Phil Weiser, my good friend, professor of law at University of Colorado Law School, executive director of the Silicon Flatirons Program, and co-conspirator on several things told me about two job openings at the University of Colorado’s Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program (ITP). In my ongoing quest to help any reader of this blog find new cool job opportunities, I humbly serve them up here. The two openings in the University of Colorado’s Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program are for a Faculty Director and a Senior Instructor. ITP is the nation’s first program of its kind, has a 30-year track record of success, and possesses an active research faculty with a dynamic and international student body. Plus – you get to live and work in Boulder.

I used to be good at tennis. Really good. When I was 11. I treasured my Jack Kramer Autograph (until I got a Futabaya), never really wanted a T-2000 even though I loved Connors, and thought Ille Nastase was fabulous. I grew up in the golden age of Connors, Borg, and McEnroe (and Guillermo Vilas, and Vitas Gerulaitis, and Eddie Dibbs, and the ever present Ion Tiriac.) I could beat most 12 year old boys and almost all the 13 year old girls except for Heather Harrison who regularly kicked my ass. I thought Prince oversized racquets were for old ladies.

A few weeks ago I met with Brett Familoe and Zach Hubbell of the Pursue the Passion project. A gang of four – Brett, James, Noah, and Zach are recent college grads that are road tripping around the US meeting with “passionate professionals” and interviewing them. They just put up a short part of the interview with me up on the web where I state that “passion is critical but not sufficient” and then explain what I mean. I guess I should have said “necessary but not sufficient” but I was feeling a little passionate when I made the statement.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons is “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog.” Nick Bradbury – the creator of FeedDemon (one of the NewsGator products) is having an online argument with Calvin on his blog. Nick lobs in the first bomb with My Dog is an Asshole. Calvin responds with My Master is an Asshole (a Response From Calvin). Priceless.

As I was writing my previous post about The Constipation of Scale I got an email from a co-investor talking about a CEO / CTO conflict. It had an interesting phrase in it that I realized applies to many CEO / CTO relationships – “CEO needs to lighten up and CTO needs to tighten up.” While this isn’t always the order (sometimes the CEO needs to tighten up!), the source of conflict like this is pretty predictable. I’ve seen this over and over and over again – as an investor you see the natural (and healthy) tension between CEO and CTO. If the CEO and CTO don’t know how to play together (or are both experiencing their roles together for the first time) this healthy tension often continues to evolve until armageddon looms. One day you wake up and realize you’ve got an issue.

Every successful startup goes through it. I got a note from a friend yesterday in response to an email I sent him about one of his startups where I said “feature X should be a no-brainer to implement.” He responded “One of my concerns is that much of the focus at YYZ for the past three months has been on reliability and scalability and that has caused them to get behind on features.”

There are three long weekends each year that I love – Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. My entire world disconnects for each of them and they are great transitions for me. Amy and I spent the weekend up in Keystone with our friends Dave and Maureen. I had a couple of great runs, lots of naps, read a couple of books (Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product and The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations), watched a bunch of US Open tennis, and ate well. Oh – and I watched The U.S. vs. John Lennon – a magnificent and disturbing movie that helped solidify John Lennon’s image in my mind as a heroic figure.

Stan James just wrote a post titled Explore the world of blogs around you which describes the new Lijit Blog Explore feature. I’ve been calling this feature “bubbles” and if you look at the image below you’ll see why. Pretty colors, eh? Try it. Go to my blog and click on the “Explore” button on the right hand side in the Lijit Wijit. Then – click on the little bubbles and navigate around my social graph. 

One of the great things about blogs is that it makes it easy for anyone (that has a blog) to express things – both good and bad. While mainstream media seems to be endlessly focused on “bad stuff sells newspapers”, people like to express (and consume) a full range of their experiences. Bloggers regularly talk about their positive experiences. I obsessively subscribe and read search feeds (across NewsGator Search, Technorati, Google, and Yahoo) for all the companies I have an investment in. I’ve found this to be an awesome way to keep a pulse on what’s going on in my world.