I was going to write something about a new book I’ve just published but I woke up this morning and that felt trivial so I’m going to save it for next week. Instead, I’m going to talk about my day yesterday. My long time friend (dating back to the mid-1990’s) Andy Sack has testicular cancer . Before I get into things, he’s in the middle of chemo, has a 95%+ cure rate, is open and public about what he’s going through, and has an incredibly positive attitude. ...
My quest for naming bathrooms, er – outhouses, continues. This one was named by Steve Lipsher of the Denver Post, for me on a recent trip of his. As I haven’t inspected it, I can’t guarantee cleanliness, but hopefully my name will add a little bit of warmth to the experience. Look for another big bathroom announcement tonight at the Boulder New Tech Meetup which I’ll be attending.
My dad is one of my best friends. His birthday is on Saint Patrick’s Day and it has been a bright green celebration for as long as I can remember. He turned 74 today and we had dinner tonight at Oak at Fourteenth with Amy , my mom Cecelia , my sister-in-law Laura , my brother Daniel , and their daughter Sabrina. We had a wonderful evening and it reminded me once again of the importance and delight of family. ...
Some time last year Katherine McIntyre, my partner Ryan’s wife, asked me if I wanted to do a 50 mile race with her . I think she was expecting me to say no, in which case she could have decided it was a silly idea. But my reaction, without thinking about it, was “sure – that sounds cool.” So we both signed up for the American River 50 Mile Endurance Run on April 7th in Sacramento. ...
My mom (Cecelia Feld) just put up a new website (Studio 7310 ) showcasing her art. In addition to being a really beautiful new site, she’s also started blogging at Art Everyday and tweeting at @ceceliafeld . I’m awesomely proud of my mom for embracing the web and social media – gigantic smiles from the son. Rather than talk about it, I’ll let a few pictures tell the story. If you are into art, know my mom, or are just curious, venture over to Studio 7310 and take a look. And, if you fall in love with something, don’t be bashful – even though she’s modest about it, she loves it when people buy or exhibit her art (ok – that’s the son doing his shameless promotion thing.) ...
I’ve tried to aggressively shift to video conferencing instead of audio conferencing for anything longer than a 15 minute call. I’m also giving a lot of talks around the world, especially on Startup Communities , so rather than travel and burn a day (or more), I’m doing 30 minute videoconferencing things remotely. And, as anyone who has ever asked me to speak to a class of students knows, I have a huge weakness for always saying yes to this so I’ve been doing this via videoconferencing as well. ...
On day two of my 14 day visit to Miami Beach, I realized that the hotel WiFi at the W Hotel was not going to work for me. Once again I was at a Starwood Hotel, which I love, except for the abysmal WiFi and WiFi policies. In this case, performance of WiFi in my room sucked and the cost was $15 / device / day. Upon connecting my computer and Amy’s computer, I realized I was paying $30 / day for shitty WiFi. Nope – that doesn’t work for me. ...
I first heard the word “grinfucker ” a decade or so ago from a close friend who was a former investment banker. He said, in response to a meeting we were in with a person who was very polite and charming “he’s such a grinfucker.” I loved the word and, as I found out later, it described the person perfectly. I had an encounter with someone on Friday that made me think to myself “that person is a grinfucker” and I vaguely remembered a post on the web from someone about grinfuckers. A quick Google search generated a post from Mark Suster titled Don’t be a Grin Fucker . It’s excellent – go read it – this blog post will wait patiently for you to come back. ...
It’s Monday and I’m back in Boulder after being on the east coast for three weeks. My partner Jason Mendelson got me possibly the best remote control toy ever. Even though I’d love to stick around Boulder all week, I’m heading to DC tomorrow and then NY for a day. Oh well.
I noticed something when I tried out two apps (Mingly and Cobook ) this morning – they each immediately asked to connect me to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter during their onboarding process. And, by using my Gmail as the starting point / authentication, they connected me to G+. Microsoft is conspicuously absent from this. I’ve noticed this many times in the past but when you onboard yourself in two contact-related apps in the same morning and there is no Microsoft anywhere, there’s something going on that’s important. I wonder if this will change with Office 365 – I hope Microsoft is building a trivial to use oauth to O365 so it’s easy to connect to, along with a good sync API. ...