turns out that I misattributed the Bits Blog article I pointed to in my last post on young vs. old VCs to the Journal instead of the Times. Apologies on that one. I just corrected it, but it was worth noting in it’s own post (and no – this doesn’t count as today’s post!).
June 11, 2009· 1 min read
Foundry Group Invests in Gist
Today Foundry Group announced that we’ve invested in Gist and I couldn’t be more excited about what they are working on (see our blog post here; Gist’s post here). Gist has developed a powerful product that helps users find and sort information about the people, places and companies that are meaningful to them (“where your inbox meets the web”) . It’s an implicit service – they use information contained in your inbox, calendar and contacts to determine the strength of various connections and surface both public and private information about topics that are both timely and relevant for you. For example for an upcoming meeting Gist will organize not only news stories and social media mentions of the company and/or people you’re meeting with, but also organizes all of your correspondence with people from that organization (separating out email, attachments, etc.). I use it every day to help me sift through the mass of data and information that’s important to me (see my post on that subject from a few weeks ago here). For Foundry, the problem Gist is attempting to solve is right at the intersection of Email and Implicit Web – two themes that we’ve been involved with for many years. …
May 5, 2009· 2 min read
Last chance to submit to TechStars
I’ve blogged plenty about TechStars (see how much I love TechStars here) so I won’t drone on again about what a great experience the program is . . . but it totally rocks and if you’re an entrepreneur with a great idea I’d strongly encourage you to apply. The application deadline is this Saturday (for both Boston and Boulder).
March 18, 2009· 1 min read
VCIR Winter 2009 is up and running
Cross posting from the VCIR Blog. We’re liveblogging VCIR today – I won’t post everything here, but you can follow the action over at the VCIR Blog. We’ll be posting live from VCIR today. You can follow the action here at the VCIR blog (David Cohen already has a post up about the media panel that kicked off the morning session). You can also follow the action via the VCIR Winter Twitter feed. …
March 4, 2009· 1 min read
What vs. how
The distinction of “what” a company does vs. “how” it does it has come up recently in a bunch of different contexts and it got me thinking about this idea as a useful distinction for companies to consider as they talk with customers, partners, media, etc. The idea stems from a tendency that companies have to focus not on what they do, but on how they’re doing it. In my experience this tendency is particularly true of technology companies and very prevalent in early stage companies – who in both cases are often heavily weighted towards technologists in their staffing (and therefore thinking). It’s easy to understand how companies fall into this trap. They’ve developed a new bright shiny object (their product, web service, widget, whatever) and are enamored with how they were able to make it work. Rather than simplifying their description of what their BSO does, they talk a lot about how they were able to make it so bright and shiny (after all they’re proud of the fact that they figured out a new way of doing something). That’s great if you’re showing off to other technologists (at least ones you don’t mind sharing your secret sauce with) but can be confusing (and counter-productive) when talking with customers and partners. …
February 23, 2009· 2 min read
Seattle Techstars meetup
My partner Chris Wand and I will be in Seattle tomorrow and are hosting a meetup about Techstars (in case anyone missed the event a few weeks ago that Brad held there). Info can be found at www.techstars.org/meetups.
February 3, 2009· 1 min read