29 pictures pinned to my self-printed t-shirt.
Today, I get to be a walking inspiration board, conversation piece, expression canvas, and whateveryouwanttomakePinterest ! I dropped by Pinterest HQ in Palo Alto to show off. The reaction from those heads down and hard at work...unforgettable!
It begins.
The best of Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs at the StartX new company orientation.
StartX is the Stanford student startup accelerator.
Questions? Ask me!
Wifislam is indoor positioning for all mobile devices, everywhere.
Audio and image from Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17524974
iPod compatible download. ( I do this for myself because I run with these things).
Here is a good recap of the discussion from Patrick May of the San Jose Mercury News.
Forbes.com's Tomio Geron writes about LinkedIn's branding WIN, today. Totally agree. Bringing something great to the table. International exposure. Content gets archived and has a shelf life with many qoutables. Good work, LinkedIn!
Note:
During the hour-long event, a man who is believed to be an $early Google$ employee and "unemployed by choice," asked President Obama, “My question is: Would you please raise my taxes?” Anyone thinking of dozing, immediately perked up.
“I’d like very much to have a country that continues to invest in things like Pell grants, infrastructure and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am." he said.
Bold.
Some facts and FYIs to share:
I was expecting at least a little protest action in Mountain View. But, heck. it's Mountain View! Maybe...just too far from Solyndra and from those Occupy Wall Street people.
Global financial services company American Express selected peer-to-peer marketplace Zaarly for a prestigious, future collaboration. The startup presented a winning pitch, delivered by frontman Bo Fishback, at the Ad Age Digital Social Hack competition in San Francisco on Tuesday. Recent Amex partnerships were developed with Foursquare and Facebook.
Zaarly, which launched at the SXSW conference in March, is an addictively popular, buyer-powered service that lets people buy and sell things or services -- on demand, nearby from their iPhone, Android, or on the web.
"You go to Zaarly and say what you want, what you're willing to pay for it, how soon you need it, and it gets broadcast to your local community," explained Fishback, Zaarly's CEO and Co-founder.
Fishback presented on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for Performing Arts with 5 other startups, including want!, hatch’d, voyurl, bre.ad, and Milk.
American Express will dedicate a project team consisting of a lead architect, business systems analyst, and marketing manager to develop the concept collaboration. VP of Global Business and Market Development for Amex, David Wolf, led the competition and judging.
"It sounds like they’ve got a great product and a great value proposition for all of their users and some really interesting things that we can think about doing once you start to think about small merchants on that platform," Wolf announced.
In his presentation, Fishback also said his company wants to make it "dead simple for people to transfer money" to each other, which could make the partnership even more interesting. Wolf's team, which is focused on integrating new media technologies, will prioritize driving the Zaarly concept, but "may have room for another company in our pipeline," he said.
Here is the audio from the Zaarly pitch (ipod compatible download):
Kansas City-based startup Dwolla, won the Ad Age Digital West sister-competition, Mobile Brand Hacks. Eric Johnson, President and Founder of the digital marketing agency Ignited, announced the winner at the end of the conference.
"We thought that all of them did an amazing job. We will probably follow up with many of them," said Johnson. "What Dowalla is doing, we can apply against some of our clients that have retail products." Dwolla and Ignited will work together on a project in the near future. For its win, Dwolla will be rewarded with a project or partnership worth $25,000, either in cash, or combination of cash, office space, and business/creative resources.
Congrats Zaarly and Dwolla!
posted 9/20/2011. 9/21/2011 updates added
Co-founder Joe Gershenson announces his innovative product news to the conference crowd at Ad Age Digital West.
Now you can see how users are viewing webpages, advertisments, images and the iPad.
Scott Case w/ Naval Ravikant
In any breaking story, many reporters have a brief moment of personal assessment.
“Wow, this is going to be huge.”
“There goes my newscast.” ( or my lunch. my layout. my lead story, my weekend, etc.)
On 9/11/2001, I was working for CNN, based in Atlanta. Constantly living and breathing news, I turned on the TV that morning and watched. As horrifying and unbelievable as it was, I did what I normally would do after seeing news break. I prepared to jump. My department, Newsource, specialized in live-shot deployment. I had suitcases all over the place, with the same set of clothes packed ready for the next flight to wherever disaster strikes. In a short amount of time, it became clear. We weren’t flying anywhere. A lot was going to change, fast. My crew hopped into a minivan and started driving, headed to NYC. As details surfaced, we were sad and followed the news by radio and cellphones. From our limited perspective however, it felt as bad as many other disasters we would run out to cover -- that is, until we got to New York.
After a stop in Washington D.C., we finally arrived in Manhattan. I don’t even know what day it was. I had visited the city a few times previously and worked there on other stories. But this time, it felt totally different. The city was on-edge. The streets were empty. I remember walking by fire stations, seeing bouquets and personal memorials start to crop up. After days of liveshots from the CNN/New York rooftop, I remember finishing a shift and heading out to Bellevue hospital. I was curious. The countless posters of missing people were heartbreaking and the grief, piercing. Alone, I finally sobbed.
Then and today, my knee jerk reaction to 9/11 is to reach out to those closest to me and remind them that they are loved. Every day is a chance to be excellent and to be excellent to one another. To me, that is the Spirit of 9/11. Before leaving New York to go back to Atlanta, enough time had passed for the city’s t-shirt designers to come out with the latest sidewalk best sellers. You could buy prints of what was the World Trade Center and images of American flags. People were eager to snap up anything that expressed their frustration, sadness, pride, and/or defiance. I stopped to buy a t-shirt. The one I chose had an American flag and these words underneath:
“Evil Will Be Punished”
While walking past patriotic displays of flags proudly flying in my San Francisco neighborhood this morning, I remembered that t-shirt. Forced to move countless times in the past few years, I became a minimalist and threw it out. “Sentimentalism is a foolish burden,” I told myself. But, for a brief moment today, I wished that I still had it. I quickly realized however, the message wasn’t what I wanted to say anymore and affirmed my decision to unload the shirt at Goodwill.
What I do want to remember is the Spirit of 9/11, as experienced in the heart of the New York city, 10 years ago. People were focused on helping each other and rebuilding. They were humbled. They were empathetic. And, even while struggling to comprehend one of history's most evil acts of terror, they were committed to turning tragedy into triumph. From 3,000 miles away and while watching my former colleagues retell the stories all day long, I was happy and proud to see that indeed, we have not and will not forget.
