Canada: Famous for Horses.

 

I had the opportunity to visit Switzerland last week to work with one of the companies that I’m advising. They are located in a small town named Bad Ragaz, located about an hour outside of Zurich.

Our hosts were fantastic, and everything anyone has ever said about Europe being captivating and charming turned out to be true. The lack of generic chain restaurants made for great dining, as our meals seemed to be crafted rather than just assembled.

It was at one of these restaurants that I gained another insight on how the Swiss perceive Canada. Apparently, Hungary is famous for it’s wild boar, and Australia is famous for lamb. Canada is famous forpferdefilet, or horse filet.

Hello, Cyborg.

I’m in Toronto this week for the Mesh Conference, and on the way back to the hotel, we bumped into Dr. Steve Mann, the world’s first cyborg. He created a wearable computer in 1980 and started used it create an augmented reality. Today, he can use his wearable computer to perform an instant web search on you during a discussion. His wife can instantly send a message straight to his retina, without interrupting his task at hand.

In 2001, Peter Lynch created a documentary on Professor Mann named Cyberman.

Dr. Steve Mann (right) with Austin Hill.

nextMEDIA 2007: June 8 – 10, Banff

The Banff World Television Festival is a huge draw for anyone in the television and entertainment industry, with over 1,500 attendees and 150 commissioning editors. nextMEDIA 2007: The Future of Digital Content, is held in the 2 days prior to the BWTF, looks to be a much more intimate event. Thus, it looks like a great chance to meet and interact with some experts in the Internet TV space, including Stacey Seltzer, Senior Vice President, Content Strategy, Acquisition & Operations, Joost and Joanna Drake Earl, President, New Media, Current TV.

With all the reports of TV being dead, it’s very interesting to see how much more popular the traditional television conference is over the digital content conference. (Apparently, nobody told these guys). I’m thinking of attending, especially because of all the hype around Joost – and it would really pay off if Stacey put me on their beta list!

STIRR 2.5 Report

I just attended the STIRR Founder’s Mixer 2.5 last night, and have to say that I was thoroughly impressed. STIRR co-founder Sanford Barr’s goal was to create an environment for entrepreneurs where valuable conversations could take place. Invariably, the other tech associations they participated in tended to fade as time passed, because newer members were so different from the original members.

With STIRR, Sanford’s team wanted to make 5 out of 6 conversations relevant. A few of the people I met in the crowd:

• Aaron Peckham, of UrbanDictionary.com – very cool guy. He’s had outstanding success with his current book, named (what else?) Urban Dictionary. Watch out for his second book by the end of the year.
• Also spoke with Kyle and Michael from Justin.tv, who announced that they are rolling out “lifecasting” for everyone, within the next 3 – 4 weeks. And by everyone, I mean anyone who can go to their website and sign up for an account. From there, you’ll get a free account to broadcast your life. Crowdsourced lifecasting – talk about creating a long tail of content!
• Nick Gonzalez was at the event, no doubt working the crowd for some juicy tidbits to post on TechCrunch. Nick is working overtime, as activity in the Valley has really been amazing over the last year or so.
• Sanford Barr, who also told the crowd that he will be putting the finishing touches on the STIRR site and rolling it as a product, as well as rolling out the STIRR model across North America and across the world. I thanked Sanford for putting on such a great event, and asked for his suggestions on how Anand should demonstrate BumpTop in a 60 second no-computers-allowed pitch. Stay tuned – we might be pitching at the next STIRR!

In-N-Out, Here We Come!

I’m in the Bay Area next week with Anand Argarawala of BumpTop next week. We might be coming back 10 pounds heavier because of In-N-Out Burger. Amazing burgers, horrendous web site.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member . . .

. . . or so says Groucho Marx. VC David Hornik has created the ultimate unconference, called “The Lobby”:

Why do you attend conferences? Is it to learn about industry trends or hear keynote speakers or watch powerpoint presentations? Or do you attend conferences to spend time in the lobby? In a great conference, the conversation in the lobby is the content. The Lobbyaims to turn the traditional conference on its head. There will be no panels, no keynotes, no distractions from the real task at hand – engaging in meaningful conversation and building deeper relationships with other thought-leaders in the new media universe. For two and a half days, the individuals driving innovation and strategic development throughout the online media world will gather for an extended conversation. The Lobbywill facilitate that dialog and nurture those relationships through a set of social gatherings and activities designed to bring down barriers and maximize productive discourse. Participants in The Lobby will leave with new partnerships, new friendships and new ideas.

Sounds cool, right? Absolutely, if the right people show up. To ensure that happens, The Lobby is an invite-only event in Hawaii, packed with A-list technology entrepreneurs and executives. Needless to say, I’m not on the list. Maybe I should have accepted that invitation for the conference being held in the lobby of Holiday Inn of Thunder Bay . . .

Seriously, though – there are some really cool people attending. If you’re interested in learning more about some of them, and can’t afford a trip to Hawaii or don’t make the A-list, check out Founders At Work. It’s a great read featuring the startup stories from 32 great entrepreneurs.

Kick Butt, not Kiss Butt, nor Lick Butt

My buddy Guy Kawasaki linked to his Jackie Chanstory a few days ago, which explains what he’s writing when he autographs a book:

Some people thought I wrote “Lick butt.” Once I autographed a book for a woman, and she asked me why I signed her book, “Nice butt!” (I can’t remember if she had one or not.)

So just so you know, I sign my books, “Kick butt.” Not “Nice butt.” Not “Kiss butt.” And certainly not “Lick butt.”

For a lucky 200 iStockphoto customers a few years ago, Guy signed 200 books “Kick butt, eh?” when he dropped in on us at iStockphoto HQ. (Check out the old skool design of the home page!!). I wonder if we could find one that says “kiss butt” – you get pretty tired when you have to sign 200 books!

The Crowd: Less Expensive AND Better.

After speaking with Leonard Brody about his current company, NowPublic, I was fascinated. He told me that they are nearing 88,000 reporters in 3,500 cities from 140 countries across the world. That’s a great achievement for the Canadian company that helped pioneer citizen journalism just 2 years ago! (The Globe and Mail reported that there were just 15,000 reporters 9 months ago!)

Leonard had two great comments regarding his company. The first was a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and mission statement all rolled into one: “We are the next generation Reuters”. The second was more visionary: “NowPublic’s crowd will break the news – CNN will analyze it”. Developing simple, yet powerful statements like these for your company provides both clarity and motivation for everyone involved.

However, the big lesson learned from iStockphoto is that the crowd can surprise you. Sure, you have a vision for what they can achieve, but somehow, they manage to go above and beyond. Conventional thinking is, if you’re competing on price, you can only expect so much quality, right? Wrong: check out NowPublic’s report on this web 2.0 story: Facebook acknowledges Arab LBTG ban hoax. Not earth-shattering, but not covered anywhere else in detail – and I think it’s an indicator of things to come: 1) Up-to-the-minute reporting on topics the mainstream press doesn’t understand or isn’t interested in; 2) In-depth reporting and analysis by passionate people who are subject matter experts.

So, if NowPublic can sign up enough reporters, it’s possible that they can break news faster than the big news organizations can. If they can sign up enough experts, the same experts that the big news organizations interview during analysis of the news, then watch out CNN . . .