I caught the tail end of SXSWi (showed up yesterday and gave a speech sponsored by the Canadian Consulate) and am hanging around today for some night time music entertainment as the music part of SXSW. It’s pretty cool to watch Austin shift from “nerds” (the SXSWi gang) to “hipsters” (the SXSW music gang); while the music scene is not my thing (I’m a nerd), it’s highly entertaining to observe this species in action.

If you have been thinking about applying to TechStars for either the Summer 2009 program in either Boulder or Boston, now is the time to do it as the application deadline is Saturday, March 21, 2009 at 11:59:59 PM MDT. In my first company (Feld Technologies), when we set deadlines we started out with days of the week (e.g. Wednesday). In the late 1980’s, this meant “sometime before Thursday morning when people start showing up at work.” So – we tightened it up and put a date on it (e.g. Wednesday 3/18). This was supposed to mean “by the end of the day” but inevitably meant 11:59:59 PM. So – we started putting date and time stamps on deadlines. I continue that practice to this day.

As co-chairman of the Colorado Governor’s Innovation Council, I’ve been regularly exposed to the acronym ICT. It’s not a familiar or comfortably one to me and I chronically call it “CIT” or expand it incorrectly. I am looking for a phrase that covers IT + Communications + Software + Internet. These are the four components of ICT that drive a huge chunk of business activity and innovation in Colorado. In my world as a VC, I call this software + Internet, but that doesn’t cover the full landscape.

In response to my post The Beginning of the Real Mess in the Clouds I received several emails / twitters / comments saying some variation of “these are easy problems to address” or “the cloud computing providers will quickly fix all this stuff and even my mother will be able to use cloud computing.” Uh huh. Here’s another one. We’ve got hundreds of these already and it has only been 75 days since we started the company.

Anyone who has driven to DIA has seen the mysterious big blue horse. Yes – it has special powers. It has killed before (its creator – Luis Jimenez) and may kill again. I’ve just joined the I am afraid of the big blue horse at DIA Facebook group. Here’s one of the best quotes from the wall. Approaching DIA, my heart began to thump. Summoning all my resolution, I gave my Suby half a score of kicks to the gas pedal in an attempt to hasten my journey. At just that moment a splash of blue caught my eye. In the dark shadow of the field, on the margin of the airport, I beheld something blue, so blue, and towering, a gigantic monster ready to pounce upon this weary traveler. “What are you” I whispered, and received no reply. Agitated, I repeated my question. Pushing the gas pedal, I closed my eyes and uttered an involuntary psalm. I opened my eyes. The shadow took shape, a huge horse with powerful frame, whose eyes burned red and followed me, keeping pace. I rounded the curve, bringing the relief of the giant against the sky and I was horror-struck on perceiving it was…art? ~ Jenn Bma (Boulder)

All the economics and newscasters like to talk about GDP Growth Rate (and its importance to life, the universe, and everything). Whatever. One of my very smart LPs sent me this the other day. He sent the attached note: This is not meant to be exhaustive or to suggest any correlation – only a reminder that great companies continue to be created at shitty times. It is, however, interesting to think about what attributes might lead companies founded in shitty times to go on to be successful. How about: single-mindedness of purpose, frugality/capital efficiency, and more sweat than equity.

We made a seed investment at the end of last year in a company called Standing Cloud. They are working on a set of application development and deployment tools for cloud computing that build on some of the ideas in the posts What Happened To The 4GL? and Clouditude. They’ve spent the first quarter of 2009 testing out a series of hypotheses we had concerning issues with Cloud Computing as well as building an first release of their cloud deployment tool.

While you might be interested in a ego vanity iPhone app like the Brad Feld iPhone app, you are probably a lot more interested in an iPhone app for your business. NewsGator has become an expert at building these and has developed a superb framework for branded iPhone apps. On March 31st they are having a Webinar titled Gain Revenue & Readership with Branded iPhone Apps – Reed Business Case Study Webinar*.* Walker Fenton from NewsGator and Brien Tate (Reed Business’ CTO) will walk through what they’ve done around the Variety iPhone app including:

I love living in Boulder. But, I travel a lot. And I like that also, especially when Amy comes with me. I’m in Boston today for TechStars for a Day and then doing a bunch of stuff at MIT tomorrow. Amy came with me and is doing her own thing at Wellesley. I often get asked how much time I spend on the road versus at home. I decided to track it – along with several other things (miles run, books read, and airplane flights) for 2009. Following is where I have slept so far this year as of 3/10/09.