Education

Defrag 2009 is happening in Denver on November 11th and 12th. As this is Defrag’s third year, I can say with great confidence that it will be an amazing experience. I’ve watched Eric Norlin orchestrate two Defrag’s and one Glue conference and he is a master at the small, intimate, high quality tech conference. The simple metaphor for Defrag versus all of the other tech conferences that exist can be summarized in one question: “Would you rather eat at TGI Fridays or the family owned restaurant, where the owner brings the food to your table?" ...

As I continue to walk the earth, like Caine in Kung-Fu, I’m enjoying another early morning in Mountain View. I look forward to getting back home to Boulder late tonight, just in time to have avoided the crummy weather this week. Next week has plenty of walking the earth, starting in Boulder, then Mountain View, then Boston, then back to Boulder. I’ve had a number of requests to publish an “event calendar” of stuff I’m doing that’s public – look for that on this blog soon. In the mean time, following is info about where I’ll be and what I’ll be up to in case you want to come hang out with me. ...

When I was last on the grid, I was returning to NY from Boston on the Acela Express after the first TechStars Boston Investor Day. It was a tremendous experience and a great first year for TechStars in Boston that was captured nicely by Xconomy , Mass High Tech, TechCrunch , and Boston.com . There’s currently a ton of software / Internet entrepreneurial activity in Boston these days and it’s fun to be in the mix. ...

The Cash for Clunkers program worked – at least according to our government. “The CARS program ended sales on the Monday night with nearly 700,000 clunkers taken off the roads, replaced by far more fuel efficient vehicles. Rebate applications worth $2.877 billion were submitted by the 8 p.m. deadline, under the $3 billion provided by Congress to run the program.” Ok. Whatever. Now the Cash for Appliances program is coming. ...

Long time readers of this blog know that we helped put together the Defrag Conference series and are enormous fans of Eric Norlin and everything he does. Well – we’re starting to gear up for Defrag 2009 on November 11th and 12th in Boulder, Colorado. The agenda is starting to take shape (anyone that knows Eric knows that he tunes it all the way up to the event.) As usual, Eric has some tricks up his sleeve (Mwahahahahahahaha). ...

I’ve been interested in different approaches to software development going back to 1987 when – in my first company Feld Technologies – my partner Dave Jilk and I started talking about “semi-custom software development” (way ahead of its time). During the same period (1987 – 1990) and I did some work at MIT under Eric von Hippel on “user driven innovation with regard to software development” which today would probably fall under the heading of “open source software development approaches.” ...

Jean-Gabriel Morard – formerly of SugarSync – has a great post up on GigaOm titled Why Sync Is So Difficult. It was one of the things I read before my run yesterday and it was in my head the entire time. Jean-Gabriel’s main points are: Push sync is deeply asynchronous Sync matches different data models Sync messes with third-party applications Sync is hard to test I sent the URL to Hong Bui, the CEO of Memeo (one of our investments) who responded with “Great article. I agree. Our approach is zen-like, on one use case at a time.” ...

Eric Norlin has a great post up this morning titled A conference is about community*.* In it, he describes clearly the difference between a conference and a trade show, what makes a great conference, and what you’ll get at a great conference. Having been involved in Defrag since it was a germ of an idea and now watching Eric put together the first Glue Conference , he knows of what he speaks. I won’t try to summarize – go read the post (it’ll take you two minutes.) ...

There are piles of great things going on all over the place right now. I’m really psyched about the energy level I’m seeing around entrepreneurship throughout the country, as well as the willingness of great entrepreneurs to get out there, tell their stories, and lead by example. Here’s a handful of fun things going on, along with a few highlights from some from some of the companies I’m involved in. ...

My friend Jonathan Weber – the publisher of NewWest.Net – is putting on second annual Designing the New West conference on 4/16 and 4/17 at the Gallatin Gateway Inn in Bozeman, Montana. While short notice at this point, Jonathan just told me there are still about 30 spots left. If you are interested in architecture and landscape in the Mountain West, the schedule and lineup of speakers looks awesome and the cost to attend is only $195.