Education

Sometimes I feel like a conference promoter. It’s worth noting that while I put plenty of events up on this blog, I only post the ones that I’d consider going to. Specifically, I probably get 10 requests to post something for everyone one I do. Over the past year, I’ve gotten to know Eric Ries through the work we’ve done together on the Startup Visa initiative. If you don’t know of Eric, he’s a software entrepreneur who over the past few years has been developing and evangelizing the idea of the Lean Startup. He’s an extraordinary writer – I gobble up every word that he writes on his blog Lessons Learned . ...

I’ve enjoyed my interviews on Vator.tv in the past and think Bambi Francisco and crew do a great job of highlighting up and coming entrepreneurs, companies, and their investors. Vator is holding a Splash event on May 13, at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. Like its last event, about 400 attendees are expected. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh will talk about how he built a company to a $1 billion exit to Amazon and Gurbaksh Chahal will talk about how he started and sold two companies for $340 million before the age of 25. About 30 investors from VC firms will be there and as a special bonus, there will be an afterparty with a band consisting of Adbrite founder Philip Kaplan, Mayfield VC Raj Kapoor and Norwest VC Tim Chang. ...

Amy and I love Santa Fe. We need a long weekend after the past few weeks so we’ve decided to hop in the batmobile and drive as fast as we can down I-25 to Santa Fe. While I’m there I’m going to do a handful of entrepreneurial events that have been arranged by a variety of folks but really spearheaded by Doruk Aytulu as described in his post Brad Feld is Coming to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos. ...

I’ve been hinting about a new conference that we’ve been working on with Eric Norlin that complements Defrag and Glue . Eric is about to launch it and the splash page for the Blur Conference is up. If you are familiar with Defrag and Glue, you know they are built around two of Foundry Group’s themes (Protocol and Glue respectively). Blur is being built around our Human Computer Interaction theme, but with a twist. Instead of simply being able to “see cool stuff up close”, our goal with Blur will be to create an environment where you can actually use and work with this stuff. We’ll have user-oriented demos, hackathons, and tons of crazy shit no one has ever seen before. ...

I love the conferences we help sponsor (Glue and Defrag ). Eric Norlin is a genius at putting together a specialty technology conference. He gets amazing people to attend, curates the content meticulously, isn’t afraid to try new things every year (and have some not work), and just keeps at it with single minded commitment. He also totally gets why to do these things outside of the bay area – there’s a completely different tempo (and magic can happen) when people really commit two days of their life to a conference. ...

If you happen to live in North Carolina or regularly attend the CED Venture Conference (the Southeast US’s longest running early stage company financing conference), come say hello to me on April 21st. I’ll be spending the day at the conference and am speaking on a panel from 1:30pm to 2:45pm. We don’t yet appear to have a panel title, but the other participants are Dana Callow (Boston Millennia Partners), Noel Fenton (Trinity Ventures), Todd Forrest (Hummer Winblad), and Patrick Kerins (NEA). I don’t think I’ve ever been on a panel with any of them before (although I’m pretty certain I’ve fixed Dana Callow’s computer a few times back during my Feld Technologies days), so I’m looking forward to having some fun bwahahahahahahahaha.

On Thursday, March 18th (during CU Entrepreneurship Week) there is going to be a great Silicon Flatirons Conference on “The Role of Place”. Brad Bernthal , who is chairing the conference, leads with a great quote from Harvard Professor and Monitor Group co-founder Michael Porter . “Paradoxically, the enduring competitive advantages in a global economy lie increasingly in local things – knowledge, relationships, and motivation – that distant rivals cannot match.” ...

I’m doing another Beers with Brad – this time in Boulder on next Thursday, February 18th from 6pm to 8pm at Twisted Pine Brewery (3201 Walnut Street) . Lest you think this will be one of those boring events where a bunch of smart, interesting people stand around and drink beer and talk for a few hours, I promise I’ll spice this one up. I’m going to tell three entrepreneurial stories I haven’t told in public before in Boulder. I haven’t decided which ones yet but they’ll be doozies. I promise a mix of success and failure to go with some very good beer. All in support of a good cause and some fun. ...

My long time friend Warren Katz pointed me out to an event on March 3, 2010 called EO Boston Accelerator Shark Bowl 2010 . It’s a competition for entrepreneurs under 40 with businesses between $100k / year and $1m / year in revenue. You present to a group of judges including Warren (MAK Technologies), Rich Farrell (Full Armor), Clark Waterfall (Boston Search Group), and Michael Hackel (DiningIN) who are all EO Boston members . ...

I’ve done a few “Beers With Brad” in other cities such as Seattle and Vancouver. On February 18th from 6 to 8pm, I’m going to be doing Beers with Brad in Boulder at The Twisted Pine Brewery . It’s a fundraiser for KGNU (88.5 FM and 1390 AM in Denver) – tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. There will be free munchies, music, and plenty of beer. Come join us for a fun evening where I’ll talk about whatever comes to my mind about entrepreneurship and innovation – especially ideas fueled by a few beers. ...