I love working with Todd Vernon , the CEO of Lijit . Todd and I have been friends since I met him in 1997 when I was an investor in the seed round for Todd’s last company, Raindance (fka Evoke fka Vstream fka Something Data Something I can’t remember). Todd’s a great example of an entrepreneur that you just can’t deny – he’s going to get it done no matter what. ...
I’ve been involved in helping start a number of non-profits. One of them – National Center for Women & Information Technology – has surpassed my wildest expectations. Lucy Sanders and her team have done an awesome job of building a coalition of over 170 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and nonprofits working to improve U.S. innovation, competitiveness, and workforce sustainability by increasing women’s participation in IT. I’ve been chairman of NCWIT since its early days. As with most of the non-profits I’ve been involved in helping start, the board of directors evolves over time. Unlike for-profit companies, each stage feels like a step function as you add new board members who bring a new set of capabilities, range, and diversity to the board. ...
I’ve never totally understood the “send out physical greeting cards” thing. I get that it’s a “tradition”, but it has always seemed like a waste of time, energy, and money to me. Yes – I know I’ve signed my share of these cards – I’ve just played along, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about them. I now get a flood of electronic cards (and birthday wishes – thanks everyone!) These make me smile and often generate a response via email from me to people I haven’t talked to in a while. I received very few physical birthday cards this year (which is good) since pretty much everyone that would send me a card sent me an electronic one. ...
Thanks to Micah Baldwin, a bunch of Colorado bloggers (including me) are putting up DonorsChoose widgets on their blogs. Our goal in Colorado is to displace Fred Wilson as king of last years DonorsChoose technology blog category. We’ve already got a bunch of great Colorado projects up on the DonorsChoose website . To start things off on my blog, I just gave $200 to the Return To Technology project for Ms. E’s Classroom. Look for the sidebar on the right of my main page or click through on the DonorsChoose website link. Any amount helps – give up Starbucks for a week and join in with $25.
There’s lot of good Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado stuff going on. The other day I wrote about the EFCO Annual Give Back Event that is happening on Saturday (please come join us.) Today, New West announced that they have joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado . Tomorrow (8/14) at 5:30pm, Application Experts is announcing that they have joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and is having a rooftop party on the Foundry Roof Deck to tell anyone that’s interested why you should care about EFCO. A bunch of TechStars folks with be there along with me and my partner Jason Mendelson – come join us for a beer.
The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado is having their first annual “give back” event on Saturday 8/16. If you are an employee of a company that is an EFCO member, you and your family are invited. EFCO is doing this in conjunction with the Intercambio-KGNU Friendship Fun Run. The logistics follow: August 16 at Foothills Community Park (at Broadway and Violet, Boulder) 8 AM & 9:15 AM Adult 5K 8:45 AM Kids’ 1K 11 AM to Noon – Intercambio Strategic Planning Session Noon – Celebration Family Picnic ...
And then there were 19. Symplified has joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. Symplified was founded last year by Eric Olden, Jonti McLaren, and Darren Platt. Eric and Jonti were previously the co-founders of Securant which was acquired in 2001 by RSA Security for $140m (if you remember 2001, then you’ll realize that this was quite an accomplishment.) I met Eric last fall as we were still raising our new fund. He was on the verge of closing a financing and we just weren’t in a position to engage seriously since he had the financing effectively lined up. As we got to know each other, I mentioned the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and he got it immediately. ...
A few weeks ago, my friend Alan Shimel connected me with Jennifer Leggio. Jennifer is the Director of Strategic Communications at Fortinet and an active blogger in – among other things – security and communication. Alan suggested to Jennifer that she might be interested in the work we have been doing at the National Center for Women & Information Technology . I remember the conversation fondly because I was sitting on the floor upstairs at Oblong’s office in LA while a bunch of people ran around downstairs looking at some cool stuff that Oblong was presenting to one of their customers. Oblong had recently moved in to their new office and there was a noticeable lack of comfortable surfaces or devices to sit on (or in) upstairs. The floor had to make do. It was actually pretty clean and comfortable. ...
We all know this, but it’s useful to be reminded of it periodically. I’m chairman of the board of the National Center for Women & Information Technology . It’s a remarkable organization that has accomplished a great deal under the leadership of Lucy Sanders. While it would be easy to categorize NCWIT as a “gender equality” organization, it’s not. Instead, NCWIT is focused on helping the US be more competitive in the long term in the field of information technology and computer science. ...
I love Mental Floss (both the magazine and the books I refer to as “mental floss.") I was proud to see that I’d made the list of 6 Curious College Donations. My CU Boulder Bathroom joined Andrew Carnegie’s lake at Princeton, P.T. Barnum’s dead animals at Tufts, Frances Crick’s attempted brothel at Cambridge University, W.K. Kellogg’s horse shows at Cal-Poly Pomona, and Bob Gibson’s science fiction collection at the University of Calgary.