I don’t learn from demos, conferences, or listening to other people present powerpoint presentations. I figured out a long time ago that I learn by reading, reflecting, experiencing, and playing with stuff. The best confirmation of this was my experience at MIT – I was there seven years (through 2.5 degree programs before they threw me out), went to about 33% of my classes, read everything I could get my hands on, and did just fine.

Dick Costolo and his gang at Feedburner have been on the front lines of the podcasting explosion. They’ve got great metrics on the growth and dynamics of podcasting and just put up a post on RSS Metrics, Podcasting that’s must reading for anyone that’s into RSS and/or podcasting.

I’m hanging out at Microsoft for another day during their PAC conference so it was pleasant to see a release from ePartners that they are partnering with 5by5 to use 5by5’s Bridgewerx product as part of ePartners’ Microsoft BizTalk integration services. Microsoft continues to blow me away in how they work with and manage their partner relationships across all lines of business and – at this meeting – I’m seeing a very clear focus from them on expanding and embracing their partners even further. One of my other companies – Oxlo – is also a deep BizTalk partner (it’s a key part of their product) – BizTalk and Sharepoint are definitely getting a lot of play as the next wave of Microsoft server-related products.

Fred Wilson wrote today that he and his partner Brad Burnham have officially launched Union Square Ventures and have completed the final close on their inaugural fund. I’ve known Fred since the first day I started working with Mobius (called Softbank at the time). My very first Softbank-related meeting was to do due diligence at a company outside Boston called Yoyodyne and I met Fred, Charley Lax, and Seth Godin (the Yoyodyne CEO / founder) in Yoyodyne’s office (I kept looking for John Bigboote in the office but couldn’t find him.) Neither Fred nor I knew each other (nor did we know the other was going to be there), but I remember an immediate first impression about five minutes into the meeting of “smart dude.” Fred went on to start his first venture fund (Flatiron Partners), invest in Yoyodyne (with Softbank – which had a happy ending as Seth sold it to Yahoo! for a bundle well after he had no hair), and build a very successful NY-based venture fund with his partner Jerry Colonna.

Greg Reinacker – founder and CTO of NewsGator – posted NewsGator’s near term product road map today. The gang at NewsGator has been heads down cranking on a number of fronts – I’ve been encouraging Greg and crew to be more open about what’s coming next. Greg historically has been very tight lipped – by his own admission – so we had some interesting (and useful) conversations about this. While I’m not a proponent of vaporware or FUD, I do believe it’s useful for young companies to be open about what they are working on. Customer and partner feedback is hugely valuable as you are developing a new set of software products and it’s easy to get the word out there (e.g. via blogs) and get feedback (e.g. via comments, emails, and cross posts). In today’s fast moving world of software and short release cycles, I think a clearly articulated product vision, early beta programs, and lots of forums for feedback helps dramatically improve software product quality and value over the long term.

I’m at the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council (PAC) meeting (I’m on Microsoft’s Venture Capital PAC). Simon Witts – the Corporate VP of the Enterprise and Partner Group – is keynoting the morning session. It unbelievable (and extremely impressive) how much Microsoft measures about their business. In his session, Simon has been extremely candid about positives and negatives based on what they forecasted for 1H05 (7/04 – 12/04), how they actually did, how this impacts their partner channel, the feedback loop that results, and what they are changing to perform even better.

I recently agreed to be chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology – an organization run by Lucy Sanders (ex-CTO Avaya Labs) – whose mission is to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of information technology. Lucy and NCWIT are the real deal – in its first year we’ve raised over $4.5 million from the National Science Foundation, Avaya, Microsoft, Google, and a number of other technology companies. Lucy has an ambitious multi-decade vision which – when you sit and listen – makes you say “wow – that’s perfect – yes – absolutely” and other unambiguous affirmative phrases.

My friend Larry Nelson – who runs w3w3 with his wife Pat – had a nice article in the Denver Post yesterday. Larry and Pat are total gems (they even “bought” my parents for a day at the Boulder Philharmonic gala last year when I guest conducted and also was the auctioneer). w3w3 has been around through the Internet boom and bust and Larry has shown that he’s got real staying power for a vision he and Pat have. If you are into the Colorado tech and business scene, w3w3 is a great source of continually interesting, entertaining, and useful content.

Wow. That’s about all I can say to the new Google Maps. I’ve been a long time Yahoo Maps user – but no more. My friend Bruce Wyman – the Director of New Technology at the Denver Art Museum (who is involved in one of the most amazing art / architecture related projects happening in the country as part of the creation of the new Fredric Hamilton building by Daniel Libeskind) turned me on to it after emailing me about Googlezon’s Epic the other day.