I spent the day in Kansas City yesterday at the Kauffman Foundation for my first Startup Weekend board meeting. I’m very stingy with my non-profit board activity after deciding in 2005 to get off any non-profit board that wasn’t focused on entrepreneurship and until yesterday the only non-profit board I’m on is the National Center […]

I’ve been on a number of board calls this month while I’ve been in Paris. About half of them have been via Skype; the other half have been standard audio conferencing. I’ve also had a bunch of other meetings, discussions, and pitches via Skype. The quality of the meeting and interaction – when all attendees […]

I had two similar experiences last week where I heard from employees of two different companies that I’m on the board of. In each case, a senior exec said something like “I heard the board wants us to do blah.” I was in each board meeting and the board most definitely did not say “we […]

I’m on a six week rhythm in Seattle for the three boards I’m on up here – Gist, BigDoor, and Impinj. While I don’t have them perfectly synced up, I’m hopeful that I will in 2011.  In the mean time, today full of BigDoor and Gist. It was an absurdly beautiful day in Seattle.  When […]

I tried an experiment last week when I was in Seattle.  I did two of my “random meetings” in cars between things. I had a full day (a run with TA McCann (the CEO of Gist), the Gist board meeting, and then the Impinj board meeting.  I had to catch a flight home to Denver […]

My partner Chris Wand is finally blogging (even though he’ll deny it) over at AsktheVC – he’s writing a series on what should be in a “board reporting package.”  My long-time friend Will Herman – who happens to be hanging out in Boulder this week making the rounds (and getting his bike fitted – whatever that means) – inadvertantly […]

Scott Converse (CEO of ClickCaster) has post summarizing his first board meeting.  Todd Vernon (CEO of Lijit) does also (ok – his second board meeting.)  Finally – Jeff Bussgang of IDG Ventures has a great post summarizing the infamous Venture Capital Monday Morning Partner’s Meeting. 

Andy Sack – CEO of Judy’s Book – wrote a nice summary of last week’s “bored” meeting, along with our meeting after in Boulder, and his new found inspiration to eliminate boredom from the lives of his board members.  A positive side effect of this meeting is that I did get a nice run in on […]

The Agenda. This little one page document sets the tone, pace, and content of your board meeting. It’s fundamental to the success of a board meeting, so you’d think it wouldn’t be as screwed up as often as it is. As Jim Lejeal and I continue our Board of Directors series , we thought we […]