A few days ago I wrote about the transition from a small to medium to large business. I had a few people write to me with additional questions, including requests to define the sizes, talk more about the issues during the transition, and make suggestions about how to address things. One of the notes came from a long time friend – Barry Culman – who is currently the president of SPADAC (Spacial Data Analytics Corp.) I’m not involved in SPADAC, but Barry shared a framework that he used recently at a management retreat to explain his view of the evolution of a company. Following is a quick summary of the stages according to Barry.

Congrats to my friend (and world traveler) Ben Casnocha for being highlighted in BusinessWeek as one of the best entrepreneurs under 25.

Amy just blogged about her trip last week to New Orleans. Neither of us had been there since Hurricane Katrina. She went as an attendee at a conference organized by the Women Donors Network called Revitalizing Democracy: What We Can Learn from Katrina. We were together in Boulder over the weekend and had plenty of time to talk about her experience during the few days she was in New Orleans. Her post summarizes her thoughts well and end with some concrete suggestions about what she (we) are going to do.

I love my two giant golden retrievers (Denali and Kenai). I’m definitely “a dog person” – I once had a cat named Tiny (who of course was huge) and when I got divorced from my first wife I offered to give her the left half or the right half (or the front, or the back – whatever she preferred.) While no animals were actually harmed in the divorce settlement, I’ve never had a cat since, although I’ve become more respectful of my cat friends and rarely pull their cats’ tails anymore. When Amy suggested we get a dog, I agreed as long as she was willing to take care of it. I don’t do vomit and shit very well, but these guys have definitely become two of my best friends.

My mom (Cecelia Feld) is having another exhibition this fall in Boulder at Blink Gallery. The show is called In The Mind’s Eye and includes photos from mom, paintings by Patricia Bramsen, and ceramic sculpture from Caroline Douglas. The opening reception is on Saturday November 11th from 6pm to 9pm at Blink Gallery – 1011 Pearl Street – in Boulder, CO. Come join us and say hi to me and my mom (and buy her art.)

I’m sitting in first class on an evening flight from Denver to New York. I’m in row 6 and just got up to go to the bathroom. As I stood up I had a nice view of the 20 people in front of me. Eight of them (nine including me) are on their computers. They are a mix of Dell and IBM laptops. Every single person is working in a Microsoft Office app – about half are in Outlook, a few in Word, and one in Powerpoint. No Macs. No “online thingys” (we’re on an airplane – that online thingy doesn’t really work so good without connectivity.) Fascinating. And – yes – it’s United and the bathroom – even in first class – is filthy.

I was looking forward to getting up at 3:30am this morning and flying to Chicago for the FeedBurner board meeting. At 1am I woke up with the feeling that a bug had crawled into my ear and was gnawing on my eardrum. I suffered through the next few hours but at 3:30am decided I was unfit for getting out of bed and schlepping to the airport so I rolled over and slept some more.

I love simple, descriptive tag lines (or mottos) for companies. My first company – Feld Technologies – has a very clear motto – “We Suck Less.” I was at Newmerix yesterday looking at some of their new stuff. Whenever I’m asked about Newmerix, I describe them as a “software quality assurance / change management suite for packaged applications.” The long version – on the Newmerix web site – is:

Last week it crossed my mind that I hadn’t seen any new VC bloggers in a while. Suddenly – in a matter of days – three popped up: Bijan Sabet (Spark Capital), George Zachary (Charles River Ventures), and Rob Hayes (First Round Capital). I’ve invited them all to the FeedBurner Venture Capital Network. If you are a VC blogger and not in the network, drop me an email.