You can call in (646-929-1686) or check out the show online...   be there!

Topic:

With over 2700 blog subscribers, 1700 Twitter followers, 1000+ LinkedIn connections, and 600+ Facebook friends, not to mention IM buddies, 100+ blogs in my RSS reader, and 3000+ e-mails in my address book, you'd think I'd be a bit overloaded!

I'm going to talk about how I "manage" all of these and also take some questions around the following...Friend everyone or keep a velvet rope? Can you develop authentic relationships at scale? Where does networking cross the line to self promotion?  

When Scott Heiferman announced his abdication from the NY Tech Meetup throne at the last Meetup, he said that he had asked himself the question of whether the Meetup could be more than just a once a month pitch meeting.

It's exactly the same question I asked three years ago when I started nextNY.  At the time, Meetup.com didn't have listservs, so it was much more of an event than it was any kind of community.  Twitter wasn't around, so even during the event itself, people seemed kind of disconnected from each other.  There were no afterparties either.  I actually wanted to meet the people at the event, particularly the up and comers who were in my peer group, so I asked Scott if it was ok to form another group and he was fully supportive.  Now, we're at 2,000 people and growing, and our @shakeshack event was the hot community event over the summer.

But nextNY didn't solve everyone's needs.  Some people wanted more of a direct connection to financing, and so David and Yao created a unique business opportunity for themselves by founding the Hatchery around that premise.  They throw pitch meetings and investor matchups--and that obviously wouldn't be relevant for all the members of the NY Tech Meetup.

There have also been more focused groups, like the Video 2.0 Meetup group, which itself supports almost 2500 people, and industry meetups like the Fashion 2.0 Meetup, where over 200 entrepreneurs at the crossroads of fashion and technology are gathered.

And, of course, for even longer, we've had tech user groups, like NYPHP and the Linux User Group, etc.  These organizations have been holding events and running online listservs for years, connecting the technologists of the Big Apple.

So, as the NY Tech Meetup scaled to 7500 people, it inspired people whose needs it wasn't fulfilling to go off and create their own groups--creating lots of new community leaders.  Seems to me that it's more than serving it's purpose.

Scott, however, positioned the NY Tech Meetup as falling short--so when he asked for new leadership, those who answered the call came new ideas ablazin', writing manifestos, blog posts, etc... and the theme was the same... more, bigger, structure. 

This is typical.  No one ever wins this type of thing by promising more of the same.  Change is sexy, as are big visions.  However, as we should know from the web, focus and reduction are more likely to improve the quality of a product than adding more features. 

And now, we're going to be forced to choose between these new visions, when the community never actually asked for any of them.  I mean, this whole time, any one of the people running for Meetup organizer could have proposed any of their suggested changes and ideas, and totally ran with them, and we could have seen whether or not they got any traction in the community.  That's the way nextNY works.  If someone wants to run an event, everyone is free to, and if only 10 people want to go, it's fine, those 10 people meet.  If 150 people want to go, it naturally gathers more momentum, focus, and effort.  That minimizes the amount of community distraction and misallocation of resources.

No one, except Scott, was asking for more overhead, a board, or more structure, because whatever they weren't getting out of the NY Tech Meetup, they were getting out of one of these other community organizations... and now we're going to put the weight of 7500 people and a board behind someone's agenda--an agenda that didn't earn that following in the first place.  I actually think this could be dangerous--because it has the potential to distract other resources and the community itself on issues and efforts that aren't really being driven by the community. 

For example, a lot of people have been saying that there needs to be more venture investment in NYC.  Whether or not that's the case, something like 2% of all startups are ever really appropriate for venture investment anyway.  Still, that's something that everyone will support, even though it really isn't relevant.  Need we waste the NY Tech Meetup's time and energy on trying to work to get more investment in NYC when it doesn't really apply to most of its members?

Plus, a lot of what bothers me about this "election" is that the people running so far have either never tried to show leadership in the community before, or whose leadership efforts haven't garnered anything close to the kind of success the current NY Tech Meetup has.  And now we're going to throw the weight of 7500 people behind them?  That's going to set off a legitimization of someone's ideas that never got traction otherwise.  That person will undoubtedly be looked to as representative of the community when they really aren't.  I might think differently if anyone gets a majority of the votes, but what are the chances of that happening?  I'll bet you that "turnout" isn't even 50%, not to mention the fact that all the people in NY Tech aren't in the Meetup group, obviously, so this person isn't really going to be very representative of very many people at all.  They'll likely be treated as such, though, because elections create that perception. 

Instead, why not keep things a liquid market of smaller, focused groups--representative of what the community actually needs.  This way, if there's a group that wants to get together around investments, like the Hatchery, they can, and they'll naturally rightsize themselves around that need.  Let's not forget that the 7500 people joined the meetup as designed--to meet once a month, check in with others in the community, and see some interesting new startups.  It was simple, and not surprisingly, simple got traction.  There was no groundswell of people saying "This sucks, we need to do more."  In fact, it was quite the contrary.  Tickets to the NY Tech Meetup sellout in minutes. 

Have we not learned anything from AOL and Yahoo?  Kludging disparate factions of a community together in an attempt to be its center never works.  In fact, it goes against the very essence of Meetup itself--a loose collection of groups centered around focused interests, with lots of cross pollination but no central hub.

So, after giving this a lot of thought, I think I really only support two options here.  Let's keep it exactly the same--because it works, and because anything different or with more structure isn't really what the community asked for or needs or can't be found in other groups.

Or, let's just disband the whole thing before it trips over its own structure and overhead and wastes a lot of effort and resources.  Yeah... that's right.  Let's stop the NY Tech Meetup and see how many new efforts pop up in its place and how many new leaders are created.  I would hope that it would create at least a few--because there were a few people running I had never seen or heard from before. 

Or how about just spinning out the monthly meetup and keeping that exactly the same--run by someone currently on the organizing staff--and have some side "ideas" group coming up with new things to try out and incubate within the community?

Do I actually think the NY Tech Meetup should be disbanded?  No, I don't.  But do I think we are in danger of forming the next NYNMA, which failed under its own overhead during a downturn?  Yes, I do.  (something that nextNY, for example, can't do, b/c it's just a group of people... no finances, no costs... as long as there are two nextNYers who want to meet and talk to each other, it will always be around).   I'm also looking at the NYSIA model, with a paid director that, while more focused on the enterprise side, really hasn't galvanized the community either--despite the good efforts of very qualified people. 

Meetup proved that the grassrootsy, low overhead model worked.  The NY Tech Meetup inspired a generation of new community leaders who have packed the Gary's Guide calendar full of tech community events.  I'd rather see it disappear than see a new vision haphazardly bolted on to a community that never asked for one.

If you didn't happen to catch the live show, here's my interview yesterday with Sumaya Kazi of Socially Speaking on BlogTalkRadio.  We talked about social media, startups, and even the New York technology scene.

The e-mails are starting to trickle in...

"Help, I lost my job!"

"I've been laid off!"

"Please help my friend find a job!"

We're in difficult, uncertain times, no doubt...   and how many of you feel prepared?  Have you ever even been taught how to job search?

And no, uploading and e-mailing your resume everywhere and just waiting patiently for a resumes doesn't count.  Why?   Because very rarely does anyone get a job like that.

I think most people know that but they just don't know what else to do.  That's why we're running a live event about just that:  How to approach your career and job search in a bad economy.

EVENT: Keeping your career UP in a DOWNTURN: Strategies for a Bad Economy

On Saturday, December 13th, we're assembling some really fantastic sessions with top career experts to help you more effectively job search and shore up your career during a very uncertain time.  We've tried very hard to keep our costs low and so we're able to bring you the full day seminar for less than $100. 

Our event will take place at the New York Seminar and Conference Center at 71 West 23rd Street from 9-5PM and lunch will be provided.   Here's the topic overview:

• Where's the damage and how bad?? Economic reality check and sector focus
• Keeping a cool head...and mind and body: Recessionary Zen
• Last employee standing: Making yourself indispensible to your employer
• When your job is finding a job: A day to day gameplan
• Going to the mattresses: Budgeting and personal finance tips
• Old dogs, new tricks: Reinventing yourself and your career
• Networking 2.0: Using blogs, LinkedIn and other social media to stand
  out and get found

Similar events are charging $75 for sessions on social media alone!  Sign up ASAP, because, given the timeliness of the topic, tickets are going pretty fast. 

Please pass this on to anyone you know that has been laid off or just worried about their career who you know isn't conducting a very efficient job search right now and needs help.

This week, NY Tech Meetup organizer and Meetup.com CEO Scott Heiferman outlined a vision  for the future of the group that included a board and community elected organizer.  He talked about the meetup becoming more than what it is.

The idea that the NY Tech Meetup could be more than just a monthly meeting with a few presentations is what led me to create nextNY in the first place.  Rather than go with more structure, we've gone with less.  nextNY has no official organizer and everyone is free to run an event and add to our site--which is in itself a combo of a wiki, blog, job board and other stuff that members just put up themselves.  I think it has become the goto place for a real sense of community in NYC tech.

So that leaves open the question of where the NY Tech Meetup fits.  Should it become more like a professional society?  I don't think so.  We've seen two industry professional organizations develop here--the New York New Media Association (NYNMA) and the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) and neither proved to be the community unifier that's needed here.  Organic groups have flourished--a testiment to Meetup.com's own philosophy--which makes it somewhat ironic that Scott should look to build more structure on grass roots.

In a city of lots of structure and money, at least on the outside, it seems to me that structure and money isn't often what gets communities moving together--and often times, it can be an impediment.  Not only that, there's no shortage of structure and resources already in place and our biggest challenge is tapping that and making what we have better.

One thing that Scott is right about is that more could be done for the NY tech community.  I'm just not sure that the NY Tech Meetup is the right vehicle for it, but I'm also not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.  You see, a couple of weeks ago, David Rose and I, at a NYC Council hearing, seperately called for the creation of a single position whose role would be to bring together all of the disparate pieces of the NYC innovation community--a community manager if you will.  More than space or money, if NYC is to take avantage of what it already has, it needs a focal point and a conduit for communication.  In a sea of offices, committees, groups, task forces, meetups, unconferences, and incubators, a single human with an email address, phone number, blog, and a Twitter account could accomplish a ton. 

Such a person would go university to university, community group to community group, to all the government offices, VC funds, angels, etc...  and start off with an assessment.  What do we have?  In the process, that person would become a connector.  A person who could put like minded people together two at a time as often as they put 500 people in the same room.

So, its rather fortuitous that one of the largest groups of tech professionals in the city is in the market for a mission statement and an organizer to carry it out.  I think this is the perfect opportunity to put forward a single person whose job it will be to reach out to the various parts of the NYC tech community and inspire them to work together for a common purpose. 

In my opinion, Nate Westheimer is the most appropriate person for that position.

Keep in mind I said appropriate.  He's not the most experienced--there are other folks who have managed larger communities before or who have been involved in the NY scene for 10, 15, or 20 years.  And, he's not a 5 time repeat entrepreneur or successful VC.  

However, I don't think experience is really what's critical here.  Experience, in this case, presents two problems. 

First, experience gives you a view--you form an opinion and perspective as to what the problems and solutions are related to this community.  That's a problem because the person who can bring the community together can't be someone putting forward their own agenda.  Their agenda must be a synthesis of the community's agenda.  They must be an agnostic aggregator. 

The other thing a lot of experience gives you is the perception, and maybe reality, that you already know most of the people you need to know.  The person who would make the best Community Organizer is not the person that everyone already knows--its the person who will strive to expand and diversify their network.  While Nate knows a lot of the up and comer crowd, there are lots of people in "industry" and the academic world as well that don't know him, and I think he knows that.  

What also makes Nate qualified is that his current job as an EIR at RoseTech Ventures should be 100% synergystic with being the NY Tech Meetup Organizer.  The more that Nate reaches out to the tech community, the more he'll learn about different opportunities and the more people will reach out to him for advice, and perhaps financing.  It's also great that he's not working for a VC, so you can be assured that if he does discover investment opportunities in his job, RoseTech and David will likely seek to syndicate the deal like you'd expect an angel to do.  You wouldn't have to worry about RoseTech getting an unfair "first look" at everything because angels don't hoard their deals--they need other angels or funds to get deals done.

The other thing that makes Nate naturally qualified for this job is that it is inherently social and Nate's a very social guy.  To leverage the NY Tech Meetup as a platform for bringing the community together, he'd really have to reach out and participate in the community the way more experienced people who have kids and families generally won't.  I say that having been the junior guy at a VC firm where the partners, at the end of the day, weren't realistically going to spend three or for nights out at various tech events--but that's where community happens--so it was part of my job to participate in that scene.  That means going to the nextNY events, the Media Meshings, hanging out with the NYC Resistor crew, and even travelling--representing NYC out at Web 2.0 Expo in SF and in other places.  Is it possible for someone else with more life responsibilities to take this on?  Sure...  but more often than not, life just puts on you certain logistical limitations that Nate has proven he can work around when he's passionate about something--he just spent nearly a month campaigning for the Obama campaign in Ohio.  It's this kind of on the ground, door to door effort that the NY Tech Meetup needs--more of a servant of the community than a lead. 

Plus, I'm sure he'll have help.  I don't know what the board will look like, but ultimately, I'm sure that folks like myself, Scott, Dawn Barber, etc. will support his efforts along the way.

As to who else might run?

Well, first off, I'm definitely not running.  I have more than enough to do and my priority is Path 101.

The subject of conflicts is important here, and I want to take a second to address that.  There are people here in the city who are making very successful businesses out of creating communities around them.  That includes Mashable, the Hatchery, SobelMedia, BDI and others.  Those are great business models and their efforts are an integral part of the ecology of the tech community.   However, their mission conflicts with the idea of having the NY Tech Meetup be the center of the NY tech community in a way that just running another non for profit meetup doesn't.  They have a direct business incentive to build community around them and so I wouldn't support the candidacy of any owner of those businesses, despite the fact that they are a group of very savvy and sophisticated people who contribute a lot to the community.  I would not support their candidacy or participation on the board.  The board should, however, make room for NYC government folks and venture capital firms.

And, I'll say it, and I'm not trying to be mean...   but Richie Hecker isn't the guy either.  Richie, you mean well, but I think you have a lot to learn about how to contribute to the community rather than distract it by promoting your own efforts.  I don't want to be negative, but I know Richie will probably run and get a bunch of friends to vote for him, so I just want to cut that off before it gets out of hand.  Again, not a bad guy, but not the right guy for the job.

Thanks for reading this whole post.  I know it was long.

I was recently interviewed by Mary Flynn of The Deal and profiled in the magazine as well.  It's going to be awesome press for us, so we're really excited, but I did want to add one thing to the article. 

Andrea Orr wrote:

"Path 101 doesn't operate in Silicon Valley, where even in today's tough funding climate, there's a strong fellowship in the startup community that provides at least some moral support when no financial backing is forthcoming."

Oh Andrea...Why the New York community knock?  Actually, we're glad we don't operate in Silicon Valley!  Instead, we're operating right where every startup should be in a difficult environment--right in the middle of where our existing network is, surrounded by supportive people who know us well.

Just the other day, we had an investor meeting with the New York based folks who have supported us from the beginning and I said to Alex, "Jeez, can you imagine if we didn't have the investors that we did.  How tough would that be to just have some random angels that don't know you very well?" 

If anything, there's a stronger fellowship in the New York community, because we constantly get dinged by mainstream media as a "sad assed backwater" of a tech community.  We feel like we're all in it together--NYC tech against the world!

Need more proof? 

nextNY is almost at 2,000 members!

A new co-working space, New Work City, just opened.

Our NY Tech Meetups are filled to the brim and sellout in minutes.

NY's own Fred Wilson won the Donor's Choose Blogger Challenge, beating out Valley competition from TechCrunch, AllThingsD

A short time ago, I got invited to testify in front of the NYC Council. The hearing is supposed to:

"...focus on improving the city’s technology small business sector. The hearing will examine the state of a business sector that NY has traditionally lagged behind in, specifically the recently created NYC Seed program, which will provide up to $200,000 (per company) of investment into New York-based technology start-ups. The hearing will also examine what steps can be taken to better fund (i.e. venture capitalism) the growth of startup technological companies in order to make NYC more competitive with other cities when it comes to the technology sector."

Here's the testimony that I'll give today:

Charlie O'Donnell (charlie@path101.com)

Co-founder & CEO of Path 101 (www.path101.com), Founder, nextNY (www.nextNY.org),  Blogger (www.thisisgoingtobebig.com), #71 on 2007 Silicon Alley Insider Influentials list, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship - Fordham University, Instructor - ITAC FastTrac

First, I'd like to say thank you to the Council members who continue to have a strong interest in the NYC technology community.   Having a critical mass of influential people committed to maintaining and improving New York City as a place for innovation is half the battle.

Unfortunately for an organization as large as the New York City government, the other half of this battle is a ground war.  The ideas that will have the most impact on the local technology community are those that go house to house, school to school, wifi node to wifi node.  The stumbling blocks to improving our area's ability to promote innovation aren't simple--they're nounced. 

Take, for example, the NYC Seed program.  There has never ever been a lack of capital in New York City--for any kind of investment.  Many startups have been funded by people in the financial or real estate industries, when they're not funded by traditional venture capital firms.   No, money is not the issue, as I have written about before.  The issue is that there are not enough dedicated institutions who are economically incentivized to build community and business infrastructure here.  Owen Davis, at the end of the day, is one guy with $2 million who will get the chance to help 10 companies over the next year.  That's fantastic, but what if policy changes lead to the abandoning of this program.  Other than those 10 companies, which early stage statistics assume that at least half probably won't make it anyway, what will be the permanent impact of his work? 

If he had, let's say, a four year window, as most venture capital firms do, he'd have the time to build the necessarily relationships with all of the places where innovation comes from here in the city.  If he had a staff member or two, he'd be able to spend time not just investing, but working to create permanent channels to schools, businesses, professional groups, and technology centers--and he'd have the time horizon to accept longer term return on investment from building these relationships.  Institutional investors give their VCs a four year mandate to make investments across economic cycles--there's no reason why NYC Seed shouldn't have the same runway.  

At the end of the day, longer committments and more people on the ground are needed because innovation comes not from technology, but from people--and New York City technology has a people problem.  Local schools, with few exceptions, are not consistantly developing students focused on creating value through entrepreneurship and technological innovation.  You can build all the incubators you want--unless you're seeding students as early as high school or junior high with the idea that they could build the next Google here in New York, and giving them the learning tools to accomplish that, it's never going to happen.  

Here are two suggestions I'd make for New York City to make a bigger people impact:

First, I'd create the position of a technology community manager.  Large websites have community managers to make sure that they're aware what's going on in their communities, and that their communities are aware of all of the site's resources.  I'm as involved in the local community as any entrepreneur, and I still can't tell you the difference between what the NYC Council's mandate is related to technology and how that differs from the EDC, the Department of Small Business Services, how they relate to NYSTAR, etc.   A community manager would be a single point of contact whose mandate would be to familiarize themselves with all city services, local university programs, community groups, large businesses interested in working with the local tech community and other initiatives.  For example, nextNY is looking to run an event on business development best practices for startup companies.  We're looking for some space to run the event for between 50-100 people.  We have no budget.  I know there's probably some big company with a sizable conference room who'd love to have a bunch of startups come in and talk about business development one night.   I just don't know who that is and how to contact them.   A tech community manager could do that--and significantly help with these types of issues that involved local entrepreneurs try to solve on their own all the time in addition to their dayjobs.  

The second thing I would do would be to refocus on technology education in not only the public school system but also work with private schools and universities as well.  It needs to start early, too.  We can't have all our creative and talented youth thinking that their only opportunity for success in NYC is to work for a Fortune 500 company, because small business and entrepreneurship is what drives the growth in our economy.  How about a charter school built around information technology entrepreneurship--one that works with the best local computer science programs to provide scholarships to students trying to create their own businesses?   We need better answers to the question, "Where do world class developers come from in NYC?"   Right now, the school system isn't the answer to that question.

More than anything else, though, I think it's important that our local government--the individuals--lead by example and participate in the local technology community.  The local community is hyper connected through blogging, social networking sites, and a quirky but rapidly growing service called Twitter that ties people together one 160 character short form message at a time.  There are currently almost 2000 up and coming technology and digital media professionals on the nextNY listserv--are any of you on it?   Sure, it's kind of geeky in it's content, but you can set it to provide a daily digest.   If you're not on it, and can't spare the time to read the one daily digest e-mail of the group's activities, I'm not exactly sure how you're really going to be able to be supportive of the local tech community.  Communities are growing organically on these sites--like the 500+ people who have attached themselves to the Shake Shack Twitter account, mostly local tech folks, in order to navigate the long lines at our favorite local food establishment.   These communities are growing largely without the participation of local government leaders.  How many of you have a blog on your own websites that gets at least one posting a week, or a social networking profile that you yourself actually login to with similar frequency?   If you're not doing this, you're really not going to be in the flow of the needs of the local community.

I just wanted to write a quick note of thanks to everyone who was involved in Tuesday's nextNY @shakeshack event.  I'm sure I'll leave folks out:

First off, Fred Wilson made the intro to Danny Meyer.  That's what got us in the door.  Danny, who apparently came by but who I didn't get to meet, put us in touch with his staff and the folks at the Madison Square Park Conservancy.  They've worked together on many previous events and they made it happen logistically.

The actual event could not have possibly run any smoother, so I owe much thanks to Vernon Patterson from the Shake Shack and his staff, as well as Debbie Landau and her staff from the Conservancy: Lizzie Honan, Leah Milton, and Maggi Landau.  I expect that SOMETHING would go wrong, but it didn't... not at all.  Not even a blip--especially considering we did the whole plan in less than four weeks--a testament to their organizational skills.

Of course, someone had to pay for all those burgers, the shakes, and the beer (and purple cows, too!).  In two weeks, we covered all our costs with great sponsors that were able to move fast--the first, fastest, largest and most fun were the folks from chi.mp.  They were extremely visable, from their banners to their t-shirts, and worked hard to get all of the attendees beta invites to their service.

Also coming up big for us were the NY Angels, who not only contributed financially, but also made a big splash with their turnout.  I don't think I've ever seen so many of the angels out at an event. 

Recruiting firm Winter Wyman was also a major supporter.  After my recent call for tech recruiting firms to participate more in the community, they've been getting their feet wet in social media.  You can find partner Mike Fitzgerald on Twitter and on his new blog at Alley Hunting .

Video chat service Paltalk, law firm Cooley Godward Kronish, NYC venture capital firm RRE, Square 1 Bank (see the article on the nextNY blog), and the Incubator at RoseTech Ventures were also big supporters.

Still, with 300 people and the prime location, we needed every bit of help we could get, and when we put out the call, several others helped as well.  Startup MyJambi, law firm Pillsbury Winthrop, funding software Angelsoft, reputation service BeenVerified, PR firms Bite PR and the Horn Group, Path 101, and social network CafeMom all pitched in as well.   In fact, I wasn't really familar with some of these services and sites, and so I'll be profiling them on my blog over the next week, because I'm curious.

I also want to thank everyone who pitched in and helped at the front desk--too many to mention and lots who just jumped in to help.

But most of all, I want to thank everyone who came!  You made the event.  I get a lot of credit for stuff because I'm the initiator, but this was a community event.  Without the community, it would have been just a bald dude in the park with way too much to eat and a lot of extra booze.  So, to everyone who enjoyed the event, you should pat yourselves on the back for participating.  The New York City tech community is strong and vibrant--much stronger than before.  Financial crisis?  Bring it.  We'll weather this storm and be better for it.

As many of you know, we have a very special event going on here in NYC next Tuesday night called @shakeshack.  The name comes from the Twitter bot us Big Apple geeks use to organize our midday jaunts to the famous Madison Square Park Venue.

The event is going to be huge: 300 key people in the NYC community:  VCs, Angels, developers, designers, business people.  You can check out the attendee list here.  Sorry, but it's totally full!

We couldn't do the event, however, without sponsors, and a number of startup and tech friendly folks stepped up to make it happen.  We'll be spotlighting those folks leading up to the event as part of their sponsorship, but more than anything else out of our appreciation for their support.

Our first is Square 1 Bank.  I asked Brad Steele about what the bank does and here's is response:

"In a nutshell, we specialize exclusively in providing commercial banking services and senior debt financing to venture capital-backed companies and venture capital firms.  That's all we do.

We are keenly aware of the ups and downs, life cycle stages and challenges early stage, emerging growth companies face as they drive to become a large, dominant player in its space.  The traditional, mid-market regional and larger money center banks like the ones you mentioned below, are no very little about the venture capital world, entrepreneurs and start-up companies. It's important for an emerging growth, venture-backed company to surround itself with professionals who specialize in their world. 

That's us. 

You wouldn't go to a mortgage company for a car loan.  Why would you go to a bank who doesn't cater to venture-backed companies when you have an option which does?

"Innovation. Risk. Potential." High-tech shorthand like this describes the very essence of hundreds of young technology companies in the New York area.

For traditional business banks, terms like "conservative" and "risk-averse" are more appropriate descriptors--a profile that contrasts sharply... ...with hard-charging technology companies and their equally aggressive professional investor partners.

Square 1 specializes in meeting the requirements of emerging growth, venture-backed technology and life sciences companies.  We tailor our service offerings and lending styles specifically to the needs to these companies and their more mature counterparts.

Venture bankers like those found at Square 1, on the other hand, understand that traditional attributes may not capture the true value of an enterprise and they are willing to consider additional factors.

For instance, the expertise and track record of a high-tech company's top management carries a great deal of weight. Another critical factor (particularly for start-up firms) is whether the company has gained the backing of a financial firm. Professional investor backing is a key consideration for venture banks, and the larger and more experienced the venture capital firm is, the better chance the company will have to obtain a bank loan. Venture bankers will also evaluate the company's intangible assets. For example, intellectual property--including patents, copyrights and trademarks--may be considered acceptable collateral."

You can learn a lot more about Square 1 Bank at @shakeshack, where Brad and several members of the Square 1 Bank team will be in attendence, or you can contact him directly at bsteele (at) square1bank (dot)com.

Don't be shy.  We know you're out there reading, even though you just lurk.

Almost everyday, a recruiter calls our office number, even though we ask people not to on our site.  I'll let you all in on a secret--that number is not a real phone that rings.  It goes straight to PhoneTag and dumps into my e-mail in a transcription, so you're actually better off just e-mailing me.

The truth of the matter is, you all just kind of seem the same to us startup folk. 

You're selling us people...and we're a pretty hyperconnected group.  You'd be hard pressed to convince me that you can find anyone that I couldn't find on my own by just putting in some hours on LinkedIn or e-mailing various usergroups.  When I look up a recruiters name and they have 123 LinkedIn connections and I have 982, I think "What are the chances of them finding someone in NYC before I will?"

You're not selling screening--well, at least most of you seem like you're not, because the profiles I've been sent from recruiters so far are never really that good of a fit--and my CTO will still have to screen them thoroughly anyway.  Plus, so much of screening is about personality and fit, especially for an early stage company, and since the recruiters I talk to don't seem to have much interest in getting to know me as a person, I'm not sure how they could match me with a co-worker personality-wise.

But you know what... I could be totally wrong... and some of you are, in fact, really good at what you do.  The trouble is, I hear from all of you in the same way, leaving random messages on voicemail, or responding to my job posts, so you seem like a dime a dozen.  Where are you actively differentiating yourselves through branding?  Marketing?  Perhaps a little transparency in the process so that I could actually see why I could never accomplish what you could would go a long way--because this Web 2.0 world is all about transparency and we don't trust black boxes.

Good startups try and differentiate themselves by blogging--getting their name attached to good thoughtwork and getting into conversations around ideas.  Where are the really good NYC technical recruiting blogs?  Heck, if a NYC-area recruiter started a blog about hiring in this market, I think we'd all flock to it--and if you were really that good, we'd realize that recruiting is a helluva lot harder than we thought.  You could even post candidate profiles.  Give us your best tips on finding people, because, at the end of the day, most of your clients simply don't have the time or savvy to do what you do anyway, so you wouldn't be losing business by blogging, you'd be gaining it.

Not only that, why aren't you participating more in the community? 

I've met lots of random folks from the nextNY list and the range of people that actively participate here is pretty wide--from venture people to developers, business people, marketers, lawyers, etc...  but I can't think of a tech recruiter actively contributing here.   I don't mean self-marketing... I mean participating in the dialog.  That's partly why entrepreneurs really don't think highly of a lot of recruiters.  You act more like outsiders and salespeople, and less like one of us.

Are their NYC area tech recruiters on Twitter?  (And not just twittering their open positions or people for hire...)  Feel free to follow me at @ceonyc and send me a note!

This community needs strong recruiters, though...   not just recruiting people out of banks, but from out of state. 

Recruiters can be great evangelists for the NYC tech scene--I just don't really see them participating much in it.  
If you're a recruiter, and you're really interested in participating more in the tech community here, maybe this could help elevate your name from the noise in my voicemail.  nextNY will have a special event which I'll announce as soon as I sign the paperwork on it that needs some sponsorship.  E-mail me at charlie dot odonnell at gmail for details.

Given that you could probably cover the cost of sponsorship a couple of times over with just a single hire, and that there will be 200-300 tech folks at this event, I'd think the math would work out for you to take part, no?   I think it would be a really great opportunity to differentiate yourself and to open up a discussion about what you can do for startups, live and in person, not on phonemail.

You all really need to clear your calendars for 9/16 from 6-8PM.  Trust me.  :)  Details soon.

On July 29th, Ignite comes to NYC.  What's Ignite?  It's 16 5-minute presentations that geeks will love, plus a soldering competition.

RSVP on Facebook or Upcoming.

I'll be speaking there, but I'm even more psyched about the other speakers.  Check these out:

* Tom Igoe - Physical Computing's Greatest Hits (or Misses)

* Tony Bacigalupo - NYC's Startup Scene: Where are the geeks?

* Jessica Bruder - How to be an Undercover Hooker (reprising her talk on taking an NYPD course)

* Karen McGrane - From Typing to Swiping: Interaction Design has come a long way!

* Rose White - Weird and wonderful knitting -- graffiti and science and art combined!

* Audacia Ray - Porn as a front runner in technology innovations

* Charlie O'Donnell - Shaving your head: When to start, how to maintain, and to BIC or not to BIC?

* Charles Forman - How to date celebrichauns with founder fetish

* Natalie Jeremijenko - A bomb shelter for the climate crisis

* Pat Allan - So you're a kick-arse coder...

* Joel Johnson - Indie Games: At Least They're Free!

Details:

The first Ignite NYC is going to happen 7/29 at M1-5. We are going to feature 16 speakers. Each speaker will get 20 slides that auto-advance after 15 seconds for a total of five-minutes. Ignite is free and open to the public -- you're on your own for drinks. We're also going to be joined by Ignite co-creator, Bre Pettis. Bre is going to lead us in a creative soldering contest. RSVP at Upcoming or Facebook to let us know you are coming. The night will begin with:

7:00PM - Doors Open

7:30PM - NYC Soldering Championship:

With solder irons blazing, and the power of molten metal at their finger tips, New York City's electricity enthusiasts and hardware hackers will connect components to complete circuits for the glory of being the fastest soldering gun in NYC.

On stage and under hot lights, contestants will complete an electronics kit in the shortest time possible while still maintaining the integrity of the circuit. Who will be New York City's soldering champion? You'll need to be there to find out!

To solder you'll have to pre-register, but anyone can come enjoy the opening contest. After the contest, there will be:

8:00PM - Ignite Talks

Paul Graham recently wrote a piece about cities.  He puts forth Cambridge as a city of ideas, New York as a city that is all about money (where people doing startups are second class citizens) and the Valley as a place for startups. 

I’m not about to start comparing the Valley to New York City.  That’s just silly, because the Valley has a multi-generational head start on creating tech startup companies.  However, given that, it does make me wonder why Cambridge and the Boston Area is so far behind the Valley, because Route 128 has been a tech center since the late 1950’s.  I mean, “Harvard and MIT are practically adjacent by West Coast standards, and they're surrounded by about 20 other colleges and universities,” as Paul puts it.  Perhaps he should be explaining why his City of Ideas gets less than a third of the venture capital investment that the Valley does.

I think the fact that Cambridge is a city of ideas is exactly why you could say it’s questionable how great a place it is to do a startup.  In an environment dominated by academia—where you lack time pressure, a sense of immediacy—you’ve probably got just as much of a chance of creating an interesting intellectual exercise in burning cash as you do building anything that resembles a real company.  I mean, have you ever tried collaborating with an academic institution if you’re a business?  Your startup would run out of cash before they figured out the right academic chair to lead the effort and which pool of research money to allocate for you.  It’s no accident that startups need to be spun out of these institutions to be successful.  Plus, seen any hugely successful companies come out of university incubators lately?  (And no, Zuckerberg’s dorm room does not qualify as an incubator.)

Also, think about it another way.  What are the last 10 or 20 really novel "ideas" in the startup world?  Things that required a leap of thought...   We can debate it and certainly I'm up for creating a list, but when I think of good ideas, I think of del.icio.us, Skype, Wikipedia, Twitter, Bug Labs, Slingbox, Google (b/c of the biz model)...   Hardly seems like Cambridge has a lock on the idea generation market in the startup world.

Ideas today are a commodity.  Anyone can have an idea, so being the Capital of Ideas is pretty much equivelent to building your city of out of straw.  If I were a co-founder of 3PigsTech.com, I’d think about building somewhere whose choice of building material was more formidable. 

Which brings me back to New York City.  By saying that “New York tells you, above all: you should make more money,” Paul Graham is basically admitting that he’s never been north of Central Park, on the Lower East Side, or out into the Boroughs.  I grew up as a finance major in NYC and I made the same mistake that Paul makes.  It wasn’t until I finished school and got about three years into my career that I soon realized that there was a lot more going on in NYC than just Wall Street. 

When I think of ideas, I think of creativity, not just scholarly research and publication in academic journals.  An idea has no value unless it’s either a) new or b) executed.  If execution is a business phenomenon, I can’t imagine a better place to execute than NYC (or the Valley, if you’re a tech startup), but in terms of new ideas being generated from creative people, I wouldn’t exactly hold the ivory towers of Ivy League schools up against the creative culture of NYC.  New York City is a mecca for design, fashion, dance, art, film, theater, international relations—it’s not difficult to imagine that this stew of creativity rubs off on other industries. 

Hedge funds, for example, are a great example of creativity leaking into another industry.  The most forward thinking, creative investors break out of old institutions to play markets in out of the box ways at hedge funds.

We even solve creative engineering problems here.  Peter Semmehack from Bug Labs, an open source hardware company pushing the limits of creativity in the consumer electronics space, has always said that he has found the best and most creative engineering talent here in NYC.  Need to explore a completely unfamiliar environment millions of miles away?  That was the challenge for the Mars Rover, and it’s no accident that much of it was built here, by HoneyBee Robotics. 

Paul also makes the point that someone creating a startup in NYC would feel like a second class citizen.  I have to be honest—I’ve felt that way several times, but mostly from people outside NYC.  Within the city, I’ve actually felt really supported.  Most of my 21 angel investors are not only in NYC, but they’re either NYC natives or have lived most of their lives here.  Among my large diverse group of friends (I grew up here, went to school here, never lived anywhere else, and know tons of people doing very different professions), I’ve received fantastic support.  No one ever asks me why I don’t just go into investment banking or trading. 

In fact, most of my friends aren’t even in finance at all.  Some of my closest friends are a magazine publisher, a lawyer, and a producer for televised mixed martial arts.  I play on a softball team with two PR folks, a clinical psychologist, a chocolate retailer, two IT guys, another lawyer, a teacher, a media buyer, and oh yeah, one guy in finance.  Most of the volunteers at the kayaking program I participate in don’t even have regular 9–5 jobs.  The other day, I was out on the dock with a guy that resells guitars and plays in a band, a former non-profit exec, a public health researcher, and another IT guy.   And these people don’t all live in big luxury apartment buildings in midtown.  They live with roommates in Astoria, in studios on the Lower East Side…  just scraping by but still loving every minute of it.  And we haven’t even mentioned all the actors and actresses.  Surely they’re not in it for the money, right?

So, the idea that NYC is just all about the money is just ridiculous…. just as ridiculous as this:

“One sign of a city's potential as a technology center is the number of restaurants that still require jackets for men. According to Zagat's there are none in San Francisco, LA, Boston, or Seattle, 4 in DC, 6 in Chicago, 8 in London, 13 in New York, and 20 in Paris.”

How about we make the list “number of restaurants that don’t require jackets for men”?  I have a feeling NYC would lead that list, seeing as the total number of restaurants in NYC minus 13 is probably more than SF and Boston combined.  Is this really how Paul thinks his YCombinator startups should make decisions on where to build their business?  By restaurants with jacket requirements?

But rather than argue about whose city is better, which is similar to the arugument about what language to code in, go with what you know.  Generalizations will get you nowhere.  It would have made no sense for me to build Path 101 anywhere else but NYC, because my network is here.  I found a great technical co-founder, two amazing developers whose experience could not be any more well-suited to their tasks, and a slew of supportive angels.  That doesn’t mean all this stuff comes in a box if you move your startup here, but if you can say the same thing about your neck of the woods, be it Louisville, Miami, the Valley or Cambridge, stay put, keep your head down, and build like the dickens.  Your city is what you make of it and how you build your network, not what the pundits tell you it is. 

Go in alone or with a partner?  How do you find and recruit a partner?

Need a business person?  A developer?  Where?  Who?

How do you know if they're the right person?  What do you ask on an interview?

And what do you pay all these people??

I've covered some of these issues in the posts below, but if you'd like to discuss startup hiring issues with a great group of up and coming entrepreneurs, you should definitely come to nextNY's Building the Team Community Conversation.

We'll be discussing, with the help of some great conversation leaders (entrepreneurs, a recruiter, a VC), the ins and outs of startup hiring. 

Please join us!

Eran Hammer-Lahav has been a really active member of nextNY.  He recently pulled the plug on his startup midway through his friends and family funding for a host of reasons that touch on a lot of the issues talked about in that group:  hiring, competition, product development/management, etc.   He's moving on to become an Open Standards Evangelist at Yahoo!, but he's learned a lot of lessons and has agreed to talk about them at a small group event this Thursday night (5/1) at 6:30PM here at Path 101/Return Path.

There are a lot of people looking for partners, trying to figure out competition, or just thinking about starting companies here on this list.  Eran's advice could be invaluable.  There are 13 people signed up and we could squeeze up to 30 people in the room.  This is a must-show for anyone in the very early stages of their business as far as I'm concerned and want to encourage as many people as possible in that position to take advantage.

Here's the link to the event:

nouncer.eventbrite.com

Tonight, at Antarctica Bar, is nextNY's 2 Year Anniversary.  Yup, that's the place we first got together back in February of 2006.

Come and catch up with people you haven't seen in a while, people you've never met, or people you'll be hanging out with for the 4th time this week because of all the other tech parties going on in NYC this week.

Antarctica is located on Hudson Street, between Dominic and Spring.   The closest subway is the Spring St. C, E.   We'll start showing around 7PM.

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At first, we weren't sure if we were going to do a holiday party, because there were so many going on, but we had so much fun last year and it was such a great turnout that we decided to do one again.  The best part is that it coinsides with the ITP Winter Show, and so you can go to that, and then meet us for drinks at Apple Bar right around the corner.

Here's the RSVP list... you can show up anyway, but its always nice to let others know you're coming.

Monday, December 17th.  7PM - 10PM

Apple Restaurant and Bom Bar:
http://www.applerestaurant.com/
located at
17 Waverly Pl. Between Green and Mercer

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nextNY is helping BDI get the word out about its Convergence 2007 conference this Monday, and in return, all nextNY members are getting a discounted rate to the conference.  Check it out!

Present Convergence 2007 The Future of Advertising, Communications & Media

About The Event This full day conference will gather the best and brightest minds to explore how the communications industry is converging. The internet's impact on advertising, pr, and media continue to create major changes in the way organizations and individuals interact. Businesses and consumers are embracing social media, web video, and environmentalism. Communications professionals are challenged more than ever to measure ROI on their initiatives while embracing new and sometimes immature cutting edge tactics. We will explore case studies and provide a platform for highly regarded thought leaders to share their successes, failures and lessons learned. We will also invite the best of breed product and solution providers to share their perspectives on the changing face of communications. Case Study: Harnessing the Power of User Generated Media at Toyota Motor Company Bruce Ertmann, Corporate Manager, Consumer Generated Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. As a global leader, Toyota is on the forefront of innovative ways to support its brand and deepen relationships with consumers and dealers. Bruce Ertmann will share his case studies and lessons learned about how one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world embraces consumer generated media as an important part of its overall branding and communications strategy. Case Study: Results through Convergence: McDonald's Use of New Communication Vehicles to Engage Consumers Heather Oldani, Director of Communications, McDonald's As an industry leader, McDonald's continues to seek new ways to reach consumers in order to meaningfully engage them with the brand and to drive awareness and trial for new products and promotions. With the media landscape continually changing, as well as consumers' preferred channels for receiving information, the Communications Team at McDonald's USA has gone beyond traditional media relations to new communication vehicles to help launch new products and to help build brand trust, often times in close collaboration with marketing. The case study presentation will focus on the results delivered from this close collaboration combined with the use of vehicles for two product launches and the company's efforts to reach Moms with brand trust messaging. Case Study: Casio's Partnership with YouTube To Launch The "YouTube Camera" Melissa Keklak, PR Director, Casio Casio has teamed up with YouTube to help establish itself as an innovative company among younger consumers by equipping some of its newest digital cameras with a YouTube Capture mode. The electronics company secured an exclusive agreement with YouTube to provide software on four of its cameras. "We've always been a youthful-type, trendy company," Melissa Keklak, PR director, Casio told PR Week. However, some of Casio's innovations have been overlooked in the competitive digital camera market, she explained. But with this effort, Casio's PR goal is to be known as "the YouTube camera" and the first in the market to offer this technology, Keklak added.Outreach efforts include promoting the agreement to print, broadcast, online, and new-media outlets. The second phase of the campaign involves giving cameras to editors to review the YouTube mode. Later this year, Casio will launch a contest to raise awareness about the YouTube-enabled cameras. Case Study: Social Networking Meets Madison Avenue - Future Opportunities & Lessons Learned from myYearBook.com, the fastest growing social networking site on the internet Geoff Cook, CEO, myYearBook.com style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'" >www.myYearbook.com is the fastest growing social network on the Internet for 13 to 21 year olds and the only one started by 2 high school students.  They recently announced that the site logged a phenomenal 70 percent increase in traffic over the course of just one month from 2.8 million unique visitors to an astounding 4.6 million.   Geoff Cook will share the inside scoop on how to create and execute successful marketing partnerships between online social networks and brands.  He will focus on how to best work with social networking sites from both pr and advertising perspectives.

Details Monday, December 3, 2007 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. The Graduate Center/CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016 Registration Fee: $395, to receive a discounted rate of $345 enter promo code CONCO when registering. http://www.bdionline.com/convergence2007 Additional Speakers Robert Aitken, Broadcast Product Manager, AP Online Video Daryl Battaglia, Vice President, Nielsen Tracking System Stephen Berkov, Director, Brand Innovation, Audi of America, Inc. Jack Berkowitz, Senior Vice President, ALM Media Karen Bloom, Principal, Bloom Gross & Assoicates,Inc. Gigi Carroll, VP Concept Director, DraftFCB Michael Clemente, Executive Producer, ABC News Paul Dunay, Director Marketing, BearingPoint and Author, Buzz Marketing for Technology Bart Feder, Chairman, The FeedRoom Adrienne Garland, Vice President Marketing, PR Newswire Association LLC Mindy Gikas, Managing Director, Human Resources, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide Scott Goodson, Co-Founder, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Strawberry Frog Dan Greenfield, Media Consultant and former Vice President, Corporate Communications, EarthLink James Gregory, CEO, Corebrand Monica A. Hand, Manager, New York Metro Area, Public Affairs & Communications, United States Postal Service Dena Helf , Executive Producer, Video, Vault.com Inc. Peter Himler, Flatiron Communications & President, PR Club of New York John Kaponi, Managing Director, Infocis Press Monitoring Meg Kinney, Executive Vice President, Strategic Planning, Integer/TBWA Jessica Luterman, Managing Director, DeSilva and Phillips Russell Meyer, Chief Strategy Officer, San Francisco, Landor Dori Molitor, CEO, Womanwise Christine Nevin, Director, Business & Media Relations, ConEdison Solutions Stacey Prenner, Talent Management Director, DDB Jason Rissman, Google Stuart Schwartz, The NewsMarket Hank Stewart, VP, Strategic Messaging, Green Team Gus Warren, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Spot Runner, Inc. Alyssa Waxenberg,Senior Director of Westin and Element Interactive Marketing, Starwood Hotels Sponsors

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That's great, because New York entrepreneurs, developers, and designers need you.  Maybe you have an idea and need a developer or you're a contract developer looking to dive into your own thing, but need a business person to join you.  Contract work is great, but why settle for working on O.P.P. (other people's projects)? 

nextNY is doing an event all around getting people who want to join startups together.  Best part is, you won't get hounded by recruiters or "venture vultures" looking to sell things to you.  Here, you'll just meet other people thinking about the entrepreneurial path.

Here's the info:

MatchupCamp – matchmaking for startups – is all about startup networking, creating a place for ideas and talent to meet. There are many events matching professional services to startups – this one will focus on those looking to get their hands dirty and build something new. MatchupCamp has the sole objective of bringing together people looking to start, expend, or join a startup in New York (and the tri-state area).

MatchupCamp is for those looking for others to work together building exciting ventures in New York. There is no requirement for full time commitment – anyone who wants to take part is welcomed, even if they only have a few hours a week. The important thing is that you are interested in taking part. If you got ideas or skills, come find others to share them with:

• People with ideas looking for others to develop it into a real product
• Anyone with some free time thinking about jumping into the startup world looking to see what’s out there
• Developers looking for cool part-time or full-time projects
• Startup founders looking for employees or co-founders
• Students looking for internships

Details:

Wednesday, November 28 @ 7PM

For Your Imagination
22 West 27th Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10001

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Seth Goldstein told CNN/Money that he, ""figured out a way to get companies started in New York." It was never easy, though. "People there are always dragging you down," he says. "They don't want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.""

He added, "Because New York is so mercenary, I always overindexed toward the missionary," he explains. "Out here, I'm way more comfortable being mercenary. Hyperbole and philosophy don't go very far in the Valley."

Meanwhile, Steph, a graphic designer muses about the difference on her blog:

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Tags: nextNYgraphicdesign web2.0 nyc

Ever since we wound up at Return Path, I've been thinking a lot about the model of an incubator.  We heard at the recent city council hearing that incubators were tough to keep up from an economic perspective and required all sorts of subsidies, either from government or academic institution.

But my situation isn't like that.  Does having us use two empty desk cost Return Path real money?  Sure... but how much?  We use normal bandwidth for our regular office activities and hardly ever use the phone.  We borrow a conference room about twice a week and we probably take two sodas/juices a day each from the free machine.  I'd be surprised if our actual incremental cash cost was $150 a month.  That's because there's already an existing, revenue generating organization in place there.  When you try and create an incubator from scratch in an incubator-only space, you couldn't possibly get anywhere near that.

Think about the conference rooms alone.  We would have never rented a place on our own with conference rooms, because we'd never use them enough.  However, a mid-size company probably only use their own conference rooms, at most, half the time.

That's not to mention that RP could potentially get from us.  We do like to think of ourselves as two cutting edge startup guys that are "in the know" about things like social media, data (Alex's specialty), etc., and we're pretty well connected into the community of entrepreneurs.  I've already spoken some people here about doing some knowledge sharing sessions and we're happy to pitch in with some feedback where we can, because we're grateful for the space.

If we were social media consultants, what would that have cost the company?  Certainly a lot more than the desks did.   Seems to me that it could very well balance out if the exchange was a couple of desks for 5-10 hours of mindshare a month.  Now, Return Path may not need that from us, because they're pretty savvy themselves, but what about a big print media company looking to expand their web presence?  I'm sure Jeff Jarvis would agree that rather than move forward in an echo chamber, a media company like that might benefit from having a few startup folks around the office to help them out.  Perhaps they could be instilled as  VPs of Common Web Sense.

So here's the deal I propose that companies with 50 or more people think about:

Give:

• 1-3 desks per seed stage startup
• Internet connection for normal office usage
• Reasonable access to unused conference rooms (prob not more than 5-7 hours/wk, but could be more if they're usually pretty empty)
• Building security passes

Get:

• Goodwill in the startup community
• 5-10 hours of mindshare from people who are thinking out of the box (which is why it makes sense to find startups in your vertical, too)

Similar models have worked in the art world, where artists occupy unused commercial real estate spaces as studios and galleries. 

It's also a very green model, too, if you think about it.  It's about efficient use of existing space.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?  Diggs?  Tags?  Any companies want to sign up?